eS AK QN 


ON 


\S 


SS 


Ve 


/, , 


AL LZS, 


i 


_ Wheldon & Wesley, Ltd. 


Natural History Booksellers 
ves Arthur St. T ondon WC.> 


THE 


Pt var © Piot~is Tp: 


POPULAR 


BOTANICAL MISCELLANY. 


CONDUCTED BY 


EDWARD NEWMAN. 


VOLUME THE THIRD. 


LONDON: 
JOHN VAN VOORST, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
M.DCCC.XLVIII. 


“ Not a tree, 
A plant, a leaf, a blossom, but contains 
A folio volume. We may read and read 
And read again, and still find something new, 
Something to please and something to instruct.” 
THe VILLAGE Curate. 


i ~ a An 
é Ve, mS by aN ff 
= {sp Oey AS 
LP BRARY jo 
PRE EAC Ea: O\. oe 
<4 as By 
a 


Ir is with unusual pleasure that I offer my annual address to the 
readers of the ‘ Phytologist.’ Fully aware of the cordial good feeling 
_ that exists among British botanists towards this journal, I am confi- 
dent they will receive with satisfaction the announcement that the 
sale has considerably increased: the amount produced by the sale 
during the half-year ending the 30th June, exceeded that of any pre- 
vious half-year; and I learn, although the accounts are not yet made 
up, that the half-year ending the 3lst December is likely to exhibit a 
still further increase. This satisfactory state as regards finance is 
accompanied by one equally satisfactory as regards contributions : 
these have been so numerous as to compel me to publish a third 
sheet on two occasions, making forty-eight pages instead of thirty- 
two. I hope this abundance of matter will still continue to flow in, 
as I shall never object to the extra cost of printing: indeed, if the 
press of matter required it, I should have great pleasure in seeing the 
work permanently enlarged, for I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that 
the present price of the ‘ Phytologist’ will not bear comparison with 
that of the popular periodical literature of the day ; and can only be 
justified by a reference to the extremely limited section of the reading 
public that feels an interest in the annals of British Botany; and 
when the purchasers are few the charge must be comparatively high. 


The papers have been rather of a general than particular character, 
and the additions made to our botanical knowledge greater than those 
to our list of species. Among the former I need scarcely remind the 
reader of Dr. Planchon’s admirable paper on Ulmus (Phytol. iii. 34), 
Mr. Watson’s on two allied species of Malva (iii. 221), on the Filago 
germanica of Linneus (iii. 313), &c., and Dr. Bromfield’s on the 


b 


Vi. 


Plants growing wild in Hampshire, still in course of publication. 


Among the latter the following may be enumerated, although it must be 


observed that many of them are rather additional names than addi- 


tional species: they are mostly forms, which have been either con- 


fused with more familiar species, or only distinguished from them as 


varieties. Those which do not come under this category may be re- 
ferred to that of the introduced plants. 


Trifotium elegans (Phytol. iii. 47) is recorded by Mr. Hewett 


Watson as having occurred in clover-fields in Surrey, doubt- 
less introduced with imported seeds. 


Filago Jussiei (Phytol. iii. 216) is announced by Mr. G. 8. Gibson 


as a British species, occurring in the counties of Cambridge 
and Essex. Subsequently Mr. Hewett Watson explained 
that it is identical with the F. spatulata of Presl and Jordan, 
which he finds in various parishes in Surrey (Phytol. ii. 313). 


Apera interrupta and Orobanche Picridis (Phytol. iii. 269) are 


mentioned in a Report from the Botanical Society of London, 
Mr. G. S. Gibson having presented specimens of the two 
plants to that Society ; the former discovered near Thetford, 
by the Rev. W. W. Newbould, and the latter found by the 


same botanist, at Comberton, near Cambridge. 


Alsine rubra, var. media (Phytol. iii. 321). Under this name Mr. 


’ 


F. J. A. Hort records the discovery of a plant in the counties 
of Devon, Dorset and Pembroke, which is supposed likely to 
prove a species distinct from A. rubra, and which has, indeed, 
been described as such by Fries and others. 


Melilotus arvensis (Phytol. iii. 344) is recorded in a Report from 


the Secretary of the Botanical Society, as having been pre- 
sented by Mr. G. 8. Gibson, from the neighbourhood of Saf- 


fron Walden, in Essex. 


Potentilla mixta, Mercurialis ovata, Carex Kochiana, Triticum 


biflorum and Fumaria agraria (Phytol. iii. 328) are an- 
nounced as British plants by Mr. Mitten, in the ‘ London 
Journal of Botany,’ for October; and particulars respecting 


vil 


i 
4 
them may be seen in the ‘ Phytologist’ for the succeeding 
month, as above referred to. 
F Carex bryzoides has been reported wild in Britain, but no suffi- 


cient notice of its locality has hitherto reached the ‘ Phytologist.’ 
Nor, indeed, can we say whether there is anything better than news- 
paper authority for its existence with us. 


The following additional localities are of considerable interest :— 


Adiantum Capillus-Veneris. Phytol. iii. 11. Mr. H. E. Smith 

| records this fern as growing on the Peak of Derbyshire. 
This inland habitat is very singular, and I should be much 
gratified at receiving confirmation of the fact. 

Linaria supina. Phytol. ii. 29. Mr. Westcombe records the oc- 
currence of this species at Hayle, in Cornwall, thus adding a 
second county to its geographical range in this country. 

Filago gallica. Phytol. iii. 48. Recorded by Mr. Watson as 
found by Mr. Varenne near Berechurch, Essex. Long re- 
corded as British, but few botanists had ever seen a British 
specimen. 

Carex punctata. Phytol. ii. 57. Found near Charlestown, Corn- 
wall, by Mr. Westcombe. Recorded only from Caernarvon- 
shire and Guernsey previously. 

Filago apiculata. Phytol. iii. 269, 310, 317. The first notice of 
this plant as a distinct species, appeared in the ‘ Phytologist’ 
for 1846 (Phytol. ii. 575), with a description by the Rev. G. 
E. Smith, to whom English botanists are indebted for having 
their attention called to its claims to specific distinction. 
The correctness of Mr. Smith’s view appears now in a fair 
way towards being generally recognized and admitted. The 
plant occurs in various counties, although reported only from 
Yorkshire previous to 1848. 


In conclusion, I beg again to offer my warmest thanks to those 


Vill 


contributors and subscribers to whom I am so much indebted, and 
without whose cordial co-operation my exertions would be altogether 
futile. Far be it from me to insist on the value of these exertions, 
or to claim any kind of merit for the display of botanical acumen in 
my selection of papers for this journal. My motto has ever been 
“the smallest contribution thankfully received,” and on this principle 
have I uniformly acted, accepting with eagerness the humblest addi- 
tion to the stores of science. I firmly believe that this is the true 
principle of progress; and I hope that no British botanist, from John 
O’Groat’s to the Land’s End, will hesitate to record his observations 
in the fear that they may be judged unworthy of insertion. 


EDWARD NEWMAN. 
9, Devonshire Street, City, 
December, 1848. 


CONTENTS. 


ANDERSON, WILLIAM 

Occurrence of Mimulus luteus near 
Brechin, 224; Monstrosity ia Plan- 
tago lanceolata, L., 312 

BenTALt, THomas 

Occurrence of Filago gallica and other 

Plants at Berechurch, Essex, 355. 
Buioxam, Rev. AnprEw, M.A. 

Note on the British Rubi, 181; Occur- 
rence of Botrychium Lunaria near 
Twycross, 183; Notice of Juncus 
diffusus in Leicestershire, 291 ; Lo- 
calities for some of the rarer Plants 
of Warwickshire, 324; British Rubi 
in Yorkshire, 325 

Bree, Rev. W. T., M.A. 

On the Occurrence of Botrychium Lu- 
naria in new Localities, 300; Sup- 
posed Scotch Locality for Asplenium 
fontanum, 213, 319 

Bromrietp, Wo. Arnocp, M.D., F.LS. 

Carex riparia and C. paludosa, 146; 
Notes and Occasional Observations 
on some of the rarer British Plants 
growing Wild in Hampshire, 205, 
269, 332, 363 

Buti, Henry 

On the supposed Identity of the Mus- 
cus corniculatus of Gerarde with 
Asplenium septentrionale of Au- 
thors, 52 

CoLeMAN, Rev. W. H., M.A. 

On the Geographical Distribution of 
British Plants, 217; Authorship of 
the ‘ Flora Hertfordiensis, 320 . 

Co.uins, JOHN 
Variety of the Garden Primula, 128 
Croat, ALEXANDER 
Notes of a five hours’ Ramble on the 
Findhorn, 141 
Fiower, T. B., F.L.S. 
Note on the Botany of Wiltshire, 323 
Forster, Epwarp, V.P.L.S. 

Further Remarks on the Subject of 

Viola flavicornis, 31 
Gipson, G. S., F.L.S. 

Notice of the Discovery of Filago Jus- 
sizi near Saffron Walden, 216; Bo- 
tanical Notes for 1848, 308 

Gop.eEy, WILLIAM 

Note on Raising Cowslips from Seed, 

180 


Gray, PETER 

Observations on certain Plants occur- 
ring near Dumfries, 254; Notes of 
a Cursory Examination of the Bo- 
tany of Colvend, Kirkcudbright- 
shire, in September, 1848, 348 

Hort, Fenton J. A. 

Note on Alsine rubra, var. media, Bab. 

321 
IncHBALD, PETER 

Record of some of our rarer Plants 
growing in the Valley of the Don, 
between Doncaster and Conisbro’ 
Castle, 330; Record of the more 
uncommon of the Plants growing 
in the Neighbourhood of Hudders- 
field, 331 

Kerr, ANDREW : 

Discovery of Viola hirta in Kincar- 

dineshire, 76 
Keys, Isatan W. N. 

Fact illustrating Mr. Rainey’s Obser- 
vation that Crude Sap Ascends 
through portions of a Plant which 
have lost their Vitality, 31; Seasons 
of the Flowering of Plants some- 
times incorrectly given by our Stan- 
dard Authorities, 32; Discrepancies 
between the actual Flowering Sea- 
sons of British Plants and the 
Months indicated by the Floral 
Authorities, 306 

Kirsy, Miss M. ' 

Revivifying property of the Leicester- 
shire Udora, 30; Note on the Flora 
of Leicestershire, with Addenda 
thereto, 179 

T.awson, GEORGE 

Note on the Death of Mr. William 
Jackson, 109; List of the rarer 
Flowering Plants observed during a 
residence in Fifeshire, in 1846-7, 
129; Notes on the Periods of 
Flowering of WildPlants, 292; On 
the Occurrence of Tulipa sylvestris 
in Fifeshire, 293; Note on the Va- 
riety of Primula noticed at Page 128, 
294; Remarks on the Naturalization 
of Plants in Britain, 294; Remarks 
on the Period of Duration ef Reseda 
Luteola, &c., 311; On the Occur- 
rence of Euphorbia salicifolia as a 


Naturalized Plant in Forfarshire, 
344 
Lees, Epwin, F.L.S. 

On certain Forms or Species of 
Fruticose Brambles experimentally 
proved to be Permanent, 53; On 
the Acceleration of the Frondes- 
cence of Trees, and Flowering of 
British Wild Plants in the Spring 
of 1848, 190; Remarks on the Ru- 
bus leucostachys of Lindley, Leigh- 
ton (Flor. Shrops.) and Lees, and 
Rubus nitidus of Babington and 
Leighton’s Fasciculus, 357 

Letcuron, Rev. W. A,, B.A., F.BS. 

Notes on Shropshire Rubi, 71, 159, 

173 
Meenan, THomas 

A List of Rubi observed near London 

in 1846-7, with Observations, 9 
Moore, THomas 

Cyperus fuscus erroneously supposed 
to bean Annual, 58; Note on some 
Examples of Polystichum angulare 
distributed by the Botanical Society 
of London, 82; Correction of a pre- 
vious Error, 83; On a Variety of 
Lastrea Filix-mas, 137 

Newman, Epwarp, F.L.S. 
On the Equisetum fluviatile of the 
‘London Catalogue of British Plants, 
77; Note on Raising Jacquin’s 
Primula, commonly called the Bard- 
field Oxlip, from Seed, 180 
Ocitvis, W. M. 

Note on certain Monstrosities in Tri- 

entalis europa, 223 
Pampuin, WicuiaM, A.LS. 

List of Habitats of Plants recorded in 
MS. in a Copy of Blackstone’s 

~ Specimen Botanicum,’ 166, 189 

Pascoe, F. P. 

Further Remarks on Plants excluded 
from the Second Edition of the 
‘London Catalogue,’ 103; Note on 
Datura Stramonium, 105 

Piancuon, J. E., D-es-S. 

Remarks on the European Species of 

Ulmus, 34 
PRENTICE, CHARLES 

Occurrence of Thlaspi perfoliatum 

near Cheltenham, 157 
ReEcE, GEORGE 

-On the Finding of Ornithogalum um- 

bellatum, Linn., near Worcester, 356 
Russet, Mrs. 

Note on the Specimens of Sedum re- 
flexum mentioned by Mr. Watson, 
Phytol. iii. 46, 76 


SIDEBOTHAM, JOSEPH 

Remarks on certain “ Excluded Spe- 
cies” placed at the end of the 
‘London Catalogue, 70; Further 
Remarks on the Second Edition of 
the ‘ London Catalogue of British 
Plants, 140; Reply to Mr. Wat- 
son’s Observations, Phytol. iii. 144, 
188 ; Occurrence of Equisetum 
hyemale and E. umbrosum in 
Northumberland, 318 

SmituH, H. Ecroyp 

Occurrence of Adiantum Capillus- 
Veneris in Derbyshire, Asplenium 
germanicum in Borrowdale, and 
Lycopodium annotinum on Bow- 
Fell, 11 

Snooxe, C. Drew 

Note on the loose, and sometimes in- 
correct manner in which the Time 
of the Flowering of Plants is given 
in our Manuals of British Botany, 
203 

THICKENS, Rev. W., M.A. 

Localities for Botrychium Lunaria, 
and Inquiry respecting Sedum 
Forsterianum, 222 

VarENNE, E. G. 

Occurrence of Potamogeton rufescens 
and P. prelongus near Kelvedon, 
215; Oceurrence of Filago apicu- 
lata near Great Braxted, Essex, 
305 

Watson, Hewett C., F.LS. 

On the Equisetum fluviatile of the 
‘London Catalogue of British Plants,’ 
1; Explanations of some Specimens 
for Distribution by the Botanical 
Society of London in 1848, 38 ; 
Still “ Further Remarks” on Viola 
flavicornis, in reference to those of 

_ Mr. Forster, 55; Is Gentiana acau- 
lis wild in England? 83; Distribu- 
bution of Viola hirta in Scotland, 
84; Reply to Mr. Newman’s Queries 
on the Equisetum fluviatile of the 
Linnean Herbarium, 85; Reply to 
Mr. Sidebotham’s Further Remarks 
on the Second Edition of the ‘ Lon- 
don Catalogue of British Plants,’ 
144; Further Report of Experi- 
ments on the Cowslip and Oxlip, 
146; Characters of Malva verticil- 
lata and Malva crispa, 221; On 
the Number of Botanical Species to 
a Square Mile of Ground, 267 ; 
Some Account of the several alleged 
Species included under the name of 
Filago germanica of Linneus, 313 ; 


xl 


Accidental Introduction of Foreign Woops, Josrpn, F.LS. 


Plants into Britain, 322 Notes of a Botanical Excursion in 
WestcomBE, THomas Hampshire, 258 
Occurrence of Linaria supina at Hayle, Woopwarp, S. P. 
and Lastrea recurva throughout A few Words on the terms Native, 
Cornwall, 29 ; Occurrence of Carex Naturalized, and Imperfectly Na- 
punctata on the Cornish coast, 57 turalized, 201 


NOTICES AND EXTRACTS. : 


London Journal of Botany, Nos. 69 to 72, dated September to December, 1847, 4; 
Nos. 73 to 75, 1053; 76 to 82, 327 

On the Organography of Irregular Corollas. By F. Barneoud. Extracted from 
the ‘Comptes Rendus,’ for August 16, 1847, as Translated in the ‘ Annals and 
Magazine of Natural Histor y, for December, 1847, 11 

Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, Vol. Kx. Parts 1and 2; 115 

Annals and Magazine of Natural History, for the year 1847, Vols. xix. and xx., or 
Nos. 123 to 136, 49 

The Flora of Forfarshire. By William Gardiner. London: Longman & Co., 1848, 65 

Botanical Extracts from James Backhouse’s Visit to the Mauritius, &c., 78, 86 

Tyneside Naturalists’ Field Club, for the year ending February, 1847, Voli. Ms Parti, 91 

Vegetation of the Organ Mountains, Extracted from Gardener’s Travels in Brazil, 94 

The Cryptogamic Vasculares of Rhenish Prussia. By Ph. Wirtgen. Bonn, 1847, 98 

Description of a new British Mould. By George Johnston, M.D., &c. Extracted 
from the ‘ Proceedings of the Berwickshire Naturalists’ Club,’ 112 

Opuscula omnia Botanica Thome Johnsoni, Pharmaceutice Societatis Londinensis 
Socii. Nuperrime edita a T.S. Ralph, e Collegio Regali Chirurgorum Attic, 
et Societate Linneana Lond. Londoni: Sumptibus Guliel. Pamplin, 1847, 114 

The Principles of Nature, her Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind. By and 
through Andrew Jackson Davis, the Poughkeepsie Seer and Clairvoyant. Lon- 
don: John Chapman, 142, Strand. Stereotype Edition, 1847, 149 

The Flora of Leicestershire, according: to the Natural Orders, arranged from the ‘ Lon- 
don Catalogue of British Plants.’ Leicester: printed by J.S. Crossley, 1848, 157 

The Physical Atlas, a Series of Maps illustrating the Geographical Distribution of 
Natural Phenomena. By Henry Berghaus, L.L.D., and Alexander Keith 
Johnston, F.R.G.S. Edinburgh: Johnston. London: Saunders. Glasgow : 
Lumsden, 170 

Contributions towards a Catalogue of Plants indigenous to the Neighbourhood of 
Tenby. London: Longman & Co., 1848, 183 

The Flora Hertfordiensis ; being a Catalogue of Plants known, or reported to grow 
wild in the County of Hertford, with ‘the Stations of the rarer Species. By the 
Rey. R. H. Webb ; assisted by the Rev. W. H. Coleman, and by various Cor- 
respondents. Pamplin, London. 1848. Part 1, 184 

The Plant; a Biography. In a series of Popular Lectures. By M. J. Schleiden, 
M.D., Professor of Botany to the University of Jena. Translated by Arthur 
Henfrey, F.L.S., &c. London: H. Bailliére, 219, Regent Street, 1848, 227 

Hereditary Variations of Plants. From the ‘Gardeners’ and Farmers’ Journal,’ of 
September 9, 1848, 319 


Xli 


REPORTS OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 


Botanical Society of Edinburgh, 58, 81, 110 

Botanical Society of London, 8, 33, 65, 94, 136, 146, 187, 225, 268, 312, 334, 384 
Dundee Naturalists’ Association, 7, 126, 225, 346 

Tyneside Naturalists’ Field Club, 13 


On the Equisetum fluviatile of the ‘ London Catalogue of British 
Plants” By Hewett C. Watson, Esq. 


THE position of “Equisetum fluviatile” among the “Excluded 
Species” of the ‘London Catalogue’ may prove a puzzle to other 
botanists, equally as to the reviewer of that Catalogue, in the Decem- 
ber number of the ‘ Phytologist’ (Phytol. ii. 1051). And since this 
position of the Equisetum in question has been selected by the re- 
viewer as an instance of occasional inaccuracy in the said Catalogue, 
it may not be amiss to offer the explanation which seems to be re- 
quired, in connexion with the reviewer’s remarks thereon. 

Readers of the ‘ Phytologist’ are well aware that English botanists 
long habitually applied the name “fluviatile” to that species of Equi- 
setum which is now currently designated “Telmateia.” This error 
was pointed out by continental botanists, and subsequently corrected 
by Newman in the former volume of the ‘Phytologist’ (Phytol. 1. 534), 
and the ‘ History of British Ferns’ (p. 52). In making the correction, 
Mr. Newman did not discard the name of “ fluviatile” wholly, but 
transferred it to that other species which most English botanists still 
know under the name of “limosum.” The propriety of this transfer, 
however, is yet not acquiesced in by some botanists, who are among 
those most likely to have considered the subject. 

In the first edition of the ‘London Catalogue’ the name “ Telma- 
teia” was adopted from Newman in place of “ fluviatile.” | This lat- 
ter name was in consequence wholly omitted; that of “limosum” 
being retained for the plant which most English authors had so de- 
signated in their works. In editing the second edition of the same 
Catalogue, the question again came before us, whether the name of 
“limosum” should be retained, in accordance with the usage of Eng- 
lish authors generally, or whether the name of “ fluviatile” should be 
adopted from Newman, instead of the former. In the second edition 
of the ‘ British Ferns’ (p. 51), the two names are treated as synonyms, 
that is to say, as meaning one single species which is barely distin- 
guishable into two very slight varieties, the branched and the un- 

Vou. tit. B 


2 


branched ;— varieties which pass insensibly one into the other. But 
nevertheless a sort of contradiction of his own view is given by the 
same author in the prefixed Synopsis (p. 7). And there are other and 
stronger reasons for avoiding the change at present, in addition to 
Mr. Newman’s own state of doubt about the plants. | 

In a more recent publication on British plants, the second edition 
of Babington’s Manual, we find a different application of the name 
“fluviatile” (of “ Linneus”); where it is used for a plant distinguished 
from the Equisetum limosum (of “ Linneus”’) by other characters than 
the presence of branches. And the author of the Manual mentions 
the plant so distinguished, and so named, as one that is only reported 
to be native. Apparently he had seen no British specimen. Neither 
had Mr. Dennes or I seen any examples of it. According to Fries 
the true Eq. fluviatile (Zinn.) and Eq. limosum (Zinn.) are two rea- 
dily distinguished species, although usually deemed varieties of one. 
And it is these two alleged different plants which are intended by 
those names in the second edition of Babington’s Manual, and in the 
second edition of the ‘ London Catalogue.’ 

After this explanation, I trust it will appear that the reviewer was 
right in saying that Equisetum fluviatile was “not unadvisedly ” 
placed among the “ Excluded Species” of the ‘ I.ondon Catalogue.’ 
It is there entered in the following manner, which is important to the 
defence or explanation :— 


‘ fluviatile, “ L.”——?’ 


The use of inverted commas (“ Z.”) was of course intended to show 
that we gave the name on some authority, and not as an ascertained 
fact to which we could ourselves certify. And the addition of the 
note of interrogation (the use of which, when so applied, is explained - 
in the Catalogue) signified that the species is one “ not clearly ascer- 
tained to occur in the British Islands.” With respect to authority 
for the name, we have the very high one of Fries, endorsed (as the 
Americans say) by Babington. And with respect to the nativity of 
the plant in Britain, we were surely entitled and called upon to place 
among the doubtfuls any alleged species of Equisetum which was ap- 
parently unnoticed by Newman in 1844; which, in 1847, Babington 
vaguely mentions only as one reported to be native; and of which 
neither of us, the editors of the Catalogue, had seen an example. If, 
as stated by Fries, Eq. limosum and Eq. fluviatile, both of Linneus, 
are two distinct species, it must still remain to be ascertained satis- 


a 


factorily whether both do occur in Britain, or whether only one of 
them does so occur,—and, in this latter case possibly, even to which 
of the two species our well-known plant should be referred. Mean- 
time, the generally adopted name of “ limosum” was still retained for 
our generally known species; and the name of “ fluviatile” was used 
forthe dubious plant, in conformity with Babington’s Manual. I 
have abstained from interrupting the continuity of my own explana- 
tion by the introduction of quotations, but it may be well to subjoin 
here the three following extracts from the authors mentioned, by 
way of completing that explanation, which would be left less intelli- 
gible without them :— 

Fries.—*‘ EF. limosum L. et fluviatile L. utique nimis affinia sunt 
sed apud nos (circa Upsaliam vulgaria) facile discernuntur et a nullo 
Botanicorum Suecorum, ad prisca contrahenda, quam nova distin- 
guenda promptiorum, conjuncta. Ut pateat an nostra cum exterorum 
prorsus conveniant utruque dedimus in H. N. XI.” (Summa Vege- 
tabilium Scandinavie, p. 251). 

- Basineton.—* EF. limosum (l.)\”. 2... “a. limosum; teeth of 
the sheaths not furrowed, sheaths of the branches green with minute 
black tips to the round-backed ribs, branches often wanting. LE. li- 
mosum Fries, (. fluviatile; stem more deeply furrowed, teeth of the 
sheaths short dark brown acute: rib furrowed on the back. E. flu- 
viatile (L.) Fries.—In stagnant water. [@. Reported to be a native].” 
(Manual, p. 404). 

REVIEWER.—“ In getting up Catalogues of this kind two things are 
to be considered: first, accuracy; secondly, intelligibility: we con- 
ceive both of these are acheived in an eminent degree in the publica- 
tion before us, yet in some cases we detect a little departure from 
rigid accuracy, not unadvisedly, but from some motive of expediency, 
which the authors, had they space, would doubtless explain ; for in- 
stance, take the last species in the rejected list, Equisetum fluviatile, 
a common English plant, to which Linneus and all continental au- 
thors apply this name. A foreigner must suppose that the well- 
known Equisetum fluviatile, so common on the continent, has been 
recorded as an inhabitant of Britain, but that Messrs. Dennes and 
Watson having found that record incorrect, expunge the name: they 
would have no idea that it is only the Linnean name that is struck 
out, the plant being one of our commonest species.” (Phytol. ii. 
1051 et seq.). ppilt 

I cannot see that a foreigner would be entitled to “suppose” the 
case above suggested for him by the reviewer; and for the very suffi- 


A 


cient reason that the facts of the case are otherwise, and are so stated - 
as clearly as the general plan of the Catalogue would admit in the 
individual instance. The retention of E. limosum in the general list 
of the ‘London Catalogue’ should show that our common plant, so 
commonly mentioned by that name, is held a true native; while the 
position of E. fluviatile among the “ Excluded Species,” with the in- 
verted commas (“L.”), and the added note of interrogation (?); should 
show also that something more than a mere name was intended to be 
quoted and queried. The latter is the plant mentioned under the 
same name by Fries and Babington, concerning which some more 
satisfactory information seems required before we can introduce it 
into our list of certainties. 

Equisetum limosum (Lond. Cat.) = E. limosum of Smith, Hooker, 
Babington, &c.; E. fluviatile of Newman. 

Equisetum fluviatile (Lond. Cat.) — E. limosum, @. fluviatile of 
Babington; not E. fluviatile of Newman. 

Hewett C. Watson. 
Thames Patton, December 4, 1847. 


Notice of the ‘ London Journal of Botany, Nos. 69 to 72, dated Sep- 
tember to December, 1847. 


No. 69. Contents: “Contributions towards a Flora of Brazil, 
being the Characters of several new Species of Composite, belonging 
to the tribes Mutisiaceze and Nassauviacex,” by George Gardner, 
Esq. “ Botanical Characters of a new Plant, Isonandra Gutta, yield- 
ing the Gutta Percha of Commerce,” by Sir W. J. Hooker. “Botani- 
cal Information,” including a notice of Miers’s Illustrations of South 
American Plants ; a notice of Pritzel’s ‘Thesaurus Literature Botani- 
ce; advertisement or notice of an herbarium of French plants on 
sale; continuation of the list of Mr. Thomas Lobb’s Malayan (Java) 
Plants; notes on Plants of the British Flora, namely, Calamagrostis 
stricta (Nwdé.), Phalaris utriculata (Zinz.), Allium spherocephalum 
(Zinn.), Simethis bicolor (Kunth), and Trifolium strictum (Zznzn.) ; 
Tussack Grass; Notes of a Continental Tour; Excursion to Mount 
Olympus, Van Diemen’s Land, by R. Gunn, Esq.; Boissier on Spa- 
nish Botany; Myosurus cristatus (Benth); Two new Species of 
Peperomia described by Professor Miquel ; ‘Flora Tasmannize Spici- 
legium,’ by Dr. J. D. Hooker. 

Nos. 70 to 72. Contents: Continuation of Dr. Hooker’s ‘ Flore 


Tasmanniz Spicilegium ;’ ‘Decades of Fungi,’ by the Rev. M. J. 
Berkeley. “ Prodromus Monographie Ficuum,” by Professor Miquel. 
And the same Monograph is continued wholly through No. 71 and 
part of No. 72. The latter part of No. 72 being occupied by a pa- 
per “Sur la Famille des Linées,” by Dr. Planchon. 

When any copy of the ‘ London Journal of Botany’ chances to fall 
under our eyes, on the table of a subscriber, we usually find that 
portion of it which includes the miscellaneous articles, under the head 
of “ Botanical Information,” to be the only portion which has been 
looked into. The large remainder is usually in that undisturbed state 
which the vendors of old books so much delight to announce, namely, 
with pages “uncut.” We presume that two circumstances may be 
taken into account for an explanation of this difference. Most of the 
other articles, albeit often valuable contributions to botanical science, 
are still those long and heavy papers on descriptive botany which 
are rather out of place in a journal, and which are seldom looked at 
by the readers of periodicals. The “ Botanical Information” contains 
those announcements, on the other hand, for which almost only is a 
periodical taken and read. Botanists turn to the pages so intituled, 
because in those pages they expect the intelligence which they wish 
to have, and which it is usually understood to be the province ofa 
journal to supply them with. This is the first circumstance which 
causes the pages in question to be cut open, while the rest are neg- 
lected. The second circumstance to which we allude is, that the 
words ‘‘ Botanical Information,” in the table of contents, convey no 

intimation whatever of the items or kind of intelligence to be found 
under that general title; and it is thus rendered necessary that the 
pages should be cut, in order to discover the subordinate titles or 
subjects of the “ Information.” We wish the learned editor would take 
the hint thus offered, and increase the usefulness of his useful perio- 
dical by acting upon it. First, we could wish that he would give, in 
the table of contents, the title or subject of each separate article. 
Secondly, we should be glad to see more news of what is doing in the 
botanical world; and for this we should be well content to lose any 
quantity of descriptions of species. The four Nos. of the ‘ London 
Journal of Botany,’ now before us, contain 160 pages of letter-press, 
equal to about 100 of the large pages of the ‘ Phytologist.’ Of these 
160 pages no less than 128 are devoted to three articles, the object 
of which is to describe species, and all three of which are still only 
portions or continuations of longer articles on the same subjects. 
This is, in truth, printing books in fragments, under the cover and 
VOR. 111. c 


6 


title of a monthly Journal. The three articles are important contri- 
butions to science, undoubtedly of high merit in themselves, and 
include only matters proper and necessary to be recorded. But 
nevertheless, we submit, they are not the kind of articles which are 
looked for by subscribers to a periodical. A good description of the 
Plants of Van Diemen’s Land, for example, in a volume or series of 
volumes, as a distinct work, would be now a very valuable contribu- 
tion to the literature of botany; but broken up into incomplete frag- 
ments, detached from each other by the miscellanies of a periodical, 
the list appears in a most inconvenient form itself, and seems greatly 
out of place. We give these hints in a spirit of friendliness to the 
“London Journal,’ which we would gladly see rendered as much as 
possible a full and undiluted Journal of botany: at present, it is a 
Miscellany (the original title) of high value, but scarcely a Journal. 

Among the “ Botanical Information” in Number 69 are some items 
of intelligence which will have interest for the devotee of British 
botany. We are there assured that the Calamagrostis stricta from 
Oakmere, Cheshire, “is identical with the Forfarshire plant, found by 
the late Mr. G. Don,” and “ quite distinct from C. lapponica, of which 
the only British station is in the county of Antrim, Ireland.” By 
some inadvertence (arising, we understand, from the hasty inspection 
of an imperfect specimen), Mr. Hussey’s discovery of Phalaris para- 
doxa, “ina field, near Swanage, Dorset,” is announced for another 
species, or rather genus, the Alopecurus utriculatus, placed by Lin- 
neus under the genus Phalaris. The two grasses resemble each other 
in their peculiarly inflated sheaths or bases of the leaves, and when 
the upper portion of the dense panicle of Phalaris paradoxa happens 
to be lost by breaking off, there is truly a close eye-sight resemblance 
between them, dissimilar as they are found to be on closer examina- 
tion of the flowers (see Phytol. ii. 961). The discovery of Simethis 
bicolor (Kunth) in Hampshire, and of Allium spherocephalum (Linn.) 
near Bristol, were announced simultaneously in the ‘ Phytologist’ 
(see Phytol. ii. pp. 926 and 961). The other British pliant mentioned 
is the Trifolium strictum (Zinn.), discovered in two localities in 
Cornwall, by the Rev. C. A. Johns; from whose pen there is an 
interesting note on this one along with other small leguminose plants 
of that county. 

Dr. Planchon’s article on the Linacez is elaborately worked out, 
and is rendered somewhat remarkable by the addition of a large table 
in which the geographical distribution of the species is shown under 


7 


various conditions of latitude and longitude, and of botanical and 
geographical grouping, in an ingenious and comprehensive manner, 
and which must have demanded considerable patience and knowledge 


in the author of the paper. 
C. 


DUNDEE NATURALISTS’ ASSOCIATION. 


Monday, Dec. 6th, 1847.—Mr. George Lawson, President, in the 
chair. 

Mr. Jackson presented for examination specimens of the following 
plants that had been sent him for the Association, by Mr. Alexander 
Croall, and some interesting notes by Mr. Croall on the various species 
were read. 

Pinguicula alpina, L. From the Moors of Rose-haugh, in Ross- 
shire. From Mr. Croall’s note accompanying the specimen, it would 
appear that this very rare and interesting plant is on the point of ex- 
termination, in consequence of the progress of cultivation in the district 
where it grows. 

Bartramidula Wilsoni, Bruch & Schimper. From the head of 
Glen Dole, Clova, Forfarshire (see Phytol. ii. 1017). 

Gymnostomum Donianum, Sm. From Cawdor burn, Nairnshire. 

Placodium plumbeum, Ach. From trees in Cawdor wood, Nairn- 
shire. 

Mr. Lawson exhibited specimens of Cyphella muscigena, Fr. (de- 
termined by the Rev. M. J. Berkeley), from the Den of Mains, and 
Mr. Ogilvie produced several lichens from the same locality. 

The following botanical papers were read :— 

1. Account of a botanical excursion to the Reeky Linn, by Mr. 
William Jackson. Amongst the plants found by Mr. J. in the im- 
mediate vicinity of the Falls, occur the following: Bryum crudum, 
B. turbinatum, B. julaceum, B. androgynum, Hypnum commutatum, 
H. complanatum, H. dendroides, H. filicinum, H. atro-virens, H. pul- 
chellum, Didymodon Bruntoni, Trichostomum aciculare, T’. polyphyl- 
lum, Bartramia pomiformis, ¢., B. Halleriana, B. gracilis, Dicranum sco- 
parium, Grimmia rivularis, G. apocarpa (and var. 8. stricta), Neckera 
crispa, Cinclidotus fontinaloides, Tetraphis pellucida, Anomodon viti- 
culosum, A. curtipendulum, Orthotrichum affine, O. crispum, Junger- 
mannia epiphylla, J. pubescens, J. Lyoni, J. ciliaris, J. nemorosa, 
J. platyphylla, J. albicans, J. Blasia. 

2. List of the rarer flowering plants observed in the county of Fife, 


8 


by Mr. George Lawson. Specimens were exhibited of the principal 
plants in the list,—and Mr. Lawson made some remarks on the nature 
of some of the localities mentioned.* 

Robert Huish, Esq., London, was elected an honorary member. 
Mr. Thomas Simpson, Beadle, Yorkshire, was elected a fellow. Mr. 
David Gorrie, Annat Cottage, Eurol, Perthshire, was elected a corre- 
sponding member. 


GEORGE Lawson, P. 
212, Perth Road, Dundee, 
December, 1847. 


BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 


Monday, November 29th, 1847.— Eleventh anniversary meeting. 
John Reynolds, Esq., ‘Treasurer, in the chair. 

Donations of British plants were announced from the Rev. G. W. 
Sandys, Mr. J. D. Salmon, Mr. John Ray, and Mr. French. 

The Secretary read the annual report of the council, from which it 
appeared that thirty-two members had been elected since the last anni- 
versary, being a larger number than had been elected in any previous 
year since the establishment of the Society. In order to carry out to its 
fullest extent the leading object of the Society, namely, the exchange 
of specimens, the herbarium-committee had used every exertion to 
obtain the rarer and more interesting plants, and numerous valuable 
specimens (including a large number of duplicates) had been received, 
and would shortly be distributed to the mémbers. The council had 
deputed Mr. Hewett Watson and the Secretary to prepare a second 
edition of the ‘ London Catalogue of British Plants.’ The report was 
unanimously adopted. A ballot then took place for the council for the 
ensuing year, when J. E. Gray, Esq., F.R.S., was re-elected President, 
and John Miers, Esq., F.R.S., and E. Doubleday, Esq., F.L.S., were 
nominated Vice-Presidents; J. Coppin, Esq., M.A., G. W. Francis, 
Esq., F.L.S., and J. Parking, M.D., were elected new members of the 
council in the room of Dr. Cooke, F.L.S., F. Barham, Esq., and J. M. 
Rich, Esq., who retire in rotation; Mr. J. Reynolds, Mr. G. E. 
Dennes, and Mr. G. Rich, were respectively re-elected, Treasurer, 
Secretary, and Librarian.—G. H. D. 


* The list will appear in an early number of the ‘ Phytologist.’ 


A List of Rubi observed near London in 1846-7, with Observations. 
By Tuomas MEEHAN. 


THE geographical distribution of the various forms of British Rubi 
being as yet imperfectly understood, it occurred to me to make notes _ 
of the habitats of those I might meet with in my botanical excursions, 
and to offer them to the readers of the ‘ Phytologist.’ The following 
list comprises all that I have observed for the two last seasons, but 
my opportunities of collecting have been few, and I have no doubt 
that a closer examination would discover many which are not insert- 
ed in my list, and prove Surrey especially to be as rich in Rubi as 
Sussex and Hampshire proverbially are. I may also add that several 
forms are not included, because I was not in a position to determine 
them with accuracy. 

R. Ideus (L.). Weybridge, and many parts of West Surrey. 

8. trifoliatus (B. Salt.). Esher Common. 

-— suberectus (Ands.). Wimbledon Common. 

— nitidus (W. et N.). Woods, Dorking. 

— corylifolius (Sm.). Surrey ; Middlesex plentifully. 

— cordifolius (W. et N.). Wimbledon; Bagshot ; Dorking. 

— discolor (W. et N.). Abundant everywhere. 

— leucostachys (Sm.). Ealing; Esher ; Dorking. 

8. vestitus (B. Salt.) Woods, Wimbledon and 


Dorking. 


y. argenteus (B. Salt.). Mortlake. 

— carpinifolius (W. et N.). Wimbledon Common. 

— macrophyllus (W. et N.) Ealing ; Chiswick. 

— rudis (W.). Wimbledon Common. 

— Radula ae. (B. Salt.). Hedge near Egham. 

— fusco-ater (W.). Acton. 

— Keehleri (Weihe). 

—————— «. fuscus (Bab.). Near Esher. 

— hirtus (W.et N.). Road-side between Wandsworth and Wim- 
bledon Common. 

— glandulosus, y. rosaceus (Bell Salt.). Wimbledoa Common. 

—Wahlebergit (Arot.). Foot-path between Brentford and Ealing. 

— cesius (Linn.). Plentiful in hedges. 

The above nomenclature is that adopted by Babington in his 
Synopsis. 

R. corylifolius presents various appearances in different situations. 


10 


There are several forms of R. discolor in this part of Surrey, but I 
confess I can make nothing of them. R. rosaceus and hirtus are not 
plentiful. 

It is to be regretted that so much indisposition to study this genus 
of British plants should exist. Perhaps few tribes afford such abun- 
dant opportunities of examining the vexed question of the nature of 
species as this, and yet this very fact is made an objection to their 
study! “They are so changeable,” is a common expression, “ my 
opinion is that there is not a dozen good species,” is generally the 
encouraging stimulus the student of Rubi receives. But the question 
still remains, what is a species? and what is a variety? I do not 
clearly understand what Mr. Babington’s ideas of species and varie- 
ties are, as exemplified in his Synopsis. I believe that the varieties 
of the Synopsis are principally dependent on their aptability to ap- 
proach some other (normal) form when growing in the same soil and 
situation with it. I believe this was the reason for deciding R. ves- 
titus of the ‘Rubi Germanici, and R. villicaulis of Babington’s 
Manual, as mere varieties of R. leucostachys (Sm.). I find this 
“‘var.” argenteus growing in a wet ditch by the side of the Thames at 
Mortlake, and exactly agreeing with a specimen gathered in a dry 
wood near Ryde. If argenteus is R. leucostachys, and merely vary- 
ing through difference in its place of growth, whence the circum- 
stance I have related? or will different situations produce the same 
result ? 

