340 THE ESSEX NATURALIST
Annual Reports of their Committees will be presented elsewhere,
but the Council notes with satisfaction that their meetings have
been well attended and evidently of considerable interest to
Members. Once again the Council wishes to remind Members
that anyone is welcome to join the activities of these Groups.
Late in the year the Council decided to reduce the stocks of the
Club's publications and reduce the prices to Members of most of
the older volumes. The response from Members to this offer—
which remained open to Members for six months—was gratifying.
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE BOTANICAL GROUP, 1960
This Group was formed on February 25, 1960, at a meeting
held in the Passmore Edwards Museum under the chairmanship
of Dr. K. Alvin.
It was decided that those interested should supplement the
general Club activities by meeting informally about once a month,
sometimes in the field and sometimes indoors, to discuss and
study the Botany of the Essex county.
During a general meeting to North Fambridge and district
on May 28th the Geranium pyrenaicum was found near the inn
at Purleigh. It is not common in Essex.
The first Botanical meeting was to Gray's Chalk Pits (a joint
meeting with the South Essex Natural History Society), and led
by Mr. S. Jermyn. Here, together with the typical chalk flora,
were found Ophrys apifera, Anacamptis pyramidalis and splits.
Dactylorchis maculata and praetermissa, and Listera cordata,
Linum, catharticum, Ophioglossum vulgatum and the rare Pyrola
rotundifolia.
On August 20th a party of about twenty met near the River
Roding under the leadership of Mr. B. Ward and studied some
of the flora by the waterside, which included Mimulus guttatus,
before proceeding across the fields to the lake at Navestock Park,
where Apera spica-venti was seen.
Dr. Alvin led a joint meeting with the British Lichen Society
on September 18th to Woodham Walter and Lingwood commons.
Here were found three notable lichens, Usnea and Ramalina
species and Evernia prunastri, all of which are very scarce in
South Essex.
There were two fungus forays in Epping Forest under the
leadership of Mrs. D. Boardman, but heavy rain reduced the
attendance at the meetings. Eighty-one species were recorded in
all, which included an unusual form of Polystictus versicolor with
a distinctly pinkish flush; and a Polystictus abietinus, which is a
new record. Hydnum erinaceum was found again for the second
year, although this white form is comparatively rare. A good
specimen of Boletus elegans was found near Piercing Hill by some
of the London-over-the-Border Girl Guides, and this, also, is a
new record for the forest.