We gardeners, who are in the habit of raising seedlings of florists’ 
flowers, generally understand a variety to be a form produced from 
seed, and capable of reproducing seed, differing in some respects from 
its parent, in contradistinction to a mule or hybrid, which is not ca- 
pable of reproducing seed. If this be the true definition of a variety, 
can these so-called varieties of Rubi be considered as truly such? 
The various varieties of the apple, the gooseberry and other fruit-trees 
still retain their several characteristics, although grown in the same 
soil and situations together, and why should not ¢rwe varieties of 
Rubi? 

THomas MEEHAN. 

Kew, December 17th, 1847. 


11 


Occurrence of Adiantum Capillus- Veneris in Derbyshire, Asplenium 
germanicum in Borrowdale, and Lycopodium annotinum on 
Bow-Fell. By H. Ecroyp Smiru, Esq. 


Some of the readers of the ‘ Phytologist’ may be interested in 
hearing of the following localities for one or two of our rarer ferns. 

On recently revising my hortus siccus, I was reminded of a habitat 
of that rare and lovely little species Adiantum Capillus-Veneris,—at 
once novel, singular, and interesting (at least, as regards Britain), 
viz., the Peak of Derbyshire. I believe it had not been previously 
noticed except in sea-caves on the coast of two English counties, 
Devon and Cornwall; but here we meet it under a peculiar aspect, 
flourishing in the very heart of the island, and in a wild and bleak 
situation. I found the plant in 1844, and though only seedlings were 
obtained, others matured, may be ready to repay a more diligent search 
than I was able to undertake at the time. 

The Asplenium germanicum has been noticed in my present neigh- 
bourhood ; and, as far as I am aware, this is the first recorded English 
locality. It was found in the summer of 1846; by Wm. Greaves and 
Jos. Flintoft, the latter of whom executed the celebrated model of the 
Lake District; it was growing in the cleft of a rock in the wilds of 
Borrowdale. 

On a recent visit to Bow-Fell I met with Lycopodium annotinum 
in several places on its sides, where the rocks are heaped in the 
greatest confusion, and twining among shady boulders carpeted with 
Hymenophyllum Wilsoni. 


H. Ecroyp Smiru. 
Bay Cottage, Ambleside, 
December 23rd, 1847. 


On the Organogeny of irregular Corollas. By F. Barngoup. Ex- 
tracted from the ‘Comptes Rendus’ for August 16, 1847, as 
translated in the ‘ Annals and Magazine of Natural History’ for 
December, 1847. 


In the memoir which I have the honour of submitting to the Aca- 
demy, I have described the results of further researches on the orga- 
nogeny of irregular corollas. I shall briefly indicate the principle 
in this abstract. In the monocotyledons the study of the develop- 


12 


ment of the flower of the Cannezx afforded direct proof that the 
stamina only metamorphosed into petals in a more or less complete 
manner from their first appearance, which impart to the corolla its 
irregular aspect. The two outer ternary verticils are always develop- 
ed one after the other, precisely as the calyx and corolla of dicotyle- 
dons. This law, which I have verified in more than ten families, ap- 
pears to be very general among monocotyledonous plants. In the 
dicotyledons, the adult corolla of the Acanthacex, Globularia, Gesne- 
riaceex, Bignoniacee and Goodeniacex, which is frequently far from 
regular, presents itself on its first appearance in the form of a small 
cupule with five very equal and rounded teeth at the border, but this 
state is more or less ephemeral according to the genera and species. 
Very soon the unequal elongation of the divisions of the corolla, their 
different degrees of adhesion or their partial atrophy, determine a 
very marked irregularity. The same applies with respect to the flower 
of Centranthus in the Valerianez, to that of the Lobeliacee and of the 
Scrophulariacez. In this last family the corolla of the Calceolarie, 
one of the most anomalous of the vegetable kingdom, is reduced atits 
origin to a scooped-out cupola, which is very regular and furnished 
with four equal minute teeth; the nascent calyx likewise presents but 
four divisions. 

The highly remarkable floral envelope of Begoniacez likewise ap- 
pears, at the period of its formation, as regards both male and female 
flowers, in the form of a continuous ring, and exhibits at its circum- 
ference five very equal small segments; but there are some of them, 
especially in the male flowers, which disappear entirely or which be- 
come in part atrophied, so as to give to the coloured envelope that 
peculiar structure which forms its principal character. 

From the facts detailed in my two memoirs and derived from the 
study of genera with irregular flowers from twenty-five natural families, 
I feel justified in deducing the following consequences :— 

1. The simple theory announced by DeCandolle as early as 1813, 
according to which the irregular flowers should be referred to regular 
types from which they appear to have degenerated, must be admitted 
as true, although conceived @ prior?, and solely from the attentive ex- 
amination of some cases of Peloria, or of flowers which have become 
regular at the adult age. But if in the actual state of science, organo- 
geny affords us a direct demonstration of this important principle of 
botanical philosophy, I must add, that the symmetry of an irregular 
flower even at its very origin does not always strictly exist; it is fre- 
quently merely indicated by empty places where the absent organs 


13 


are never developed, as is very readily seen with respect to the sta- 
mina of those plants. We may therefore infer among the ordinary 
causes of disturbance in the floral symmetry, such as abortion, mul- 
tiplication, degenerescence and adhesion, likewise that of the nonde- 
velopment of organs. 

2. With respect to the origin of the union of the stamina called 
- monadelphous, diadelphons, polyadelphous and synantherous, their 
adhesion is always subsequent to their first formation. The family of 
the Stylide (Stylidium adnatum) alone appears to me to furnish a 
remarkable exception to this rule as regards the adhesion of the 
styles. 

I shall here enumerate three principal kinds of irregularity among 
all irregular corollas that I have examined :— 

1. Irregularity by simple inequality of development among the 
several segments of the corolla, with complication of adhesion or 
complete atrophy or arrest of growth; this is the most common. 

2. Irregularity by deviation, where the segments, although equal, 
turn all of the same side; for instance, the corolla of Sczvola levi- 
gata (Goodeniacex), and the genera with ligulate florets of the Com- 
posite. 

3. Irregularity by simple metamorphosis of the stamina, as in the 
family of the Cannez, and probably that of the Zingiberacee. 


- 


TYNESIDE NATURALISTS’ FIELD CLUB. 


In accordance with an invitation of the Berwickshire Naturalists’ 
Field Club, the last meeting of the Tyneside Club for the season was 
held at Alnwick, on Wednesday, September 22, in conjunction with 
the former Society. A few of the members of the Durham Botanical 
Society also joined the party. The members present breakfasted 
with Mr. Dickson, the Clerk of the Peace for Northumberland, after 
which they proceeded to the Castle, when, after spending a short 
time, they assembled at the Swan Inn for the transaction of business. 
It being the anniversary meeting of the Berwickshire Club, the an- 
nual address of the President of that body on his retirement from 
office was read, and his successor was elected. There were no long 
papers read or presented by either society. Mr. Selby, of Twizel 
House, read a short notice of the occurrence of some birds and in- 
sects in greater abundance than usual, during the last year. Amongst 

VOL. It. D 


14 


other insects he mentioned the death’s-head hawk moth and the Con- 
volvulus hawk moth. Of the former he had procured several cater- 
pillars, but had not been able to rear any moths. He mentioned that 
when he was unable to procure potato leaves, on which plant the 
death’s-head moth is usually found in this country, he had substituted 
those of a plant of the same genus, the common nightshade or bitter- 
sweet of the hedges (Solanum Dulcamara), and found that the moth 
fed as freely on it as on the potato. Mr. Selby described a caterpillar 
as large as that of the death’s-head moth, but differing from it in co- 
lour and in the shape of its markings, which he had also found on 
the potato. This caterpillar he thought might be a variety of that of 
the death’s-head moth, but he had not been able to meet with any 
account of that species in which such a variety was described, nor 
was he aware of any other species to which it could be assigned.— 
Mr. Alder, of Newcastle, read an account of the peculiar character of 
the animal of Kellia suborbicularis, a bivalve mollusk, not uncommon 
on our shores, showing it to be a new type of form among the bi- 
valves, differing from the others in having a large anterior tube. He 
also exhibited a drawing, and read a description of the animal of 
Lepton squamosum, an allied genus, likewise very peculiar in its cha- 
racters. He took the opportunity of Dr. Johnston being present, to 
draw his attention to a curious new British zoophyte, of very anoma- 
lous characters, found by Mr. Cocks, at Falmouth, and examined by 
Mr. Alder, in conjunction with that gentleman, during a recent visit 
to Cornwall. A drawing of the animal was exhibited to the meeting, 
and a verbal description given. Some account of its mode of deve- 
lopment was also communicated. Dr. Johnston considered it quite 
distinct from anything with which he was acquainted. Mr. Tate, of 
Alnwick, exhibited several specimens of mountain-limestone fossils, 
remarkable for their perfection and beauty. This gentleman possesses 
one of the best collections of the fossils of this formation in the king- 
dom. After the business-matters were concluded, and the rain had 
ceased, which fell heavily during the middle of the day, some of the 
party returned to the Castle, where they had spent a portion of the 
morning, and where, by the courtesy of the noble owner, every faci- 
lity was given for the examination, both of its feudal remains and of 
its modern decorations. There is a small museum containing objects 
of antiquity as well as specimens in most of the departments of Na- 
tural History ; amongst the latter are some very interesting fossil re- 
mains. The most remarkable part of the collection, however, is that 
containing the Egyptian antiquities, obtained by the noble Duke 


~ 


15 


himself when in Egypt. On leaving the Castle the party had a short 
walk through the park, and then returned to the White Swan, where 
they sat down to an excellent dinner, to which the thoughtful courtesy 
of the Duchess had added a splendid dessert. The only business 
transacted after dinner was the election of three new members to the 
Berwickshire Club, and the proposal of a vote of thanks on the part 
of the three Clubs to the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland for 
the attention they had shown to the meeting. The invitation from 
the Berwickshire Club was made for “the promotion of friendly feel- 
ings” between the Clubs, and when the party broke up, which it did 
at an early hour, every one felt that the intended object had been 
attained. 

[The Editor is aware that this Report is chiefly zoological, but he 
is desirous of continuing the series of Reports from provincial associ- 
ations, hoping that good will result from them]. 


Notice of the ‘Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, Vol. 
xx., Parts 1 and 2. 


THESE two parts of the Transactions are peculiarly rich in Botany, 
no fewer than eleven of the seventeen papers being on botanical sub- 
jects. Unfortunately, however, though exceedingly valuable in 
themselves, these papers all relate to exotic plants, and consequently 
possess less interest for the British botanist than is sometimes the 
case when the plants of our own country are treated of: but an ab- 
stract will not be out of place in the pages of the ‘ Phytologist.’ 

I. On the Development of the Ovulum in Avicennia. By the late 
William Griffith, Esq., F.L.S., &c. 

A companion paper to the previous communications by the same 
botanist upon the development of the seed and embryo in Santalum 
and Osyris; the subject is, however, too intricate to be fully under- 
stood without reference to the illustrations. Mr. Griffith states that 
he was unable clearly to ascertain “the absolute relations with the 
embryo-sac established by the pollen-tube after it had reached the 
sac, still less the absolute relations which the end of the pollen-tube 
bore to the nascent embryo ;” he is, however, induced to believe, from 
the indications furnished by his sketches, that the pollen-tube pene- 
*\trates into the sac, “as far as the spot in which the embryo makes its 
frst appearance.” 


16 


III. Descriptions of some unpublished Species of Plants from 
North-western India. By M. Pakenham Edgeworth, Esq., F.LS., 
Bengal Civil Service. 

During a residence of several years in the north-west provinces of 
Bengal, Mr. Edgeworth collected with his own hands about 2000 
species of plants. Of these the Acanthacee were sent to Professor 
Nees von Esenbeck; the Graminez to Messrs. Ruprecht and K. von 
Meyer; the Carices to Dr. Boott; and with these exceptions, and 
that of the Corolliflora from Bignoniacee onwards, which were for- 
warded to De Candolle, the remainder of the collection was placed 
in the hands of Mr. G. Bentham. One hundred and forty-four spe- 
cies are described in the present paper, including some remarkable 
forms, “as, for example, a Clematis with bearded filaments and in- 
trorse anthers; an Inula with white flowers and the habit of an Aster; 
and a Commelyneous plant with a twining stem :” this is figured un- 
der the name of Streptolirion volubile, and is a very curious and 
beautiful species. Others of Mr. Edgeworth’s new plants are remark- 
able as being Indian species of genera hitherto looked upon as ex- 
clusively American. 

The following remarks, relating to a naturalized British genus, are 
interesting, and may be quoted entire. 

“T have ventured to propose a modification of the character of Im- 
patiens, because I consider M. Kunth’s theory of the flower to be not 
entirely correct. He conceives the superior petal to be wanting, and 
the two superior sepals to be united into the vexillum, regarding the 
keel usually more or less present on that to be a mark of the junction. 
But I have found the two superior sepals actually present in some 
species; they are distinct in I. amplexicaulis and moschata, herein 
described, and even more so, though still very minute, in the Cash- 
mir species introduced into England by Dr. Royle under the name 
of I. glanduligera, and figured by him in his ‘ Ilustrations of Hima- 
layan Botany.’ In other species, a rudimentary scale, or in others, 
again, a gland, supplies their place; while in many I have been to- 
tally unable to detect any. I think, therefore, that I am justified in 
considering the vexillum as a single petal, and not as composed of 
two sepals united. I have since found that a similar view has been 
taken by M. Reeper, in the ‘ Linnza,’ ix. 121.”—p. 37. 

The generic character of Impatiens, as proposed by Mr. Edgeworth, 
now stands as follows: — Sepals 5; the two upper ones small, some- 
times wanting; two lateral simple; the lower one larger, more or 
less inflated and spurred. Petals 5; upper one between the two 


iy 


scale-like sepals, large, generally crested on the back (vewillum) ; 
4 lateral, two of which on each side cohere and form a bilobed wing. 

In a foot-note to Cuscuta anguina it is stated that “This name is 
given in allusion to a superstition of the mountaineers, that crows are 
in the habit of plucking off sprigs of this and C. macrantha, and drop- 
ping them into running water, when the sprig becomes a serpent, and 
fit food for the crow. They likewise imagine that the possession of 
the root of the Cuscuta confers the power of invisibility, and of pass- 
ing through locks, bars, and doors unhindered.” 

IV. On the Indian Species of Balanophora, and on a New Genus 
of the Family Balanophoree. By the late William Griffith, Esq., 
F.LS., &c. 

We have before mentioned the Balanophoracez as a family of 
Rhizogens (Phytol. ii. 717 &c.); in this paper Mr. Griffith describes five 
Indian species of the genus from which the family derives its name : 
he however seems to have felt considerable hesitation in referring 
these plants to the genus Balanophora; they would indeed appear 
more properly to belong to Dr. Wallich’s genus Sarcocordylis, 
which we should hesitate about admitting into the Rhizogens at all. 
The new genus is named Pheocordylis; being diclinous, and the 
male unknown, the generic character has been drawn up from the 
female. Its general anatomy would appear to correspond with that 
of Balanophora; its parasitism is also similar; its principal generic 
distinction appearing to consist in the presence of a number of para- 
physiform processes covering the surface of the spike, in its areolation, 
the sessile solitary ovaria, deciduous styles, and the subpapillose 
apex of the fruit. 

As Mr. Griffith’s observations on these plants are founded upon 
the examination of extensive materials, they are entitled to great 
weight ; we here quote them im ewxtenso, regretting that we cannot 
also reproduce the illustrative figures. 

“ All the species agree in having an amorphous tuberiform mass, 
which may be considered as the common axis. This mass is firmly 
united to the woody system of the roots of the stock, which are rami- 
fied in its substance, the bark ceasing along the places of union. 
_ The cellular tissue of the mass adheres firmly to the divisions of the 
roots, which appear to terminate in an abrupt manner. Some of the 
Specimens look like zoophytes adhering to foreign bodies. This 
common mass or axis is much lobed; the surface is always more or less, 
aad often to a high degree verrucose, the verruce being variously 
loLed, and having an appearance that suggests the idea of their being 


18 


of an excretory nature. Internally the common mass is mainly com- 
posed of cellular tissue, the cells in many instances containing nuclei, 
and often viscid matter. The vascular bundles are many, without 
any very evident arrangement, except towards the axes or stems, to 
which they will be found to converge. They are composed of lax 
fibres, filled (after maceration at least) with grumous tissue, and short, 
annular, sometimes partly unrollable vessels. 

“Within the common mass the buds are developed, being pro- 
tected during their earlier stages by the superficies of the mass, as 
well as by their own scales, which are then very closely imbricated. 
The buds subsequently protrude through the common covering, de- 
rived from the superficies of the mass, which remains in the shape of 
an irregularly torn annulus or wrapper. 

“The flower-bearing axes or stems, which appear perhaps gene- 
rally to be one to each lobe of the common mass, are not isochronous 
in development. Instead of leaves they present imbricated uncoloured 
scales. The main bulk of the stem is of nucleary cellular tissue, tra- 
versed by longitudinal vasculo-fibrous fascicles, which supply the 
scales. In the female spikes these are much ramified in the circum- 
ference, but they do not, I think, pass into the receptacles or into 
any of the pistilla. 

“The scales have no cuticle or internal cavities, they never pre- 
sent green colouring matter, and are generally colourless and black- 
ened about their points. They are of a fleshy substance, and are 
provided with several simple vascular fascicles. 

“ The bractez, which are only developed in the male spikes, are 
fleshy, abruptly truncate, and more or less canaliculate. In the spe- 
cies in which they are most so, owing to their lateral edges being 
partly at least in apposition, the flowers appear enclosed in alveoli ; 
and this is particularly evident after the fall of the flowers, when the 
head of the spike presents a honey-combed appearance. Balano- 
phora dioica would appear to have cyathiform or involucelliform 
bractee ; this probably is a mistake. The vascular bundles are ob- 
solete, appearing rather as streaks of discoloured tissue; in them I 
have only observed fibres similar to those surrounding the vessels in 
the longitudinal bundles of the axis. 

“The perianthium, which exists only in the male, is composed of 
four or five sepals; if five, the fifth is anticous; their xstivation is 
valvate, their substance fleshy. I have not detected in them any vas 
cular fascicles, although there is some appearance of their existen 
within each margin. 


19 


“The stamina are completely monadelphous, and, except in Bala- 
nophora polyandra, are equal in number and opposite to the segments 
of the perianthium. From having observed certain irregular appear- 
ances in the anthers of Balanophora alveolata, I think that the type 
of the anthers of Balanophora polyandra may still be reduced to that 
of the other species. The centre of the antheriferous part of the co- 
lumn has presented one or two large patches of discoloured tissue. 
The anthers are very large, consisting of two large cells folded longi- 
tudinally into the shape of a horse-shoe; they have no’ endothecal 
special apparatus; they open longitudinally; their number and 
structure are best ascertained before dehiscence. ‘The pollen pre- 
sents nothing peculiar. 

“The female stems are, so far as regards scales, &c., like those of 
the male, but they present no bractez, although round the base of 
the head there appears a tendency in some to their development. 

“ The female spike to the naked eye has a papillose and a subver- 
rucose appearance ; under an ordinary magnifier it appears covered 
with truncate, areolate, opaque bodies, separated from each other by 
what appear to be hairs. The truncate areolate bodies will be found 
on examination to terminate small branches of the spike, on which 
are arranged (and perhaps exclusively so) the pistilla or female 
flowers, the styloid terminations of which are the hairs alluded to. 

“ These pistilla are generally stalked, and appear to be entirely 
composed of cellular tissue, every cell containing a nucleus. The 
ovarium is generally ovate, and presents externally the appearance of 
having a cavity containing a nucleus. This would seem to be its 
true structure, judging trom Balanophora polyandra. Jt is gradually 
attenuated into a style, which, in its earlier stages at least, is closed 
at the apex, and does not present any surface like that of an ordinary 
stigma. The tissue before fecundation is transparent and uncoloured; 
subsequently to that, the style becomes more or less, often complete- 
ly, obscured by brown colour. 

“ The ovulum, which was only observed in Balanophora polyandra, 
and probably in its impregnated state, appeared to be pendulous from 
the apex of the cavity of the ovarium; its constitution was essentially 
similar to that of the matured embryo. Of its earlier stages I have 
no knowledge. 

“The pistilla at very early periods are mere ovato-conical exten- 
sions of the surface of the spike round the bases of larger extensions 
of the same surface, which subsequently form the receptacles. 

“There is very little difference beyond discolouration and a brit- 


20 


tleness of tissue between the pistilla of the other species and the 
fruits of Balanophora picta, in which alone I have observed them in 
their seemingly ripe state; they have nearly the same size and pre- 
cisely the same disposition. 

“The embryo in this species appeared to be free; it is a cellular, 
undivided, albuminous-looking body, of a fleshy, waxy substance ; 
the cells which compose it are rendered opaque by grumous, molecu- 
lar and oleaginous matter, which by pressure may be made to escape 
into the fluid of the field of the microscope in the form of globular 
bodies of unequal size, which, as I have mentioned, might be mis- 
taken for spores or grains of pollen. 

“ Oss. I1I.—The most remarkable parts of the structure of this ge- 
nus appear to me to be, the extraordinary simplicity of the female 
flowers, and the remarkable productions of the surface of the spike 
on which they are arranged. 

“ From not having observed any change in the numerous pistilla 
(previously to examining Balanophora polyandra and B. picta), al- 
though the browning of the style, and in some cases adherence of 
pollen-grains to it, had been distinctly seen, doubts had suggested 
themselves to me regarding the true nature of the above parts ; and 
these were increased by examinations at very early periods, which 
did not present any state of the (subsequent) pistilla at all analogous 
to what occurs perhaps universally in phenogamous angiospermous 
plants; and also by the permanence and evident importance of the 
termination of the remarkable receptacles. The same apparent im- 
perfection of the female flowers appears to have struck most observers; 
and prior to the determination of the point by the examination of the 
two species alluded to, I was inclined perhaps to consider this re- 
markable genus as presenting, at least in the specimens before me, 
an instance of abortion of pistilla, connected with a remarkable gem- 
miform apparatus. 

“ The resemblance of the pistilla to the pistilla of Musci, and more 
especially to those of some evaginulate Hepatic, is exceedingly cu- 
rious and complete; and the same may be said of the effects produced 
by the action of the pollen on the styles. Indeed, in the develop- 
ment of the female organ, the continuous surface of the style before 
fecundation, and its obvious perforation after, Balanophora presents 
a direct affinity to a group of plants, with which otherwise it has not 
a single analogy. 

“Tf these highly remarkable points of structure are borne in mind, I 
think that it must be conceded that Balanophora can in no wise be 


21 


associated with such highly-developed families as Rafllesiacexe and 
Cytinex, which, especially the former, are in my opinion to be taken 
as exhibiting a highly complex formation of even both sexes. 

“ Ops. [V.—In the present state of our knowledge the locus natu- 
ralis of the family to which this genus belongs must, it appears to 
me, at best be founded on conjecture. The assistance of physiology 
is in the first place essential. Of all the notions, however, regarding 
it, that of Agardh, as given by Endlicher and Schott in their Melete- 
mata, appears to me the most plausible, although he would seem to 
include Cynomorium iu the family, and to make it the typical genus. 
Although I have not observed these plants to have milky juice, or am 
inclined to lay much stress on some of the signs of affinity given by 
Agardh, yet in the separation of the sexes, the valvular zstivation of 
the perianthium, and the apposition of the stamina to its component 
parts, there are perhaps some signs of affinity ; and although the de- 
velopment of the pistilla of Balanophora appears to me an insur- 
mountable objection, still they resemble in texture the pistilla of 
some Urticeee as much, if not more, than those of any other plant. 

“ As a mere hypothesis, then, I would consider Balanophoree, 
judged of chiefly by Balanophora, as the homogeneous embryo form 
of Urticine, forming a direct passage in one, and usually the more 
perfect structure, to Musci and Hepatice. But in this, as in all other 
very doubtful cases, it is much more advisable to consider them as 
aliens than to force them into any subkingdom, class or order. As 
aliens, every observing botanist’s eye will be upon them. As un- 
doubted citizens, they may find, under authority, places anywhere, 
and will certainly cease to be general objects of observation.” — p. 96. 

V. On Agaricus crinitus, Linn., and some allied Species. By the 
Rev. M. J. Berkeley, M.A., F.L.S., &c.-. 

Among the few though well preserved and interesting Fungi con- 
tained in the Linnean herbarium, is one marked Agaricus crinitus, 
a species correctly described, but much misunderstood. In the 
present memoir Mr. Berkeley describes and illustrates this and four 
other species under the generic name of Lentinus. The plate con- 
taining the figures and anatomical details of these species is from the 
delicate pencil of Mr. J. de C. Sowerby, and beautifully engraved by 
Jarman. The species are Lentinus crinitus, from South America ; 
L. tener, Organ Mountains and New Orleans; L. Schomburgkii, Bri- 
tish Guiana; L. nigripes, described by Fries in the ‘Systema Lenti- 
norum,’ and now figured for the first time; and L. Leveillei, Surinam. 


VOL. 111. E 


22 


VI. Caricis Species nove, vel minus cognite. Auctore Francisco 
Boott, M.D., 8.L.S., &c. ; 

In this elaborate memoir fifty-one species of Carex are fully de- 
scribed : they are all exotic, though many of them seem to be closely 
allied to British species. 

VII. Remarks on the Examination of some Fossil Woods, which 
tend to elucidate the Structure of certain Tissues in the recent Plant. 
By Edwin John Quekett, Esq., F.L.S., &c. 

The structure of spiral vessels and the nature of the markings on 
the woody fibre of the Conifere, having excited numerous con- 
troversies, Mr. Quekett here gives in detail the results of his microsco- 
pical examination of these structures in a fossil state, which go far to 
exhibit their real nature, and are calculated to be generally interest- 
ing to the vegetable physiologist. The first-described shows that the 
spiral fibre is developed z7thin the membranous cylinder with which 
it is always associated. 

“On examining lately a specimen of fossil wood, exhibiting the 
structure of a palm, I discovered a portion which, instead of being 
compact like the general mass, broke down on the slightest pressure 
into minute fragments: on submitting these to the microscope, it 
was found that they were composed of cylinders more or less elon- 
gated and minute rounded granules. On the cylinders there could 
readily be observed a perfect screw, the helix being either single or 
compound, and undoubtedly fashioned from the interior of the recent 
spiral vessels, which fact gives the most satisfactory proof that the 
fibre is in the interior of the cylinder, as these siliceous casts could 
not have been so moulded if the spiral fibre had been external. The 
intervals between the helix show the shape of the fibre, and also show 
that it was of a solid nature. 

“‘ The other point that has occasionally been the subject of contro- 
versy, is the nature of the discoid bodies on the woody tissue of co- 
niferous plants. These have been supposed by some persons to be 
glands; by others to be thicker, and by others again to be thinner 
places in the membrane forming the walls of the woody fibres. 
Others have asserted that there is a pore in the centre of each disk, 
which allows of a communication between adjoining fibres. Later 
observers, however, have shown that none of the above theories is 
altogether correct, as the disks are not proper to one woody fibre, but 
are formed between two contiguous fibres, each contributing to the 
formation of the disk by having a minute depression, shaped like a 
saucer, on its exterior, which corresponds exactly to a similar depres- 


23 


sion on the contiguous fibre, whereby a small cavity is left between 
them. These markings or cavities very rarely exist on the sides of 
the fibres opposed to the pith or bark, but are very numerous on the 
sides parallel to the medullary rays. | Wherever the markings occur, 
the saucer-shaped depression is thick at the circumference and for 
some distance towards the centre; but in the centre itself there is a 
spot so extremely thin and minute, that the light, which has to pass 
through it, becomes decomposed, and the spot looks either green or 
red, according to the adjustment of the focus. 

“ Having received from Professor Bailey a specimen of fossil wood 
which was found at Fredericsberg in Virginia, I perceived, on sub- 
mitting it to the microscope, that it would easily break into minute 
fragments in the direction of the woody fibres, which, when carefully 
viewed, presented a most beautiful example of casts of woody tissue, 
with numerous spirals traversing the interior. At various points 
were arranged the ordinary coniferous dots, and to the outside there 
adhered small bodies of the same size, which projected beyond the 
outline of the fibre when seen obliquely, each bearing the precise re- 
presentation of the coniferous disk. In other parts of the field of 
view were some of the same bodies detached from the sides of the 
fibres, which left no doubt that they were casts of the cavities exist- 
ing in the original plant, and proved the correctness of the view above 
stated respecting the nature of these minute circular markings. Be- 
sides these siliceous bodies in the fragments of the fossil, there were 
others of such a shape as to leave no doubt that they were casts of 
the interspaces between the cells or woody fibres. 

“There is very little doubt now, from the use of chemical tests, 
that fossil woods for the most part, or perhaps in all cases, still pos- 
sess portions of the vegetable tissues, which are cemented together 
into a compact mass by silica, derived from the water to which the 
specimen had been subjected. It is difficult to account for the lodge- 
ment of silica in the tissues of plants; but it is possible that the mo- 
lecules of silica, which exist as one of their organic constituents, form 
the first attractive points, to which others are added by the water, 
until the whole of the portion of the plant, the woody fibres, the ves- 
sels and cells, and the interspaces between these organs, is filled (in 
fact all places which in the recent plant are filled with sap and air), 
after the manner that the spicules of silica in a sponge form nuclei 
for the subsequent deposits of flinty matter, until the whole is con- 
verted into a shapeless mass like the original sponge. 

“It follows from these observations, as every fibre, cell and spiral 


24 


vessel is a closed sac or tube, that when any vegetable tissue be- 
comes fossilized, the silica occupying their interior and their inter- 
spaces is, in fact, in detached pieces, each being separated from the 
adjoining cell or vessel by the intervening walls of the tissue. If 
fossilization went no further, and there is reason to believe that in 
some cases it does not, the mass could easily be broken down by 
slight force, and each original fibre detached from its neighbour on 
account of the vegetable matter, after long maceration in the silicify- 
ing fluid, being almost decomposed. But frequently the process 
goes further; and as we know how readily vegetable membrane 
iransmits liquids through its substance, it can be easily imagined how 
silica held in solution in the water would pervade it, and the inter- 
cellular spaces and the interior of the woody fibres would be cemented 
together into one mass of silica. 

“ The reason why some woods break down more easily than others 
after being fossilized, I have not yet been able to determine; but it 
is certain that coniferous woods are found to be the most frequent 
examples in which the tissue is not cemented, and I imagine that in 
those woods there is great power of resisting decomposition when im- 
mersed in water, or there exists little or no silica as an organized 
part of their skeleton, so that no points in the membrane for the com- 
mencement of deposits are offered; whereas, where silica does exist, 
the molecules form the first centres, and the whole become cemented 
together. 

“It is thus, I am induced to believe, that silicification in the above 
instances proceeded so far as to fill the fibres, vessels and cells, and 
the spaces on their exterior; but as the vegetable membrane was in- 
terposed, the complete cohesion of the parts was prevented, and 
consequently they are now capable of being separated, and the frus- 
tules of silica when examined prove to be casts of the interior of the 
tissues and of the interspaces external to them, thus appearing to 
offer the most satisfactory evidence respecting the nature of the or- 
gans in question.”—p. 149. 

IX. An Enumeration of the Plants of the Galapagos Archipelago, 
with Descriptions of those which are New. By Joseph Dalton 
Hooker, Esq., M.D., F.L.S., &c. 

X. On the Vegetation of the Galapagos Archipelago as compared 
with that of some other Tropical Islands and of the Continent of 
America. By Joseph Dalton Hooker, Esq., M.D., F.R.S., F.L.S., &e. 

The materials for constructing this Flora have been for the most 
part furnished by Charles Darwin, Esq., who drew the attention of the 


25 


author “to the striking peculiarities which mark the Flora of the Ga- 
lapagos group, and to the fact that the plants composing it not only 
differ from those of any other country, but that each of these islands 
has some particular productions of its own, often representatives of 
the species which are found in the others of the group.” The total 
number of species is 239, of which upwards of 100 are described as 
new. We scarcely see how the plants of these islands can be said to 
“ differ from those of any other country,” since by far the greater 
number are also natives of North and South America, the West India 
Islands, many tropical countries, and some few even of Britain. This 
statement is indeed modified by Dr. Hooker in his remarks on the 
vegetation of the group, wherein the number of species differing from 
those of other countries is more properly stated to be one half the en- 
tire series; “a peculiarity shared by no other tract of land of equal 
size, excepting, perhaps, the Sandwich group.” The author further 
states the result of his examination of the plants of the Galapagos to 
have shown “ that the relationship of the Flora to that of the adjacent 
continent is a double one, the peculiar or new species being for the 
most part allied to plants of the cooler parts of America, or the up- 
lands of the tropical latitudes, whilst the non-peculiar are the same as 
abound chiefly in the hot and damper regions, as the West Indian 
islands and the shores of the Gulf of Mexico; also that, as is the case 
with the Fauna, many of the species, and these the most remarkable, 
are confined to one islet of the group, and often represented in others 
by similar, but specifically very distinct congeners.” 

The geographical distribution of plants is one of the most interest- 
ing branches of botanical science; and to this subject these two 
papers are a very valuable contribution. Dr. Hooker enters at consi- 
derable length into the consideration of the mode by which each dis- 
trict of the earth, whether local or general, originally became possessed 
of its own peculiar vegetation, and the means whereby the seeds of 
certain plants were primarily transported and deposited in the locali- 
ties on which they have subsequently conferred some of the most 
striking features. These means of transport, as more peculiarly re- 
specting the Galapageian plants, he classes under the several heads of 
“ oceanic and aérial currents, the passage of birds, and man.” The 
conveyance of the majority of the littoral species, as well as of several 
of the non-littorals, is most probably due to the first-named of these 
agents; while such species as have small seeds, or seeds furnished 
with wings or other appendages, may be looked upon as well adapted 
for conveyance by the winds: and the agency of birds and ef man to 


26 


the same end is well known. Dr. Hooker describes the course of the 


principal oceanic currents by which many of the Galapageian plants 
have probably been conveyed to their present localities; and con- 
cludes this part of his essay by showing the adaptation of the seeds 
of several plants for transportation, arranged under their natural 


orders, as follows :— 


“ Menispermee.—Cissampelos presents a hard inner coat of the 
pericarp. Albumen scanty, fleshy. 

“ Crucifere.—Senebiera didyma, the only Galapageian species, 
forms an exception to the general rule, that the plants of this 
order are impatient of transport from the oily nature of their 
cotyledons; it is, as DeCandolle remarks, probably a native 
of Buenos Ayres, whence it has been diffused over nearly all 
the globe, and is continuing to spread. 

“ Curvembryose.—An artificial group, sufficiently natural, however, 
for the present purpose. Seeds very minute in some, as Dry- 
maria and Mollugo. The Chenopodee, Phytolaccee and 
Portulacee have a constitutional predilection to salt water. 
Albumen farinaceous in the greater part of the Galapageian 
genera. 

“ Malvacee. — Indurated pericarp of many. The floral envelopes 
of Malachra are well adapted to stick to various means of 


transport. 
“ Sapindacee.— Crustaceous testa and exalbuminous seed of Car- 
diospermum. 


_“ Zygophyllee. — Tribulus cistoides offers singular advantages for 
transportation in its woody seed-vessels, their spines beset 
with reversed prickles, and exalbuminous seeds. 

“ Xanthoxylee.—Osseous testa of Xanthoxylum. 

“ Simarubee. — Castela has a crustaceous endocarp and scanty al- 
bumen. 

“ Leguminose. — Generally firm testa, exalbuminous seeds, and 
great power of some to retain vitality. 

_“ Rubiacee.—The densely corneous albumen of many may afford a 
sufficient protection to the seed. 

“ Umbellifere.—Helosciadium laciniatum is one of the few species 
enjoying a wide range, for which I can offer no explanation. 

“ Composite.—Exalbuminous seed. Pappus of Baccharis and ad- 
hesive pubescence of Siegesbeckia orientalis. 

“ Lobeliacee and Scrophularine. — Very minute seeds of Scoparia 
dulcis and Lobelia Xalapensis. 


27 


“ Rhizophora, Avicennia and Scevola—tThese all have a predilec- 
tion for salt water, and constitutional power in the embryo of 
resisting its destructive effects. Scavola has a hard putamen 
and scanty carnose albumen; the other species are exalbu- 
minous. 

“ Apocynee.—Vallesia I believe to be a salt-marsh or sea-side plant; 
it has a scanty albumen. 

“ Convolvulacee. —These have a scanty mucilaginous albumen. 
Two of them, Ipomea maritima and Calystegia Soldanella, 
are sea-side species, with particularly wide ranges. 

“ Solanee.— Small seeds and adhesive glands of Nicotiana gluti- 
nosa; indurated osseous testa of Dictyocalyx, Solanum and 
Lycopersicum. 

“ Verbenacee. —Exalbuminous embryo and osseous endocarp of 
Clerodendron and Lantana. 

“ Labiate, Cordiacee and Boraginee.—Nucumentaceous pericarps 
and very scanty albumen. Cordia and Boraginee are exal- 
buminous. 

“ Acanthacee.—Exalbuminous hooked seeds. 

“ Plantaginee.—Very dense corneous albumen. 

“ Plumbaginee and Plantaginee.— Viscid glands on calyx, and 
hooked prickles of some Pisoniz. 

“ Huphorbiacee and Urticee.— Non-peculiar species of these may 
have been introduced through the agency of man into Charles 
Island. 

“ Hypoxidee and Commelinee offer no apparent facilities for the 
extraordinary range of the two species that represent these 
orders. 

“ Cyperacee. — These have some facilities for adhesion to foreign 
substances, and the firm nature of the pericarp, further covered 
by the coalescing scales of the perianth, are protections. 

“ Graminee. — The ciliated glumes of Poa ciliaris and the awns of 
Setaria Rottleri are the only very evident aids to migration 
which I can adduce. The resistance of the seed to the ac- 
tion of salt water must be very slight indeed. 

“ Oryptogamia. — The excessive minuteness of the sporules in this 
ereat class, together with the sporadic appearance of these 
where they are most minute, and the sudden development of 
others in suitable situations, leave little doubt that their dif- 
fusion by the winds is a never-ceasing though invisible ope- 
ration. 


28 


“From the above it appears, that of the species presumed to be in- 
troduced into the Galapagos through various agencies, about 40, or 
nearly so, have exalbuminous seeds; and of the 50 albuminous-seed- 
ed ones, the majority have that substance dense or carnose ; some 
farinaceous, but only two or three oily. These results agree to a con- 
siderable extent with what the gardener practically deduces, from the 
success or failure which attends the planting of seeds from foreign 
climes. The Leguminose and Solanezx, the very two orders the 
Galapagos’ proportion of which shows so undue an amount of conti- 
nental American species, are in miscellaneous collections of seeds, 
those which best retain their vitality during long voyages.” — p. 256.. 

This paper is concluded by comparative enumerations of the spe- 
cies found in the islands of this group. 

XI. On the Ambrosina ciliata of Roxburgh. By the late William 
Griffith, Esq., F.L.S., &c. 

An exceedingly curious plant, belonging to the Aroidez, and sepa- 
rated from the genus Ambrosina by Fischer, by whom the generic 
name of Cryptocoryne was conferred upon it. Many peculiarities are 
exhibited by the seeds of this plant during the progress of develop- 
ment, not the least curious of which is the spontaneous separation of 
the cotyledon from the embryo, about the period of the dehiscence of 
the fruit. This circumstance presents an exception to the general 
law of the necessity for the presence of cotyledons. Mr. Griffith, 
however, and apparently with justice, says he is “inclined to think 
from this and some other instances, that the presence of a highly de- 
veloped plumula occasionally obviates this necessity,” as is most pro- 
bably the case with the present plant, in which the plumule is 
enormously developed. Three plates are filled with details of the 
anatomical structure of the plant and its organs of impregnation and 
of reproduction in their various stages of development. 

XIV. Description of the Asafoetida Plant of Central Asia. By 
Hugh Falconer, M.D., F.L.S., &c. 

The plant here fully described under the name of Narthex Asafce- 
tida, is the Ferula Asafcetida of Linnzus, and the Asafoetida Disgu- 
nensis or “ Hingisch” of Kempfer; and is believed not “to have 
been met with since it was examined in situ by that excellent and 
careful observer upwards of a century and a half ago.” Dr. Falconer 
met with it “ growing wild in the valley of Astore, one of the subordi- 
nate valleys of the Indus, behind Cashmere, about the middle of 
September, 1838, when returning from an exploratory journey into 
the Thibetan region of central Asia.” It was then dried up, and the 


29 


fruit ripe, so that neither Dr. Falconer nor Kempfer was able to find 
the plant in flower. Seeds subsequently procured from the Astore 
station were distributed to several gardens in this country by Dr. 
Royle; some of these have vegetated in the Edinburgh Botanic 
Garden. 

XV. Account of Gamoplexis, an undescribed Genus of Orchideous 
Plants. By Hugh Falconer, M.D., F.L.S., &c. 

This genus is named Gamoplexis from the cohesion of the segments 
of the perianth into a nearly regular six-cleft flower, and affords the 
only known example in this order “of the union of all the divisions 
of both whorls of the floral envelope into a monophyllous perianth.” 

“Gamoplexis appears to be a true parasite, but after a peculiar 
fashion, which disguises the habit. The tuberous rhizoma emits no 
root-fibres by which to fix itself on other plants, but is itself matted 
over by their slender rootlets, which ramify upon it in every direction 
slightly imbedded in its surface, to which they adhere with great te- 
- nacity, especially to the scarious margins of the abortive sheath-annuli, 
giving rise to the appearance of the plant being the subject of a para- 
sitical growth rather than a parasite itself. This I observed in nume- 
rous instances; but other cases occurred to me in which the surface 
of the tubers presented no appearance of the kind; and Unger, in his 
memoir on parasitical plants, affirms that no true instance of parasiti- 
cal growth occurs among the Monocotyledones.” 

This is a splendid orchid, three feet high, the stem being perfectly 
erect, leafless, with a few sheathing scales, and rising from among the 
decaying leaves at the roots of trees, like our own Neottia Nidus-avis, 
which was long believed to be parasitical, its true habit being de- 
scribed by Mr. Leighton in his ‘Shropshire Flora, as quoted in 
Phytol. 1. 25. 

L. 


Haig? setgolon ya Sail 


Occurrence of Linaria supina at Hayle; and Lastrea recurva 
throughout Cornwall. By THomas WestcomBeE, Esq. 


WHEN in Cornwall in the 8th month last, I observed Linaria supina 
growiug rather abundantly on the sides of the embankment at Hayle, 
and if not indigenous in that part of the country, it is certainly well 
naturalized. 

NOP 111: EF 


30 


I noticed Lastrea recurva almost throughout the county of Corn- 
wall, but particularly abundant about Penzance. I did not see a 
plant of it in Devonshire. 

THOMAS WESTCOMBE. 

Worcester, Ist mo. 6th, 1848. 


Revivifying Property of the Leicestershire Udora. 
By Miss M. Kirsy. 


THE other day I was wishing to make an alteration in the arrange- 
ment of a specimen of the Leicestershire Udora or Anacharis that 
had some months since, pasted upon paper, taken its place in my 
herbarium. On damping the paper for the purpose of disengaging 
the specimen, my attention was attracted by the avidity with which 
the plant absorbed the moisture. Upon this I plunged the specimen 
into water, and had much pleasure in seeing it (with the elasticity of 
a moss) speedily restored to its original beauty and freshness. Should 
the Udora of India possess this power of revivification, it may, in the 
art of sugar-refining, be made serviceable more than once. Wisin 
the last stage of sugar-refining that the Udora is used; it is laid upon 
the loaves, and the water slowly running through, washes the sugar 
from all remains and tinge of the treacle. This process is repeated 
four or five times, according to the nature of the sugar, &c. The 
plant is of no other use than to retain the water, and prevent its run- 
ning too rapidly through the mass, by which too much of the sugar 
would be dissolved. 

Pipe-clay carefully mixed up with water, or a sponge dipped in 
water, acts in the same manner. See Prof. Brande’s ‘Manual of 
Chemistry,’ &c., &c. 

I leave it to your judgment to decide whether the above is too tri- 
vial a circumstance for the Phytologist’s notice. JI am ignorant whe- 
ther the fact is already known, and whether the plant is consequently 
used more than once, therefore mine is a suggestion only. 

Mary Krrpy. 


Friar Lane, Leicester, 
January 10th, 1848. 


Jl 


Further Remarks on the Subject of Viola flavicornis. 
By Epwarp Forster, Esq., V.P.L.S. 


I po not wish to trouble you or your readers with the difference 
of opinion still existing between Mr. Hewett C. Watson and myself 
in regard to Viola flavicornis (vide Phytol. iii. 1020), nor should I do 
so, had he not called on me to show, if I can, that his Surrey violet, 
No. 3, differs from Viola flavicornis “to any describable degree.” I 
answer, I think I can. 

First, because in two specimens of the Surrey violet, No. 3, from 
St. George’s Hill, which Mr. Watson favoured me with, the leaves are 
ovate lanceolate, not heart-shaped, though it is true that on one of 
them a leaf or two show a very slight tendency at the base to become 
so: on the other specimen not one can I discover. 

Secondly, because in the specimen of the dwarf violet, No. 4, every 
leaf is decidedly heart-shaped, obtuse, as described by Smith and fi- 
gured by Sowerby. If I recollect rightly, they are all so in the au- 
thentic specimen in the Smithian herbarium. Whether these are 
describable differences I leave to the public to determine. Mr. Wat- 
son may say they are not, as he has not alluded to the shape of the 
leaves, nor does the word heart-shaped once appear in his remarks. 
This investigation leads me to think that the Surrey violet, No. 3, is 
the typical form of Viola lactea, and not a variety as I had conceived. 

I have endeavoured to express myself plainly, hoping to be under- 
stood; if 1am not, I cannot help it, and Mr. Watson must go on 
persuading those to whom he has distributed the Surrey violet that 
he has not misled them by naming it V. flavicornis. If any one 
should deign to ask my opinion, I shall not be able to help answering: 
I still think that he has. 

Epwarp Forster. 


Woodford, 10th January, 1848. 


Fact illustrating Mr. Rainey’s Observation that Crude Sap ascends 
through portions of a Plant which have lost their Vitality. 
By Isatan W. N. Keys, Esq. 


Upon reading in a late number of the ‘ Phytologist’ (Phytol. ii. 1027) 
that portion of the extracts from Mr. Rainey’s work on the Ascent of 
the Sap, &c., which describes his experiments to prove the passage of 


32 


the crude sap through tissue deprived of vitality, | was reminded of a 
phenomenon corroborative of his conclusions, afforded by the growth 
of shoots from the extremities of apparently lifeless stems of Stellaria 
holostea. 

In numerous cases the writer has observed dry and brittle stalks 
of this plant, two feet or more in length, surmounted by recent 
branches in full vigour, and producing flowers as well as foliage in 
luxuriance. He deems this an interesting fact in connexion with Mr. 
Rainey’s experiments, inasmuch as it exhibits Nature operating wont- 
edly, but secretly, in a manner analogous to that which she adopts 
under unwonted circumstances in the laboratory. 

The writer has often pondered the phenomenon which he now re- 
cords, but has never arrived at a satisfactory conclusion. It seemed 
to him a lusus nature. The theory of Mr. Rainey unravels the 
mystery. 

IsaraH W. N. Keys. 

Plymouth, 12th January, 1848. 


Seasons of the Flowering of Plants sometimes incorrectly given by 
our Standard Authorities. By Isatanh W. N. Keys, Esq. 


I HAVE found that the flowering seasons of some of our plants are 
not so correctly given in the various works on the Flora of Britain as 
could be desired. It would be impossible, undoubtedly, from the 
variableness of seasons, to fix exact periods, but might not a closer 
approximation than we have realized be attained ? 

Many inconveniences, obvious to all collectors of plants, arise from 
imperfect or inaccurate information in this ¢éem. 

I am prompted to offer these remarks on the present occasion in 
consequence of having observed in this neighbourhood, a few days 
since, some fine specimens in flower of Koniga maritima. I have 
referred to several authorities: they all set down “ August and Sep- 
tember” as the months during which this plant blossoms. In the 
course of my short botanical experience I have encountered similar 
anomalies. 

I may add that, in a walk to-day through Saltram Woods, I ga- 
thered several flowers of Vinca minor. Hooker and Babington 
(those gentlemen will excuse my using their names thus familiarly) 
both give “May and June” as the months when this plant is in 


33 


bloom. The present winter has certainly been hitherto unusually 
mild, a circumstance which may be urged to account for the early 
appearance of the flowers in question. I have, however, invariably 
found them plentifully in February or March at the latest, and believe 
that in this neighbourhood at least, they are “few and far between” 
in the months mentioned by the above authors. 

Should these instances be thought worthy of notice in your pages, 
we may hope for revision in even this subordinate department of bo- 
tanical description. 

TIsaraH W. N. Keys. 

Plymouth, January 12th, 1848. 


Death of Mr. James Cruickshanks, a Contributor to the ‘ Phytologist.’ 


Diep, at the Crichton Institution, near Dumfries, on the 3rd De- 
cember last, in the prime of life, Mr. James Cruickshanks, Associate 
of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh. The deceased was an excel- 
lent botanist, and particularly skilled in the obscurer Cryptogamia. 
In the Musci and Hepatice he was remarkably well versed, and had 
accumulated a very extensive and complete collection of the British 
species in these interesting orders. Nor were his acquirements con- 
fined either to Botany or the other departments of Natural History : 
he was no less eminent as an artist, a musician and a linguist. A1- 
most wholly self-educated, and with a constitution much impaired by 
disease, he gave striking proof of what may be accomplished in the 
pursuit of knowledge under the greatest disadvantages of health and 
opportunity. In his personal character Mr. Cruickshanks was no 
less estimable. A pious son, a most faithful friend, generous, modest, 
and warm-hearted, his premature death is mourned as widely as he 
was known. PG: 

Dumfries, January 14, 1848. 


BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 


Friday, January 7, 1848.— John Edward Gray, Esq., F.R.S., 
President, in the Chair. 

Donations to the Library were announced from the Royal Agricul- 
tural Society of England, the President, Mr. John Miers, the Rev. 
W. A. Leighton, Mr. G. H. K. Thwaites and Mr. F. Crisp. British 


34 


plants had been received from Mr. Borrer, Dr. Bidwell, Dr. Steele, 
Mr. W. Mitten and Mrs. Russell. Mr. George Luxford, A.L.S., 
Lecturer on Botany at St. Thomas’s Hospital, Mr. J. W. Salter, F.G.S., 
of London, the Rev. W. A. Leighton, B.A., of Luciefelde, Shrews- 
bury, Mr. J. B. French, of Bath, and Mr. Davis, of Lindfield, Sussex, 
were elected members. 

Dr. Planchon communicated some remarks on Ulmus (see Phytol. 
ili. 834).—G. E. D. 


Remarks on the European Species of Ulmus. 
' By Dr. J. E. Prancuon.* : 


THE flattering manner in which the Botanical Society of London 
was pleased to receive my oral communication on the subject of the 
European, and more particularly the British species of Ulmus, induces 
me to present to the public the same observations in the more regu- 
lar and technical form required in scientific writings. 

Botanists differ widely in opinion as to the existence of Ulmus 
campestris and Ulmus montana as distinct species: some regard 
them as constituting a single species; others divide them into many ; 
and almost all overlook the real and indubitable marks by which Na- 
ture has stamped their title to stand as independent and immutable 
members of creation. The distinctions to which I allude are to be 
found in the figures, if correct, which represent these plants in a state 
of fructification, but the merit of pointing them out as tangible, essen- 
tial, specific characters belongs, I believe, originally to Gaudin, who, 
in this and other cases, has given us additional evidence that Nature 
herself is the best of books for explaining Nature: the characters, 
from my own observations, when ignorant of those of Gaudin, are 
simply these :— 

In Ulmus campestris of Smith the cavity which encloses the seed 
or ovulum is always almost contiguous to the emarginate apex of the 
samara or ovary ; hence the samara is more or less cuneate-oblong or 
obovate. 

In Ulmus montana of Withering, the same cavity is always placed 
a little below the middle of the samara or ovary and far from its 
emarginate apex; hence the samara is more or less elliptical. 

Such is the main distinction which it was necessary to point out: 


* Addressed to G. E. Dennes, Esq., Sec. Bot. Soc. Lond., by whom it is commu- 
nicated. 


35 


other less important characters will be recorded in the following 
diagnoses, to which I have added from my notes the intricate sy- 
nonymy of the two species, together with certain well ascertained 
localities. 

Ulmus campestris, Smith et pler. auct. 


Var. 


Var. 


= 


Var. 


Var. 


U. foliis brevius acuminatis, duplicato- vel subsimpliciter ser- 
ratis; floribus parvis, breve pedicellatis, 4-5-meris, laciniis 
perianthii ciliatis, samaris obovatis vel oblongo-obovatis, gla- 
bris, apice breve. bifidis vel profunde emarginatis, loculo 
emarginature subcontiguo. 

a. vulgaris. Foliis rhomboideo-obovatis, 1-3-poll. longis, su- 
pra scabris, subtus pubescentibus. 

Ulmus campestris, Smth, Eng. Bot. 1886, forma samarz 
cuneato-oblonga, sinu emarginature aperto, et Ulmus sube- 
rosa, Smith, 1. c. 2161, forma samare breve obovata sinu 
emarginature clauso. 
campestris et Ulmus suberosa, Gaudin, Fl. Helv. ii. 
262. Lindley, Syn. of Brit. Flor. 226. 
campestris a. et P. Spach in Ann. des Sci. Nat. 
2éme ser. xv. 365. 
pumila, Pall. Fl. Ross. pro parte quoad stirpem 
Sibiricam arborescentem. 

8. major, Spach. Omnia prioris, nisi folia, sicut flores et sa- 
mare, majora. 

major, Smith, Eng. Bot. 2542. Lindley, Syn. 226. 
Hollandica, Mill. ea Smith. 

y. levis, Spach. Foliis plus minus coriaceis, supra glaber- 
rimis vel scabridis, nitidis, levibus, subtus preter nervorum 
axillas barbatas glabris, duplicato- vel subsimpliciter serratis, 
junioribus, sicut stipule et samarz, glandulis substipitatis 
sparsis. 

Ulmus campestris, y. levis, Spach, 1. c. 
glabra, Mill., Smith, Eng. Bot. 2248. 
glabra et carpinifolia, Lindley, Syn. 226. 
pumila, Pall., pro parte quoad stirpem Caucasicum 
arborescentem. 

Sarniensis, Loddiges, fide herb. Lindl. 
0. fastigiata, Spach. Omnia precedentis, sed rami erecto 
fastigiati, et folia interdum cuspidata. 

Ulmus campestris, © fastigiata, Spach, 1. c. 
stricta. Lindl. Syn. 227. 


36 


Has. Throughout almost the whole of Europe from Gottland to 
the Mediterranean, and perhaps, if the Ulmus campestris, Desf, be- 
longs to this species, extending even to Mauritania; also in the 
Caucasian region and in Siberia! But its geographical limits are 
nowhere fixed. Var. a2. Sweden; Oland, Fries, herb. norm.  Scot- 
land, according to Sir William Hooker, who informs me that it is only 
cultivated there, whereas U. montana is commonly wild. England ; 
no doubt common, but as a special locality recommended to the no- 
tice of British botanists, I may observe it is the only form I have seen 
about Kew, in Surrey. Germany, Koch. Hungary, near Buda, 
Herb. Lindl. Switzerland, Valais, Gaudin, Flor. Helv. France, no 
doubt common; Montpellier, Benth. in Herb. Lindl. Siberia, 
Schlangin in Herb. Lindl. ex Herb. Prescott. Var. 8. seems to be 
known only in cultivation. Var. y. Sweden; Gottland, Fries, Herb. 
norm. in Herb. Hook. England; Essex, Forster ex Smith; Sus- 
sex, near Winchelsea, Herb. Lindl. ; Shropshire, near Ludlow, 
Herb. Lindl.; Suffolk, near St. Margaret’s, Herb. Lindl.; Cam- 
bridgeshire, Herb. Leman. France; Pyrénées or. et centrales, Haute 
Garvune, near St. Béat, Benth. in Herb. Lindl. ; Hérault, near Mont- 
pellier, Benth. ibid. Caucasus, Prescott in Herb. Lindl. ; Somehetia, 
Iberia et Karabagh, Szowttz in Herb. Hook. ; near Sarepta, Prescott 
in Herb. Lindl. Var. 9. Cornwall and north Devon, Lindley. 
France, cultivated in gardens according to Spach. 

Ulmus montana, Withering. 

U. foliis duplicato-serratis, cuspidatis, supra asperis, sub- 
tus pubescentibus ; floribus breve pedunculatis, 5-7-meris, la- 
ciniis perianthii ciliatis, samaris oblongo- vel late ellipticis, 
glabris, apice profunde emarginatis, sinu emarginature clauso, 
loculo infra vel versus medium samare sito, ab emarginature 
fundo longius distante. 

Ulmus montana, Wither. Arrang. ii. 275. Smith, Eng. 
Bot. tab. 1887; very good figure as to habit and leaves, but 
the fruits are smaller than in the usual state. Gaudin, Fl. 
Helv. ii. 263; the synonyms of Fl. Danica and Schkuhr 
do not belong to this plant. Mutel. Fl. France. iii. 174. 
Lindl. Syn. 227. 

campestris, L. herb.! but not likely of the Flora 
Suecica, since the species does not seem to be found in Swe- 
den. Willd. Arb. 391 et Sp. 11. 13824; with the exclusion 
of almost all synonyms. Ait. Hort. Kew. ed. 2, ii. 107; 


37 


with the exclusion of the synonym of Swensk. Bot. Benth. 
Cat. Pl. Lang. Villars, Dauph. ex Mutel. 

Ulmus campestris, a. Koch, Syn. ed. 2. 734, pro parte. 
campestris, a. vulgaris, Spach in Ann. des Sci. Nat. 
2éme sér. xv. 351 et in Suites d Buffon. ; figure of the fruit. 
Nees, jun. Icon. Fl. Germ. ii. tab. 34; as to the figure of 
the fruit. 
folio latissimo scabro, Good. in Gerard Hem. 1841, 

ex Ray, Hist. Pl. ii. 1426. 

Witch-elm, in many parts of England. 

Chichester elm of English gardens according to Dr. 
Lindley. 

Although the list of synonyms I have given is already too long, I 
might add to them some hundreds more, but this would be a task as 
useless as ungrateful. Jt is fortunate that botanists begin generally 
to prize facts much above quotations taken at random out of enig- 
matical books, and which, far from illustrating truth, swell every day 
the dark abyss of botanical errors. In all cases let it be remembered 
that in Nature all is perfection; in human works greatness itself is 
but a degree of weakness, and, instead of joining with those who 
deny the existence of species because they are not able to see their 
limits, let us rather apply ourselves to close investigation, and we 
shall perhaps, to use an expression of Mr. Watson, learn to make a 
difference between book-species, which are liable to changes, and real 
species, whose variations are bounded by immutable limits. 

Haxs.—Perhaps not rare through various parts of Europe and in Asia 
Minor, but almost everywhere confounded with the preceding, and 
for that reason the localities are not to be given in most cases on the 
authority of others. 

Scotland ; very common there, and perhaps the only species indi- 
genous, according to Sir W. Hooker; near Edinburgh and Loch Le- 
ven Island, near Kinross, Herb. Hook. England; in many places, 
but not so common as the preceding: Westmoreland, near Kendal, 
Dr. Stokes ex Wither.; Wancaster, near Warrington, Wilson in 
Herb. Hook. No. 1 et 2; Monmouth, near Wind-cliff, Zind. 
Herb.; Cambridgeshire, near Streatham, Leman, Herb. Ger- 
many; Ehrh. Exsic. No. 62, in Herb. Smith. Switzerland; rare 
there in the woods, but commonly cultivated, according to Gaudin: 
Valais, ubique inter Octodorum et Sideram, Gaud. Fl. Helv. France; 
Pyrénées, central. et orient., Benth. Cat. Pl. Langued. ; Dauphine, 


VOL. III. G 


38 


Mutel. Fl. Frange. Wungary; T. Lang, in Herb. Lindl. Asia Mi- 
nor; woody region, Awcher, No. 5321, in Herb. Hook. 

The above being only an extract from a more general memoir on 
the tribe of Ulmacez, which will shortly be published, time would 
not allow me to make further investigations on these two species of 
Ulmus. My only desire was to give a hint to those whose more spe- 
cial object is the study of European Botany. No society, therefore, 
could better forward my wish than that which began under your 
auspices, and whose end is to illustrate, by the best of all means, 
well-preserved specimens, the general Flora of Europe. 


J. E. PLANcHon. 
January, 1848. 


Explanations of some Specimens for distribution by the Botanical 
Society of London in 1848. By Hewett C. Watson, Esq. 


AGAIN, as in past years, I beg the Editor’s permission to convey 
through the pages of the ‘ Phytologist’ such needful explanations 
concerning certain of the specimens, now in course of distribution 
from the Botanical Society of London, as cannot be given to the 
recipients thereof by means of their labels only. In doing this, I 
may again, as in last year, congratulate the members on the improy- 
ing character of the Society’s distributions. No past season has ever 
brought so good a collection of specimens as that which is now in 
hand. ‘They are generally complete examples of their species, have 
been more carefully dried, and include a larger proportion of those 
local plants which are likely to be much applied for; and, further, 
they have been more correctly and more neatly labelled by their con- 
tributors, than were the specimens of any preceding year. 

In giving this favourable character to the aggregate collection, 
however, I write of it as it remains after the destruction of several 
thousands of specimens either supernumerary or unsuitable, or else 
labelled at variance with the “ Regulations” of April, 1846, a copy 
of which had been placed in the hands of each member, and the 
better observance of which might reasonably have been expected. 
The necessity for destroying so many specimens is greatly to be re- 
gretted, when we call to mind the time and personal trouble which 
must have been bestowed on the collecting, drying, and labelling of 
them, with a result so utterly useless to everybody. 

The destruction of some supernumerary specimens will hardly be 


39 


avoided, as this could only be prevented by such an amount of fore- 
thought and of botanical knowledge as cannot be looked for among the 
members in general. The Society sends out lists of the species which 
are likely to be wanted, or of which no specimens remain on hand. 
Some of these may be species of rather frequent occurrence, and of 
which very few specimens would suffice to meet the applications of 
the few members who would apply for them. But this circumstance 
of their frequent occurrence places them within the easy reach of 
several contributors, who therefore dry and send them to the Society 
in large numbers, and the aggregate amount includes probably ten 
times the number which will be applied for during several years. As 
an example of this, I may cite the Gentiana campestris, which was 
marked as a desideratum because there were no specimens of it in 
hand, and three or four young southern botanists had applied for it. 
In the ‘London Catalogue’ this species is followed by “16,” in the 
scale of rarity, which extends from 1 to 20; the latter indicating the 
highest degree of frequency, to which 16 makes a tolerably near ap- 
proach. Nevertheless, one contributor sent more than two hundred 
specimens, and as several others also sent about fifty each, the aggre- 
gate result exceeded five hundred specimens of a species, which is so 
little rare that not twenty of them may be applied for in the next three 
or six years. If the Society were to keep this large number of speci- 
mens, they would not only occupy so much space uselessly, but they 
would serve as an undisturbed breeding-place for those insect pests 
which become so troublesome among large collections of recently 
dried plants, and which rapidly spread after a first generation has 
come to maturity undisturbed. Now, if contributors would only 
make use of the data for judgment, placed before their eyes in the 
Society’s ‘Catalogue of British Plants,’ and dry and send few speci- 
mens of those species which are marked by high Nos., they might 
spare this waste of their own time and trouble, and turn their efforts 
to a more useful end. 

Another circumstance which leads to the destruction of many spe- 
cimens is found in the condition of the specimens themselves. Com- 
paratively few now require to be destroyed on account of that former 
carelessness in the drying which produced wrinkled up or badly 
coloured specimens; but great numbers are unavoidably destroyed 
on account of being too long for the Society’s paper in which the 
duplicates are kept for distribution; and a still greater number suffer 
the like fate on account of being only fragments, where full specimens 
might have been easily sent instead. The former defect is the result 


40 


of sheer inattention to the “ Regulations,” which expressly direct that 
specimens exceeding fifteen inches in length are to be folded or bent 
within that compass while fresh. The latter defect is more frequently 
to be attributed to botanical inexperience; for young botanists often 
seem totally unaware of the importance of full-length specimens. 
They send the flowering tops of plants, culms of grasses without 
leaves, the catkins of willows without the foliage, orchises without 
roots, or fragments of some sort, such as often prove quite insufficient 
to distinguish one species from another nearly allied species. 

In addition, there is so much of inconvenience and extra trouble 
caused by sending the specimens labelled contrary to the “ Regula- 
tions,” that all so sent are now destroyed at once, unless they chance 
to be examples of some very local species which the Society cannot 
well afford to throw away at the time. In this case the specimens 
may be retained and distributed ; the negligent contributor possibly 
receiving a less ample return for them, through getting a lower chance 
for rarities or novelties received in scanty numbers. I will give one 
example in illustration of the loss of time caused by an apparently 
slight neglect of the Society’s “ Regulations.” The duplicates are of 
course kept in the same arrangement as that in which their names are 
placed in the ‘ London Catalogue of British Plants,’ which is the key 
to the Society’s distributions. As fresh parcels accumulate on hand, 
the specimens are taken out and reduced into the same arrangement, 
preparatory to the placing of them in the general store. Under the 
most favourable circumstances, it occupies much time to sort and 
arrange the thousands upon thousands of specimens annually received 
from contributors. The process is done partly by the generic and spe- 
cific names, partly by their Nos.; and it thus becomes a point of much 
importance that the names and Nos. should instantly catch the eye, as 
sheet after sheet is raised in succession, and brings into view the spe- 
cimens on the sheet underneath. But, where the names and Nos. are 
obscured or concealed by the specimens, an interruption occurs in the 
process of sorting and arranging the sheets of specimens, by the ne- 
cessity of stopping in order to raise the specimens from the paper, and 
examine the labels behind or beneath them. -Experience alone can 
give any clear conception of the enormous waste of time that is caused 
by this one apparently trivial defect in the position of the labels. 
Equally troublesome is the omission of the Nos. altogether; for in 
that case the process of sorting is arrested until a copy of the ‘ Lon- 
_ don Catalogue’ may be got at, the proper No. ascertained, and then 
probably written on each of the defective labels. Now, as it is quite 


4] 


impossible for any contributor to misunderstand the direction about 
placing on his labels the corresponding No. of the species from the 
Catalogue, the omission can be ascribed only to a negligent (not to 
say, a selfish) disregard of the trouble and loss of time thereby caused 
to other parties, who give their unpaid services to the Society, and 
thus indirectly to the faulty contributor also. I trust that by thus 
openly calling the attention of contributors to the faults of their selec- 
tions, their specimens, or their labels, such faults may be less and less 
frequently committed, each succeeding year. And I may repeat that, 
notwithstanding the destruction of so many defective specimens this 
winter, there still remains an ample supply, most of which are truly of 
very high quality. Many of these, indeed, have been so well selected, 
and so well dried, that they render me quite ashamed of things which 
I have dried for my own herbarium, or contributed to the Society, at 
no very distant date. 

But I have already trespassed too far from the more immediate ob- 
ject of this communication, which is that of giving some explanations 
concerning any novelties, remarkable varieties, or doubtfully named 
plants, which the members may find in their parcels sent from the 
Society in 1848. 

A new edition of the ‘ London Catalogue of British Plants,’ having 
been published at the commencement of the present winter, almost 
everything and anything, hitherto ascertained to be British, can be 
applied for in the usual manner by members. Under the head of 
“ Novelties,” we class those plants which are not enumerated in the 
‘London Catalogue ;’ and such plants are distributed to the members, 
as far as specimens thereof can be obtained, whether asked for or not ; 
since, at the time of sending up their lists of desiderata, several mem- 
bers may still be unaware of the British discovery of those plants. It 
was hardly to be expected that anything could come under the cate- 
gory of “ Novelties,” so immediately after publication of the new Cata- 
logue; and yet there are three plants with apparent claims to be so 
designated and placed. In addition, there are some varieties which 
illustrate or throw light upon certain contested points in British 
botany. And there are also other specimens which cannot be label- 
led with sufficient certainty, and to which the attention of the recipi- 
ents may be advantageously or warningly directed. 

Udora verticillata (Aut.).—This peculiarly interesting discovery 
has been already made known to readers of the ‘ Phytologist’ 
(see Phytol. ii. 1050) ; and some additional explanations were 
given in the Preface for the same volume, stitched in the No. for 


42 


January of the present year. Various names have been conferred 
upon the plant, which are now supposed, however, to include vari- 
ous plants, specifically distinct, although confused in books. The 
Rev. A. Bloxam, to whom the Society is indebted for specimens of 
this and many other valuable plants, has used the unpublished name 
of “ Anacharis Alsinastrum” on his labels. Unfortunately, the spe- 
cimens are destitute of flowers, and sufficient only for about a tenth 
of the members; for so large a supply is now requisite in order to 
send to each member, that it becomes difficult to equal the demand. 
By next winter, a more numerous supply may be hoped for; and even 
in their flowerless state the specimens can be readily distinguished 
from all ether British plants. It will probably be found in various 
other counties besides Leicestershire ; and to those botanists who may 
wish to search for it without having seen specimens, I would rudely 
describe it as an aquatic monocotyledon, with verticillate leaves, and 
general appearance between Callitriche autumnalis and Potamogeton 
densus or perfoliatus, although with flowers more resembling those of 
Alisma. But in general form the Udora resembles the European 
Elatine Alsinastrum more than any other plant known to me, if we 
leave the flowers out of consideration. I might compare Udora with 
the American Mayaca, were it not that such a comparison would be 
like an attempt to convey some idea of the little known by reference 
to that which is probably less known. 

Salix ? (“new species? ”).—Among various other species 
of this intricate genus, Mr. Ward, of Richmond, sends specimens of 
one which he thinks may prove to be a novelty. The label intimates 
that Mr. Borrer refers the specimens to Salix aquatica, an opinion 
with which Mr. Ward does not concur. They are located from the 
neighbourhood of Richmond, Yorkshire. 

Myriophyllum pectinatum (De Cand.),—Mr. Notcutt, to whom the 
Society is indebted for a good supply of specimens, reported the dis- 
covery of this plant in the ‘Phytologist’ for last year (see Phytol. ii. 
1015). The specimens themselves may be received also as patterns 
of perfection; being good examples, well dried, and very neatly 
labelled; the absence of the No. being of course unavoidable on the 
label of a plant which was reported just too late to find place in the 
‘London Catalogue.’ According to the characters set forth in Koch’s 
Synopsis, some of the specimens might as correctly be referred to his 
variety ‘intermedium, as to his variety ‘pectinatum.’ Doubtless Mr. 
Notcutt might find the connecting links between this latter variety 
and the more typical form of M. verticillatum in the same locality ; 


43 


and I trust he will send a series for the herbarium of the Society. 
The first-sight similitude to M. spicatum is so strong, that other bo- 
tanists may have passed by it as such. 

Equisetum palustre (J.inn.), vars.—In the ‘ History of British 
Ferns’ Newman figures two varieties of this Equisetum, under the 
names of “polystachion” and “nudum ;” the former being a monstrous 
or very highly developed state, in which the branches become fructi- 
ferous; the latter being a depauperised state, in which the branches 
are few or wanting, and the whole plant dwarfish and less erect than 
ordinary. As these are connected by intermediate links with the 
normal plant, and are rather variations or states, than distinct varie- 
ties, they were omitted from the second edition of the ‘ London Cata- 
logue,’ like many other things, for sake of brevity and compression. 
Dr. Mateer has sent some capital examples of the ‘ polystachion’ 
form from Ireland; and Mr. Sansom has supplied some of the 
‘nudum,’ from the neighbourhood of Crosby, on the Lancashire 
coast. Comparatively few of Mr. Sansom’s specimens are so denuded 
of branches, as are those represented in Newman’s work, page 49, 
which nearly depicts the mountain form or variety, called “alpinum ” 
by Hooker and others. As their omission from the Catalogue will 
prevent applications for them, the specimens from Dr. Mateer and 
Mr. Sansom will be sent out like the novelties and other non- 
catalogued things. 

Primula vulgaris var. intermedia (Lond. Cat.).—The connecting 
links between the cowslip and primrose may be grouped under three 
principal forms; as is done in the ‘ London Catalogue.’ First, there are 
the caulescent primroses, which differ but little from the ordinary prim- 
rose (P. vulgaris or acaulis, of authors) except by having their umbels of 
flowers elevated on a common scape or peduncle, either with or with- 
out solitary flowers from the same root. Secondly, there are the in- 
termediate forms, in which the physical characters of colour, shape, 
pubescence and inflorescence are those of primrose and cowslip com- 
bined, although, on the whole, the characters of the primrose pre- 
dominating. Thirdly, there is a form, to be noticed under the next 
head, in which the characters are also intermediate, but nearer to 
those of the cowslip (P. veris or officinalis, of authors). Examples of 
the first of these three grouped varieties are not unfrequent; those of 
the second are much less so; those of the third, according to my ex- 
perience, very rare. The second and third are often applied for un- 
successfully by members, owing to the difficulty of procuring the wild 
specimens in sufficient numbers. By way of temporary substitute, I 


44 


have dried garden-grown examples of them, which may at least suffice 
to show the plants intended by the names to those botanists who have 
imbibed a prejudice (for so I must venture to designate it) against her- 
barium specimens obtained from gardens. It will be apparent from 
my dried specimens of the “intermedia,” that the colour and size of 
the flowers, the form of the calyx, and the pubescence, are truly inter- 
mediate; the inflorescence is perfectly umbellate and caulescent, as 
in the cowslip, but the pedicels are more upright at an early stage ; the 
corollas less concave than in the cowslip; the leaves nearer the prim- 
rose in outline. At the time of sending my specimens to London, the 
colour is perfectly preserved, but it will change by damp, and slowly 
by time. I may add, although the flowers and leaves are garden-grown, 
that the original root was a genuinely wild one. It is the plant whose 
seeds produced the heterogeneous assemblage of cowslips, primroses, 
&c., recorded in the ‘ Phytologist,’ 11. 217 and 852. 

Primula veris var. major (Lond. Cat.).—The explanations given 
with the preceding, apply in part to this plant. It is highly uncertain 
whether it should be placed as a variety of cowslip or of primrose. 
By its short and close pubescence, its umbellate and caulescent in- 
florescence, its short and broad calycine teeth, it is a cowslip; but in 
its paler-coloured flowers, less concave and larger, it diverges towards 
the primrose. The leaves are rather more like those of the primrose, 
particularly in the specimens distributed, which are accordingly 
labelled “ subvariety, with leaves like the primrose.” The plant which 
produced these specimens, came up from some self-sown seeds by the 
side of a wild plant of P. veris var. major, which had been transplanted 
into my garden, but which had leaves less like those of the wild prim- 
rose than are the leaves of its offspring. 

Experimental Primule.—In connexion with the preceding, I may 
also mention that I have dried many examples of the mixed assemblage 
of varieties produced from the seeds of ‘ Primula vulgaris var. inter- 
media,’ as recorded in the ‘ Phytologist, ii. 217. These are made up 
into twenty packets, each containing a few specimens, not sufficient to 
exhibit all the gradual steps of transition, but sufficient to show that 
there is a transition from genuine primroses to genuine cowslips. 
Even those botanists who refuse faith in the carefulness or exactness 
of the experiments on record, may see with their own eyes that the in- 
termediate links do exist. Indeed, they may be raised by anybody, 
may be seen in many gardens, or may be found wild by diligent search. 
Nevertheless, while I see no escape from the necessity of doing so, I 
am still somewhat reluctant to place cowslip and primrose as a single 


45 


species. The fact, once fairly admitted, of such extensive variation 
of a single species, must throw doubt upon thousands of supposed 
species as they now stand recorded and described in books. 

Veronica officinalis (Linn.) var.—These specimens are distributed 
in order to show a variation from the ordinary form of the capsule, 
which is truncate or rounded at the summit, instead of being deeply 
notched. In this state the plant becomes the link of connexion be- 
tween the ordinary V. officinalis and the very dwarf variety known as 
V. hirsuta, of Hopkirk. The specimens were collected on dry and 
sandy ground, on St. George’s Hill, near Weybridge, Surrey. Some 
of them run pretty near the ordinary obcordate capsule of V. officinalis, 
while others have the fruit completely obovate and entire. I have oc- 
casionally seen the latter form of capsule on quite luxuriant plants, 
though it is more usually found in those of stunted growth, and ap- 
proximating more towards V. hirsuta. 

Aspidium angulare (Sm.)—Mr. Thomas Moore sends a series of 
examples, numbered 1 to 7, from the neighbourhood of Guildford. I 
do not know why they are thus distinguished, but have placed them 
for distribution in sets, of which there are eight or ten. Some other 
varieties, such as Dr. Mateer’s Plantago maritima, with very long 
bracts, &c., &c., will sufficiently explain themselves, and need not de- 
tain us. I have still some few things to mention which are more or 
less doubtful. 

Hieracium maculatum (Sm.).—Mr. Bladon sends excellent speci- 
mens of a plant labelled under this name from Pont-y-Pool, Mon- 
mouthshire. They are doubtless examples of the plant which that 
gentleman mentioned in the ‘ Phytologist’ lately (see Phytol. ii. 927) ; 
and they have, as he stated, the radical leaves shrivelled or lost. 
Such, however, is hardly the normal character of the species to which 
they belong, namely, the H. vulgare of Fries. On walls, dry hedge- 
banks, and such-like situations, the radical leaves fade early ; but in 
the damper meadows and woods of the Highlands, and in the ordinary 
soil of the gardens in Surrey, the radical leaves are persistent through 
the summer. This difference may be readily seen in numerous 
other plants; for example, the common cereals, in dry and poor 
ground, or in rich and damp soils. As various species of Hieracium 
run into “maculatum” varieties, the name has not been kept in the 
second edition of the ‘ London Catalogue.’ For example, Hieracium 
sylvaticum maculatum is H. vulgare of Fries, in part, and Hieracium 
murorum maculatum is H. hypocheroides of Gibson; Hieracium 
Lawsoni maculatum has not acquired any other name on account of 


46 


its stained leaf, as far as I know, but is not uncommon in the localities 
for the unstained plant, or among garden seedlings from it. There is 
also a “ maculatum” variety of H. nigrescens, &c., &c. 

“ Mieracium denticulatum” and “ Hieracium subaudum.” —The 
former of these plants was sent some years ago by Mr. Croall, from 
the “foot of Glen Dole, Clova, Forfarshire ;” and the latter is sent by 
Dr. Mateer, from “ Cove Hill, County of Antrim,” Ireland. For my 
own part, I really feel uncertain by what names to call these Hieracia, 
but suspect they may belong to H. inuloides. I should be glad to 
learn what other botanists may think of them. The Clova specimens 
are very few. 

“ Viola Curtisii.”—Mr. Sansom has sent specimens of a Viola from 
the sand-hills of the Cheshire coast, near New Brighton. It is the 
dubious form mentioned in my ‘Cybele Britannica, page 183; and 
still, even with the very good specimens from Mr. Sansom before me, 
I feel quite unprepared to say whether it should be labelled by the 
‘London Catalogue, as Viola tricolor intermedia (136,c.) or as Viola 
lutea Curtisii (137,c.). The stipules are more lyrately than palmately 
pinnatifid, with the terminal lobe usually entire, occasionally crenate ; 
thus combining characters which are supposed to distinguish lutea and 
tricolor. 

“ Atriplex erecta ?”—Sent by the Rev. A. Bloxam, from the neigh- 
bourhood of Twycross, Leicestershire, thus interrogatively labelled. 
I think it most probably is the plant intended under that name by 
Hudson and Smith. It occurs abundantly in Surrey, but I have my- 
self not collected it for distribution, through feeling uncertain how it 
should be labelled. Mr. Bloxam’s specimens have been lying by for 
some years, and are now distributed rather,to ask than to give informa- 
tion. What is the species? 

“416,c. Sedum reflexum (Linn.).”—Under this name Mrs. Russell 
sends specimens collected on “ Tremadoc Rocks, Carnarvonshire,” by 
Miss Holland. Notwithstanding the name of “reflexum,” it would 
seem from the addition of the letter “c” to the number of that spe- 
cies, that Mrs. Russell considers the specimens to belong to S. rupestre. 
By what name should they be called? 

“ Tilia parvifolia (Ehrh.).”—Sent by Mr. Roby, from Little Mal- 
vern. The leaves are larger and less angular than I have usually 
seen those of T. parvifolia; and the specimens being in the flowering 
stage, the character of the fruit cannot be ascertained from them. 
They are distributed as “ doubtfuls;” but not in response to applica- 


AT 


tions for T. parvifolia through the ordinary desiderata lists. No cer- 
tain examples of T. parvifolia are in hand at this time for distribution. 

“ Salix Hoffmanniana ?”—Mry. Notcutt sends specimens interroga- 
tively labelled as this reputed species. Being only (female) catkins, 
without examples of the leaves, they will probably be of little use or 
assistance to any botanists; though, having been sent, the Society 
will distribute them with the other “ doubtfuls.” 

In addition to the preceding, which are specimens put apart to be 
sent to members, whether applied for or not, there are some few 
others on which I should wish to make a few remarks, although their 
names are enumerated in the ‘ London Catalogue,’ and the specimens 
will consequently be sent only to those who apply for them in the 
usual manner. 

Trifolium elegans (Savi).—I found this trefoil last summer in a field 
of Trifolium pratense, left for a second or autumnal crop, at Claygate, 
in the parish of Thames Ditton, Surrey. Some years ago I found it 
under similar circumstances, in a field between Moulsey Hurst and 
East Moulsey Church. It is doubtless imported with the seeds of the 
clover; but being of smaller size and trailing habit, any chance plants 
of it would be concealed by the clover during the growth of the first 
crop, and again when the second crop had well advanced. Barkhausia 
setosa occurred in the same field at Claygate. The specimens of 
neither plant are so good as might be wished ; the first mowing of the 
clover crop having mutilated the plants from which they were taken. 
By some error of pen or press the name of Trifolium elegans is follow- 
ed by “ L.” instead of “ Sav.”, in the ‘ London Catalogue, No. 1468. 

Viola lactea (Sm. Herb.).—The Society has to thank Mr. Sansom 
for sending several specimens of another Viola from the Cheshire 
coast, which is very little known, or if known, ill-understood by botanists. 
By Mr. Sansom the specimens are labelled “ Viola flavicornis.” I 
have taken the liberty of writing also the name of “ V. lactea, Sm. 
Herb.” across the end of the labels. I have no doubt that both these 
names mean the same plant; the name of flavicornis (Smith) apper- 
taining to a more dwarf state, and that of lactea to the very same 
plant (whether species or variety) in a more luxuriant or branching 
form. I carried some of Mr. Sansom’s specimens to Smith’s herbari- 
um, and found them correspond very closely indeed with the tolerably 
good series of V. lactea, labelled as such in his herbarium. But it is 
equally true that some two or three of the most stunted among Mr. 
Sansom’s specimens were undistinguishable from the ill-dried speci- 
men of V. flavicornis in the same herbarium. Moreover, let any 


48 


unprejudiced botanical eye compare Smith’s own specimen of V. flavi- 
cornis with the two smallest among his specimens of V. lactea, and 
that eye can scarcely fail to pronounce them identical. Mr. Forster 
is correct in referring the “Surrey violet” to V. lactea (see Phytol. ii. 
964); and I am equally so in referring it to Smith’s V. flavicornis 
(see Phytol. ii. 1021). Smith has described the same thing twice 
over, that is, under two names. In Babington’s Manual it stands un- 
der three names; first, as a mere synonym of his “ pusilla” variety of 
V. canina; secondly, under the name of “ Ruppii;” thirdly, as a spe- 
cies distinct from V. canina, under Smith’s name of “ V. lactea.” I 
think V. lactea (including Smith’s flavicornis) will prove to be a spe- 
cies distinct from V. canina of Linneus. 

Gnanthe silaifolia (Bieb.?)—Plenty of excellent examples of this 
species have been sent by different members; though few of them are 
sufficiently advanced to show the form of the mature fruit. Some few 
of Mr. Salmon’s specimens have fruit nearly full grown, and proving 
beyond all cavil that it has the callous base, and is nearly cylindrical 
in form, widely different from the figure given by Mr. Lees, and from 
the descriptions given by Ball. It is obvious from the Manual, that 
Mr. Babington still misunderstood this species even in 1847. 

Hieracium heterophyllum (Bladon).—There are no duplicates of 
this for distribution; but from specimens kindly sent for my own her- 
barium and that of the Botanical Society, I think I may safely say 
that it is the H. boreale of Fries. 

Filago gallica (Linn.).— This is the first time that British speci- 
mens of this very local, and perhaps not truly indigenous, species 
have been sent to the Society. They were collected by Mr. Varenne, 
in corn-fields, near Brerechurch, Essex, and doubtless will be deside- 
rata with most of the members. 

Carex montana, Sisyrinchiwm anceps, Vaccinium macrocarpum, 
Luzula nivea, and other rarities, native and introduced, have been 
liberally supplied by their respective discoverers. Of Leersia oryzoi- 
des, Malva verticillata, &c., the stock is scanty, and we must hope 
for more another season. Tragopogon porrifolius, Lobelia urens, 
Helianthemum Breweri and ledifolium, Galium Vaillantii, &c., &c., 
will still be in request, and the supply of these is plentiful, this year. 


Hewett C. WarTson. 
~ Thames Ditton, January 19, 1848. 


49 


Postscript —Since the foregoing pages were written, a supply of 
“ Hieracium heterophyllum” has been kindly sent to the Botanical 
Society by Mr. Bladon; so that members will now have the opportu- 
nity of judging for themselves whether it is or is not the H. boreale 
of Fries. The limited supply of Udora verticillata and Leersia 
oryzoides has likewise been increased by the addition of some good 
specimens from Mr. Borrer, who sends the Udora from the second 
(Hampshire) locality. 

I may likewise mention that the plant entered under the name of 
“ Ranunculus innominatus,” in the second edition of the ‘ London 
Catalogue,’ is the species alluded to in the ‘ Phytologist’ for last year 
(Phytol. ii. 854), and which is shown not to be R. tripartitus of Cosson 
and Germain’s Atlas, by the difference of the fruit, which better cor- 
responds with that of R. hederaceus. Mr. Westcombe has gathered 


the same Ranunculus in Cornwall. Hewett C. Watson. 
Thames Ditton, January 19, 1848. 


Notice of the ‘Annals and Magazine of Natural History, for the 
year 1847. Vols. 19 and 20, or Nos. 123 to 136. 


Two years ago it was strongly recommended by a friendly corre- 
spondent, that the ‘Phytologist’ should be rendered, “as nearly as 
possible, a complete record and index of all that is done or discovered 
in British Botany,” (see Phytol. ii. 382). And notwithstanding the 
clandestine attempts occasionally made by some few self-interested and 
selfish individuals, in order to prevent others from sending articles to 
this journal, or in the vain hope of restricting its circulation and influ- 
ence, the ‘ Phytologist’ has kept on a steady advance towards accom- 
plishment of the object proposed; so that it has now reached a point 
very little short of being the complete record recommended. Still, it 
cannot be wholly so without giving an occasional glance at the contents 
of such other periodicals as profess to be Journals of Botany also. Our 
notices of the more important of these, namely, the ‘London Journal 
of Botany, have been brought to the end of 1847. But our custo- 
mary report of the botanical contents of the Annals, the only 
other journal in which Botany is anywise a prominent feature, 
have fallen much in arrear; partly from its contents including little 
that could be deemed of special interest to British botanists; partly 
from other calls on time and attention. In the course of the year, in- 
deed, there have been some good articles on Botany in the Annals ; 
although these are chiefly translations from foreign publications, and 

VOL. IIT. 1 


50 


interesting to British botanists only in so far as they concern them- 
selves with general Botany also. The subjoined enumeration of the 
articles from the two volumes for 1847 will show this to be the case. 

Vol. 19, or Nos. 123 to 129. “A Supplement to ‘A Synopsis of 
the British Rubi,” by Charles C. Babington. “On the Development 
of the Lycopodiacee;” translated from Muller’s paper in the ‘ Bota- 
nische Zeitung.’ “ Achillea tanacetifolia (AJl.) ; its Discovery in 
England by Mr. John Hardy.” “A Note on the Chinese Indigo,” 
by Fortune; copied from the ‘Journal of the Horticultural Society.’ 
“On a Second Form of Fructification in Peysonnellia Squamaria,” by 
C. Montagne, in a letter to the Rev. M. J. Berkeley. “ Comparison 
of the Periods of Flowering of certain Plants in the early Spring of 
1846, in the Botanic Garden of Belfast and the Jardin des Plantes, 
at Paris,” by William Thompson, Esq. “Notice of a new species of 
Dawsonia,” by Dr. Greville. “Note on the Tea Plant of China;” 
copied from Fortune’s China. Account.of some “ Monstrous Roses ;” 
copied from a newspaper. 

Vol. 20, or Nos. 130 to 136. “On Conjugation in the Diatoma- 
cee,” by Mr. G. H. Thwaites. ‘“‘ Notice of Plants collected in Ca- 
nada,” by Dr. P. W. Maclagan. “List of Plants gathered in Iceland,” 
by Mr. C. C. Babington. “On the Power of the Living Plant to re- 
strain the Evaporation of the Cell-Sap;” translated from a paper by 
Mohl in the ‘ Botanische Zeitung.’ “On the Relative Duration of the 
Power to Germinate in Seeds belonging to different Families ;” trans- 
lated from a paper by Alph. De Candolle, in the ‘ Annales des Sci- 
ences. “On the Parasitical Nature of the Rhinanthacee;” translation 
of Decaisne’s paper in the ‘Comptes Rendus. “ Observations by L. 
C. Treviranus, on the Structure of the Fruit of Crucifere;” translated 
from the ‘ Botanische Zeitung. ‘ Description of two new Mosses 
from Jamaica,” by William Wilson, Esq. “ Diagnostic Characters of 
five new species of Cryptogamic Plants from Jamaica,” by Dr. 
Thomas Taylor. “Description of some Grasses and Sedges from 
the East Coast of Demerara,” by Sir Robert Schomburgk. 

An article which describes plants not previously on record as na- 
tives of Britain should be the first to challenge the attention of those 
interested in British Botany. But we fear that the discovery of “new 
British Rubi” is so easily within the reach of any botanist who will 
carry home individual specimens to be described as such, that even 
novelty here may have only feeble attraction; unless it be for those 
half-dozen ardent and able botanists who have latterly devoted their 
attention to these proteiform pests of our hedgerows. 


S| 


The occurrence of Achillea tanacetifolia near Matlock and Sheffield 
has been recorded in the ‘ Phytologist’ (Phytol. ii. 674); and the 
paper of M. Decaisne has also been placed before our readers (Phy- 
tol. 11. 1025). None of the other scientific articles seem to call for 
any special notice here. ‘The account of the “ monstrous roses” may 
have an interest for botanists who look for the facts of morphology 
‘second or third-hand in the study ; but the same or very similar mon- 
strosities may be seen any season in our gardens. 

The borrowed paper, intituled “ Enemies to Science among the 
Nobles,” refers to a matter of considerable interest to botanical col- 
lectors in the Highlands. We could wish the subject had fallen into 
better hands than those of that case-making vituperator of the High- 
land proprietors, who penned the article so little worthy of being re- 
printed in the Annals. We must certainly regret that the conversion 
of the wild wastes of the Grampians into deer-forests, to its other dis- 
advantages should also add that of excluding botanists from some of 
their favourite haunts. But it is simply a question of law and right 
between the proprietors and the public; for the pursuit of Botany can 
give no peculiar right of way over the grounds of another man, either 
to professor or to student, over and above the rights which may ap- 
pertain to them as individual members of the general public. It is 
mere calumny to designate our “Nobles” as “ Enemies to Science,” 
simply because they strive to preserve their own deer-forests undis- 
turbed by the presence of strangers, and do not make a special ex- 
ception in favour of students who go thither to collect plants. If such 
an exception were made in favour of those parties whose object is the 
pursuit of science, in any of its branches, the concession might be 
called liberal and graceful; but the withholding of it is at worst no 
proof of aught beyond simple indifference thereto. The author of 
the article contrasts the exclusions of the Highland proprietors against 
Prince Albert’s two visits, in 1846 and 1847, to the meetings of the 
British Association: he would have done better to ascertain first whe- 
ther the Prince’s game preserves are open to the feet of botanists. 
The writer of this page is writing almost within sight of some of those 
preserves, and has found them quite as much closed as the Grampians 
are asserted to be; and very inconveniently to himself, by obliging 
him to make wide circuits for avoidance of them in his herborizing 
excursions. But who could be so stultified or so false as to call 
Prince Albert an “Enemy to Science” because he cares more for 
pheasants than for the amusement of botanists ? C. 


52 


On the supposed Identity of the Muscus corniculatus of Gerarde 
with Asplenium septentrionale of Authors. By HEenry BULL, 
Esq. 


THE Muscus corniculatus of Gerarde (Ger. Em. 1561) is commonly 
given as a synonym for Asplenium septentrionale of authors. Should 
it be so?  Gerarde says of his plant, “it riseth forth of the ground,” 
whereas the habitat of Asplenium septentrionale is described by Sir 
J. E. Smith “ In fissuris rupium ;”* by Mr. Babington “ Dry clefts 
of rocks;”+ and by Newman as “only in the fissures of rocks and 
the interstices of stone walls;”{ and the plant is moreover further 
characterized by its growth —‘“in a horizontal position from a per- 
pendicular surface.”§ 

In colour the fronds of Asplenium septentrionale are described 
as “atro-virentes,”|| “dark green,” “dark dull green,”’** “ green 
throughout the winter,”’+t but “every part” of Gerarde’s plant was 
“ of an over-worne whitish colour.” The figure in Ger. Em. 1561, is 
undoubtedly that of Asplenium septentrionale. Johnson, however, 
tells us, “our author formerly gave another jigure and description of 
this plant by the name of Holosteum petreum, which I have omitted, 
thinking this the better.” The description (Ger. Em. 1561) applies 
admirably to any of the Cladoniz, to Cladonia uncialis, perhaps, more 
particularly, and this I cannot but think was the plant intended to be 
described. It is indeed “of an over-worne whitish colour,” or as Sir 
W. Hooker describes it, “pale yellowish white,”{{ very unlike the 
“dark dull green” of Asplenium septentrionale. There is evidently 
some confusion as to the figures, and it is not improbable that the one 
which was rejected by Johnson represented the true Muscus cornicu- 
latus, corresponding with Cladonia —-————? whilst that retained is 
the figure of Holosteum petreum, corresponding with Asplenium sep- 
tentrionale. The description having been omitted by Johnson, as 
he himself admits. 

The name Holosteum petreum would indicate a rupestral plant, and 
the Cladonia might well be named the “ little-horned moss” by 
Gerarde, who describes the allied lichens as “ chalice moss,” “ cup 
moss,” &c. 

Gerarde’s description of Muscus corniculatus has been already 


* Flor. Brit. iii. 1122. + Manual, 389. + Brit. Ferns, 269. 
§ Id. 273. || Flor. Brit. q Eng. Bot. ** Eng. Flor. tt Brit. Ferns. 
tt Eng. Flor. v. 235. 


53 


quoted in the ‘ British Ferns, I may, however, perhaps be allowed to 
quote it in this place. 

“There is found upon the tops of our most barren mountaines, but 
especially where sea-cales are accustomed to be digged, stone tu make 
iron of, and also where ore is gotten for tinne and lead, a certaine 
small plant: it riseth forth of the ground with many bare and naked 
branches, dividing themselves at the top into sundry knags like the 
forked hornes of a Deere, every part whereof is of an overworne whit- 
ish colour.” From this it will be seen that no mention whatever is 
made of the capsules, which are said to cover the entire lower surfaces 
of the fronds of Asplenium septentrionale when mature, and which 
may well be thought too conspicuous to have escaped the notice of 
the generally very accurate Gerarde. 


It may be further remarked that the great rarity of Asplenium 
septentrionale renders it extremely unlikely that so good a plant 
should escape detection in the many unlikely habitats that have been 
given for it by Gerarde, supposing it to be his Muscus corniculatus. 

I enclose specimens of Cladonia uncialis from Cove Common, 
Hants. 

Henry Bott. 

Portsmouth, January 20, 1848. 


On certain Forms or Species of Fruticose Brambles experimentally 
proved to be permanent. By Epwin LEEs, Esq., F.L.S. 


Mr. NEwMAN states in his preface to the last volume of the ‘ Phy- 
tologist’ that “Rubus still continues to be the most fashionable genus 
of British plants ;” I am glad that it is so, as attention will thus be 
brought to bear upon the subject, which it hardly could be while ri- 
dicule was captiously or by insinuation heaped upon any botanist 
who proposed to designate particular and supposed permanent forms 
of Rubi as species. As I have been long unfashionable in the regard 
I have paid for many years to the fruticose Rubi, I may as well just 
dash on the current while the tide flows, and state my own experience 
from the examination of some thousands of plants in the living state. 
This I propose to do on an early opportunity ; but as the subject has 
been mooted as to raising Rubi from seed, it is but fair to a humble, 
but honest and keen-observing man, to say that this has been already 
done in many instances. Let me then state the matter as it came to 
my knowledge. 


54 


Last summer, being with my friend Mr. W. Matthews, jun., spend- 
ing a few days at Park Hall, near Kidderminster, a botanical excur- 
sion was proposed into Wyre Forest, and Mr. Matthews suggested 
that.an old servant of Mr. Fryer’s, of Bewdley, who was well acquainted 
with the Forest, should accompany us as a guide. This individual, 
whose name is Jordan, a most honest and trust-worthy person, has a 
good deal of time on his hands, and besides waiting upon Mr. Fryer, 
manages his gardening affairs. Mr. Fryer having kindly dispensed 
with Jordan’s services, the old man came with us to look again at his 
favourite forest with great glee. But first of all he requested us to 
go to his garden, as he particularly wished me to see some brambles 
which he had raised from seed gathered in the forest, that he had 
carefully noted the bushes from which he took the fruit, and that in 
every instance the offspring precisely resembled the parent plant. 1 
was delighted to hear this, more particularly as Jordan had not been 
trusting to any nomenclature in the matter, and might have thus mis- 
taken a name; but as he truly said he knew all the brambles of the 
forest by sight, but their Latin designations were quite unknown to 
him. How long he had had brambles under cultivation I am unable 
to say, but he said that he always found that three years elapsed after 
planting the seed before the shrub produced flowers. 

I understood from Mr. Jordan that after satisfying himself that the 
seeds produced plants quite similar to their parents, he had been in 
the habit of grubbing them up, as he was obliged to economize room, 
so that all he had experimented upon were not then under cultivation. 
Those that I saw and examined in the garden were as under :— 

R. sylvaticus, W. & N.—Very characteristic, and precisely resem- 
bling the plants in the forest, as well as specimens I have gathered in 
Birchin Grove, Worcester. The very large leaves, green on both 
sides, of this form, and the stem trailing far upon the ground, render 
it very conspicuous in forest tracts. These leaves assume a brilliant 
red colour, and fade away long before the enduring, almost evergreen 
foliage of R. fruticosus. Totally distinct from any of the glandular 
brambles. 

R. sublustris, Lees, (in Steele’s ‘ Handbook of Field Botany ’).— 
This is the R. corylifolius of Babington, but being confounded by 
Sir J. E. Smith with R. dumetorum, W. & N., the term corylifolius, 
as deceptive, ought not in my opinion to remain. Weihe and Nees 
have it not in Rub. Germ., referring Smith’s plant to their dumetorum. 
The very smooth stem, however, only distantly armed, and the 
white pubescence of the leaves beneath, well distinguish it. The 


55 


flowers are often very large and specious. The garden seedling pre- 
cisely resembled wild hedge plants. I should remark that I have a 
specimen of this in my herbarium named by Dr. Lindley as “ perhaps 
R. affinis, VW. & N.”, and it is y. affinis of Leighton’s ‘ Flora of Shrop- 
shire” All these zames are truly puzzling enough to a student, and 
here the difficulty lies, but the plant remains the same, distinct 
enough to be known, if botanists would pore less over mouldy speci- 
mens, and look more to the growing plants in copse or hedge. 

R. hystrix, W. & N.—-Of all the glandulose Rubi, and their name 
is legion, this may be most certainly distinguished, as it is impossible 
to mistake its deeply jagged elliptical leaflets. It is also a very com- 
mon plant. Nevertheless, Mr. Babington calls it radula, but I can- 
not but prefer the former name, as our plant agrees so closely with the 
plate of hystrix in Rub. Germ. Mr. Jordan stated his garden seed- 
ling to agree with its wild parent, and the only difference appeared 
to me to be the somewhat smaller panicle. 

R. fruticosus, Auct—This common bramble was the only one that 
exhibited any symptoms of variation. It was three years old, yet ex- 
hibited no signs of flowering, though it had grown up pretty high. 
Being in the shade, the leaves were green on both sides, so that the 
first aspect of the plant was different to the usual appearance of 
fruticosus. I have, however, seen wild specimens in dark spots very 
similar, and indeed, in shady places, fruticosus, as I have noted, will 
send forth barren shoots two years successively, without flowering. 

As Mr. Jordan has further experiments in hand, I only now re- 
port progress as data for subsequent reasoning, and as proving that 
all is not barren of result even among brambles—“‘ ferat et rubus asper 
amomum.”* 


Epwin LEEs. 
Cedar Terrace, Henwick, Worcester, 


February 2, 1848. 


Still “ Further Remarks” on Viola flavicornis, in reference to those 
of Mr. Forster. By Hewett C. Watson, Esq. 

Mr. Forster has done me the honour to notice (Phytol. ii. 31) 
a question which I found occasion to address to him, while defend- 
ing my own views about Smith’s Viola flavicornis, &c., which that 
gentleman had opposed in the ‘ Phytologist.’ If the reply had been 


* Virgil, Ec. iii. 


56 


simply an answer to my real question, further discussion of the sub- 
ject might have been better dropped between us; since any competent 
botanist might then have been considered in a position to estimate 
the sufficiency of the reply. Unfortunately, the intended answer 
shoots far wide of the question, through the mystification of including 
two different things under one name only. For this reason, I feel 
called to self-defence still. 

I had stated certain characters (Phytol. 11. 1029) whereby Forster’s 
Viola flavicornis differs from Smith’s Viola flavicornis; and I then 
asked whether characters could be shown, whereby the disputed 
“Surrey violet” differs from Smth’s V. flavicornis “to an equal 
degree ?—or to any describable degree?” Mr. Forster replies to the 
latter moiety of the question, by saying that his two specimens of 
the “Surrey violet” differ from a specimen of the “ dwarf violet” 
(Forster’s flavicornis) in the form of their leaves. Thus, while I am 
asking for a distinction between A and B, Mr. Forster replies by 
stating a difference between A and C. No doubt this evading answer 
was made with perfect sincerity of intention, but it cannot be com- 
mended for its logic. 

In contrasting A and C, however, Mr. Forster uses the words “as 
described by Smith,” which are sufficient to intimate that B (Smith’s 
Viola flavicornis) was not wholly absent from his ideas at the time, 
although confused with and subordinate to C (Forster’s Viola flavicor- 
nis). I may presume, he intended to say that the difference which he 
finds between A and C, does also exist between A and B. On this 
presumption, I am to infer that Mr. Forster considers me wrong in re- 
ferring the “Surrey violet” to Smzth’s flavicornis, because the leaves 
of the latter are said to be cordate, obtuse ; whereas those of two spe- 
cimens of the former are “ ovate-lanceolate, not heart-shaped, though 
it is true that on one of them a leaf or two show a very slight tenden- 
cy at the base to become so.” (Mr. Forster’s words). 

Now, the leaves of the violets allied to V. canina are well known 
to be very polymorphous; and therefore I should scarcely have anti- 
cipated that so experienced a botanist as Mr. Forster would adduce 
this single character of two individual specimens, as a “ describable 
degree” of difference between two alleged species, without previous 
inquiry about the constancy of the character. The two specimens 
sent to Mr. Forster, were such as I had loose by me at the time, and 
could I have foreseen the use which he would make of them, I should 
have warned him that two specimens could not show all the varia- 
tions of form to be found in the leaves of the species to which they 


57 


belong. Indeed, I had expressly stated in my paper which called 
forth Mr. Forster’s reply, that there is “great variety of form and 
size, both in leaves and flowers.” Some time ago, other specimens 
of the “Surrey violet” were sent to Mr. C. C. Babington, who refer- 
red them to his “ Ruppii,” described with “ cordate-ovate leaves.” 
Smith says the leaves are “heart-shaped, obtuse.” The descriptions 
of the three botanists run thus :— 

SmirTH ;—cordate, obtuse. 

BaBINGTON ;—cordate-ovate, slightly narrowed into petiole. 

Forster (1) ;—ovate-lanceolate, subcordate at base. 

Do. (2) ;—ovate-lanceolate. 
Each of these is correct, but partially so. What are the facts from 
nature? My herbarium includes some thirty or forty examples col- 
lected in this neighbourhood; and I find their leaves ranging from 
perfectly cordate to ovate-lanceolate. Mr. Babington’s term of 
“ cordate-ovate”’ is a good average, and might be applied to the 
larger portion; but on several dwarfed specimens (corresponding 
with the example of V. flavicornis in Smith’s herbarium) the leaves 
are truly cordate and obtuse. In conclusion, I beg to refer Mr. 
Forster to a paragraph on Viola lactea in the last ‘ Phytologist,’ 
namely, vol. ii. page 47. 
Hewett C. Watson. 
Thames Ditton, February 3, 1848. 


Occurrence of Carex punctata on the Cornish Coast. 
By Tuomas WestcomBE, Esq. 


AmonéGsr the specimens which I collected in Cornwall last sum- 
mer, I find that I have one of Carex punctata, Gaudin. Having 
been informed that the Cornish coast is a new habitat for it, and it 
being also a species which has but few recorded localities in this 
country, its occurrence there may be worthy of notice in the ‘ Phy- 
tologist.” The locality, as nearly as I can describe it, is by the side 
of the footpath on the face of the cliff on the coast south of St. Austel, 
and about three quarters of a mile westward of Charlestown. 

T. WESTCOMBE. 

Worcester, 2nd mo., 8, 1648. 


VOL. It. K 


38 


Cyperus fuscus erroneously supposed to be an Annual. 
By Tuomas Moors, Esq. 


I FIND it stated in Mr. Babington’s Manual and Mr. Steele’s Hand-- 
book, that Cyperus fuscus is an annual. This I believe to be an 
error; and I have come to this conclusion from the following direct 
and recent evidence. 

In the autumn of 1847, I visited the Shalford locality of the Cype- 
rus, and found it abundant enough, just coming into flower. The 
plant had what we gardeners are in the habit of considering as en- 
tirely the appearance of an annual. Some specimens were trans- 
planted, and grew, and flowered finely, perfecting plenty of seed, and 
ultimately dying on the approach of winter. The experiment of 
raising plants from seed, and noting their duration, would, of course, 
be conclusive, but this I have not yet made; nevertheless, there 
seems no ground to believe that the Cyperus fuscus is only of annual 
duration. 


THomas Moore. 
Camden Town, February 7, 1848. 


BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH. 


Thursday, November 11, 1847.—Dr. R. K. Greville, President, in 
the chair. 

Numerous donations to the herbarium were announced since last 
meeting; particularly, large collections of North American and West 
India plants from Dr. Gavin Watson, Philadelphia, and Dr. Gilbert 
M’Nab, Jamaica; Iceland plants from Chas. C. Babington, Esq. ; 
Gibraltar plants from Dr. Kelaart; English and Scottish from 
Dr. Dickson, Jersey, Professor Balfour, Dr. Robertson, and James 
Mitchell, Esq.; also a named collection of North American Grasses 
and Cyperacez, from Wm. Gourlie, jun., Esq. The thanks of the 
society were voted to the respective donors. 

The following communications were read :— 

1. Remarks on the Physical Geography of Styria, with particular 
reference to its Flora, by J. E. Oblach, Gratz. In this paper, the au- 
thor gives an account of the meetings of the German naturalists, and 
shows their important bearing on the advancement of science. He 
then proceeds to describe the physical features of Styria. After 


59 


noticing the general aspect of the province, its geological formation, 
and the nature of its climate, as regards temperature and moisture, he 
alludes to its vegetation, as divided into a northern and southern 
Flora. 

In the forests of Upper Styria, he states that the pine tribe pre- 
vails;—the species being Pinus sylvestris and Picea, Abies com- 
munis, Larix europexa, and in the higher regions Pinus Cembra and 
Pumilio; Taxus baccata occurs generally in scattered patches, but 
forms whole forests upon the Ketbeuze, near St. Lambrecht. Among 
the other trees of the district mentioned are Fagus sylvatica, Betula 
alba, Acer Pseudo-platanus, Populus tremula, alba and nigra, Sorbus 
Aucuparia, Fraxinus excelsior, Alnus glutinosa, &c. He then enume- 
rates some of the Alpine species, and concludes by stating that the 
harvest in this part of the province is in September and October, and 
is not unfrequently gathered from under the snow; buckwheat form- 
ing the first crop. In Lower Styria the vegetation is of a less Alpine 
nature, but is very rich. The vine and maize are universally culti- 
vated, and buckwheat forms the second crop. 

2. Dr. Greville exhibited beautifully prepared specimens of (nearly) 
all the British species and varieties of the genus Sphagnum, and gave 
a verbal notice regarding them. 

3. A specimen of Phalaris utriculata, gathered by J. Hussey, Esq., 
in the corner of a corn-field near Swanage, Salisbury, was exhibited. 
The specimen was sent by Dr. Hole, a non-resident member of the 
society. 

4. Beautiful specimens of Pimpinella magna, from the banks of the 
Teith, Perthshire, were sent by Dr. Dewar, who discovered it. This 
plant occurs in many places in England and Ireland, but this is the 
only known Scottish locality. Sir J. E. Smith mentions a Scotch 
specimen as existing in Bruce’s herbarium, but gives no particular 
habitat. 

5. Dr. Balfour mentioned the discovery of Carex leporina near the 
summit of Cairn Toul, between three and four thousand feet above the 
level of the sea, by his party, on the 14th August last. This is the 
second known station for the plant in Britain. 

6. Specimens of Anacharis Alsinastrum, Bab. MSS., found near 
Market Harborough, Leicestershire, by Miss Kirby, were shown in a 
living state; and a dried specimen of this new British plant was pre- 
sented to the Society’s herbarium by Mr. Babington. A full descrip- 
tion will be afterwards given. | 

7. Read a communication from W. Wilson, Esq., on Pilotrichum 


60 


funale and Omalia lentula, two new mosses from Jamaica, transmitted 
by Dr. G. M’Nab. 

8. Descriptions of Plageochila subbidentata and Parmelia ochro- 
leuca, two new lichens also sent by Dr. M’Nab from Jamaica: and 
of Leskea angustifolia, Phragmicoma affixa, and Radula Grevilleana, 
new species from Jamaica in Dr. Greville’s herbarium, by Dr. Taylor, 
Dunkerron ; specimens were exhibited to the meeting. 

Mr. Absolon sent a large specimen of Lolium temulentum from 
fields near Forfar. 

Thursday, December 9, 1847.— The Rev. Dr. Fleming, President, 
in the chair. 

Donations to the herbarium were announced from Mr. O. W. Son- 
der, Hamburgh; Mr. Joh. Lange, Copenhagen; Dr. Jessen, Kiel; 
Mr. J. T. Syme, Edinburgh; and Mr. P. Gray, Dumfries. 

The following communications were read :— 

1. On Anacharis Alsinastrum, a new British Plant, by Chintes C. 
Babington, Esq., with a Synopsis of the other Species of the Genus, 
by Dr. J. C. Planchon. 

2. On the Reproduction of Cryptogamic Plants, by the late Wm. 
Stark Dougall, Esq., communicated by Dr. Balfour. 

The first part only of this paper was read, viz., “ On the Mode of 
Formation of Spores in Algz and Characez.” 

In the introductory remarks the author examines the opinions en- 
tertained by botanists as to the existence, in these plants, of bodies 
equivalent to the stamens and pistils of the higher orders of vegetables. 
The arguments in favour of their existence are, the presence in the 
same or different individuals of two kinds of cells, the union of which 
in some way appears to be necessary for the production of germinat- 
ing spores. These cells sometimes exist im the same cavity, so that 
the functions cannot be always easily detected. At other times they 
are separate. In the latter case, the spores are occasionally produced 
by the actual conjugation of two individuals of the same species. 
The spores, when first discharged, frequently exhibit ciliary move- 
ments, like those seen in the ova of animals. And lastly, the cells 
representing anthers often contain Phytozoa, or moving bodies similar 
to the Spermatozoa of animals. 

The reproduction of Alge is then brought under consideration as 
observed in Diatomaceze and Confervacex, with their cell-division, 
conjugation and development of endochrome; in the Fucacee and 
Ceramiacez, with their antheridia, spores and tetraspores; and in 
Characez with their globule and nucule. 


61 


In regard to the latter tribe, the following points are noticed as fa- 
vouring the opinion that the globule may be compared to an anther 
and the nucule to the pistil. Their co-existence and close proximity 
—the opening of the valves of the globule to allow the escape of fila- 
ments and Phytozoa (similar to those of Fuci, which Thuret and 
Decaisne have shown to be connected with staminal functions)—the 
existence of an opening at the apex of the nucule allowing communi- 
cation with the interior—the capability of germination in the contents 
of the nucule when mature — and the decadence of the globule prior 
to the ripening of the nucule. 

The second and third parts of the paper on the reproduction of the 
other orders of cryptogamic plants were deferred till a future meeting. 

Dr. Balfour read a communication from Mr. Charles Lawson, jun., 
relative to the cultivation of potatoes by cuttings of the herbaceous 
stems. Six cuttings were planted on 16th June, 1847, kept in a warm 
frame for six weeks, then planted out, and they produced twenty tu- 
bers of very considerable size, one of which was exhibited. The 
communication was accompanied by a report from Mr. Alexander 
M’Laren, gardener to the Dowager Marchioness of Queensbury at 
Coten House, in which he states that he potted green cuttings in Fe- 
bruary, 1847, three in a No. 4 pot, in a mixture of leaf-mould and 
light loam. He then plunged them into a bottom heat of 75°, taking 
care to shade them from the sun, and also to water them three times 
every day. On 23rd April he found tubers of the size of a walnut. 

Mr. Brand read an extract from a letter from W. A. Stables, Esq., 
relative to the plantations recently made on Lord Cawdor’s estate in 
Nairnshire. “The forester planted 230 imperial acres in nine days, 
fifty-seven women and boys being employed each day, and the average 
number of trees planted by each was 1566 a-day. Two-thirds of the 
plants were larch, and the remainder Scotch fir —in all, 3465 plants 
per aere. ‘The plants were two-year-old seedlings, all raised in the gar- 
dens here. The cost of enclosing was £75 6s. 10d., and of planting 
£16 8s. 8d.—together, £92 5s. 6d., or about 7s. 7d. per acre of outlay.” 

The following gentlemen were added to the roll of ordinary mem- 
bers: James Mitchell, Esq., 21, Lothian Street; Charles Murchison, 
Ksq., 9, Alva Street ; Wyville Thomson, Esq., Musselburgh; Francis 
J. Ivory, Esq., 9, Ainslie Place; Henry P. Morse, Esq., 3, Duncan 
Street; Alexander Grant, Esq., 34, London Street; James Cunning- 
ham, Esq., W.S., 50, Queen Street; Henry Hewetson, Esq., 113, 
Princes Street; and Dr. C. Jessen, Kiel, Denmark, and Joh. Lange, 
Copenhagen, were elected foreign members. 


62 


Dr. R. W. Falconer, Tenby, was appointed local secretary for Pem- 
brokeshire, and Mr. Lange, Copenhagen, for Denmark. 

At this meeting the election of office-bearers for the ensuing year 
took place, when the following gentlemen were unanimously chosen: 
Rey. Dr. Fleming, President; Drs. Greville, Balfour, Christison, 
Neill, Vice-Presidents ; Sir William Jardine, Dr. Seller, Dr. Lowe, 
Mr. W. M’Nab, Mr. C. Lawson, jun., Prof. Allen Thomson, Mr. J. 
Marshall, jun., Mr. R. Holden, Mr. William Ivory, Mr. W. Wright, 
Councillors; Mr. Brand, Treasurer; Professor Goodsir, Secretary ; 
Dr. Douglas Maclagan, Foreign Secretary ; Dr. Parnell, Curator of 
Museum, &c.; Mr. J. M’Nab, Artist; Mr. Evans, Assistant Secretary 
and Curator. 

Thursday, January 13, 1848.—The Rev. Dr. Fleming, President, 
in the chair. 

Donations to the library and museum were announced :—Ist, books 
from the Leopoldine Academy; M. Alphonse DeCandolle; and Dr. 
M’Fadyen, Jamaica. 2d, specimens of rare English plants from Dr. 
Balfour; Scottish Alpine plants from Mr. C. Murchison; a large col- 
lection of plants from the Society Islands, from Dr. Archd. Sibbald, 
of H.M.S. Grampus, and Portuguese plants from Sir Walter C. Tre- 
velyan. Among the latter were some marked as having been col- 
lected in the streets of Cadiz and Lisbon, viz., Frankenia pulverulen- 
ta, lllecebrum echinatum, and Hippia stolonifera ;—these plants are 
remarkable for their habit of flourishing in the interstices of the 
paving stones of much frequented thoroughfares, but growing so 
close to the ground that they are but little injured by the feet of pas- 
sengers. The collection also contained specimens of Statice lusitani- 
ca from Persoon’s locality. 

The following communications were read :-— 

1. On the Reproduction of Cryptogamic Plants, by the late William 
Stark Dougall, Esq., continued. Part second, mode of formation of 
spores in Fungi, lichens, Musci, and Hepatice. In this part of the 
paper the author first considered the reproductive organs in the vari- 
ous divisions of the natural order Fungi; and pointed out the analogy 
which they bear to Algz in many respects. Thus in the lower mem- 
bers of the order the mode of reproduction may be compared to that 
observed in Confervacez, both as regards the development of spores 
and their movement. In other cases the formation of spores at the 
dilated ends of filaments or sterigmata, resembles in some degree what 
takes place in Vaucheria. He regarded the filamentous paraphyses 


63 


as being concerned in the fertilization of the contents of the asci and 
basidia. 

He next noticed the natural order Lichenes, and considered the 
production of spores, whether naked or in asci, which are united in 
the form of apothecia; and of the round green bodies called gonidia 
or gongyli, which are either single or in groups. He stated that 
little was known in regard to the formation of the latter bodies, and 
that the sabject of reproduction in lichens was still very obscure; al- 
though it might be said to resemble that of some Ascomycetous fungi. 

The Ricciacee, Marchantiacee, and Jungermanniacee, were next 
brought under notice. In these orders, organs which appear to be 
equivalent to stamens and pistils were pointed out, as well as certain 
bodies which might be reckoned as buds or gemme. The presence 
of Phytozoa with cilia, and of spiral fibres or elaters, was also re- 
marked. 

The Equisetaceze were looked upon as in many respects allied to 
the last-mentioned orders, especially in developing spores with spiral 
filaments. 

The true mosses were then alluded to, and in them the author be- 
lieved that re-productive organs have been demonstrated in the an- 
theridia with their granular contents and Phytozoa, and the thecz or 
sporangia with their spores. He detailed the various species in 
which Phytozoa had been detected by Thuret, Brongniart, Meyen, 
and Unger, pointed out the monecious, dicwcious, polygamous, and 
hermaphrodite arrangement of the organs, noticed the difference be- 
tween spores and gemme, and concluded by stating the following ar- 
guments in favour of the sexual nature of the spore-formation in the 
whole muscal alliance:—1. The existence of antheridia and pistil- 
lidia, and the production of true spores by the latter. 2. The exist- 
ence of Phytozoa in the antheridia. 38. The relation of antheridia 
and pistillidia to one another in point of periodicity, both as regards 
development and function. 4. Their relative arrangement, either to- 
gether or separate, on the same or on different individuals. 5. The 
provisions by which the coming in contact of the contents of the an- 
theridia with those of the pistillidia may be effected. 

The paper was illustrated by a series of magnified drawings from 
Dr. Balfour’s collection. 

2. On the Ovule of Euphrasia officinalis, by George Dickie, M.D., 
Lecturer on Botany, King’s College, Aberdeen. 

In this paper Dr. Dickie gives a general view of the recent observa- 
tions relative to the fertilization of the ovule and the formation of the 


64 


embryo, and considers, in a particular manner, the formation of ovu- 
lar tubes in Euphrasia. These tubes, which he formerly considered 
as being prolongations of the apex of the nucleus, he now finds to 
originate from the interior of the embryo-sac. He has observed the 
tube within the sac, but has not been able to determine fully its rela- 
tion to the very minute embryo, although, in one instance, there was 
the appearance of a connexion between them. He also noticed a re- 
markable flask-like appendage to the neck of the sac, whichghe thinks 
may be similar in its nature to the varicose appendages observed by 
Planchon in Veronica. In the latter plant the sac becomes external, 
but this is not the case in Euphrasia. The tubular filamentous ap- 
pendage in the plant under consideration, he conjectures, may be a 
prolongation of the terminal joint of the suspensor. 

Dr. Dickie concludes by stating, that he considers the early, or 
what he denominates the sporoid, stage of the embryo, to be indepen- 
dent of the contact of the pollen-tube with the embryo-sac, although 
the future stages of development may be determined by the action of 
the pollen. 

3. Dr. Fleming exhibited a specimen of the stem of D’Urvillea 
utilis, Bory, from Acapulco, and made some remarks on the peculia- 
rity of its structure, more particularly as regards its transverse parti- 
tions and large air-cells. He illustrated his remarks by drawings of 
the entire plant. 

4, Dr. Dickie communicated the discovery of a new Diatomaceous 
plant, allied to Meloseira, in the neighbourhood of Aberdeen. It is 
the Orthoseira of Thwaites, and will be published under the name of 
O. Dickiei. Specimens were exhibited under the microscope by Dr. 
Balfour. The plant forms a sort of infusorial earth in the place where 
it occurs. Dr. Dickie also announced from Mr. Thwaites the dis- 
covery of a new species of Dickieia, consisting of binate frustules at 
the end of mucous appendages, like the Omacoccus of Hassall. 

Dr. Bell Salter communicated the discovery of Zostera nana, in 
large quantities, on the shores of the Isle of Wight, near Ryde. 

Mr. Babington sent notice of the following plants having been 
added to the British Flora, since the publication of the second edition 
of his Manual, specimens of all of which are in his possession, viz. : 
Thalictrum minus, 4. glandulosum, Koch; Ranunculus Petiveri, 
a Mairii, Godr.; 6. Candollii, Godr. ; Sagina ciliata, Fries ; Campa- 
nula rotundifolia b. lancifolia, Koch ; Simethis bicolor, Kunth; and 
Carex brizoides, Linn. . 


65 


Dr. Balfour exhibited specimens of Ceramium acanthonotum, from 
the shores of the Frith of Forth. 

Mr. James M’Nab announced the death of Mr. James Smith, of 
Monkwood Grove, near Ayr, at the advanced age of 88. Mr. Smith 
has long been known as a scientific gardener, and did much to diffuse 
a taste for Botany in the district where he so long resided. 

The following gentlemen were elected ordinary members of the So- 
ciety, viz.: Robert Heddle, Esq., 13, Dundas Street; Henry L. Wil- 
liams, Esq., 15, Dundas Street; and William Gilby, Esq., 30, North- 
umberland Street. Professor J. E. Wikstrom, Stockholm, was elected 
a foreign member.— W. W. E. 


BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 


Friday, February, 5th, 1848.—John Reynolds, Esq., Treasurer, in 
the chair. 

Donations of British plants were announced from Mr. David Moore, 
Mr. J. W. Salter, and Mr. F. H. Goulding. Edward Phillips, 
M.D., F.L.S., of Coventry, Mr. John Dorrington, M.A., of Linton, 
Cambridgeshire, and Mr. Fenton J. A. Hort, of Trinity College, 
Cambridge, were elected members. 

The following papers were read :— 

“On Ergot,” by Mr. 8. P. Woodward, A.L.S.; “On the Potato 
Disease,” by Dr. G. M. Scott; “On the Potato Disease,” by Mr. T. 
Austin, F.G.S.—G. E. D. 


Notice of ‘The Flora of Forfarshire. By WutttaM GARDINER. 
London: Longman & Co. 1848.’ 


THE true uses and objects of a local flora are so simple and familiar 
as to render it a somewhat remarkable circumstance that there should 
be so very little of uniformity among the volumes published under the 
title. Diversity of matter, both the included and the excluded, diver- 
sity of form and method, both typographical and scientific, seems to 
be the only constant rule. Instead of following the best previous 
model, or improving upon it, each succeeding author strives only to 
differ therefrom. Instead of uniformity or superiority, the great effort 

VOL. Ik L 


66 


is to achieve dissimilarity. And yet amid all this diversity how very 
little can we find either of originality of thought or of genuine novelty 
of treatment in these works! Old forms and ideas are reproduced in 
different combinations, insuring the disadvantages of change, without 
the compensation of improvement. 

The explanation of this state of matters, we take it, will be found in 
the narrow notions with which the authors of most of our local floras 
have set about their tasks. Few of them appear to have ever con- 
ceived the idea for themselves, or even to have imbibed it on ‘the 
suggestion of more comprehensive thinkers, that a local flora should 
be also a sectional flora,—that it should be not only a small whole in 
its local uses and purposes, but also a part of something larger and 
wider, and such a part as might be united uniformly and congruously 
with the other parts into the one greater whole. So far from these two 
objects being incompatible, or difficult to combine in a single work, 
it seems to be a non-apprehension or non-appreciation of their related 
fitness, on the part of authors, which has given so much of the chance- 
medley diversity to the published local floras. The works of this 
class have hitherto been simply collections of facts, or what were sup- 
posed to be facts; and these facts having been seldom recorded with 
any ultimate aim or object beyond the mere record, they have natu- 
rally assumed the local character in its narrowest sense, that of petty 
and isolated individualities. 

The essential requisites in a local flora may be shortly summed up 
as follows. Ist, it should relate to a definite area, such as a single 
county or section of a county, which has been well and carefully ex- 
amined by the author of the flora himself, and the physical features of 
which ought to be briefly described in his work. 2ndly, a full list of 
the species which have been ascertained to grow wild within the area 
fixed upon, invariably and clearly distinguishing from the rest, by dif- 
ference of type or marks and suitable explanations, all those about 
which there may be any uncertainty of any kind. 38rdly, the times of 
flowering of the species, their usual situations of growth, and their 
comparative frequency or rarity,—all given from actual observation 
within the area under consideration, and not transcribed from other 
publications which relate to a different or more extended tract of 

country. 4thly, the localities of the less common species, more or 
“Tess minutely described, as circumstances may render needful in the 
particular cases; but always with the authority for any locality which 
does not rest upon the eyes of the author himself; as also with a dis- 
tinction between those localities which are given on report solely, and 


67 


those which have been further certified to the author by the evidence 
of specimens alleged to have been gathered there. 

All these items of information should be considered essential in 
every local flora. Any such publication, in which any of these requi- 
sites are wanting or imperfect, is to that extent bad and defective, 
whatever may be its merits in other respects. Additional information 
of various kinds may often be advantageously introduced; and under 
certain circumstances the omission of some other kinds of information 
would be scarcely less a defect than the exclusion of any of the above 
specified matters. But the necessity for such additions may be con- 
sidered special, not general,—a distinctive peculiarity for the district 
or its botany, be they topographical, historical, scientific, personal, or 
otherwise. By way of example, we may instance the case of a flora 
which relates to a mountainous tract, in which the range of altitude 
for the several species should be indicated as nearly as can be done, 
at least by successive stages or zones of elevation, if not by measured 
altitudes. Or, as another example, let us take the case of a flora 
which treats about the plants of some county or tract, within which 
there have been suspicious localities or dubious species placed on re- 
cord, and rendered questionably historical; all of which should of 
course be carefully investigated, in order to their verification or cor- 
rection. 

There are some additions, and those pretty frequently introduced 
into local floras, which may be deemed purely optional with the au- 
thor; and these will consequently be given or omitted in accordance 
with his own personal views and tastes. In a general way, the optional 
additions, introduced to gratify the whim or taste of the individual 
author, will be found to render the work less acceptable to other par- 
ties; because they must increase the bulk of the book, add to its cost, 
and obscure to some extent the essential points of information, with- 
out giving equivalent advantages to the purchasers. Among these 
purely and personally optional additions we would place scraps of 
poetry, unnecessary references, descriptions of well known species or 
genera, &c., &c. 

Were we to measure the ‘Flora of Forfarshire’ by our standard 
above given, assuredly we should find occasion to curtail its dimen- 
sions very much, on the balance between matters to be added and 
matters to be omitted. Of the existing contents we would right 
willingly dispense with two-thirds, as being either simply superfluous 
or merely irrelevant; while to the reserved one hundred, out of three 
hundred pages, we might then add some fifty more pages in order to 


68 


include other matters the omission of which we must regard as an 
actual defect in the work. But we are not wishing to censure this 
publication just because it is not found to harmonize with our own 
individual standard of perfection. Whether taken by itself and for 
itself, or viewed in comparison with other volumes of its class, the 
‘Flora of Forfarshire’ may be honestly pronounced a work creditable 
to its authoyr’s abilities and taste, and an useful contribution to science; 
and while it exhibits occasional defects and inaccuracies, these are 
much more than counterbalanced by that which is accurate and 
valuable. 

Among the recommendations of the work, we may probably say 
that it gives a very full list of the plants, cellular as well as vascular ; 
the latter likely to prove almost a complete list for the county. They 
are arranged by natural orders, which every local flora ought to be, 
as was long since particularly urged on local authors by the illustrious 
Humboldt, the laborious collector and connector of local facts in 
Natural History. Generally, too, the author appears to have written 
with truth and good faith his opinions respecting the nativity or other- 
wise of the species, and the reasons for supposing them to be one or 
the other. And when we look at the reprehensible custom with many 
other local writers, of straining the truth for the silly vanity of making 
their district (or its flora) appear rich in botanical rarities, we must re- 
gard the greater sincerity of Mr. Gardiner with no small approval. 
Some notices are occasionally given about the range of altitude over 
which the speciés extend, and we could wish they had been more 
frequent and more precise. 

Among the superfluities we would particularly instance a most un- 
reasonable quantity of poetry, irrelevant in a scientific publication, 
and not of high quality in its own character, being either feebly 
pretty versifications, or poems of higher mark which have been ren- 
dered stale by reiterated quotation. Thus, Hypericum pulchrum and 
Bellis perennis usher in some sixty lines of verse apiece; Primula 
vulgaris and Rubus fruticosus have over thirty lines each; some two 
dozen lines are devoted to Myosotis in general or generically, and 
then the Myosotis alpestris has near three dozen more for its own par- 
ticular share,—being mentioned probably for the purpose of bringing 
in the verses, as that species has not been found in Forfarshire. Nu- 
merous other plants are be-tailed with their half-dozen, or one dozen, 
or two dozen lines of rhyme. Another superfluity is seen in the run- 
ning references to the pages of Hooker’s ‘ British Flora’ and Babington’s 
Manual for each species in succession; as if anything more could be 


69 


required for identification, than the giving of synonymes for those 
species which stand under a different name in the ‘Forfarshire Flora.’ 
Nor are these two kinds the only superfluities which might better have 
been omitted. 

Among the defects we reckon the want of regular and sufficiently 
precise notices relating to the range of altitude for the species. Pro- 
bably the requisite time and care could not be devoted to actual mea- 
surement with instruments; but successive zones might have been 
adopted, after the example of Wahlenberg, Webb, Watson, and many 
others ; or, failing the power of generalising thus far, the extension of 
the species inland from the coast, into the glens, and up the moun- 
tain acclivities, or to their table-lands, might have been readily indi- 
cated in the form of individual facts. In some instances the alleged 
time of flowering must have been borrowed from the general floras ; 
at least it has been entered not on the author’s own observation with- 
in the county. #Various localities are cited on the authority of par- 
ties whose names we have never before met with among those of 
botanists ; and being thus quite unprepared to estimate the reliance 
which may be placed upon their knowledge of plants, we greatly miss 
the needful intimation whether the author of the Flora had, or had 
not, seen a specimen of the species from the alleged locality for it. 
In looking at the species enumerated or commented on under certain 
genera, such as Bromus and Hieracium, we cannot escape a convic- 
tion that some grave errors have been committed, perhaps attributable 
to the disadvantages attendant on a provincial residence, far from 
good botanical libraries and standard herbaria. It is to be regretted 
also, that the author should not have had the advantage of studying 
the second editions of Newman’s Ferns and Babington’s Manual be- 
fore printing his own volume. The fifth edition of the ‘ British 
Flora,’ which is Mr. Gardiner’s standard for nomenclature and spe- 
cies, was scarcely brought up to the existing state of botanical know- 
ledge in Britain at the date of its publication, in 1842; and since 
that time no inconsiderable progress has been made in correcting er- 
rors and adding to knowledge on the subject. We regret, also, to see 
how very litile the author of the ‘ Forfarshire Flora’ has been able to 
effect towards solving the doubts respecting many of Don’s plants and 
localities. Indeed, several of the most dubious county plants are 
given without a word of doubt or uncertainty, as if their existence 
there were a point clearly ascertained and admitted. One of the first 
species concerning which we sought information from the Flora, was 
Centaurea Jacea. It is enumerated among the Forfarshire plants 


70 


without a word of comment, and in such form as to make it appear a 
genuine native. 

Various circumstances combine to give more than ordinary interest 
to a ‘Flora of Forfarshire. Wide diversities of elevation, and conse- 
quently of climate, within an area of small extent, offered excellent 
opportunities and facilities for giving a philosophical character to its 
published Flora. The botanico-historical and scientific interest 
which attaches to its localities, through the discoveries of Don, the 
writings of Smith, and the recorded visits of the Scottish professors 
and many other distinguished botanists, also add no little to its bo- 
tanical importance. It is the consideration of such circumstances as 
these which has given a more general character to our present re- 
marks; and lest it be thought that Mr. Gardiner’s volume has suffered 
by being thus subjected to a more trying comparison than usual with 
such local publications, we take leave to repeat our honest conviction 
that, if taken by itself, apart from such considerations and the remarks 
which may have flowed from them, the ‘ Flora of Forfarshire’ is a va- 
luable and acceptable addition to the published records of British 


Botany. 
C. 


Remarks on certain “ Excluded Species” placed at the end of the 
‘ London Catalogue. By JosErH SIDEBOTHAM, Esq. 


Art the conclusion of the second edition of the ‘ London Catalogue ’ 
is a list of eacluded species, in which I am sorry to see the names of 
several favourites, besides a considerable number of species which I 
always considered on the authority of others as fully naturalized. 
Would it not be well for every reader of the ‘Phytologist’ to look 
over the list, and if he can restore any of the species to an honourable 
place in our flora, to do so through the medium of its pages? 

Allow me to notice one or two. 

Oxalis stricta.—-I know little of the localities for this plant in the 
south of England. Mr. Ralfs sent specimens some years ago, which 
were the first I ever saw: they were from the neighbourhood of 
Penzance. It is rather a common plant here, occurring as a weed in 
many gardens and nursery-grounds. In some gardens and potato- 
fields near Didsbury it is quite a troublesome weed, and my late 
friend E. 8. Wilson found it equally common in the neighbourhood of 
Congleton. 


71 


Gentiana acaulis.— Mr. Townley, of Manchester, gathered this 
plant several times on sand-hills near Liverpool, where he described 
it as growing in abundance, far apart from any cultivation. I have 
seen and possess some of his specimens which were brought in a living 
state to the late Mr. Crozier. 

Datura Stramonium.—Ought we not to consider this plant as fully 
naturalized as any of our occasional visitors? I have known several 
instances in this neighbourhood and near Nottingham where it has 
made its appearance in considerable quantities, where land has been 
cleared for building, &c. 

Castanea vulgaris.—Surely this ought not to be excluded and the 
poplars retained in our lists. If a thousand years’ residence in one 
country is not sufficient to naturalize a species, I fear many others 
must be similarly banished. 


J. SIDEBOTHAM. 
Manchester, February 16, 1848. 


Notes on Shropshire Rubi. By the Rev. W. A. LEIcuTon, B.A., 
F.B.S. E. & L. 


In publishing a series of dried specimens* of brambles in illustra- 
tion of my ‘Flora of Shropshire,’ it may be perhaps useful to those 
who possess both these works, as well as to botanists generally, if I 
insert in the pages of the ‘Phytologist’ a few notes explanatory of 
the changes which the valuable researches of Messrs. Babington, Dr. 
Bell Salter and others have rendered necessary, and the additional 
knowledge and information which continued investigation in this per- 
plexing genus has brought to light. 

In doing this, as every trivial distinguishing mark between various 
forms in so difficult a genus seems, in our present unsettled state of 
knowledge, worthy of being noticed, I purpose to set down such cha- 
racters as I have observed, which, if constant, may prove useful as 
points of discrimination. They have been gathered from a compari- 
son of a tolerably extensive collection of our British forms, and are 
offered, not in a decided tone of absolute certainty, but are rather 
thrown out as hints to students, to test them on the living plants, and 


* T may as well take the opportunity of stating that a few copies of the ‘ Fasciculus 
of Shropshire Rubi’ still remain on hand, and may be had on application to the 
writer. 


72 


if found to be correct to adopt and use them; if otherwise, to reject 
or correct them. I therefore would wish them to be received and 
understood in the spirit of Linneus’s mind when he penned the fol- 
lowing words: ‘Quanquam multas observaverim plantas et sedulo 
quidem, tamen non confido me semper veritatem invenisse.” 

1. R. Ideus, Linn.—I am not aware of any change here. 

2. R. suberectus, And. 

This includes R. suberectus and R. plicatus, Fl. Shropsh. 223. At 
the time of the publication of the Fl. Shropsh. I was not acquainted 
with the true suberectus. But having subsequently an opportunity 
of showing my friend Babington the plant described as plicatus in 
the Flora, in its native locality, he at once recognised it as the true 
suberectus. The synonymy of this species as regards our Shropshire 
Flora will stand thus :— 

R. suberectus, And. 

R. suberectus and R. plicatus, Fl. Shropsh. 223. BR. sub- 
erectus, And. Linn. Trans. xi. 218, t. 16. EH. Bot. t. 2572. 
E. Fl. ii. 406. ° a Bab. Syn. RK. suberectus (not of And.) 
Lindl. Syn. 2nd ed. 92. 

The specimens sent by Mr. W. Wilson from Woolston Moor, Lan- 
cashire, mentioned in FI]. Shropsh. 224, are referred by. Mr. Babington 
to plicatus (Bab. Syn.). 

The sharply pointed, rather elongated and mucronate, double ser- 
ratures, all directed more or less forward to the apex of the leaves ; 
the prickles of the barren stem confined to the angles, few and dis- 
tant, short and stout, arising from a dilated base, which they scarcely 
exceed in length; may be perhaps, as characteristic marks of this 
species, added to the “attenuated base of the floral leaves,” as pointed 
out in Babington’s Synopsis. 

Of this plant specimens are given in the ‘ Fasciculus of Shropshire 
Rubi.’ 

3. R. fissus, Fl. Shropsh. 225. 

This plant Lindley identified as R. fissus of his Synopsis, 2nd ed. 
p- 92, but Babington, in his Synopsis, rather questions their identity ; 
inclining to believe this a state of suberectus. Be this as it may, I 
have never seen anything as yet in the plants themselves, which grow 
together in the same locality, to shake my opinion as to their being 
distinct. The habit and general appearance of the two plants when 
seen together are totally different. The colour of the fruit is similar 
in both, as Babington describes it, “ atro-sanguineus :” but the calyx 
is reflexed in suberectus ; erecto-patent in fissus. 


73 


Perhaps as one general characteristic mark distinguishing this from 
suberectus, I might mention the prickles of the barren stem not con- 
fined to the angles, very numerous and near together, long and very 
slender, arising from a very short, contracted base, which they twice 
or more exceed in length. 

Specimens of this are given in ‘ Fasciculus of Shropshire Rubi.’ 

4, R. plicatus, W. & N. : 

The specimens given in the Fasciculus of this species are not those 
of the Fl. Shropsh., but identical with R. plicatus, Bab. Syn. I did 
not know this plant when I published the Flora. For some distinc- 
tive marks see under R. affinis below. 

5. R. affinis, W. & N. 

1 believe the specimens of this species given in the Fasciculus are 
the true affinis of W. and N., Rub. Germ. t. 3, p. 18. My friend Ba- 
bington kindly concedes me the priority of detecting this addition to 
our Flora, though only so by a few days. It is, however, highly sa- 
tisfactory that we arrived at the same conclusion from an examination 
of plants from different and far distant localities. 

This plant is not identical with the R. affinis of Fl. Shropsh. 226 ; 
the var. 8. of which work is now referrible to R. cordifolius of W. and 
N. and Bab. Syn., and the var. y. to R. corylifolius of Smith and 
Bab. Syn., as will be noticed under those species hereafter. 

I would offer the following description :— 

R. affinis, W. & N.—Stem suberect or arcuate, angular, nearly gla- 
brous ; prickles strong, slightly deflexed or declinate ; leaves 
5-nate, green on both sides, with silky pubescence under- 
neath, plane at the base, somewhat wavy towards the apex, 
coarsely crenato-cuspidato-serrated, lowermost stalked ; pa- 
nicle compound, leafy, tomentose upwards, branches cymose, 
erecto-patent, prickles more or less deflexed; sepals reflexed 
in fruit, with a long, acuminate point. — Rub. Germ. t. 3, p. 
18. 

Has.—Shawbury Heath ; Haughmond Hill; Gamester Lane, near 
Westfelton ; hedges of Shrewsbury turnpike road, near Westfelton ; 
hedges of Holyhead road, near Bicton Grove, near Shrewsbury ; all 
in Shropshire. 

Barren stem suberect, sometimes elongated and arching, angular, 
furrowed, dark purple, glabrous, or with a few scattered weak hairs, 
Prickles confined to the angles, large and strong, generally straight 
and declinate, though sometimes slightly deflexed, from a broad, di- 
lated, compressed, purple base, yellow at the tips. Leaves digitate, 

VOL. 111. M 


74 


5-nate, on slightly hairy, purple petioles, armed with numerous strong, 
long, hooked prickles, purple at the base, yellow at the tips. Leaf- 
lets moderately coriaceous, yet flexible, plane at the base, more or 
less wavy on the margins towards the apex (in a young or not fully 
expanded or developed state very plicate), all stalked, dull green and 
nearly glabrous, or with only a few scattered hairs above, paler, to- 
mentose, and with soft, silky, shining pubescence beneath, veins pro- 
minent, the midrib armed with a few stout, hooked prickles, not so 
long or stout as those on the petioles. Terminal leaflet large, broadly 
cordato-ovate or even orbiculari-cordate, generally shortly cuspidate, 
coarsely crenato-cuspidato-serrated : intermediate pair irregularly 
roundish-obovate ; lowermost narrower, oblong. Stipules linear, 
with a long point, hairy. Flowering stem angular, with scattered 
hairs below, which become denser and even tomentose above. Leaves 
ternate below, large and simple above, becoming narrower as they 
approach the extremity of the rachis. Panicle compound, leafy, 
branches cymose, ascending, erecto-patent, hairy, the secondary 
branches and pedicels hairy and densely tomentose. Prickles large, 
from a broad, compressed base, rather numerous, deflexed below, 
straighter and declinate in the upper part: those of the secondary 
branches and pedicels slenderer and more crowded, more or less 
curved, or even nearly straight and declinate. Sepals densely tomen- 
tose and hairy, white, and with a few short, slender prickles without, 
white and densely tomentose within, with a long acuminate point, 
strongly reflexed in fruit. Petals white. Fruit black. 

This plant seems allied on one side to R. cordifolius, and on the 
other to R. plicatus, though readily distinguished from both. The 
somewhat plicate leaves, which are of a very different cordate form, 
easily perceived on comparison, but difficult to express in words, and 
their differently formed and much coarser serratures, the cymose pa- 
nicle, and the strong, deflexed prickles on the panicle and flowering 
shoot, separate it from cordifolius, in which the leaves are flat and 
less coarsely serrated, of a different cordate outline, the barren stems 
always arcuate, and the prickles on the rather long panicle and flow- 
ering shoot slenderer, all straight and declining. 

The form and serratures of the leaves, the hairy and densely tomen- 
tose panicle and calyx, and the strong prickles of the barren stem, 
distinguish it from plicatus, in which the panicle is pilose, and wants 
the under coating of tomentum, the barren stems have slender 
prickles, and the sepals are scatteredly hairy on the outside, chiefly 


75 


at the base and apex, the white tomentum with which the inside is 
entirely lined forming only a narrow white line on the margins. 

Mr. Babington, who has communicated his notes to me, quotes 
Arrhen. Rub. Suec. 25, Fries, Summa, 165, to our plant, and consi- 
ders it identical with a plant he has from Loch Eil, Scotland. 

[ think, also, plants gathered at Jardine Hall, Dumfriesshire (No. 
15) by Mr. Babington, and others in Cowleigh Park, near Great Mal- 
vern, Worcestershire, by the Rev. A. Bloxam, will probably be refer- 
red to this species. 

Mr. Babington also mentions that he detected (1847) a variety at 
Llanberis, Caernarvonshire, in which the “leaves are pubescent, but 
_ not tomentose beneath, and the prickles of the panicle much fewer, 
smaller, and more slender.” 

6. R. nitidus, W. & N. 

This species, of which specimens are given in the Fasciculus, is 
not described in the Shropsh. Fl. Mr. Babington identifies our plant 
with that of his Synopsis. It does not, however, agree with the figure 
in Rub. Germ. t. 4, though corresponding generally with the de- 
scription in that work. It is common in the hedges and thickets 
around Shrewsbury. 

It is easily recognized by the coarsely doubly serrated leaves, more 
or less wavy or plaited on the margins, which in their form and ser- 
rature bear much resemblance to those of R. rudis a. of the glandu- 
lose section. Its flowers are white, conspicuous and showy, the 
petals hanging loosely. The panicle is usually very large and com- 
pound, the branches distant, spreading in a very divaricate form, 
frequently, as Babington’s Synopsis expressively remarks, “ nearly at 
right angles to the rachis.” 

There is a peculiarity about the panicle which is characteristic, 
and deserves attention. The peduncles and pedicels divide or branch 
beyond or above the middle of their length, and the pedicels of the 
lateral flowers, in every division of the panicle, exceed in length the 
pedicel of the terminal flower; which causes the flowers to appear as 
if all arranged on the outside of the panicle, whilst the eye looks 
amongst the branches as into a skeleton frame-work. 

Weihe and Nees, Rub. Germ. p. 20, describe the prickles of the 
panicle as curved, “ad instar cornu recurvis,” but in our plant, al- 
though a few recurved prickles may be detected in the lower portion 
of the panicle, or rather on the flowering shoot where it joins on to 
the panicle, the generality of them are straight and declinate. 

They have also a peculiarity in their arrangement worthy of notice. 


76 


They are slender, though strong and very sharp, very various in 
length, from very short to very long, but being longest and most 
crowded and numerous about the middle of the rachis, and also about 
the middle of the peduncles and pedicels; the base of each of the latter 
being nearly destitute of any prickles. 


W. A. LEIGHTON. 
Luciefelde, Shrewsbury, 
February 17th, 1848. 
(To be continued). 


Discovery of Viola hirta in Kincardineshire. 
By ANnpREw Kerr, Esq. 


AccorDING to the ‘British Flora’ of Sir William Jackson Hooker, 
Viola hirta has only been found in the vicinity of Edinburgh, and is 
consequently rare in Scotland. It therefore gives me much pleasure 
to state that I found this plant in the month of April, 1847, on the 
south-east extremity of Kincardineshire, about three miles north-east 
from the town of Montrose. 

Professor Balfour, of Edinburgh, has found it in other places besides 
the immediate vicinity of Edinburgh, and thinks that the plant is more 
abundant than was previously supposed. 

As it flowers early in the season, it may have been overlooked in 
many places. I trust these remarks will tend to stir up the en- 
thusiasm of botanists to look out for the early gems of Flora and re- 
cord localities, as it is only by an acute observation and recording of 
localities that a proper geographical distribution of the British flora 
can be obtained. 


ANDREW KERR. 
55, Murray Street, Montrose, 
February 18th, 1848. 


Note on the specimens of Sedum reflecum mentioned by Mr. Watson, 
Phytol. iii. 46. By Mrs. Russe Lt. 


Havine just read in the present number of the ‘ Phytologist’ (Phy- 
tol. iii. 46) Mr. Watson’s notice of the Tremadoc Rock Sedum, sent 
by me in December to the London Botanical Society, it may perhaps 
be worth while to state that in the summer of 1839 I gathered and 
examined numerous specimens from the same locality, and felt not 


i 


the slightest doubt as to their being S. rupestre. On my stock being 
exhausted, I begged my friend Miss Holland to send me the further 
supply which has been communicated to the Society. I saw the 
same plant growing in abundance, together with 8. Forsterianum, on 
the rocks at Barmouth, where the two varieties pass so insensibly in- 
to each other that it is almost impossible in some cases to draw the 
line between them. 


ANNA RUSSELL. 
Brislington, February 21, 1848. 


[Mr. Watson having done me the honour to mention my name in 
connexion with the British species of Sedum (Cyb. Brit. 401), I may 
say that I am quite at a loss to understand how any confusion can 
exist between plants which appear to me so extremely different as 
Sedum reflexum and Sedum rupestre. It will be of little avail to 
point out discrepancies where I can find no point of similarity except 
in the colour of the flowers. Still, without noticing botanical cha- 
racters, I cannot avoid calling attention to the difference in size; 
S. reflexum being four times larger than S. rupestre, and when the 
two are cultivated in company its stems stand out amongst those of 
rnpestre “as oxen among sheep.” ‘The discrepancies between S. ru- 
pestre and S. Forsterianum are much more subtle; the size, habit and 
entire superficial appearance are similar, colour alone excepted, yet 
the colour is so constantly and so decidedly distinct that they are 
instantly separable by this single character. In cultivation the discre- 
pancy becomes still more marked, and the different constitutions of 
the plants is observable: placed on a dry wall at Peckham, rupestre 
thrives, but Forsterianum dies; placed under the drip of water, 
Forsterianum thrives, but rupestre dies. I have never found rupestre 
except on the driest parts of exposed rocks: I have never found 
Forsterianum except in the spray of waterfalls. I was not fortunate 
enough to meet with it at Barmouth, where Mrs. Russell records its 
occurrence.—L. N.}. 


On the Equisetum fluviatile of the ‘ London Catalogue of British 
Plants. By Epwarp Newman. 


Since Mr. Watson published his remarks (Phytol. iii. 1) in defence 
of the omission of Equisetum fluviatile from the ‘ London Catalogue 
of British Plants, that gentleman has examined the Linnean speci- 


78 


mens so named in the herbarium of the Linnean Society. At the 
present moment I am also sending to Mr. Watson for his inspection 
ordinary examples of that common plant which I have figured and 
described under the name of Equisetum fluviatile. I shall feel much 
obliged to Mr. Watson if he will state in an early number of the ‘ Phy- 
tologist,’ whether he considers the J.innean specimens and those of 
the common London plant which I have sent him, are or are not in- 
dividuals of one and the same species? 

Believing that Mr. Watson will at once decide that the specimens 
in question belong to the same species, and will with his usual 
candour give the public the benefit of his decision, I will venture on 
a second question. Knowing that a discrepancy has not unfrequently 
been detected between descriptions and the specimens to which they 
are supposed to refer, I would ask Mr. Watson whether he detects 
any discrepancy between the descriptions and specimens of Linneus 
in the present instance that induce any doubt as to their perfect ac- 
cordance ? ; 

Supposing that Mr. Watson’s answers favour my view of this sub- 
ject, I shall consider it worth while to point out what I believe to be 
an original error on the part of Fries, and a copied error on the part 
of Mr. Babington; but on the other hand, supposing Mr. Watson 
answers my questions in the negative, I shall not presume to trouble 
the readers of the ‘ Phytologist’ with any further remarks upon the 
subject. 

EpwArD NEWMAN. 

Peckham, February 25, 1848. 


Botanical Extracts from James Backhouse’s Visit to the Mauritius, 


Se. 


Signal Mountain.—* The soil of this narrow, basaltic ridge is good, 
and produces grass and bushes, with many beautiful plants, some of 
which have originally belonged to other countries, but have become 
naturalized. Here we gathered an elegant fern, Adiantum rhizopho- 
rum, growing in the crevices of the rocks. The facility with which 
plants establish themselves in such a climate and soil, renders it dif- 
ficult to distinguish between those originally native and those intro- 
duced. Among the latter is Omocarpum sennoides, the plant pro- 
ducing the little, scarlet, bead-like peas with black ends, often seen 


79 


in cabinets in England: it is a trailing bush, with spikes of small, 
pink pea-flowers, and rather dirty-looking pods. 

“ Before breakfast, I walked to the ascent of the hills behind Port 
Louis. ‘The trees in this part are not lofty. The tamarind (Zama- 
rindus indicus), is about as large as the ash: its branches are slender, 
and its leaf small: its fruit was nearly over; most of the pods had 
become dry, and were perforated by insects. Before ripening, they 
are powerfully acid, but in this state they are used in curries, and are 
eaten with salt, which is also used in this country to moderate the 
acid of sour oranges, &c. The fragrant Mauritian jasmine (Jasminum 
mauritianum), with eight-cleft flowers and trifoliate leaves, andn ume- 
rous other shrubs, were growing thickly in various places, and great 
numbers of a beautiful butterfly were feasting on the nectar of Tiari- 
dium indicum, a plant resembling heliotrope, and called in this coun- 
try herbe aux papillons, or butterfly’s plant.”—p. 7. 

3rd Mo. 19th. —“1 walked to the Cemetery, which is at a short 
distance from the town, and near the sea. It is approached by a 
long avenue of the Filao (Casuarina lateriflora), a leafless tree from 
Madagascar, attaining to a considerable height, and having drooping 
branches, clothed with green, slender, pendant, jointed, rush-like 
spray, through which the wind whistles with a mournful sound.”—p. 
U2: 

“‘On the borders of a shady part of the road near Pamplemousses, 
the beautiful orange and white varieties of Thunbergia alata were 
growing, much in the manner that ground-ivy grows in England ; and 
by the side of a brook, there was a species of Papyrus or paper reed ; 
and a remarkable palm from Madagascar, from the fibres of which 
beautiful cloth, resembling stuff, is manufactured.”—p. 16. 

“In the rocky wood at the head of the aqueduct there are several 
fine ferns ; among them is one which closely resembles Acrostichum 
fraxinifolium of Moreton Bay. A beautiful climber of the Convolvu- 
lus tribe, Quamoclit angulata, produces such a profusion of scarlet 
flowers among the shrubs that border the river, as to have obtained a 
name signifying “ fire in the bush.”—p. 23. 

“The traveller’s tree (Urania speciosa), forms a striking feature in 
the prospect. Clumps of these trees, composed of several stems 
rising from the same root, are scattered over the country in all direc- 
tions. The trunks, or more properly root-stocks, which are about 
three feet in circumference, sometimes attain to thirty feet in height ; 
but whether of this elevation, or scarcely emerging above ground, 
they support grand crests of leaves, of about four feet long, and one 


80 


foot wide, but often torn into comb-like shreds. The head is of a 
fan-like form, and the flowers, which are not striking for their beauty, 
are white, and produced from large, horizontal, green sheaths. ‘The 
foot-stalks of the leaves, which are somewhat shorter than the leaves 
themselves, yield a copious supply of fresh water, very grateful to the 
traveller, on having their margins cut away near to thebase, or forced 
from contact with those immediately above them, especially those 
about the middle of the series. The root-stock is of a soft, cellular 
substance, and the fruit, which resembles a small Banana, is dry, and 
not edible. This remarkable vegetable production is said to grow in 
the most arid countries, and thus to be provided for the refreshment 
of man in a dry and thirsty land. Probably the water may originate 
in the condensation of dew, and be collected and retained by the pe- 
culiar structure of the leaf: it has a slight taste of the tree, but is not 
disagreeable. The Badamier (Zerminalia Badamia), a handsome 
tree, with large, obovate leaves, and fruit the size of an almond in its 
husk, abounds in this direction. The spongy shell is so tough as to 
render access difficult to its small kernel, which is like a young hazel- 
nut in flavour. A species of cinnamon (Laurus cupularis), forms a 
handsome bush in the borders of the woods. I also noticed a species 
of Mimusops, forming a small tree, with a fruit the size of a nonpareil 
apple. 

“The mango (Mangifera indica), which was introduced into this 
Island, had become naturalized here, along with several other fruit 
trees, such as the apple-fruited Guava (Psidiwm pomiferum), and the 
Jamrose (Jambosa vulgaris). The pineapple (Bromelia Ananas), forms 
impassable thickets: its fruit is sold for a few pence at the bazaars. 
Gloriosa superba, or an allied species of this beautiful plant, of the 
lily tribe, was growing in an elevated wood, by the side of a stream- 
let, on the borders of which Andromeda salicifolia formed a conside- 
rable tree. Numerous species of Pandanus, or screw-pine, ferns, 
climbers of the Convolvulus tribe, some of which were very beautiful, 
and many other interesting plants, were also growing here.” — p. 31. 

“ Here we explored some portions of the forest which covers the 
mountain territory lying toward the centre of the Island, and some of 
which is nearly 2,000 feet above the level ef the sea. Some of the 
trees exhibit the luxuriance common to a tropical climate, and have a 
variety of Orchideous epiphytes, ferns, Peperomias, &c., growing on 
their trunks, while others are dead or dying, from the combined in- 
jury of hurricanes and white ants.”—p. 33. 


81 


BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH. 


Thursday, February 10th, 1848.— The Rev. Dr. Fleming, Presi- 
dent, in the chair. 

Donations to the museum and library were presented. From 
Colonel Low a collection of plants from Penang; from Mr. D. Boyle 
a large collection of plants from Geelong, near Port Philip; Scottish 
plants from Mr. Evans; the ‘ Flora of Forfarshire’ from Mr. W. Gar- 
diner, Dundee; ‘ Botany of the Bass’ from Dr. Balfour, &c. The 
thanks of the Society were voted to the donors. 

The following communication was read: ‘ Account of a Botanical 
Excursion to Braemar, Clova, and Ben Lawers, with pupils, in Au- 
gust, 1847,” by Professor Balfour. Having made some general ob- 
servations on the Botany of the alpine districts of Scotland, Dr. 
Balfour proceeded to give a detailed account of the localities visited 
and the plants gathered. 

From Aberdeen the party went to Ballater, thence by Lochnagar 
to Castleton of Braemar, where they remained ten days, examining 
Ben Aven, Ben na Muich Dhui (on the top of which they slept for a 
night), Cairn Toul, Breriach, Glen Callater, Clova, Glen Isla, &c. 
Leaving Braemar, they walked by Glen Tilt to Blair Athol, and 
thence by the Pass of Killiecrankie to Kenmore, Ben Lawers, and 
Loch Lomond. 

All the usual, and many very rare alpine species were gathered. 
Carex leporina was picked both on Lochnagar and on Cairn Toul ; 
Carex vaginata was found on every hill in the Braemar district; 
Woodsia hyperborea was gathered in Glen Isla, Glen Phee, Clova, 
and on Ben Lawers; and Luzula arcuata was seen on all the lofty 
summits in the vicinity of Ben na Muich Dhui: Mulgedium alpinum 
was detected in considerable quantity on Lochnagar; also a beauti- 
ful variety of Hieracium alpinum, with remarkably long leaves, and 
involucres covered with long, white, silky hairs: it is probably the 
H. villosum of Smith, or H. alpinum, var. longifolium of ‘Flora 
Silesia.’ 

In the vicinity of Ballater, and also in Glen Tilt, Equisetum um- 
brosum grew in profusion. The sides of Loch Etichan and the rocks 
near Loch Aven were covered with numerous alpine varieties of Hie- 
racia, presenting remarkable transition forms; among them were H. 
alpinum, Halleri, nigrescens, Lawsoni, &c. 

Orobus niger was gathered at the Pass of Killiecrankie. 

VOL< 1. N 


82 


Dr. Balfour then made some remarks on the progress of vegetation 
in the vicinity of Edinburgh, and the injury done by the late frost, in 
the course of which he stated that Galanthus nivalis was in flower in 
the Botanic Garden, and Eranthis hyemalis in Dr. Neill’s garden, on 
the 10th inst. 

The following gentlemen were elected ordinary fellows, viz., Alex- 
ander Christison, Esq., 40, Moray Place; John M’Gilchrist, Esq., 8, 
Keir Street; George Edward Allshorn, Esq., 63, Hanover Street; 
William Douglas, Esq., 47, George Square; J. H. Skinner, Esq., 
18, Carlton Terrace; Dalhousie Tait, Esq., 7, Shandwick Place ; 
Philip J. Van der Byl, 41, Clerk Street—W. W. E. 


Note on some examples of Polystichum angulare distributed by the 
Botanical Society of London. By THomas Moore, Esq. 


In noticing some specimens of Polystichum angulare, which I com- 
municated to the Botanical Society of London, Mr. Watson has re- 
marked (Phytol. ili. 45) that he does not know why they are dis- 
tinguished by a series of numbers—1 to 7. As most of those into 
whose hands the specimens have fallen are probably readers of the 
‘Phytologist,’ I may perhaps be allowed to offer a few remarks ex- 
planatory of the reason why the specimens sent to the Society were 
thus distinguished. They were intended to illustrate some of the va- 
rieties of form and character which this species of fern assumes, even 
in the same locality, and growing under circumstanées precisely similar. 
The plants from which were gathered the fronds which have been dis- 
tributed, were all growing on the same bank, within perhaps twenty 
yards of each other, and subjected to no appreciable difference of cir- 
cumstance; and yet each plant presented more or less apparent dif- 
ferences, and probably no two of the many plants there growing would 
be found exactly identical in the shape of their pinnules, and in the 
development of the spinose serratures, and the basal lobe. It was 
thought that those who had never paid attention to the variations 
which occur among the individual plants of these species of ferns, 
might be interested in this evidence of that variation, occurring under 
circumstances in all respects similar; and those who had not yet 
learned the lesson, that in nature the groups of individuals which we 
call species* are not moulded with the precision of an artist, might 


* Can any reader of the ‘ Phytologist’ give.a good definition of what should be un- 
derstood by a “‘ species ?” 


83 


learn it if they chose from such examples as these. This considera- 
tion alone will show that they were chiefly intended for those who are 
not very far advanced in the study of Botany. 


Tuomas Moore. 
Camden Town, March 3, 1848. 


Correction of a previous Error. By Tuomas Moore, Esq. 


I REGRET to see that either myself or the compositors have com- 
mitted two errors in the few remarks on Cyperus fuscus inserted in the 
‘ Phytologist’ (Phytol. iii. 58); which errors exactly reverse what | 
had intended to say. The first sentence should read thus: “TI find 
it stated in Mr. Babington’s Manual and Mr. Steele’s Handbook, that 
Cyperus fuscus is a perennial ;” and the latter part of the last sentence 
thus: “nevertheless, there seems no ground to doubt that Cyperus 
fuscus is only of annual duration.” The subscribers to the ‘ Phy- 
tologist’ will therefore be so good as to erase the words “ annual” 
and ‘‘ believe” in the places referred to, and substitute “ perennial ” 


and “ doubt.” 


THomaAs Moore. 
Camden Town, March 3, 1848. 


Is Gentiana acaulis wild in England ? 
By Hewett C. Watson, Esq. 


Mr. SIDEBOTHAM has greatly surprised me by stating that the 
Gentiana acaulis has been gathered “several times on sand-hills near 
Liverpool,” and was found there “ growing in abundance ;” moreover, 
that he possesses specimens brought thence in a living state. (See 
Phytol. iii. 71). This seems to be pretty strong evidence; and yet 
it is evidence which I feel unable to accept as a sufficient reason for 
taking the Gentiana acaulis out of the list of “ Excluded Species” in 
the ‘ London Catalogue of British Plants.’ The improbability of the 
alleged fact appears to me sufficient to overbalance the testimony in 
its support, and to render it more likely that the evidence is defective 
through some error as to the species or its wildness. The sand-hills 
near Liverpool have been very frequently scoured by botanical col- 
lectors during the last quarter or half-century; and yet we do not 


84 


find Gentiana acaulis mentioned in the ‘Flora of Liverpool,’ published 
within these ten years. It is difficult to conceive so showy a plant 
remaining unseen on a frequented tract of land, which is covered only 
by a thin and short vegetation. And as three other species of the 
genus, — campestris, Amarella, Pneumonanthe, — have undoubtedly 
been collected there, it is likely enough that one of these three has 
been mistaken for G. acaulis. 

The only other reported British locality, so far as I am aware of 
any, having been given up as erroneous by general consent, I must 
still consider the species to have been rightly placed in the “ Ex- 
cluded” list. But I shall be very happy to see it restored “to an 
honourable place in our Flora” if sufficient ground be shown for such 
a position; and equally so of any other species at present among the 
“Excluded.” Certainly the other three species mentioned in Mr. 
Sidebotham’s communication are introduced and imperfectly natural- 
ized species. 

Hewett C. Watson. 

Thames Ditton, 4th March, 1848. 


Distribution of Viola hirta in Scotland. 
By Hewett C. Watson, Esq. 


It is curious to observe how long a time an error will continue to 
be repeated after having been once sent into circulation on influen- 
tial authority. Mr. Andrew Kerr’s communication on Viola hirta af- 
fords an example of this tendency to the repetition of error, even 
while the means of correction are ample. (See Phytol. iii. 76). And 
yet we can scarce be entitled to censure that gentleman for relying 
upon so high an authority as Sir William Hooker, without looking 
further into the accuracy of a statement too hastily made by the 
latter. 

Mr. Kerr introduces a record of his discovery of a locality for Viola 
hirta, just within the county of Kincardine, by remarking that, “ Ac- 
cording to the ‘ British Flora’ of Sir William Jackson Hooker, Viola 
hirta has only been found in the vicinity of Edinburgh, and is con- 
sequently rare in Scotland.” Such a statement appears even in the 
last edition of the ‘ British Flora,’ that of 1842. But Mr. Kerr makes 
it rather worse, when, in his next paragraph, he converts “ vicinity” 
into “immediate vicinity.” I proceed to show how easily the cor- 


85 


rection could have been made, without still repeating the error in 
1848. And I add the dates of the works from which the extracts are 
taken, to show that some of the counter statements have been long 
before the botanical public. The Viola hirta is mentioned also in 
Don’s list of Forfarshire plants, but I have not a copy at hand. 

1777. Lightfoot’s Flora Scotica.—“In the county of Dumfries 
very frequent, but rare in the Lothians, and the eastern side of Scot- 
land.” 

1807. Thompson’s Catalogue of Berwick Plants.—“New Mill 
Banks.” 

1824. Woodforde’s Catalogue of Edinburgh Plants. — Localities 
are here compiled from other sources, in the counties of Edinburgh, 
Haddington and Fife. 

1847. Watson’s Cybele Britannica.—In this work it is stated that 
Viola hirta occurs in three of the six Scottish Provinces, namely, in 
the West Lowlands, East Lowlands, East Highlands; and that it ex- 
tends northwards into Forfarshire. 

1848. Gardiner’s Flora of Forfarshire.— Three localities are indi- 
cated in the county of Forfar, under the head of Viola hirta. 

Thus, including Mr. Kerr’s added county of Kincardine, this violet 
has been recorded from seven of the Scottish counties. 


Hewett C. Warson. 
Thames Ditton, 4th March, 1848. 


Reply to Mr. Newman’s Queries on the Equisetum fluviatile of the 
Linnean Herbarium. By Hewett C. Watson, Esq. 


Mr. Newman has addressed to me in the pages of the ‘ Phytologist’ 
two queries respecting the Equisetum fluviatile of the Linnean her- 
barium, and has desired to have answers thereto through the same 
medium (see Phytol. iii. 77). 

First, Mr. Newman intimates that he had sent me specimens of the 
plant described and figured by himself under name of Equisetum flu- 
viatile, and inquires whether I consider them to belong to the same 
species as the specimens so named in the Linnean herbarium ?—I 
have compared the specimens from Mr. Newman with those in the 
Linnean herbarium, and do not find the slightest reason to doubt their 
being “ individuals of one and the same species.” 

Second, Mr. Newman inquires whether I detect any discrepancy 


86 


between the descriptions and specimens of Linneus, which induces a 
doubt as to their perfect accordance ?—-I reply, that the four speci- 
mens named Equisetum fluviatile in the Linnean herbarium correspond 
with the description of Eq. limosum (“ caule subnudo ”) in the ‘ Spe- 
cies Plantarum’ more exactly than they correspond with the descrip- 
tion of Eq. fluviatile (“frondibus subsimplicibus”) in the same work ; 
only one of those four specimens corresponding strictly with the 
description of Eq. fluviatile, while all of them might be included un- 
der that of Eq. limosum, and three of them most precisely. To this 
extent there is discrepancy between the Linnean description and 
specimens of “ Equisetum fluviatile.” 

I should prefer not to add another word here, having replied to the 
queries; but some ambiguity arises from the title of Mr. Newman’s 
article not corresponding with the queries. The species, Eq. “ fluvia- 
tile” of the Linnean herbarium is included in the ‘London Catalogue’ 
under name of Eq. limosum,—a name which it bears in the ‘ Species 
Plantarum’ of Linneus, and in the works of English authors generally. 

Hewett C. Watson. 

Thames Ditton, March, 1848. 


[The matter must end here for the present. I did not anticipate 
such an answer to the second question: I am willing to admit that 
either description will apply to the Linnean specimens, as indeed they 
should do, since they describe the same plant.—E. N.] 


Botanical Extracts from James Backhouse’s Visit to the Mauritius 
and South Africa, in 1838. 


Port Louis“ In the course of a walk, I met with the noble Rivea 
tiliefolia in blossom : it is a climbing plant of the Convolvulus tribe, 
growing on the coast, among the grass and bushes. The flowers are 
deep pink, and upwards of four inches in diameter; the tube slightly 
bell-shaped, and much darker than the rest of the blossom; the five 
ribs of the flower are also of a deeper hue than the rest of the disc. 
Many other beautiful plants of the Convolvulus tribe are natives of 
this Island, especially of its eastern side.”—p. 52. 

Waterfall behind the Duivelsberg. —“ Rainy weather having pre- 
vented our taking needful exercise for some days, we accompanied 
William Henry Harvey, and a botanist of his acquaintance, to a 
waterfall behind the Duivelsberg or Devil’s Hill, which is attached to 
the eastern portion of Table Mountain. The body of descending 


87 


water is not large, nor does it fall perpendicularly, but it rushes down 
a narrow, bushy gorge, from a considerable height, at an angle of 
about 85 degrees. The ravine is crowned by cliffs, and decorated by 
Todea africana and several other ferns, abundance of brambles, some 
low trees, and several heaths. By the path ascending to this spot, 
which passes a deserted, square signal-station, Anemone capensis, 
Antholyza ethiopica, and several other handsome plants were in 
flower. The view of Table Bay and Cape Town, with the adjacent 
sandy flats, and the more distant mountains, is very fine from these 
hills. The mountains were still capped with snow. On the lower 
grounds many pretty plants were in flower; among them were various 
species of Lachenalia, Morea, Homeria, Hesperantha and Gladio- 
lus. The arid parts of the country seem full of small bulbous roots ; 
in the spring, which is now commencing, they send up their beauti- 
ful blossoms in profusion. Many of them have fragrant flowers.” — 
p- 80. 

Table Mountain. —“ In company with W. H. Harvey I ascended 
Table Mountain, which is 3,582 feet high. This mountain is chiefly 
composed of sandstone, which rests on argillaceous rock, below which 
granite emerges in several places. In one place, near a deserted 
house called Plaat Klip, Flat Rock, there is a small vein of basalt. 
The lower sandstone is reddish; the upper, forming the cliffs, very 
white and compact. The rain which falls on this mountain, filtering 
through the sandstone, forms numerous rivulets, several of which de- 
scend in cascades, among the bushy rocks of the valleys of the mid- 
dle region of the mountain. One of these rivulets is brought into 
Cape Town, under a covered conduit, for the supply of the town. — 
Table Mountain is ascended by a narrow, stony gorge, that passes 
behind a thin portion of the cliff. The top of this mountain, in com- 
mon with others on the south coast, is often enveloped in fog, parti- 
cularly when the wind blows from the south-east. These fogs look 
from below like milk-white clouds, with margins pouring over the 
edge of the cliffs; they are very prevalent in summer. A fog coming 
on, we speedily descended, having gathered a yellow Disa, a plant of 
the Orchis tribe, on the top, and a pink one, with some heaths, in the 
gorge; and the elegant blue Agathea parvifolia, which resembles an 
Aster, among the bushes below. 

“Ina walk on the ascent of Table Mountain, we noticed a fine 
Leucodendron, forming an erect bush, four feet high ; the flowers al- 
most equalled those of a Magnolia, the pale bracteas of the Leuco- 
dendron supplying the place of petals. A singular scarlet parasite, 


88 


Cytinus sanguineus, was growing from the roots of an Eriocephalus, 
a little, hoary, Aster-like bush.”—p. 85. 

Cape Flats. —“ Many pretty flowers decked this portion of the 
Cape Flats. Among them were a pink Watsonia, resembling a corn- 
flag, a yellow, Ivis-like Morea, an orange Gazania, and a few pink 
and white Mesembryanthemums, somewhat of the form of marigolds.” 
—p:8s. 

Heaths. — “The Cape Flats are generally sandy, but beds of im- 
pure limestone occur upon them. ‘They are thinly covered with low 
bushes and herbaceous plants. Various species of heath, Evica, grow 
upon them; some of these are very beautiful, but they do not cover 
the country as in some parts of England; most of them are thinly 
scattered. A yellow, fetid Corycium, and several fragrant species of 
Satyrium, plants of the Orchis tribe, were abundant: the latter were 
green, white and orange.”—p. 89. 

Erica Massonia.—“ The new road is cut out of the sandstone, and 
has a toll upon it. Along its sides, and on the top of the mountain 
there are many beautiful shrubs and plants, among which the most 
striking are Proteas, heaths, everlastings, Gladiolas, Watsonias, 
Ixias, and plants of the Orchis tribe. The beautiful Erica Massonia 
was growing on a springy hillock by the side of the road. Seeing it 
reminded me of having heard of one of the early collectors of plants 
in this country going out to seek it, and meeting some oxen with a 
wagon, having this fine heath, with its large, waxy blossoms, of red 
and green, fastened to their heads to drive off the flies.”—p. 91. 

Helichrysum proliferum. — “In the course of the day I walked to 
the top of a hill, on which Helichrysum proliferum, a beautiful, crim- 
son everlasting, was growing in profusion among low rocks of ferru- 
ginous sandstone. The plants’ were about the size of gooseberry 
bushes, covered with flowers, and as fine as I ever saw them when 
highly cultivated in an English greenhouse. This is not generally 
the case with wild shrubs: they are broken by storms and cattle, and 
overgrown one by another in ‘the situations where they grow naturally, 
but when cultivated they are carefully protected from injury. -— At 
dinner we partook of the boiled flower-stems of Aponogeton dista- 
chyon, which were very palatable; they are called in the Colony 
water uyentjes, water onions.” —p.101. 

Juncus serratus.—“ The margins of this river are choked, in many 
places, with a remarkable rush, Juncus serratus, called in the Colony 
“Palmit, Palmetto:” it has broad, keeled, and sharply serrated 
leaves, and a stout rootstock or trunk, which sometimes attains to five 


89 


or six feet in height, and a foot and a half in circumference.” — 
p- 103. ; 

Beautiful Forests. —“ The woods in this part of the country are 
extensive, and interspersed among the grassy hills. Many of these 
forests are very beautiful: the trees are large, and much over-run with 
climbers. The stinkwood (Laurus bullata), and the yellow-wood (Po- 
docarpus elongata), are the kinds chiefly cut: the former is allied to 
the bay, and the latter to the yew. Yellow-wood is the prevailing 
tree in the forests, and by the sides of rivers, on the eastern side of 
South Africa; it is often rendered conspicuous by a long, shaggy, 
green lichen, with which it is generally clothed. _ Parasitical plants 
of the Orchis tribe are common on the trunks and branches of trees 
in the forests; one we saw to-day had pretty, white flowers. Baboons, 
monkeys, bush-bucks, spotted hyenas, leopards, buffaloes and elephants 
are inhabitants of these woods: the two latter animals are, however, 
scarce, and when a leopard is discovered it is hunted unremittingly, 
till destroyed.”—p. 131. 

Species of Euphorbia.— “The intervening country was poor and 
bushy, interspersed with little salt-flays, or dried-up pools, bordered 
with maritime plants. In one place I noticed the Euphorbia melo- 
formis, a plant in form resembling the fruit of a melon, half buried in 
the earth. There are also some other remarkable species of Euphor- 
bia in this part of the country ; one of them has scorpion-like, pros- 
trate stems; another has thick, angular, spinous, upright stems, about 
three feet high. The last is called morse doorn, nasty thorn. The 
Zwartkops Rivier is a clear stream with deep pools on a gravelly bed ; 
its banks are margined with willow and Acacia caffra.”—p. 161. 

Remarkable Plants. —“ We also observed several remarkable 
plants, such as a large Lyperia, a bulb, bearing a blossom like the 
white variety of Scilla peruviana, a Sparaxis with lazge, pendulous, 
cylindric, crimson flowers, and another with small, irregular flowers, 
also a scarlet Satyrium and a Lobelia, blue on the under lip, blue and 
purple on the upper lip, and yellow on the palate. The two last were 
- on the margin of a little stream, by the side of which we tock off our 
saddles and dined. Further from Philipton the mountains became 
stony and dry. On their ridges there was a remarkable Zamia, with a 
root-stock about three feet high, and rigid, palm-like leaves of yellow- 
ish hue. Nearer Shiloh the country became drier, the grass was 
short and brown, and many of the hills were besprinkled with doorn- 
boom. Another species of Acacia (Acacia elephantorhiza), also 
abounded here on dry, light soil; it had large, compoundly-pinnate 

/ VOU. 111. 0) 


90 


leaves, and pods about six inches long; it was not more than a foot 
and a half high, but had a creeping root, and spread over much 
ground; it had much the general aspect of a handsome fern.”—p. 199. 

Pappea capensis. —“ In the evening, accompanied by John Read 
and two other boys, I visited a steep wood, contiguous to the river, to 
see the tree known in the Colony by the name of Pruim, or Caffer- 
plum (Pappea capensis). It attains to forty feet in height, and has 
pinnate leaves and spiked flowers. The fruit is about an inch long, 
and has a thick, orange-red skin, covering a thin, viscid, pleasantly 
acid pulp, of a flavour like the Tahitian-apple (Spondias dulcis), 
which the tree greatly resembles. There is also now ripe in the woods 
asmall oval, red berry, called zuur bezy, sour-berry; it is of moderate 
and sweetish flavour when thoroughly matured, and is produced by a 
thick bush, having small leaves and opposite, straight, green thorns.” 
—p. 205. 

Euphorbia grandidens.—“ At a short distance from the house 
there is a remarkable copse, consisting chiefly of the chandelier Eu- 
phorbia (Euphorbia gradidens). The leaves of this tree are confined 
to the young portions of the shoots, and are so small as to pass almost 
unnoticed. The thick, erect, angular, green stems seem to form its 
verdure, and its trunk, which may be thirty feet high, is, in some in- 
stances, as thick as a man’s waist. At this place I first noticed a 
small species of coral-tree (Hrythrina) ; it was about a yard high, and 
bore long spikes of large, crimson, pea-like flowers. It is scattered 
thinly over this part of Caffraria.”—p. 226. 

Pheenix reclinata.—< In some of the narrow, woody valleys about 
the Kap Rivier, and the adjacent parts of Albany, the Little Date 
(Phoenix reclinata), abounds ; it has pectinate leaves, and attains to 
about ten feet in height. It is a highly ornamental little palm, and 
frequently bears the name of coffee-tree, because of the form and size 
of its seeds, which nevertheless are not available for the purposes of 
coffee. Children eat the thin, sweet coating of the fruit.” — p. 293. 

Strelitzia, §c.—“ Our road lay, for a considerable distance, along 
the bottom of the deep, woody ravine of the Kowie, in which a species 
of Angrecum? was growing as an epiphyte upon the trees, and exhi- 
biting its small, yellow blossoms. The beautiful Strelitzia regina was 
abundantly in flower on the north side of the ravine: it is very plen- 
tiful in this country, growing in large tufts among the bushes. _ Its 
leaves have a flag-like appearance, they are spoon-shaped, and on 
stout footstalks ; its singular orange blossoms, three inches long, with 
purple, tongue-like anthers, are produced from the upper side of a 


91 


large, horizontal sheath, on the top of a stalk, and present a very re- 
markable appearance. The seeds of the large, white-flowered species, 
Strelitzia augusta, which grows nearer the coast, are edible.”—p. 296. 

Aloe ferox.— Near one part of the road an Aloe, with a tall trunk, 
Aloe ferox? formed a splendid object; its flower-stems were from 
three to four feet high, some of them with one or two upright 
branches; the blossoms were tubular, and shaded with red, orange 
and yellow; they clothed the stems from the base, so as to form 
spikes the thickness of a man’s arm. This plant is represented in the 
etching at page 293, along with Testudinaria Elephantipes, Hotten- 
tot’s bread, found on the karroo about Uitenhage, Phoenix reclinata, 
the little date of the valleys of Albany, Euphorbia meloformis, the 
melon-formed Euphorbia, and Euphorbia heptagona, one of the 
morsdoorns, from the vicinity of Uitenhage; Aloe arborescens, the 
tree aloe, and Acacia giraffe, the kameel doorn, of Namaqua Land.” 
——praee: 


Notice of the ‘ Tyneside Naturalists Field Club, for the year ending 
February, 1847. Vol.i. Part 1. Newcastle, 1848. 


PROVINCIAL Societies for the promotion of Natural History too fre- 
quently prove unsuccessful, after starting with large promises and 
prospectuses, which are shown to have been little better than bom- 
bastic delusions when the time arrives for asking about their results 
and realizations. At the first getting up of such an association there 
is frequently a good deal of zeal and activity, the temporary efferves- 
cence of which is misread into an earnest of permanent support and 
prosperity. Large schemes are consequently planned on paper, and 
a rate of expenditure commences out of present subscriptions and 
donations, which the true permanent revenue of the society is after- 
wards found quite inadequate to continue. Disappointment and 
debt, diminished zeal and exhausted activity, with other depressing 
conditions, gradually supervene; leaving the institution to drag on a 
precarious and unuseful existence, if its career does not become ab- 
ruptly terminated in a sale of effects, or a very unwilling subscription 
to pay off its liabilities. 

In large towns, where a numerous body of subscribers may be ob- 
tained, and a sufficient number of scientific men dwell within mode- 
rate distance from each other, a Natural History Society may exist 
in some degree of activity and usefulness; that is to say, a museum 


92 


may be formed and supported, and the usual routine of thinly attend- 
ed meetings may take place. Some degree of good is thus effected, 
although more in the way of diffusing a taste for the pursuit of Natu- 
ral History than in really contributing to the progressive advance- 
ment of science; and the degree of good which is effected is found 
to be rather costly if measured by the outlay to produce it. 

Such institutions cannot be formed in the smaller towns, on ac- 
count of the scanty numbers of scientific supporters or subscribers 
who would club together for this purpose. A substitute is attempted 
in associations of members by counties, instead of by single towns. 
A failure is the result; very much because the originators or mana- 
gers of the county societies unwisely endeavour to imitate the urban 
associations in those which are intended for a vastly more extended 
and thinly peopled area. A museum is attempted; but as the mu- 
seum must be in one place, while the members or might-be-members 
are in many places, the attempt proves unsuccessful. A library is 
commenced by a few donations of volumes, but makes little progress ; 
the scattered habitats of the subscribers or members being almost 
equally as unfavourable to a library as to a museum. Meetings to 
hear papers read are also attempted, but as nobody comes to hear 
them, beyond two or three of the office-bearers on the spot, meetings 
and papers are very flat affairs. 

In short, county societies require to be instituted on plans quite 
different from those suitable for large towns, and will fail as often as 
they are made imitations of the urban associations. They should 
rather be unions of scientific men for the purpose of combining their 
local investigations into one common fund or contribution to science. 
How valuable, for example, would be a series of published county 
‘Natural Histories,’ including the four departments of Meteorology, 
Geology, Zoology and Botany, incorporating into one whole the lo- 
cal investigations of all the resident naturalists of the county! These 
would be more useful to the naturalists of the county, both while in 
course of preparation and also when completed, than are the abortive at- 
tempts at museums, libraries and meeting-rooms, which are in vogue 
at present. And their usefulness would extend far beyond the limits 
of their county. Nor do we think they would prove expensive to the 
parties by whose joint exertions they would be produced. If the ne- 
cessary outlay should not be covered by the subscriptions of other 
residents for copies, or by sales to the public, the deficiency would 
be divided among several, and fall lightly on each. The ‘Field 
Clubs’ may be considered as societies of an intermediate character, 


93 


combining the advantages of personal intercourse among those of 
congenial tastes, with the acquisition of knowledge by local explora- 
tions; at the same time, escaping the unprofitable outlay on libraries 
and museums, and the always unsuccessful attempt to keep up meet- 
ings at one fixed centre, too distant from the circumference. 

Our attention has been drawn to this subject by receipt of an un- 
pretending publication, yet one by no means without merit and value, 
the title of which stands at the head of this article. The contents of 
this ‘ First Part’ being chiefly zoological, they do not properly belong 
to the ‘ Phytologist.’ But there are rules and resolutions bearing on 
the subject of our introductory remarks which may afford useful sug- 
gestions towards the formation and arrangement of other local associ- 
ations ; and under this impression we shall here reprint some of them, 
premising, by way of caution against misapprehension, that we omit 
two-thirds of the rules, &c. 

“That the members of the Club shall hold five field-meetings dur- 
ing the year, in the most interesting localities for investigating the 
Natural History and antiquities of the district. That the places of 
meeting be selected by the Committee,” &c. 

“That those members to whom it may be convenient shall partake 
of breakfast together, at the nearest country inn, at ten o’clock, after 
which the.researches of the day shall commence.” 

“That the hour for a frugal dinner be appointed by the chairman, 
during [after ?] which any papers which he may have received from 
members of the Club shall be read from the chair.” 

“That as members must incur some trifling expense in reaching 
the place of their field meetings, no subscription to any general fund 
be required beyond the amount of five shillings yearly, to be laid 
out,” &c. 

“'That at the close of each year the president be requested to fa- 
vour the Club with an address, containing a written summary of its 
proceedings at the several field meetings, together with such obser- 
vations from himself as he may deem conducive to the welfare of the 
Club and the promotion of its objects.” 

“ That the Tyneside Naturalists’ Field Club undertake the forma- 
tion and publication of correct lists of the various natural productions 
of the counties of Northumberland and Durham, with such observa- 
tions as their respective authors may deem necessary. Also that a 
succinct account of the geology of the district be prepared.” 

“That as mistakes may occur in the proposed lists, and as it is of 
importance that an authentic collection should be accessible when 


94 


any doubt may occur as to a name or species, that local collections 
be formed and placed, with the consent of the Natural History 
Society, in the Newcastle Museum.” 

“That the proposed publications be printed in a cheap form, and 
sold at a low rate.” 


C. 


BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 


Friday, 3rd March.— John Reynolds, Esq., Treasurer, in the 
chair. 

The following donations were announced: ‘The Flora of Forfar- 
shire, by Mr. William Gardiner, presented by the author. ‘ Trans- 
actions of the Tyneside Naturalists’ Field Club, Vol. i. Part 1, 
presented by Mr. John Storey. Iceland plants from Mr. C. C. Ba- 
bington. Mr. Thomas Turner, of Streatham Hill, Brixton Hill, and 
the Rev. William Marsden Hind, of Pulverbatch, Shrewsbury, were 
elected members. Specimens of the plants mentioned in Mr. Wat- 
son’s paper on some of the plants distributed by the Society in 1848 
(See Phytol. February, 1848) were exhibited. Also a specimen of 
Caltha palustris, sent by Mr. Watson, as one of the connecting links 
between that species and the C. radicans; having the leaves just in- 
termediate between those of the two figures in ‘ English Botany,’ but 
still more acutely crenate or dentate even than those of C. radicans 
are represented to be.—G. E. D. 


Vegetation of the Organ Mountains. 
(Extracted from Gardnev’s ‘ Travels in Brazil’). 


‘Tn order to present some general idea of the splendid scenery of 
the country, and the leading features of this part of Brazil, I will give 
an account of some of these excursions. There is a path by the side 
of the great aqueduct, which has always been the favorite resort of 
naturalists who have visited Rio; and there is certainly no walk near 
the city so fruitful either in insects or plants. The following notes 
were made on the return from my first visit along the whole length of 
the aqueduct. After reaching the head of the Laraujeiras valley, 


95 


which is about two miles in extent, the ascent becomes rather steep. 
At this time it was about 9 a.m., and the rays of the sun, proceed- 
ing from a cloudless sky, were very powerful; but a short distance 
brought us within the cool shade of the dense forest which skirts the 
sides of the Corcovado, and through which our path lay. In the val- 
ley we saw some very large trees of a thorny-stemmed Bombax, but 
they were then destitute both of leaves and flowers, nearly all the trees 
of this tribe being deciduous. There we also passed under the shade 
of a very large solitary tree, which overhangs the road, and is well 
known by the name of the Pao Grande. It is the Jequetiba of the 
Brazilians, and the Couratari legalis of Martius. Considerably fur- 
ther up, and on the banks of a small stream that descends from the 
mountain, we found several curious Dorstenias, and many delicate 
species of ferns. We also added here to our collections fine speci- 
mens of the tree-fern (Trichopteris excelsa) which was the first of the 
kind I had yet seen. The forests here exhibited all the characteris- 
tics of tropical vegetation. The rich black soil, which has been form- 
ing for centuries in the broad ravines from the decay of leaves, &c., 
is covered with herbaceous ferns, Dorstenias, Heliconias, Bejonias, 
and other plants which love shade and humidity; while above these 
rise the tall and graceful tree-ferns, and the noble palms, the large 
leaves of which tremble in the slightest breeze. But it is the gigantic 
forest trees themselves which produce the strongest impression on the 
mind of a stranger. How I felt the truth of the observation of Hum- 
boldt, that when a traveller newly arrived from Europe penetrates for 
the first time into the forests of South America, Nature presents itself 
to him under such an unexpected aspect, that he can scarcely distin- 
guish which most excites his admiration, the deep silence of those 
solitudes, the individual beauty and contrast of forms, or that vigour 
and freshness of vegetable life which characterize the climate of the 
tropics. What first claims attention is the great size of the trees, 
their thickness, and the height to which they rear their unbranched 
stems. 

“Then, in place of the few mosses and lichens which cover the 
trunks and boughs of the forest trees of temperate climes, here they 
are bearded from the roots to the very extremities of the smallest 
branches, with ferns, Aroidex, Tillandsias, Cacti, Orchidez, Gesneriz, 
and other epiphytous plants. Besides these, many of the large trunks 
are encircled with the twining stems of Bignonias, and shrubs of simi- 
lar habit, the branches of which frequently become thick, and com- 
press the tree so much that it perishes in the too close embrace. 


96 


Those climbers, again, which merely ascend the trunk, supporting 
themselves by their numerous small roots, often become detached af- 
ter reaching the boughs, and where many of them exist, the stem pre- 
sents the aspect of a large mast supported by its stays. These rope- 
like twiners and creeping plants, passing from tree to tree, descending 
from the branches to the ground, and ascending again to other boughs, 
intermingle themselves in a thousand ways, and render a passage 
through such parts of the forest both difficult and annoying.” — p. 23. 

“The Corcovado mountain offers a rich field to the botanist. I 
frequently visited the lower portions, but only once ascended to the 
summit. The ascent is from the N.W. side, and although rather 
steep in some places, may be ridden on horseback all the way up. 
Some of the trees on the lower parts of it are very large. The thick 
underwood consists of palms, Melastomacee, Myrtacee, tree-ferns, 
Crotons, &c.; and beneath these are many delicate herbaceous ferns, 
Dorstenias, Heliconias, and, in the more open places, a few large 
grasses. ‘Towards the summit the trees are of much smaller growth, 
and shrubs belonging to the genus Croton are abundant, as well as a 
small kind of bamboo. The summit itself is a large mass of very 
coarse-grained granite. In the clefts of the rocks grow a few small 
kinds of orchidaceous plants, and a beautiful tuberous-rooted scarlet- 
flowered Gesnera. From this point a magnificent panoramic view of 
the bay, the city, and the surrounding country is obtained,” — p. 28. 

“The whole length of the road is through one dense forest, the 
magnificence of which cannot be imagined by those who have never 
seen it, nor penetrated into its recesses. Those remnants of the vir- 
gin forest which still stand in the vicinity of the capital, although 
they appear grand to the eye of a newly arrived European, become 
insignificant when compared with the mass of giant vegetation which 
clothes the sides of the Organ Mountains. So far as I have been able 
to determine, the largest forest trees consist of various species of 
palms, Laurus, Ficus, Cassia, Bignonia, Solanum, Myrtacew, and 
Melastomacee. In temperate climates natural forests are mostly 
composed of trees which grow gregariously. In those of tropical 
countries it is seldom that two trees of a kind are to be seen growing 
together, the variety of different species is so great. Many of the 
trees are of immense size, and have their trunks and branches covered 
with myriads of those plants which are usually called parasites, but 
are not so in reality, eonsisting of Orchidee, Bromeliacee, ferns, Pe- 
peromiz, &c., which derive their nourishment from the moisture of 
the bark and the earthy matter which has been formed from the decay 


OW 


of mosses, &c. Many of the trees have their trunks encircled by 
twiners, the stems of which are often thicker than those they surround. 
This is particularly the case with a kind of wild fig, called by the 
Brazilians, Cipo Matador. It runs up the tree to which it has at- 
tached itself, and at the distance of about every ten feet throws out 
from each side a thick clasper, which curves round and closely en- 
twines the other stem. As both the trees increase in size, the pres- 
sure ultimately becomes so great that the supporting one dies from 
the embrace of the parasite. There is another kind of wild fig-tree 
with an enormous height and thickness of stem, to which the English 
residents give the name of buttress-tree, from several large thin plates 
which stand out from the bottom of the trunk. They begin to jut 
out from the stem at the height of ten or twelve feet from the bottom, 
and gradually increase in breadth till they reach the ground, where 
they are connected with the large roots of the tree. At the surface 
of the ground these plates are often five feet broad, and throughout 
not more than a few inches thick. ‘The various species of Laurus 
form fine trees ; they flower in the months of April and May, at which 
season the atmosphere is loaded with the rich perfume of their small 
white blossoms. When their fruit is ripe it forms the principal food 
of the Jacutinga (Penelope Jacutinga, Spix), a fine large game bird. 
The large Cassiz have a striking appearance when in flower; and, as 
an almost equal number of large trees of Lasiandra Fontanesia, and 
others of the Melastoma tribe are in bloom at the same time, the 
forests are then almost one mass of yellow and purple from the abun- 
dance of these flowers. Rising amid these, the pink-coloured flowers 
of the Chorisia speciosa, a kind of silk cotton-tree, can be easily dis- 
_ tinguished. It is also a large tree, with a stem covered with strong 
prickles, from five to eight feet in circumference, unbranched to the 
height of thirty or forty feet. The branches then form a nearly he- 
mispherical top, which, when covered with its thousands of beautiful 
large rose-coloured blossoms, has a striking effect when contrasted 
with the masses of green, yellow and purple of the surrounding trees. 
Many of these large trunks afford support to various species of climb- 
ing and twining shrubs, belonging to the natural orders Bignoniacee, 
Composite, Apocynee and Leguminose, the stems of which fre- 
quently assume a very remarkable appearance. Several of them are 
often twisted together, and dangle from the branches of the trees, like 
large ropes, while others are flat and compressed, like belts: of the 
latter description I have met with some six inches broad, and not 
more than an inch thick. Two of the finest climbers are the beauti- 
Mou. JI. P 


98 


ful large trumpet-flowered Solandra grandiflora, which, diffusing itself 
among the largest trees of the forest, gives them a magnificence not 
their own; anda showy species of Fuchsia (F. integrifolia, Cambess.) 
which is very common, attaching itself to ali kinds of trees, often 
reaching to the height of from sixty to one hundred feet, and then 
falling down in the most beautiful festoons. At the foot of the moun- 
tains the underwood principally consists of shrubs belonging to the 
natural orders Melastomacez, Myrtacee, Composite, Solanacee and 
Rubiacez, among which are many large species of herbaceous ferns 
and a few palms. About the middle palms and tree-ferns abound, 
some of the latter reaching to a height of not less than forty feet. 
These trees are so very unlike every other denizen of the forest, so 
strange in appearance, yet so graceful, that they have always attracted 
my attention more than any other, not even excepting the palms. 
At an elevation of about 2,000 feet, a large species of bamboo (Bam- 
busa Tagoara, Mart.) makes its appearance. The stems of this gi- 
gantic grass are often eighteen inches in circumference, and attain a 
height of from fifty to one hundred feet. They do not, however, 
grow perfectly upright, their tips forming a graceful curve downwards. 
Throughout the whole distance the path was lined on each side with 
the most beautiful herbaceous plants and delicate ferns.”—pp. 42-46. 


Notice of ‘The Cryptogamic Vasculares of Rhenish Prussia. By 
Pu. WirTGEN. Bonn, 1847.’ 


TuIs unpretending little pamphlet is a valuable and agreeable ad- 
dition to the fern-literature of Europe: the species are enumerated, 
with brief characters anda copious list of localities to each, occasionally 
interspersed with remarks, some of which we shall extract. 

Equisetum arvense. 

Telmateta=fluviatile of Smith, Hooker, &c. 
sylvaticum. 

umbrosum=Drummondii of Hooker, &c. 
palustre. 

limosum. 

hyemale. 

———  ramosum. 

Pilularia globulifera. 

Lycopodium Selago. 


Lycopodium annotinum. 

tnundatum. 

clavatum. 

Chamecyparissus.—This plant has been described by 
several authors under the name of L. complanatum ; from which the 
present plant was distinguished by A. Braun. M. Wirtgen remarks: 
“The true L. complanatum of Linneus, which is distinguished by 
dichotomous branches, lanceolate exterior and smaller subulate in- 
terior leaves, and several other characters, does not grow in the Rhine 
province. It appears to be a plant of eastern Germany.”—p. 10. 
We wish to refrain from expressing any opinion as to the validity of the 
characters by which this well-known plant is separated from the Ly- 
copodium complanatum of Linneus, for which it has hitherto passed 
without a question. 

Grammitis Ceterach. 

Polypodium vulgare-—Of this species Wirtgen distinguishes four 
varieties, under the names of auriculatum, serratum, crenatum, and op- 
positum. 

Phegopteris. 

Dryopteris. 

Robertianum of Hoffman =calcareum of Smith and 
Hooker: the restoration of the older name is highly to be com- 
mended. 

Aspidium Lonchitis. 

aculeatum.— All the kindred forms are unhesitatingly 
associated under this name. 

Polystichum Thelypteris. 

Oreopteris. 
—— —- filix-mas. 
cristatum = the cristatum of Roth, &c., not of Willde- 


now; it is the cristatum of Linneus in part, and the Callipteris of 
Ebrhart. 


spinulosum = Aspidium spinulosum of Hooker, and 
Asp. dilatatum of Smith: as the ferns comprised under this name 
have recently undergone investigation in this country, we shall quote 
M. Wirtgen’s remarks at length, and add a few observations of our 
own. 

“No. 26. Polystichum spinulosum, De C. Spiney Pol. Aspidium 
spinulosum, Schk. In forests throughout the whole district, in shady 
and sunny, in damp and dry, places. Summer. Frond 1—1} ft. 
high, mostly of a rather yellow green ; commonly dies away in autumn. 


- 


100 


“Var. 8. dilatatum, A. Polypodium dilatatum, Hoffm. Frond 
1—2 ft. high, lively green, bipinnate and pinnatifid, almost tripinnate, 
deltoid-ovate in its outline. With the species, especially in shady 
woods. 

“ Ist remark.—The most widely different forms of this fern are found 
on the hill of Montabaurer, distant three hours’ journey from Coblentz, 
1600 feet high, in the dukedom of Nassau, which affords an especially 
rich harvest in ferns, and the present species in great quantity on sunny 
and shady, stony and fertile, dry and boggy, ground. I usually found 
the variety at the end of October dead and black, while the species 
was still of a lively green or a yellowish green. 

“2nd remark.—The species and the variety have been regarded by 
many authors as two distinct species; and they really appear so dif- 
ferent, that when the variety is seen without its intermediate forms, it 
may well be taken for a distinct species; but on further research such 
a host of intermediate forms occur, that one is often at a loss to know 
to which of the two principal forms they should be referred. Accord- 
ing to Schkuhr, Kaulfuss, Spenner, Wallroth, Genth, and others, 
P. spinulosum should possess a glandular, and P. dilatatum a smooth 
[indusium?]|; which, on the contrary, is questioned by Lejeune and 
Courtois, Link, Meyer, Roper, and others, neither have I met with the 
glandular indusium in any of the forms. John Roper has most 
thoroughly investigated the history of this species in his excellent 
work ‘ Flora Mecklenburgs,’ vol. i., pages 82—96, and, moreover, also 
unites with it P. cristatum, which I nevertheless was unable to con- 
firm. 

“ He distinguishes— 

““]. Principal or intermediate form: Nephrodium (Polystichum) 

spinulosum (true). 

“2. Finely divided, or wood form: Nephrodium (Polystichum) dila- 

tatum. 

“3. Simplified or bog form: N. cristatum. 

“3rd remark.—That excellent judge of German ferns, Professor A. 
Braun, of Freiburg, and after him D6ll, in his valuable ‘ Rheinische 
Flora’ (pp. 17—18), discriminate the following forms of this variable 
species :— 

“a. elevatum, A. Br—Rhizome prostrate, rather thin; stipes long, 
erect; axis nearly naked; frond small, barren towards the base, 
doubly pinnate and pinnatifid; the lower pinne distant, nearly as long 
as the following; pinnules short, with approximate, serrate, sharp- 
pointed, acuminate segments, whose teeth are somewhat curved up- 


101 


wards and inwards. Aspidium spinulosum, Szeartz. In damp woods 
in low districts. 

“b. wliginosum, A. Br.—Stipes rather short, with few, scattered, 
broadly ovate, short-pointed, brown-yellow scales; frond doubly pin- 
nate, pinnatifid ; pinne approximate, the inferior ones a little shorter 
than the following; teeth of the leaflets rather short, sharp-pointed, 
appressed (anliegend). (At Freiburg in the bog, with Asp. cristatum). 

“c. dilatatum (Aspid. dilatatum).—Rhizome nearly erect, thick ; 
frond fertile over the whole under-surface, curved back, dilated; stipes 
rather short, rather thickly clothed with ovate-lanceolate, acute scales, 
which are dark brown in the middle; frond fertile, nearly tripinnate, 
at the base often tripinnate-pinnatifid; pinne long, pointed, the 
lowest considerably shorter; pinnules lanceolate, with smaller, more 
distant segments, confluent at the base, more remote, and somewhat 
aculeate teeth, which finally become bent back with the margin. It 
grows in shady woods on the mountains and plains. 

“d. muticum, A. Br.—Stipes clothed with broader, pale scales; 
pinne largest at the base and below the middle; segments of the 
pinnules confluent, and broad at the base, afterwards much contracted, 
linear, obtuse, inciso-serrate ; sori nearly marginal, at the sinus between 
the segments or teeth. (At Freiburg).” 

It will be perfectly evident to those who take an interest in this 
subject that the named varieties are distinguished by Braun with great 
botanical tact. We are perfectly familiar with three of these forms. 
Klevatum and uliginosum are combined by Roth, and subsequently by 
Newman, under the name of spinosa: elevatum generally grows in 
woods, uliginosum in marshes. No one in this country has hitherto 
admitted these to be ranked as varieties: dilatatum is the dilatatum, 
spinulosum and dumetorum of Smith, the multiflora of Roth and New- 
man. The fourth variety, muticum, is entirely unknown to us; the 
name implying the absence of the terminal spine which distinguishes 
the group might lead us to suspect that the A. rigidum, a fern so long 
and obstinately confounded with this group by English authors, was 
the form intended, but the marginal situation of the clusters of capsules 
does not favour such a suggestion, and almost induces us to suppose 
there is an European species of the genus yet undescribed. It must, 
however, be observed in favour of the suggestion that rigidum is ab- 
sent from Wirtgen’s list, although decidedly a native of the district. 

Cystopteris fragilis—None of the forms of this protean fern are 
raised to specific honours. 

Asplenium Trichomanes. 


102 


Asplenium Filix-femina.—The three varieties so well known are 
described as below, but referred without hesitation to one species. 

“99. A. Filix-femina. 

“a, molle. Athyr. molle, Roth. Frond small, a foot high; pinne 
longish, incised, decurrent at the axis; segments usually with one 
tooth. In the Condethal at Winningen, Wirtgen ; Wiedbachthal, 
Brahts ; Friesdorf, near Bonn, E'berwein. 

“8. ovatum. Athyr. ovatum, Roth. Frond larger; pinne approxi- 
mate, oval, cut, decurrent at the axis; segments mostly 2-3 dentate. 
Condethal and Belthal, at or near Winningen, Wirigen. 

“y, elatum. Ath. elatum, Roth. Frond 2—23 ft. high; pinne dis- 
tant, pinnatifid, very little, or not at all decurrent; segments 2-4 den- 
tate. A beautiful and well-marked form. In fertile soil of shady 
alpine woods; common.”’—p. 4l. 

Asplenium Breynii=germanicum, Weiss, &c.; alternifolium of most 
modern authors. 

Ruta-muraria. 

Adiantum-nigrum.—Pleasantly divided into three named 
varieties—pinnatum, bipinnatum, tripinnatum. 

septentrionale. 

Scolopendrium officinarum = Scolopendrium vulgare of authors. 

Pteris aquilina. 

Blechnum spicant. 

Struthiopteris germanica. 

Osmunda regalis. 

Botrychium lunaria. 

Ophioglossum vulgatum. 

This list, which we may presume to be tolerably perfect, offers a 
few points for observation. Contrasting it with our own, it contains 
three species with which we are unacquainted, Equisetum ramosum, 
Lycopodium Chamecyparissus and Struthiopteris germanica; the 
first of these may possibly prove identical with our Equisetum varie- 
gatum, the others are undoubtedly distinct. On the other hand, we 
have no less than sixteen species that are absent from M. Wirtgen’s 
list, these are— 


Equisetum variegatum Lastrea recurva 
Adiantum Capillus-Veneris Asplenium lanceolatum 
Allsorus crispus Asplenium marinum 
Woodsia Ilvensis ———— viride 

alpina '  'Trichomanes speciosum 


Lastrea rigida Hymenophyllum tunbridgense 


103 


Hymenophyllum Wilsoni Lycopodium selaginoides 

Lycopodium alpinum Isoetes lacustris 

Equisetum variegatum and Lastrea rigida being subject to a doubt, 
as previously expressed. 

M. Wirtgen observes that the entire number of species occurring 
in middle and northern Germany, from the Donou to the east and 
north sea, amounts to fifty-seven: for the complete Rhine Flora the 
following species may be added :— 


Equisetum variegatum Asplenium viride 

trachyodon Botrychium matricariefolium 
Adiantum Capillus-Veneris ——_—_—_ futetolnum 
Allosorus crispus Lycopodium alpinum 
Polypodium alpestre Selaginella spinulosa 
Lastrea rigida ——_— helvetica 
In the fertile province of Silesia five other species occur :— 
Cystopteris regia Lycopodium complanatum 
Woodsia hyperborea and 
Asplenium fissum Salvinia natans 


The whole of these are absent from the British Flora, unless the 
Low Layton plant is referrible to the first. The said plant illustrates 
the extreme tenacity with which ferns cling to a station in which 
they have been once established. In 1845, a gentleman wrote a note 
for publication in these pages, (Phytol. ii. 291) announcing that the 
plant “had been dead some years;” and adding, “By making this 
known you may save botanists a fruitless search, and the polite pro- 
prietor of the house will be relieved from many inquiries.” We have 
not the honour of knowing the writer, Mr. Frederick Barham, but we 
presume that he knew the locality ; and although he is in error in 
stating the plant had been dead some years (it having been gathered 
every year), yet it is obvious that it was not sufficiently conspicuous 
for him to detect it when he visited the spot in August, 1845. Two 
months later, that is, in October, 1845, it was green and vigorous as 


ever. K. 


Further Remarks on Plants excluded from the Second Edition of 
the ‘ London Catalogue. By ¥F. P. Pascor, Esq. 


Mr. SipEBoruHam having directed attention to the “ Excluded Spe- 
cies” of the ‘London Catalogue’ in the last number of the ‘ Phy- 


104 


tologist,’ | am induced to offer a few additional remarks on the same 
subject. Probably very few will agree throughout in their views as 
to what are or are not “iruly indigenous ;” fewer still, as to the de- 
gree of naturalization which should entitle a species, known or suspect- 
ed to have been introduced, to take its place in our lists. As far as I 
have had an opportunity of forming an opinion, I think the authors of 
the ‘ London Catalogue’ would have been fully justified if their list of 
excluded species had been much more extensive than it is: such un- 
doubted aliens as Lilium Martagon, Impatiens fulva, and some others, 
ought, as it seems to me, to be very widely distributed ere they are 
admitted even as naturalized species in any catalogue of British plants. 
On the other hand, there are in the excluded list one or two species 
for which I would claim a less dubious position; Mr. Sidebotham has 
already mentioned one of these, Oxalis stricta, and I shall only add, 
that in the orchards at Lariggan and the Minney near Penzance, 
where it occurs in tolerable abundance, it is known to have existed 
for more than eighty years, and, so far from receiving any encourage- 
ment, it is regularly weeded up by the occupiers of the property. 
Iris tuberosa is another plant which, whatever may have been its 
origin, has been established in its present localities, near Penzance, 
many years, and although I only contend for its being thoroughly na- 
turalized there, it has, as far as the nature of its stations are con- 
cerned, much more the appearance of being indigenous than Allium 
Babingtonii, which in the ‘ general list’ takes its place, an unquestion- 
ed native. 

As the ‘ London Catalogue’ bears evident marks of the anxiety of 
its authors to record everything, even to the “ ambiguous and errone- 
ous,” I would call their attention to Geranium striatum, Z., which they 
have altogether omitted ;* always found near gardens, and in small 
quantities, it is yet sufficiently naturalized, or apparently so, in this 
country to make it desirable that it should receive some notice in 
every work on British plants. In my earlier days it was long a sore 
puzzle; finding it in waste places with ordinary weeds, any doubts of 
its being otherwise than a true native never occurred to me. 

Although not exactly to the point, I will not conclude without ex- 
pressing my regret that the British Flora should now be regularly 


* One of the authors (Mr. Hewett C. Watson) notices this plant in his ‘ Cybele 
Britannica;’ the omission of it therefore in the ‘Catalogue’ must have been an 


oversight. 


105 


hampered with the plants of the Channel Islands; why not the whole 


British empire, or at least Heligoland and Gibraltar ? 


F. P. Pascoe. 
Trewhiddle, near St. Austell, 


March 17th, 1848. 


[And Jamaica? I quite agree with my correspondent’s view on 
this subject. The geographical boundaries of a Flora should be 
natural, not political. E. N.| 


a 


Note on Datura Stramonium. By F. P. Pascor, Esq. 


In the summer and autumn of 1846 after the removal of an old out- 
house, several plants of this species made their appearance on its site, 
as well as in an adjacent field, &c. It was perfectly new to the 
gardener, who had been here eighteen years. Although I took some 
trouble to scatter its seed, last year passed away and not a specimen 
was to be found. _ I believe that it is generally a very uncertain alien, 
at the best, in this country. In Cornwall it has been occasionally 


noticed in two or three other places. 


F. P. Pascoe. 
Trewhiddle, near St. Austell, 


March 17th, 1848. 


Notice of the ‘ London Journal of Botany, Nos. 73 to 75, for 
January to March, 1848. 


No 73. Original Papers: “On the Structure of Cruciferous 
Flowers;” by A. Moquin-Tandon and P. B. Webb. “ Contributions 
to the Botany of South America ;” by John Miers, Esq. “ Characters 
of three new Australian Mosses;” by W. Wilson, Esq. Botanical 
Information: Dr. Thomson’s ‘ Scientific Mission to Thibet.’ Sendt- 
ner’s ‘Expedition into Bosnia.’ Fendler’s ‘Journey to Santa Fe.’ 
Nelumbium Jamaicense. Notices of Books: De Candolle’s ‘ Pro- 
dromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis, 11th volume or part. 
Schomburgk’s ‘ History of Barbadoes.’ Harvey’s ‘ Nereis Australis ; 
or Algze of the Southern Ocean.’ UHooker’s ‘Flora Antarctica.’ 
Darlington’s ‘ Agricultural Botany.’ Rainey’s ‘Experimental Inquiry 
into the Cause of the Ascent and Descent of the Sap.’ Mac Ivor’s 
‘Hepatice Britannice.’ 

Vou. 11. Q 


106 


No. 74. Original Papers: “ Contributions to the Botany of South 
America;” by John Miers, Esq. ‘‘ Prodromus Monographie Ficuum;” 
by Prof. F. A. W. Miquel. “ Contributions towards a Flora of Brazil;” 
by G. Gardner, Esq. “Brief characters of Aulacopilum;” by W. 
Wilson, Esq. “Further remarks on the Pollen-collectors of Cam- 
panula;” by W. Wilson, Esq. Botanical Information: Dr. Thom- 
son’s ‘Scientific Mission to Thibet.’ Notices of Books: Presl’s 
‘Botanische Bermerkungen.’ ‘ Botanical Labels for the Herbarium.’ 
Gottsche, Lindenberg, and Nees ab Esenbeck’s ‘Synopsis Hepati- 
carum.’ De Candolle’s ‘ Notices sur les Plantes rares cultivées dans 
le Jardin Botanique de Genéve.’ Schnizlein’s ‘Iconographia Famili- 
arum Naturalium Regni Vegetabilis.’ Dunal’s ‘ Petit Bouquet Medi- 
terranéan.’ 

No. 75. Original Papers: “ Prodromus Monographie Ficuum ;” 
by Prof. F. A. W. Miquel. “ Contributions to the Flora of Guiana ;” 
by George Bentham, Esq. ‘‘ Notes and Observations on the Botany, 
Weather, &c., of the United States;” by Dr. W. A. Bromfield. 
Botanical Information: Borgeau’s ‘ Plants of the Spanish Pyrenees.’ 
‘Plants of Canara,’ distributed by M. Hochstetter. Death of Dr. 
Thomas Taylor. Dr. Harvey’s Appointment to the Chair of Botany 
in the Dublin Institution. Notices of Books: Gasparrini’s ‘ Recher- 
chi sulla Natura del Caprifici e del Fici, &c. 

As no Number of the ‘London Journal of Botany’ was published 
on the First of January, a report found ready credence that it had 
been discontinued for want of sufficient support, as happened at the 
same time with the ‘ Botanical Register.’ We are happy to see that 
the report was only partially correct; Messrs. Reeve, Benham, and 
Reeve becoming its publishers (and, we presume, proprietors) in place 
of M. Bailliére, in whose hands it had remained since the addition of 
the word “ London” to its title. We should be glad to learn that its 
circulation increased with the change of publishers and a slight in- 
ternal change of arrangement; though we fear this will not be the case 
to any really profitable extent. A journal which is devoted to a single 
department of science, and independently of its applications to the 
arts and professions of daily life, addresses only a very small section 
of the public. And if the plan of the journal be such as to render it 
necessary or interesting to only a sub-section of that small section, 
the proprietor must make up his mind to find few purchasers, and 
editor and contributors must be satisfied with few readers. Such we 
believe to be the present position of the ‘London Journal of Botany.’ 
The science of which it treats, when disconnected from the arts of 


107 


cultivation, as gardening and farming, attracts the attention of only a 
small portion of the community. And the staple contents of the ‘ Lon- 
don Journal,’ over and above the disadvantages of disconnected pub- 
lication and high price, are addressed almost exclusively to a mere 
fragment of the botanical portion of the community. A very restrict- 
ed circulation is a natural consequence of this state of matters. Let 
us not be misunderstood to find fault with the ‘London Journal’ or 
its contents. The latter are good of their kind, the reviews of books 
excepted, and their kind itself is good and scientifically important ; 
but they are very far from being matters of general interest to the bo- 
tanical circles. And when we speak of the remunerative circulation 
of a periodical, the question resolves itself into one of ‘how many are 
induced to buy?’ 

In the January No. of the ‘Phytologist’ we used the freedom to 
suggest a better arrangement of the ‘Contents’ of the ‘London Journal 
of Botany ;’ and we are pleased to find our hints acted upon in that 
respect. It may be much less easy to give that wider interest to the 
contents themselves, which would ensure the wider circulation so much 
to be desired for the periodical; and probably the proprietors could 
not venture on the experiment of bringing the price and contents 
nearer to the usual proportion. Seven and sixpence for a hundred 
and fifty-four pages is a high price now-a-days in the book-market. 
But we believe that if the size of each half-crown Number were 
doubled, the increase in this respect would add extremely few to the 
list of purchasers, unless the additional contents were of a different 
kind from those which constitute the bulk of the ‘London Journal.’ 

Judging by the three Nos. now before us, the periodical is still to 
consist principally of lists and descriptions of South American plants, 
by very competent and eminent botanists ; notes and letters of botani- 
cal travellers; eulogies of books, perhaps hardly looked into beyond 
their title-pages and tables of contents; miscellaneous information 
about collectors, &c., &c. By-the-bye, we must make an exception 
to the “eulogies” of books, when looking into the Number for Fe- 
bruary. The first of the “‘ Notices of Books” is one of Presl’s ‘ Bo- 
tanische Bemerkungen,’ which is pretty smartly censured; the re- 
viewer's pen, in this instance, being apparently dictated to by a diffe- 
rent head from that which usually allows its good-nature and kind 
encouragement of authors to run too closely on indiscriminate com- 
mendation, which renders the laudation valueless. 

There is nothing on English Botany in the three Nos. before 
us. Perhaps the paper of greatest general interest is that on the 


108 


structure of cruciferous flowers. Considerable difference of opinion 
(or, rather, explanation) has prevailed respecting the floral structure 
in the order of Cruciferee. Moquin-Tandon and Webb, after giving 
their explanations in detail, sum up their views thus: “The floral 
type of Cruciferz is quaternary. The calyx is composed of 4 leaflets, 
the corolla of 4 petals, the receptacle has 4 staminiferous glands, the 
andreeceum 4 stamens, the gyneceom 4 pistils, the fruit 4 carpidia. 
These verticils alternate regularly. Two stamens in the habitual state 
of the flower have been transformed into two pair by multiplication 
(dédoublement), and two pistils have disappeared by abortion: hence 
the androeceum has two component parts more than it should have ; 
the gynceceum two less. The four staminiferous glands are more or 
less irregular or incomplete, and are found above, below, or by the 
side .of the filaments. Their volume has caused a change in the 
position of two stamens and of two calycinal leaves, which makes the 
andreeceum and the calyx appear biverticillate.” This view differs 
materially from that given in Lindley’s ‘ Vegetable Kingdom.’ Such 
differences, however, are truly only differences of words, or, at least, 
of artificial technicalities: they are not realities in nature; although 
most systematic botanists evidently believe that they are making pro- 
found researches into nature, while they are simply showing how far 
the natural facts accord with or differ from their own technical inven- 
tions and conventional rules; such inventions and rules being, by a 
fiction of the imagination, regarded as discovered laws of nature. 

The letters of Dr. Thomson are well deserving the attention of 
those botanists who interest themselves with the geographical relations 
of plants. The observations of a good and zealous botanist, travelling 
from India to the lofty lands of central Asia, must possess no little 
claim to attention; and all the more where they correct false informa- 
tion previously put forth by other parties. We have always felt con- 
vinced that Dr. Royle’s writings, bearing on the geographical botany 
of Asia, were wanting in that degree of exactness which is necessary 
for scientific reliance, and yet contradiction or correction seemed out 
of reach. The following incidental statement in one of Dr. Thomson’s 
letters throws some light on the matter, by showing that Dr. Royle’s 
facts have been erroneously reported: ‘“ Royle publishes many plants from 
Kunawur ; but the localities are incorrectly given in his book, owing, 
apparently, to the native collectors having always stated the name of 
the nearest town or halting place, instead of the mountain where the 
specimens were gathered. Thus Lippa, Soongnum, Rogee, and Pan- 


109 


gee, are all at elevations of from 8 to 9,000 feet; while it was at 12 to 
15,000 feet that those northern forms of plants were found, for which 
those much lower spots are erroneously cited.” 


C. 


Note on the Death of Mr. William Jackson. 
By GeorcGe Lawson, Esq. 


Ir is with feelings of a painful kind that I communicate to your 
readers the mournful tidings of the death of Mr. William Jackson, a 
most devoted and zealous naturalist, and a contributor to your pages. 
He died here on the morning of Sabbath the 12th current, in the 
twenty-seventh year of his age, leaving many loving relations and a 
numerous circle of admiring friends, and above all a sorrowful widow 
and two little twin children, to lament his loss. Mr. Jackson was an 
enthusiastic field naturalist, and devoted attention to almost every de- 
partment of Natural History. His earlier years were principally oc- 
cupied in gaining an acquaintance with Botany, and in 1840 he was 
elected an associate member of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh. 
During the past few years, however, he has been much engaged in the 
study of Zoology, although the results of his labours are unpublished. 
Mr. Jackson’s father was likewise a zealous and persevering naturalist, 
and for many years acted as Curator of the Watt Institution Museum, 
and since the decease of his father he has occupied that situation, and 
discharged the duties of the office in a way highly creditable to him- 
self and gratifying to the directors and members of the Institution. 
He has likewise been chosen at two elections as Treasurer of the 
Dundee Naturalists’ Association, and so long as he was at all able he 

did everything in his power to forward the interests of that Associa- 
tion, and to spread a taste for Natural History in local circles. Mr. 
Jackson loved to share with his fellow-men around him his own pure 
intellectual enjoyments, and was ever willing to communicate in- 
struction to those uninitiated in the mysteries of Natural History. In 
private character he was a most amiable man, and justly esteemed by 
all who shared his acquaintance. 

* GEORGE LAwson. 

Dundee, March 25, 1848. 


NGL: TIT. ® R 


110 


Note on the Death of Mr. E. J. Quekett. 


WE have been reminded by Mr. Bowerbank, in his address to the 
Microscopical Society at the Anniversary Meeting in February last, 
of aserious omission in not having previously noticed the death of 
Mr. Quekett, a talented botanist, and a contributor to the pages of this 
journal. Mr. Bowerbank alludes to our deceased friend in nearly the 
following terms, and we beg sincerely to join in the sentiments which 
that gentleman has so ably expressed. 

“Mr. Quekett was born at Langport, Somersetshire, in September, 
1808; and in September, 1828, he commenced his attendance on 
medical lectures at University College, London, and pursued his 
studies with such assiduity that he gained a gold medal in the class 
of anatomy and physiology, another in that of practical anatomy, and 
a silver medal in that of chemistry, besides an honorary certificate in 
every class he attended. In 1829 he passed his examination as Li- 
centiate of the Society of Apothecaries, and in 1830 obtained his 
diploma as a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. 
He subsequently commenced the practice of his profession in Well- 
close Square, and for several years held the appointment of Surgeon 
to the Tower Hamlets’ Dispensary. In 1835 he was appointed 
Lecturer on Botany in the London Hospital Medical School, which 
office he continued to hold to the time of his death. He was a Fel- 
low and one of the Council of the Linnean Society, and a con- 
tributor to its Transactions; besides which he published various 
papers in the ‘ London Physiological Journal,’ the ‘ London Medical 
Gazette,’ and the ‘ Pharmaceutical Journal;’ and to our own Trans- 
actions, as you are aware, he was a liberal and highly valued con- 
tributor. He died at his house in Wellclose Square, on Monday, the 
28th of last June, in the 39th year of his age, and will long be held in 
remembrance by all who had the pleasure of his acquaintance, for the 
unaffected amiability of his disposition and the kindness and courtesy 
of his manners.” 


BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH. 


Thursday, March 9th, 1848.—The Rev. Dr. Fleming, President, 
in the chair. 


111 


A copy of the ‘ Transactions of the Berwickshire Naturalists’ Club’ 
was presented from Dr. George Johnstone. 

The following communications were read :— 

1. Short notice of the Geographical Distribution of Species in 
the Braemar District, by Professor Balfour. In this paper Dr. Bal- 
four concluded his remarks on his Excursion to Braemar, &c., by 
noticing the geographical distribution of the plants as regards soil and 
altitude; and illustrated his observations by a series of specimens so 
arranged as to exhibit, at one view, the plants found at various eleva- 
tions from the level of the sea to the summit of Ben na Muich Dhui. 

The phanerogamous plants which attained the highest elevation 
were Luzula arcuata and spicata, Juncus trifidus, Carex leporina, 
vaginata, and rigida, Silene acaulis, Salix herbacea, Empetrum nigrum, 
Festuca ovina, var. vivipara, Aira cespitosa, var. vivipara (alpine 
form), and Azalea procumbens. 

In the districts visited, the greater number of rare species were as- 
sociated with moist, crumbling, micaceous rocks, such as gneiss and 
mica-slate,—the granitic rocks presenting large tracts of dry, stony, 
unproductive soil. Some species seem to be confined to peculiar 
rocks,—thus Lychnis alpina has been found only on serpentine; and 
the rock on which Oxytropis campestris grows appears to be different 
from those in the immediate vicinity. Luzula arcuata seems to pre- 
fer granite. 

2. List of Alge found on the West Coast of Scotland, with remarks, 
by the Rev. D. Landsborough. In this communication the author 
enumerated the various species of Algze found on the coast of Ayrshire, 
the Island of Arran, &c., and made remarks on their comparative 
rarity. Among some of the more interesting species noticed were 
Cystoseira ericoides, Asperococcus Turneri, Gloiosiphonia capillaris, 
remarkable for the fine crimson hue which it assumes when exposed 
to the air, Polysiphonia parasitica and formosa, Ceramium Deslong- 
champsii, acanthonotum, echinatum, Griffithsia corallina, Oscillatoria 
thermalis, Petalonema alatum, found by Professor Balfour on Goatfell, 
in Arran, Batrachospermum moniliforme and alatum, &c. Beauti- 
fully prepared specimens,§ from Mr. Landsborough’s collection, were 
shown by Dr. Fleming. 

3. Notes of Diatomacez found in the Stomachs of certain Mollusca, 
by Dr. Dickie, King’s College, Aberdeen. In this paper the author 
enumerated fifteen Diatomacee found in the stomachs of different 
species of Ascidia, many of them having been found in a living state. 
He also mentioned several species which had been found in the 


112 


stomachs of the freshwater mussel (Wya margaritifera) in the Dee, 
about eighteen miles inland. 

4. Notice of a New Species of Spiridens, and decriptions of two 
New Species of Ferns from Tahiti, by Dr. Greville. This beautiful 
moss, of which only one other species was hitherto known, has been 
named Spiridens Balfouriana by Dr. Greville. It was sent to the So- 
ciety by Dr. Sibbald, H.M.S. Grampus, from Tahiti. The ferns, 
which have been named Oleandra Sibbaldii, Grev., and Grammitis 
blechnoides, Grev., were likewise sent from Tahiti, by Dr. Sibbald. 
Drawings were exhibited to the meeting. 

Dr. Balfour exhibited beautiful specimens of tussac grass, in fine 
flower, from the Island of Lewis. 

Dr. Dickie sent notice of the discovery of Diphyscium foliosum and 
Buxbaumia aphylla, in Aberdeenshire, by Mr. Alex. Cruikshanks— 
the former 40 miles inland, and 1,400 feet above the sea; the latter at 
an elevation of 800 feet. 

Alex. Donkin, Esq., 11, Norton Place, was elected an ordinary fel- 
low; and Mr. D. Boyle, Geelong, Australia, was admitted an associate 
of the Society. 

The anniversary supper afterwards took place in the Café Royal— 
the President in the chair; Dr. Balfour, croupier.—W. W. E. 


“ Description of a new British Mould. By Grorce JOHNSTON, 
M.D., &c.” 


(Extracted from the ‘ Proceedings of the Berwickshire Natural History Society.’) 


“T am willing to believe, with my Lord Bacon, that Mould ‘is 
something between putrescence and a plant.’ It settles a much 
mooted point as well as any other theory has yet done. Organic 
substance, in a state of decay, is mould’s fruitful matrix,—life from 
death,—the ever-yearning change from a worse to a better condition ; 
for life, even in this its lowest state, is better certainly than sad cor- 
ruption. And how beautiful are many moulds, when, with the micro- 
scope, we discover Nature’s handicraft in them to the eye of sense! 
We can scarcely but believe that they have a sort of enjoyment in 
their life, and in the evolution of their symmetrical figures. One sort 
is now vigorous and abundant on some plants in my little ‘ green- 
house,’ where it is as noxious as the green-fly or Aphis; and it is 


113 


rather singular that the species has not been yet recorded as a British 
production. I have the high authority of the Rev. M. J. Berkeley for 
this fact, who informs me that our mould is the Botrytis umbellata* 
of De Candolle. 

“ Botrytis umbellata.—On a flat and smooth leaf, the decumbent 
filaments of this mould form a cobweb-like mycelium, but on leaves 
with an uneven surface, and on the stalks of herbs, the mycelium is 
so filamentous and thin as to be scarcely perceptible; while the erect 
filaments are so numerous as to render the surface downy or hirsute. 
The decumbent filaments are also slenderer than the others, but there 
is no difference in their structure ; they are smooth hyaline membra- 
nous tubes, jointed at distant intervals, the joints alternately swollen 
and constricted, but not regularly so, and when moistened with 
water, the whole tube becomes swollen, tense, and cylindrical. The 
erect filaments are two lines in height, of a grey or cinereous colour, 
with a hoary sporuliferous head; they are sparingly and irregularly 
branched, and at the top four or five short divergent branchlets form 
a sort of imperfect umbel, collecting, as it were, the sporules into a 
round heap or summit. The main branches are either divergent or 
dichotomous; and many of the filaments are quite simple. The 
sporules are ovate or elliptical, often marked with a septum, some- 
times transversely, and in others in a longitudinal direction; and 
this septum disappears when the sporules are moistened. The num- 
ber of sporules is incalculable ; they fall from the head, and are found 
adherent to every fibre of the plant; and when this is shaken, they 
fly abroad in a little cloud. 

“My friend Mr. Bowerbank examined this mould with the micro- 
scope. When highly magnified, many of the main filaments exhibited 
slight protuberances, which were supposed to be incipient branches ; 
these were sometimes opposed to each other, and sometimes they 
were not quite in opposition. The sporules varied considerably in 
size, and were ovate or elliptical. Placed in water between glasses, 
after a lapse of two days it was found that most of the sporules had 
germinated, each emitting a single filament, which was sparingly and 
irregularly branched, and contained some very minute granules. 

“ January 6th, 1847.” 


“* Tam. et De Cand. FI. Frane. ii. 71. Duby, Bot. Gall. ii. 921.” 


114 


Notice of ‘Opuscula omnia Botanica Thome Johnsoni, Pharma- 
ceulice Societatis Londinensis Socti. Nuperrime edita a 
T. S. Ralph, e Collegio Regali Chirurgorum Angliz, et Socie- 
tate Linneana Lond. Londini: Sumptibus Guliel. Pamplin. 
M.DCCC.XLVII.’ 


SoME six or eight pages in Pulteney’s ‘Sketches of the Progress of 
Botany,’ contain the substance of all that seems to be known with 
any degree of certainty respecting one who, in his twofold capacity, is 
said by Wood to have been in his day “no less eminent in the gar- 
rison for his valour and conduct as a soldier, than famous through the 
kingdom for his excellency as an herbalist and physician.” This was 
Thomas Johnson, the learned editor of Gerarde’s ‘ Herbal,’ which;was 
so greatly improved by his editorial labours as to have elicited from 
Haller the well-deserved encomium—‘“ dignum opus, et totius ret 
herbari@ eo evo note, compendium.” 

Johnson was a native of Selby, in Yorkshire, and educated as an 
apothecary. He had a shop on Snow Hill, London, “where,” says 
Wood, as quoted by Pulteney, “by his unwearied pains, advanced 
with good natural parts, he attained to be the best herbalist of his age 
in England.” 

Johnson made his first appearance as an author in 1629, when he 
published his ‘Iter in Agrum Cantianum,’ and ‘ Ericetum Hamstedi- 
anum.’ Pulteney says that he never saw either of these catalogues, 
and does not appear to have been aware that they were followed, in 
1632, by two much more extensive lists of plants collected in the 
county of Kent and on Hampstead Heath and its vicinity in the latter 
year; since in the only place where they are mentioned in his sketch 
of Johnson, he assigns the date of 1629 to the ‘Iter Cantianum,’ and 
that of 1632 to the ‘ Ericetum Hamstedianum.’ 

These tracts have for many years been extremely rare; and although 
modern botanists may perhaps be disposed to look upon them as 
possessing but little scientific value, they are, to say the least, ex- 
ceedingly interesting as being the first local catalogues of British plants 
ever published in England; and we cannot but express our gratitude 
to the spirited projector and publisher of the elegant reprint before us, 
for enabling the British botanist to compare these the earliest records 
of botanical research with the present enlarged enumerations of the 
plants of our island. 

The first tract in the volume has for its title, ‘Iter Plantarum In- 
vestigationis ergo susceptum, a Decem Sociis, in Agrum Cantianum, 


115 


Anno Domini 1629, Julii 13... And a right pleasant description of 
the journey is given. The ten companions, we are told, were Jonas 
Styles, William Broad, John Buggs, Leonard Buckner, Job Weale, 
Robert Larking, Thomas Wallis, two Edward Brownes (one of whom 
was servant to William Broad), and Johnson himself; who tells us 
that for some few years past it had been the truly laudable custom for 
certain lovers of Botany to go out of town two or three times a year 
for the purpose of collecting plants; and that early on the morning of 
the 13th of July, 1629, the above-named persons met at St. Paul’s 
Cathedral, whence they went down to the river side, and entered two 
boats in order to proceed to Gravesend. Scarcely, however, had they 
left the shore, when 


“¢ Eripiunt subito nubes ccelumq. diemq. 
Nostrorum ex oculis : ponto nox incubat atra. 
Intonuere Poli, et crebris micat ignibus ether : 
Presentemq. nobis intentant omnia mortem.’’* 


This tempest so terrified Buckner, Buggs, Weale, and Larking, that 
they put in at Greenwich, there to refresh themselves after their fright. 
“But we,” says the more heroic Johnson, “ without delay proceeded 
onward to Gravesend, whence, after breakfast, having left a letter for 
our absent friends, in order to let them know where we intended to 
pass the night, we took the accustomed route to Rochester, and found 
the following plants.” Here follows a list of upwards of a hundred; 
none of them rare. 

On reaching Rochester they put up at the sign of the Bull, where 
they were shortly joined by the friends they had left at Greenwich, 
who, the thunder and rain having ceased, had again committed them- 
selves to the mercy of the waves; but the tide failing them, they left 
their boat at Erith, and walked to Gravesend, where they received the 
epistle left by the party who had preceded them; and mounting some 
horses rode on to Rochester, where they all joyfully supped together 
after the fatigues of the day. 


* Virgil, Ain. i. 92: thus Englished by Dryden : 


ee “Sable night involves the skies ; 
And heaven itself is ravished from their eyes. 
Loud peals of thunder from the poles ensue, 

Then flashing fires the transient light renew : 

The face of things a frightful image bears, 

And present death in various forms appears.” 


116 


The next morning the party walked to Chatham, where they went on 
board the Prince Royal man-of-war, which surpassed the vessels by 
which she was surrounded, 


* Quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi.” 


The inspection of this vessel seems to have afforded the party the 
greatest pleasure, since Johnson tells us that everything he saw was 
so far beyond his expectations, that he would not dare to attempt a 
description, nor, if he dared, would he be able to give it. 

In the Isle of Sheppey they met with an adventure. The party 
slept at Queenborough; and as they were preparing to start in the 
morning, they were waited upon by a person who informed them that 
the Prefect of the place (called the Mayor) wished to have a word 
with three or four of their number. To this, says Johnson, we assent- 
ed, and proceeded to his house, where, salutations having been ex- 
changed, the Mayor made a speech to the effect, that ancient kings 
of England having been pleased to confer upon that town certain 
great privileges, in order that the little island might be the better pre- 
served from damage; it is therefore my duty, continued his worship, 
being responsible for the public safety of this place, to demand the 
purpose of your coming to this Island. Not that there is anything in 
your appearance calculated to excite suspicion in the smallest degree, 
but it is against the ancient laws of this place to allow so many men 
to remain here without knowing what they are up to. Explain 
therefore, in a friendly way, the purport of your visit. Then John 
Buggs, to whom the office was delegated, briefly informed his worship, 
although he said he did not think he had anything to tell worth the 
notice of so great a man, that he and his friends were students of 
Medicine and the Materia Medica ; that they had come for the pur- 
pose of seeing what rare plants were growing in the Island ; and that 
with no other view had they undertaken a pedestrian journey to such 
a distance from London. But Mr. Styles, with admirable tact, after 
confirming what had before been stated, added that independently of 
that cause for their visit, the pleasure of seeing so eminent a man as 
the Mayor would of itself have been a sufficient inducement for their 
coming, especially as he was known to be so well versed in nautical 
affairs, he being a captain in the Royal Navy. And so the Prefect, 
being fully satisfied by these and similar explanations, after a short 
conversation with the party upon medical and naval matters, treated 
his visitors to some of his best ale, in which he courteously drank 
to their health, and they, duly impressed with a sense of his condescen- 


117 


sion, after thanking him for his hospitality, left the house and pro- 
ceeded to the Castle, where our loyal author was thrown into an 
ecstacy by the sight of the royal insignia of the never-sufficiently-to- 
be-praised Queen Elizabeth; and quotes some Latin verses of a 
highly laudatory character thereto appended. On the topmost height 
of the castle was gathered Asplenium Ruta-muraria; but this does 
not seem to have afforded so much pleasure as the sight of the royal 
arms below. 

A doleful account is given of the sufferings of the party in Greane 
Isle, where, although their path lay alongside the river, they, Tantalus- 
like, experienced all the horrors of thirst, the water, though abun- 
dant, being salt; by the pangs of hunger they were equally afflicted 
in the midst of that inhospitable desert, where no house was visible, 
and where none of the usual indications of the propinquity of 
human habitations, such as the curling smoke delighting the eyes of 
the way-worn traveller, and the barking of dogs saluting his ears— 
none of these welcome sights and sounds were there to raise their 
drooping spirits. Having at length escaped from their difficulties, 
they arrived at the village of Stoke, completely tired out. There, 
having despatched their dinner, and all the party being knocked up ex- 
cept Johnson and Styles, they were by the latter committed to the care 
of a wagoner, who gave them a ride in his wagon towards Rochester, 
and the two more enduring friends walked on from Stoke by Cowling 
towards Cliffe, collecting many plants by the way. 

From Cliffe the two companions, having been rejoined at Gravesend 
by Wallis, Buckner, and Weale, proceeded to Erith, where, taking 
boat, they on their passage homeward saw three East Indiamen re- 
turning from a voyage; one of these they boarded, and Buckner 
received a cocoa-nut and other things as presents. On reaching Lon- 
don they found their missing companions, and made arrangements for 
visiting Hampstead Heath on the Ist of August following. 

A good number of plants was collected in the trip, but none which 
would now be looked upon as rare. 

On the morning of the Ist of August, seven of the ten who had 
agreed to go to Hampstead Heath (Buggs, Weale, and Wallis being 
absent) met at the appointed place; the places of the missing three 
being supplied by John Sotheran, John Marriott, and Thomas Crosse. 
Not deterred by the threatening aspect of the skies, but considering 
that it would be disgraceful in those who had borne greater evils to 
yield to lighter ones, they left the city and held their way to Kentish 
Town; which they had scarcely left ere a heavy shower drove them 

VoL. Ht. S 


118 


to seek shelter at Highgate. The rain had no sooner ceased, than 
they entered the wood, and found several plants (the names of which 
are here recorded) in addition to those observed in a previous journey 
here referred to, but which has perhaps never been published. This 
portion of the author’s labours occupies but two pages, and concludes 
with a short paragraph relative to the results of the year’s explora- 
tions, and the promise that these results are but the prelude to what 
is to be done in years to come—“ quibus propitius sit Deus. Amen.” 

The second tract here reprinted bears the following title: ‘ Descrip- 
tio Itineris Plantarum Investigationis ergo susceptum, in Agrum Can- 
tianum Anno Dom. 1632; et Enumeratio Plantarum in Ericeto 
Hampstediano locisq. vicinis Crescentium.’ It is of a much more 
ambitious character than the preceding, since it occupies 48 pages, is 
preceded by a Dedication to the Master, Wardens, and Assistants of 
the Apothecaries’ Company, and an Address to the friendly reader ; 
besides being illustrated by five figures of plants. This journey was 
commenced on the Ist of August, 1632, by the wish and under the 
auspices of Thomas Hickes, the Warden of the Company, who accom- 
panied the party in their peregrinations. They sailed down the river 
to Margate, and in the Isle of Thanet found upwards of sixty fresh 
plants. On the way to Nash upwards of sixty others were observed ; 
and more than seventy new ones between that place and Sandwich, 
where, in the shop of Charles Anatus, a medical man, they were 
shown the remains of a serpent, fifteen feet long, and thicker than. 
the arm. This wonderful animal was supposed to be a veritable 
sea-serpent ; it having been captured by two men among the sand- 
hills on the sea-shore, being first despatched by small shot fired into 
its head. It had evidently sought this spot for the sake of preying 
upon the rabbits, which there exist in great numbers, for two of these 
animals were taken from its stomach. The men, having killed the 
beast, took it to our friend Charles Anatus, who purchased it of them, 
and removing the flesh, stuffed the skin with hay, and preserved it as 
a thing worthy of all consideration. So far Thomas Johnson upon 
an English sea-serpent. 

About a hundred plants were collected between Sandwich and 
Canterbury, which city they reached towards sun-set, and immediate- 
ly went to the Cathedral, wherewith the party were much gratified. 
The next day being Sunday, was passed in quiet and divine worship; 
but the following morning, girding themselves to their work, they pro- 
ceeded to Faversham. From this place the party journeyed on 


119 


towards Gravesend through Sittingbourne and Rochester: and from 
Gravesend they safely returned to London. 

In the following year Johnson published his edition of Gerarde: we 
may here quote the following passage from Pulteney, as showing 
Johnson’s part in this great work, in which his botanical excursions 
were no doubt of great assistance. 

“ After what has been said of the plan, as it stands in Gerarde, it 
remains only to show briefly what Johnson has done. In about 
twelve pages, he has prefixed a concise, candid, and judicious account 
of the most material writers on the subject, from the earliest ages to 
the time in which he wrote; concluding with a particular account of 
his own work, from its origin in Dr. Priest’s translation. After this 
follows a table, pointing out, with great precision, all his additions ; 
by which we learn, that he enriched the work with more than eight 
hundred plants not in Gerarde, and upwards of seven hundred figures, 
besides innumerable corrections. By procuring the same cuts that 
Gerarde used (to which collection a considerable accession had been 
made), and by having some new blocks cut, his work contained a 
greater number of figures than any Herbal extant; the whole amount- 
ing to 2717. Another edition appeared in 1636.” 

In 1634 Johnson published his ‘ Mercurius Botanicus. Sive Plan- 
tarum gratia suscepti Itineris, Anno M.DC.XXXIV. Descriptio. Cum 
Earum Nominibus Latinis et Anglicis, &c.’ This was an 8vo of 48 
pages, which is here reprinted line for line and page for page, as is 
likewise the case with the other tracts in the volume. 

“Tt is dedicated,” says Pulteney, “to Sir Theodore Mayerne, and 
others of the College, in his own, and the names of his associates in 
the excursion, who were all of the Company of the Apcthecaries. It 
was the result of a journey, through Oxford, to Bath and Bristol, and 
back by Southampton, the Isle of Wight, and Guildford, made with 
the professed design to investigate rare plants. He has described, in 
not inelegant Latin, their route, which took up only twelve days, and 
the agreeable reception they met with among their acquaintance.* 
We meet with a list of exotics, amounting to 117, cultivated by Mr. 
George Gibbs, a surgeon at Bath, who had made a voyage to Virginia, 
from whence he brought many new plants; which, as it exhibits the 
advanced state of gardening in this country at that time, is now a 
matter of curiosity. 


* This observation is equally applicable to the Kentish journeys, in which the party 
were treated with the greatest hospitality. 


120 


“The plants of spontaneous growth enumerated in this short tour, 
varieties being excluded, exceed six hundred, which, at a time when 
the Cryptogamia were scarcely noticed, and in the season when 
neither the very early nor late plants could be seen, is no inconsider- 
able number. In this catalogue are several not discovered in Eng- 
land before. With this tour Johnson gave his small tract, ‘De 
Thermis Bathonicis, sive earum Descriptio, Vires, Utendi Tempus, 
Modus, &c.’ There are three small plans of the baths, and one of the 
city, which seem to be copied from Speed’s map. These are now 
pleasing curiosities to the lovers of antiquity, and to all who contem- 
plate the astonishing increase of the city since that time.”* 

In 1641 appeared ‘ Mercurii Botanici pars altera, sive Plantarum 
gratia suscepti Itineris in Cambriam sive Walliam Descriptio, &c.’ 
This is dedicated to Thomas Glynn, of Glynn Lhivona, who hospi- 
tably entertained Johnson and his friends at his house. The tract 
gives a pleasant account of the journey through Wales, with a catalogue 
of the plants met with there and in other places by Johnson and other 
botanists. In the introductory observations are answered the objec- 
tions of those who do not recognise the utility of botanical studies ; 
and a hope is expressed that the tract will not be read except by such 
as are disposed to be pleased with it; “namque benevolis non 
malevolis hee scripta sunt.” 

The party, consisting of Johnson, Paul Sone, and Edward Morgan, 
left London on the 22nd of July, 1639, travelling by Aylesbury, 
Stratford-on-Avon, Bilsley, Henley-in-Arden, Birmingham (Bremi- 
cham), Wolverhampton, Newport, Chester, and Stockport, where they 
met with sorry treatment, leaving the following lines written upon the 
wall of the bed-room, as a farewell token :— 


“ Si mores cupias venustiores, 
Si lectum placidum, dapes salubres, 
Si sumptum modicum, hospitem facetum, 
Ancillam nitidam, impigrum ministrum, 
Hue diverte, Viator, dolebis. 
O Domina dignas, forma et fetore ministras ! 
Stock-porte, si cui sordida grata, cubet.” 


Entering Wales by Flint, the travellers passed through Bangor and 


Caernarvon to Snowdon, being, according to Pulteney, if not the first, 
at least “‘among the earliest botanists who visited Wales and Snow- 


* Fac similes are given in the reprint. 


121 


don, with the sole intention of discovering the rarities of that country 
in the vegetable kingdom.” 

This was probably the last of Johnson’s publications, for his death 
occurred in 1644, and in the few remaining years of his life he could 
have had but little leisure for botanical pursuits, as he seems then to 
have laid by the pen for the sword. The following paragraphs, re- 
lating to the close of his career, we quote from Pulteney. 

“In the civil wars, his zeal for the royal cause led him into the army, 
in which he greatly distinguished himself; and the University of Ox- 
ford, in consideration of his merit and learning, added to that of his 
loyalty, conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Physic, May 9, 
1643. 

“In the army, he had the rank of lieutenant-colonel to Sir Marma- 
duke Rawdon, governor of Basinghouse. Mr. Granger informs us, 
that ‘he set fire to the Grange, near that fortress, which consisted of 
twenty houses, and killed and burnt about three hundred of Sir Wil- 
liam Waller’s men, wounded five hundred more, and took arms, am- 
munition, and provisions from the enemy.’ Wood adds, ‘that going 
with a party on the 14th of September, 1644, to succour certain of the 
forces belonging to that house, which went to the town of Basing to 
fetch provisions thence, but beaten back by the enemy, headed by 
that notorious rebel, Colonel Richard Norton, he received a shot in 
the shoulder, of which he died in a fortnight after. At which time 
his worth did justly challenge funeral tears ; being then no less eminent 
in the garision for his valour and conduct as a soldier, than famous 
throughout the kingdom for his excellency as a herbalist and physi- 
cian.’” 

Johnson’s age at the time of his death is not precisely known: 
Pulteney supposes him to have hardly reached the meridian of life, 
from his not being mentioned in Lobel’s ‘ Adversaria,’ printed in 1605. 
However this may have been, his industry and learning are sufficient- 
ly testified in the Herbal and his other works which have reached us; 
and we cannot but feel grateful to the editor and proprietor of the 
work before us for having contributed to the rescuing from oblivion 
the memory of a man to whom British Botany has been so much 
indebted. ' 

It is truly gratifying to see in these time-honoured Itineraries, that 
there is abundant truth as well as wisdom in the profound aphorism 
which declares that “human nature remains the same in all ages:” 
and in one important particular at least we presently hope to show 
that this is the case. The remark has frequently been made, and 


122 


sometimes by way of reproach, too, that naturalists, and out-o’-door 
naturalists more especially, are somewhat prone to attach undue im- 
portance to creature comforts. Now we hold that a proper attention 
to the wants and wishes of the outer man, is in no wise derogatory to 
the character of a naturalist, or incompatible with the pursuit of know- 
ledge, whether in the closet or the field. For there is another old 
saw worthy to be placed alongside the one quoted above, which says 
that “the horse which goes well in one path, will go at least tolerably 
in all:” whence we would infer that he who most adinires the beau- 
ty of natural objects 7 puris naturalibus—that is to say, wncooked, 
can scarcely fail to appreciate them equally after they have been sub- 
jected to the mysteries of the culinary art. This, to some, may ap- 
pear to partake of the figure of speech termed a non sequitur, but it 
is true, notwithstanding; as will readily be granted by all who, like 
Johnson and his unlucky companions in Greane Isle, have felt the 
pangs of hunger and thirst beneath the summer’s sun. To them, how 
delicious -the association of ideas awakened perhaps by the unexpect- 
ed apparition of a plant used zz re culinarid! Of Lady Scott it is 
recorded, that whilst walking with her husband 


** Abroad in the meadows to see the young lambs,” 


and Sir Walter happening to make the remark that these little animals 
are very interesting creatures, her ladyship replied “ Yes; with mint 
sauce !” Now, as the converse to this, let us suppose a botanist 
placed in a similarly interesting position to that of our old friends in 
Greane Isle; and let us also suppose him to come suddenly upon a 
patch of some species of Mentha; is it too much to believe that his 
weary and fainting spirit would be refreshed by visions of roast lamb 
with mint sauce? In like manner would Thymus suggest ideas of 
roast veal well stuffed; and a field of barley conjure up mental 
pictures of the foaming tankard of ale, or the wee drap o’ mountain 
dew, bright and sparkling as the gems which deck the ebon brow of 
night. So that if he agree with those metaphysicians who hold that 
there is nothing material in the objects which surround us, but that 
like Macbeth’s air-drawn dagger they are all nothing more than men- 
tally daguerreotyped ideas, the naturalist in the pursuit of knowledge 
under difficulties has but to follow the advice of Erasmus to Sir 
Thomas More, when the learned Dutchman forgot to return the 
horse he had borrowed—he has but to believe that all the good things 
he thinks of are before him, and then he may fa@ tu an’ ate to his 
stomach’s content, finishing off with the produce of the choicest vin- 


123 


tages ever matured by the fervid suns of the glowing South. But, be 
it remembered, that the botanist thus depending on his wits for a 
dinner, might possibly find himself zz a fix, unless they were some- 
what sharper than those of the man of whom Wordsworth sings in 
the well-known lines, 
‘* A primrose by the river’s brim, 
A yellow primrose is to him, 
And it is nothing more !” 


This being the case, we are by no means disposed to quarrel with 
the records of gustatory localities and proceedings frequently intro- 
duced into the accounts of botanical excursions, particularly those 
of our good friends in the North. We especially honour old Johnson 
for not thinking it beneath the dignity of a man of his standing to in- 
form us that he and his friends dined at Rochester, merrily supped 
together at Gravesend, drank ale with the learned Mayor of Queen- 
borough, and had a sumptuous repast provided by Mr. Wallis, with 
similar instances of hospitality experienced in their numerous pere- 
grinations through the length and breadth of the land: these records 
amply testify both that the spirit of hospitality even now exercised 
by all persons who have the slightest pretension to a love for natural 
history, had gained deep root in our island upwards of two hundred 
years ago; and that no modern naturalist worthy the name has in 
any wise degenerated from that pristine love of good cheer and good 
fellowship which distinguished the ancient fathers of the science : 
teste, among other proofs which will present themselves to the 
mind of our readers, the merry doings at all the meetings of the Bri- 
tish Association wherever they may be held. In the nature of things 
it must indeed be so. If, as Coleridge has well said,— 


“‘ He prayeth well who loveth well 
Both man and bird and beast,” 


so, altering a word, we may further say with him, 


“ He liveth best who loveth best 
All things both great and small ;” 


and, loving them, useth them without abuse, and according to his 
ability dispenseth the blessings wherewith he hath been favoured. 
To the honour of naturalists generally we are bound to record the 
disinterested hospitality over and over again experienced at their 
hands. Indeed, when we call to mind the past pleasures of our 
former botanizing excursions, when, with appetite sharpened by exer- 


124 


cise we have gladly sat down to the bread and cheese of the unlooked- 
for road-side hostelry—astonished the good wife of the half public, half 
farm-house by our exploits in the way of putting the delicious bacon 
and eggs out of sight—or, more delightful still, remembering the 
congregating of kindred spirits around the social board at night, 
each recounting the events and displaying the acquisitions of the 
day — we can scarcely avoid exclaiming with Horace (who, by the 
way, we are almost inclined to claim as a brother naturalist),— 


“OQ rus! quando ego te adspiciam ? quandoque licebit, 
Nune veterum libris, nune somno et inertibus horis, 
Ducere sollicite jucunda oblivia vite ? 

O! quando faba Pythagore cognata, simulque 
Uncta satis pingui ponentur oluscula lardo ? 

O noctes ceneque Deum! quibus ipse meique, 
Ante larem proprium vescor, vernasque procaces 
Pasco libatis dapibus. Prout cuique libido est, 
Siccat inequales calices conviva, solutus 
Legibus insanis; seu quis capit acria fortis 
Pocula, seu modicis uvescit letius. Ergo 
Sermo oritur, non de villis domibusve alienis, 
Nec, male necne Fabbri saltet; sed quod magis ad nos 
Pertinet, et nescire malum est, agitamus.” 


Just such a party as Horace describes can we imagine these old 
herbalists to have been: and truly delightful companions without 
doubt were they. Contented with the highways of life as of Botany, 
they thankfully plucked the fresh flowrets as they presented them- 
selves to their hand; and little disposed were they to explore the 
byways in search of the more occult treasures of the woods and 
groves. There was not, it is true, in their days, that necessity for in- 
dependent and original: research which now exists; theirs was the 
apostolic age of natural history, when naturalists yet had all things 
in common; when no one, more enterprising than his compecrs, 
feared the receipt of a legal epistle, filled with threats of pains and 
penalties incurred by diffusing information collected from less acces- 
sible and more costly sources without permission, and plainly inti- 
mating that permission would not be granted even if asked ; in short, 
when science was loved for its own sake, rather than for the honours 
and emoluments it might bring to the professor. To the unsophisti- 
‘cated naturalists of those bygone days we must now say adieu ;—-peace 
to their ashes ! L. 


125 


[Although extremely reluctant to comment on papers obligingly 
supplied at my own solicitation to this Journal, I think it best to state 
explicitly that I do not fully participate in the preceding observations 
on the subject of eating and drinking: and therefore | could wish my 
readers not to regard those observations as my own. Let it not be 
understood that I am at all cynical on the subject of good living, 
but I have always held that these matters are not worthy of record, 
and it is the record of the feeding that calls forth my correspondent’s re- 
marks: although I might perhaps enjoy the revelry at the meetings of 
the British Association, I do not enjoy the perusal of the reports thereof. 
The same remark applies to our Natural-History Clubs: it is needful for 
them to feed; itis perhaps excusable that little harmless follies are com- 
mitted at or after feeding-time, but [ hold it is very bad taste in all 
instances to print and circulate the particulars. The veil of oblivion 
should be dropped over the scenes as soon as they have passed. That 
the worthy Johnson should record his having swilled ale with the 
learned prefect of Queenborough is per se to be regretted, but let us 
not forget that the record is accompanied by a touch of exquisite hu- 
mour, so exquisite, indeed, that we forget the ale altogether, or con- 
sider it as a mere accompaniment of the tale: in this respect Dr. 
Johnson differs diametrically from our modern historians of the vic- 
tualling proceedings, who record an intense anxiety about the meats 
and the drinks, wholly unredeemed by a word or thought that could 
move the risible muscles to a smile, or give birth to an idea either be- 
neficial to the reader or the science under whose name the Club may 
happen to be congregated: in London we have Linnean Clubs, En- 
tomological Clubs, Botanical Clubs, Red Lion Clubs, &c., and right 
merry meetings I believe they are, but we do not report their eatings 
and drinkings, unless some wag lets out these doings from a pro- 
pensity for mischievous fun. I would contend that all details which 
tend to exhibit a mind as taking an absorbing interest in the anticipa- 
tion or consumption of food and drink, necessarily detract from the 
respect and admiration with which we were wont to regard that mind. 
It is a good old maxim, “ Eat, drink, and be thankful ;” and I presume 
the thankfulness is, in the present day, supposed to find expression 
in the printing and hotpressing of the particulars: our scientific bons 
vivans must pardon me if I think otherwise—Edward Newman}. 


VOL. If, T 


126 


THE DUNDEE NATURALISTS’ ASSOCIATION. 


Monday, January 3, 1848.—Mr. G. Lawson, President, in the chair. 

British plants were announced from Miss Kirby and Messrs. Simp- 
son, Kerr, Ogilvie and Lawson. 

The President exhibited specimens of the Udora canadensis (?), 
communicated to him by Miss Kirby, of Leicester, the discoverer of 
the plant in this country. Specimens were likewise exhibited of the 
Koniga maritima, a plant new to Forfarshire, lately found by Mr. An- 
drew Kerr, near Montrose. 

An interesting paper from Mr. Gorrie was read on the common 
creeper (Certhia familiaris), being a detail of the habits of that cu- 
rious bird, with an anecdotical illustration. 

The office-bearers were re-elected as follows: Mr. George Lawson, 
President; Mr. William Ogilvie, Secretary; Mr. William Jackson, 
Treasurer. Mr. Thomas Simpson, Bedale, was elected Local Secre- 
tary for Yorkshire. 

Mr. Joseph Whittaker, Breadsall, was elected a fellow. 

Monday, February 7, 1848.—The President in the chair. 

British plants were announced from Mr. Whittaker and Mr. Ogilvie. 

Mr. David Jackson read an interesting paper on the pied wagtail, 
in which he detailed the habits of that bird in a full manner. His re- 
marks were illustrated by several drawings. 

Mr. Ogilvie read a paper on the gall-forming insects. After the 
reading of this paper a conversation ensued on the subject of it, dur- 
ing which several of the members stated observations they had made 
on some of these curious insects. 

The President made some remarks on the character of Linnzus as 
a naturalist, and intimated his intention of bringing before the Asso- 
ciation at an early meeting a sketch of this illustrious man, the opi- 
nions contained in which he would be glad to hear discussed by the 
members. 

Mr. George Simpson laid some geological specimens on the table 
for examination of the meeting. 

Mr. John Ansell and Mr. Robert Sim, jun., were elected fellows. 
Mr. Alexander Croall and Mr. Adrew Kerr were elected correspond- 
ing members. 

Monday, March 6, 1848.—The President in the chair. 

A paper was read from Mr. Andrew Kerr, of Montrose, on the dis- 
covery of Viola hirta in Kincardineshire, and of Daltonia heteromalla 
in Forfarshire, and specimens of both plants were exhibited to the 


127 


meeting. The stations for the Daltonia are stated in the ‘ Flora of 
Forfarshire, p. 255, and that for the Viola is recorded in the March 
number of the ‘ Phytologist’ (Phytol. ii. 76). Mr. Ogilvie read a 
short paper on sponges. A donation of British plants was announced 
from Mr. Thomas Simpson. Mr. John Ansell was elected local Secre- 
tary for east Kent. 

Monday, April 3, 1848.—The President in the chair. 

On the motion of the President, seconded by the Secretary, the 
meeting adopted a resolution expressive of the high esteem in which 
the deceased Mr. William Jackson, late Treasurer of the Association, 
was held by the members, and of his valuable services in forwarding 
the objects of the Association. Mr. Lawson presented specimens of 
the two following Fungi, found by him during the past month, and 
both of which were new to Forfarshire, viz. :— 

Dactylium tenellum, Schrad.—Found in a vasculum growing upon 
Musci and Hepatice that had lain some weeks after being gathered 
before being dried. The Musci and Hepatice were collected in Fife- 
shire, but were in Dundee when the fungus grew upon them. 

Aysterium Pinastri, Fries. — On withered pine leaves in Baldovan 
Wood, near Dundee, seemingly in great abundance, although not hi- 
therto observed. 

A paper from Mr. Gorrie, entitled, “ Remarks on the Lapwing,” 
was read. This paper contained a very interesting and full detail of 
the habits of the bird, together with some no less interesting observa- 
tions on the influences of cultivation, &c., on the zoology of a country. 

A paper from Mr. Anderson, of Brechin, was read, being notes on 
localities for rare plants not noticed in the ‘Flora of Forfarshire.’ 

The following is a condensation of Mr. Anderson’s notes :— 

Meum athamanticum.— Road-side between Balintore and Easter 
Coul, parish of Lintrathen ; abundantly. 

Linnea borealis. — Kinnordy Wood, where it was first found by 
Mr. Banbury. 

Mieracium aurantiacum.— Old wood eastward of Kinnordy Gar- 
dens. Near Percy House, 1846. Doubtful if really indigenous at 
cither station. 

Pyrola media.—Kinnordy Woods; most abundantly, 1846. 

Polygonum viviparum. — By the side of a rill near Percy House ; 
abundantly, 1846. 

Paris quadrifolia.—Den of Airlie, on east bank of the Islay, about 
a quarter of a mile below the castle, where it was growing abundantly 
amongst birch and alder trees, in July, 1846, but out of flower. 


128 


Galanthus nivalis.— Among the trees N.E. of the Castle of Inver- 
quharity, abundantly, but not indigenous. 

Trientalis europea.—Very abundant in Kinnordy Woods. 

Fegatella conica. — Falls of Drumly-airy, on the Noran. April, 
1847. Abundant. 

Jungermannia excisa.— Moist banks, Brechin Castle, in fruit, 
1847. 

Beomyces rufus. — Hare Craigs, near Broughty Ferry, October, 
1847. 

Mr. Ogilvie stated the following stations that do not appear in the 
Flora. 

Sphagnum compactum.—Peat bog, near Padanaram. 

Hypnum alopecurum.—Den of Mains. 

Mr. Lawson added the following :— 

Bryum ligulatum.—Abundantly in fruit in Den of Fowlis, 1845. 

Hypnum ruscifolium.— Growing on the stones, and likewise on 
the iron bars of a grating at a well at Ninewells, near Dundee. 

Lepraria flava.—Den of Fowlis, on trees. 1845. 

Cyphella muscigena.—On mosses, Den of Mains. 

Cylindrospora deformans.—On Vaccinium Vitis-idea, Sidlaw 
Hills, on acclivity near the peat bog, and on its west side. 

“ Galium verrucosum [G. saccharatum, All.].— Near Forfar, Scot- 
land, Mr. G. Don.”—Smith’s English Flora, 1. 205. 

“ Juncus oblusiflorus.— Near Forfar, rare; Mr. David Don.”— 
Smith’s English Flora, ii. 176. 

“ Agaricus cantharellus [Cantharellus cibarius, Fr.].— We first 
observed it in the garden at Bellmount, in the county of Angus.”— 
Lightfoot’s Flora Scotica, ii. 1008 (second edition). 

“ Hydnum repandum.— We observed it at Bellmount, the seat of 
the Honourable Mr. Stewart Mackenzie, in the county of Angus.”— 
Lightfoot’s Flora Scotica, ii. 1041. 

GerorGE Lawson, P. 


212, Perth Road, Dundee, 
8th April, 1848. 


Variety of the Garden Primula. By JouHn Cou.ins, Esq. 


Two or three years ago I raised from seed a curious variety of the 
coloured Primula (vulgaris). The calyx has the segments terminat- 
ing in diminutive leaves, similar in form to the radical leaves. This 


129 


would seem to favour the notion expressed by some vegetable physio- 
logists, that the calyx is merely a whorl of leaves, which under 
ordinary circumstances are but partially developed. 
JOHN COLLINS. 
Kirkburton, Huddersfield, 
April 10th, 1848. 


List of the Rarer Flowering Plants observed during a residence in 
Fifeshire in 1846-7. By GrorcE Lawson, Esq. 


I HAVE now the pleasure of sending you for insertion in the ‘ Phy- 
tologist’ the following contribution to the Flora of Fifeshire, being a 
list of the rarer flowering plants observed by me during a short 
residence in the county in the years 1846-7. It may be proper to re- 
mark, that I have been careful to mention no plant but such as [ have 
myself observed; and those that there is reason to suppose may be 
doubtfully native are distinguished by an asterisk. 

Ranunculus sceleratus, L.—In a ditch at the road-side opposite to 
Seggie Distillery. 

* Helleborus viridis, L.—Sparingly on the old garden wall at Clatto ; 
plentiful in Gowel’s Den. In neither of these stations can the plant 
be supposed to be indigenous; and in the latter it has probably been 
planted at a remote period as cover for game, although now seemingly 
quite naturalized. 

*Aquilegia vulgaris, L.—Craigfoodie, abundant, and quite natural- 
ized. It is probably an escape from the garden. 

*Berberis vulgaris, L.—In hedges between Colinsburgh and 
Anstruther. 

Nymphea alba, l.—Lindores Loch. 

*Papaver somniferum, L.—On Coulford Bridge embankment, be- 
tween Dairsie muir and Balmullo. It likewise occasionally occurs by 
waysides, and as a weed in gardens and shrubberies; but it has, of 
course, no claims to be considered indigenous to the county ; nor may 
it be permanently naturalized. 

Cakile maritima, Willd.—Sandy shores of the east coast. 

Cochlearia officinalis, L.—Abundant on the rocky coast about St. 
Andrews, and likewise occasionally plentiful on the banks of streams, 
&c., although I have not observed it far inland. 

Cheiranthus cheiri, L.—On the rocks, old ruins and houses, walls, 
&c., at St. Andrews, very abundant; on ruins of Balmerino Abbey. 


130 


It likewise grows on rocks at Newport, but there it may have escaped 
from a garden, or been planted. 

Reseda luteola, LL. — Road-side south from St. Andrew’s; at 
Wester Dron Meal Mill; very abundant on rubbish at the lime 
quarries of Ladaddie. 

* Viola odorata, \..— Abundant on the north bank of the Eden at 
Dairsie Church, and descending almost to the edge of the stream; on 
a bank on the outside of the wall that surrounds the burying-ground 
of Dairsie; very abundant and luxuriant in Douket Hill, Craigfoodie; 
Earls’ Hall, Leuchars; Clayton; gateway ruins at Airdit. Very 
probably not indigenous at any one of these stations. (See ‘ Phyto- 
logist,’ i1. 863). 

Viola flavicornis.—Tents muir between Leuchars and Ferry-port- 
on-Craig. 

Drosera rotundifolia, L.—Abundant in boggy ground on the high- 
er parts of Keneback Hill. ; 

Dianthus deltoides, L.—Craig-log, plentiful. I was told, that a 
beautiful “laced” variety used to occur; but it has not been observed 
for some years, and has probably been exterminated by the Cupar 
florists. May this variety be the D. glaucus, L.? 

Silene inflata, Sm., 8. hirsuta, is of frequent occurrence. The va- 
riety with stem and leaves pubescent, and peduncles and calyx 
glabrous, occurs sparingly. In an Isle of Wight specimen in my her- 
barium, of the hairy variety, the peduncle and calyx are almost 
glabrous; and I believe I inadvertently distributed some plants of this 
character as the intermediate variety, amongst some botanical friends. 

Lychnis flos-cuculi, L..—A variety with white flowers was observed 
in the corner of a small plantation at the road-side between St. 
Andrews and Anstruther. 
diurna, Sibth.—In moist shady woods, &c.; plentiful in 
many places. 
vespertina, Sibth.—Road-sides, dry corn-fields, waste places, 
&c.; much more abundant than the last species. 

Spergula nodosa, L.—Moist places on the Tents muir sands. 

Cerastium arvense, L.—Dry banks, stony braes, and road-sides ; 
frequent by the road between Cupar and Newport; and on that be- 
tween Guard Bridge and Dairsie muir. 

*Linum usitatissimum, L.— Occurs occasionally in cultivated 
fields, &c., but only the remnant of the cultivated plant. It is still 
cultivated to a small extent in the county, but used to be so very ex- 


tensively. 


131 


Hypericum humifusum, L.— Hill near Lochmalonie, in a rather 
sterile pasture field, 1846. 
——- hirsutum, L.—Banks of the Eden, near Edengrove, 
x 


plentiful. 

*Geranium pheum, L.—Hedge-bank, Pitcullo-loan. Probably an 

escape from Muirhead garden. 

pratense, L.— Marshy and shady ground by margin of 
the river Eden, near Wester Dron Mill. 

lucidum, li.—Awmongst loose stones, &c., Craigfoodie. 

molle, L.—With very pale flowers. Road-side between 
Leuchars and St. Michaels. 

Ononis arvensis, L.—Dry banks by the borders of fields, &c., plen- 
tiful. Much smaller in size, and more beautiful in appearance, at the 
Tents muir, where the spinous form occurs. 

*Trifolium incarnatum.—Old pasture near Dron. This plant 1 
submitted to the inspection of Mr. C. C. Babington, who has since 
written me: “ The Trifolium is a very diminutive specimen of the T. 
incarnatum, and has, I doubt not, been introduced within the last few 
years asacrop. It has no claims to be considered as a native of 
Scotland. It will hold its ground for a short time and then die out. 
Such is the case in many places in England. The variety mentioned 
in my Manual is a very different plant in look, and is probably a dis- 
tinct species.” Since receipt of Mr. Babington’s note, I have made 
inquiries regarding the pasture in which I found the Trifolium, and I 
am informed, that it has not been touched by spade or plough for 
“twenty years, at the least.” The only way, therefore, in which I can 
account for its appearance there, is to suppose that it may have 
migrated from some of the adjoining fields, in none of which, however, 
did I ever observe it. 

repens.—In a viviparous state. Dry bank in shrubbery 
at Dron ; road-side between Colinsburgh and Pittenweem. IT observe 
the same state of the plant noticed in the report of the Surrey Natural 
History Society, at page 1016 of last volume of the ‘ Phytologist.’ 

Astragalus glycyphyllus, L.—Craighall Den, near Ceres, where the 
plant grows very luxuriantly, and the stem attains a length of several 
yards under the shade of the trees. 

hypoglottis, L.—On the sands along the east coast. It 
especially abounds about St. Andrews, and at the east end of the city 
it grows very luxuriantly among the sand. I have not observed the 
white-flowered variety, although I have frequently gathered it on the 
sands on the north side of the Tay. 


132 


Prunus spinosa, L.—Craighall Den; Dura Den, &c. 

3 Padus, L.—Near Dairsie Church. : 

Geum rivale, L.—With semidouble flowers. Den of Kennely. In 
the same Den I found, in the summer of 1847, a luxuriant state of the 
plant, wherein the sepals of the calyx were converted into ternate 
leaves, resembling those of the stem. 

*Fragaria elatior, EKhr. — Road-side between the Free Church 
Manse of Dairsie and the village; but the plant has probably come 
through the hedge from some of the village gardens. 

Agrimonia Eupatoria, L.—Dairsie Bridge; Blebo; between Ans- 
truther and St. Andrews; very luxuriant in the Den of Craighall, 
where I have seen it six feet high. 

Rosa spinosissima, L.— Newton Hill; Pitcullo-loan; east coast, 
south from St. Andrews. 

Epilobium montanum, L.—With white flowers; ditch by the way- 
side between Airdit and the Briggis or Bridge-house muir (Phytol. ii. 
823); wayside between Guard Bridge and Seggie Hill; wayside 
three miles south of St. Andrews. In the two last stations the varie- 
ty does not seem so permanent as in the first-mentioned station. 

angustifolium, L.—Dura Den. 

*Sempervivum tectorum, L.—On roofs of Barn; Byre and Bee 
shed at Hillend; Newton Hill; on roofs of sheds, &c., at Dron; not 
indigenous. 

*Sedum Telephium, L.— Old turf wall, Hillend; Newton Hill ; 
Dura Den; road-side near Newburgh. 

*Ribes Grossularia, L.— Quite naturalized in many places in 
woods by waysides, &c. 

*Saxifraga umbrosa, L.—On shady rocks at Craigfoodie, where it 
has probably been planted, or escaped from the adjoining garden. 
When I observed the plant in September, 1846, it was out of flower, 
but very abundant. 

granulata, L.—Very abundant, especially in the north- 
ern parts of the county. Most luxuriant specimens are occasional- 
ly to be found growing from the crevices of the moist and shady rocks 
at Westwater. 

*Carum Carui, L.—Hillend of N. Newton, and some other places, 
but probably not indigenous, although firmly established. 

*Myrrhis odorata, Scop. — This plant used to grow beautifully at 
Hillend of N. Newton, but rural improvement has driven it from that 
station. 


133 


Dipsacus sylvestris, L.— Pasture near Dairsie Mills; Bow-butts, 
Ceres; Craighall Den. 

Tragopogon pratensis, L.—Sands to the eastward of the city of St. 
Andrews. 

*Meracium aurantiacum, L.—Douket Hill, Craigfoodie, but not 
indigenous, and has probably escaped from the garden. 

*Carduus Marianus, L.—Hillend of N. Newton, where I have ob- 
served it to grow sparingly for many years; it may, however, have 
been originally planted. By margins of corn-fields and in gardens by 
hedges, &c., at Dairsie muir. 

Eupatorium cannabinum, L.—Bank of astream near Lochmalonie. 

Artemisia Absinthium, L.—Hillend of N. Newton, by waysides, &c. 

Gnaphalium dioicum, L.—Newton Hill; Tents muir sands, and 
other places. 


sylvaticum, L.—Abundant on a hill near Lochmalonie. 

Filago germanica, L.—In many places; abundant in pastures, 
&c., near the finger-post, four miles from Newport, on the Cupar 
road. 

Aster Tripolium, L.—Frequent along the coast. 

Senecio viscosus, L.—In sandy fields, Tents muir. 

Pyrethrum Parthenium, Sm.—Rocky bank at Pitcullo Castle ; near 
Pittormie; north bank of river Eden at Dairsie Church. 

Pyrola minor, L.—Brownie plantation, near the Gauldry. 

*Ligustrum vulgare, L.—Plentiful and apparently wild on a dry, 
stony and shady bank in Craighall Den, where, however, it does not 
seem to flower. 

* Vinca minor, L.— Under trees by the road-side between Lochmalo- 
nie and Cupar; Blebo Den; in the Den of Clayton Wood. In none of 
these places does the plant seem indigenous, although I dare say it is 
quite naturalized. 

Convolvulus arvensis, L.— Road-side between Kilmany and N. 
Newton. 

* Hchium vulgare, L.—In a grass-field at Hillend of N. Newton, 
where it appeared for the first time in the summer of 1847. 

*Pulmonaria officinalis, L.—Craigfoodie, where it has probably 
escaped from the garden. Mr. Alexander Birrell, of Cupar, informed 
me that he had observed it near Cupar; but I did not get the exact 
locality from him, and have been unable to find it in that quarter. 

* Anchusa sempervirens, L.—Amongst stones by the wayside near 
where Airdit ruins stood; beside ruins in Craighall Den. Not 
indigenous, although naturalized at both places. 

VOL. It. U 


134 


Solanum Dulcamara, L.—Under trees in a dry nook by the way- 
side near Colinburgh; very plentiful and very luxuriant on banks of 
the Eden about Dairsie and Edengrove, growing amongst willows, &c. 

Digitalis purpurea, L.—Newton Hill. 

Verbascum Thapsus, L.— Douket Hill, Craigfoodie; braes near 
Dairsie Church; Earl’s Hall, near Leuchars. 

Origanum vulgare, L.—Shady bank near Dairsie Church, by the 
footpath at the margin of the river. 

Prunella vulgaris, L.—With white flowers. In a field on the back 
or west side of Lucklaw Hill. 

Pinguicula vulgaris, L.—Kemback Hill, generally near the summit; 
in moist places on Tents muir, and along the coast. 

Anagallis tenella, L.—By the margin of a little bog near Gateshead ; 
Tents muir. 

Primula veris, L.—In abundance on the banks of the Tay about 
Balmerino, and extending farther down the river. 
elatior ?—At the same place. 

Glaux maritima, L.—Abundant on the sandy shores of the east 
coast. 

Statice Armeria, L.—East coast, plentiful. In a marsh at the 
mouth of the Motrey the plant grows abundantly, and a variety there 
occurs with very pale flowers. 

Plantago lanceolata, @. altissima, Koch.—Frequent by waysides, 
borders of fields, &c., in a rich soil. 

lanceolata, y. spherostachya, W. & G.—Newton. 

maritima, L.—Plentiful along the coast on rocks, &c.; 
especially abundant about St. Andrews, where it likewise grows on 
the ancient walls, ruins, &c.; road-side (Cupar road) between St. 
Michael’s and the parish kirk of Forgan. 

Coronopus, L.—Plentiful along the coast. 

Chenopodium Bonus-Henricus, L.—At Pitcullo Castle ruins; road- 
side between Kemback Kirk and Kemback Mill. 

Salsola Kali, u.—Sandy shores of the east coast. 

Polygonum Bistorta, L.—Near Pitcullo Castle ruins; very abundant 
throughout the burying-ground of Dairsie. 

Rumex sanguineus, L.—Moist shady place between Dairsie Church 
and the river Eden. 

Daphne Laureola, L.—FEarl’s Hall Wood, abundant. 

*Humulus Lupulus, L.— Bushy place at Kemback Mill, where 
the plant was observed in 1846 and 1847, twining upon hawthorn 
bushes ; but improvements have been going on at the place, and the 


135 


station will, I presume, be destroyed; abundant in garden-hedges by 
the wayside between St. Andrews and Guard Bridge. Of course not 
indigenous. 

Betula alba, L.—Boggy ground extending westward from Dairsie 
Church and farm, where I have no hesitation in pronouncing this 
beautiful tree to be indigenous. The result of my inquiries among 
the aged inhabitants of the place tend to strengthen me in this opinion. 

Salix pentandra, L.—Kennely Den, where this beautiful willow 
grows in great luxuriance, although not very abundant. 
alba, L.—Many large trees, as well as small plants of this spe- 
cies, grow along the margin of the river Eden, especially that part of 
it between Dairsie Mills and Nydie Mill. They do not seem to have 
been planted by other hand than that of Nature. 

—- fusca, L.—Road-side between St. Andrews and Kennely Den, 
on a ditch bank. 

Susca, §. argentea, Sm.—Road-side between St. Andrews and 
Kennely Den. 

cinerea, L.— Margin of river Eden, near Dairsie Church. 
aquatica, Sm.—Moist ground between Kennely Den and the 
east coast. 

aurita, L.—Kennely Den; Craighall Den, &c.* 

* Ruscus aculeatus, L.—Near ruins of Pitcullo Castle, where it is 
probable it may have been planted at a remote period. 

*Oonvallaria majalis, L.—Birkhill Wood. Very probably intro- 
duced. 

Luzula multiflora, Lej.—In woods and occasionally in moist 
pastures amongst long grass. I am indebted to my kind corre- 
spondent Mr. Thomas Bentall, of Halstead, for a knowledge of the 
distinctive characters of this species. It is quite distinct, and seems 
permanently so, from any form of L. campestris that I have ever met 
with. 

Listera ovata, Br.—Wood at Bridge-house muir; wood south from 
St. Andrews, &c. 

* Narcissus Pseudo-Narcissus, L.—Clayton Wood, plentiful, and 
seemingly quite naturalized, although decidedly introduced. 

* Crocus aureus.—Clayton Wood, plentiful, but planted, although it 
may become quite wild-like in a few years. 

* Galanthus nivalis, L.—Bank shaded by lofty trees, Pitcullo Castle, 


* T have several other Salices gathered in the county; but these are not so clearly 
determined as I could wish, and I do not therefore give them insertion in the present 
list. 


136 


in abundance; shady bank beside the trunks of trees at Airdit; north 
bank of the Eden between Clayton Wood and the island called the 
“ Pouch,” far from houses or gardens; river bank at Westwater, close 
by gardens. Not likely other than naturalized in any of these stations. 

* Phalaris Canariensis, L.—In a field of vetches near Newburgh ; 
road-side near Wester Dron; plentiful in Dura Den, where it seems 
naturalized, although it may not be quite so in the other stations. 

Ammophila arundinacea, Host.—Sand-links and moors on east 
coast. 

Bromus asper, L.—Shaded banks at Dairsie Church, very abundant; 
likewise in a wood near the town of Cupar. 

Hordeum murinum, L.—Abundant about ruins and old buildings 
in St. Andrews. 

Triticum junceum, L.—Sandy shores of the east coast. 

Carex arenaria, L.—Exceedingly abundant on the sandy downs of 
the east coast, to the exclusion, in many places, of every other plant. 

I may likewise mention the Eutoca Wrangeliana and Eschscholtzia 
crocea, two garden annuals, both of which I have found growing 
amongst stones, between Dron and Nydie Mill, at the edge of a foot- 
path. These have undoubtedly no claims to be considered as natives. 
The Eschscholtzia likewise occurs in great abundance in a piece of 
ground lying waste in consequence of the Edinburgh and Northern 
railway operations. When I last observed it at this station it was 
growing profusely amid a luxuriance of Fumaria officinalis, Galium 
Aparine, Sinapis arvensis, and other weeds, and seemed indeed as 
much at home as any one of them. It may not be out of place to add, | 
that Primula vulgaris occurs in abundance around Pitcullo Castle, with 
various colours of flower, some purple of different shades, others 
white, pink, &c., and not a few of the common yellow hue. The yel- 
low-flowered plants may be supposed to be the natural inhabitants of 
the banks; but the others have undoubtedly been introduced at some 
period, although that may be remote. 


GEORGE LAWSON. 
212, Perth Road, Dundee, 


April 10, 1848. 


BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 


Friday, April 7.—John Edward Gray, Esq., F.R.S., President, in 
the chair. 
The following donations were announced :— 


gt 


137 


“The Twenty-seventh Report of the Council of the Leeds Philoso- 
phical and Literary Society at the close of the Session 1846-7 ;” pre- 
sented by that Society. 

“On Conjugation in the Diatomacee,” and “ Further Observations 
on the Diatomacez, with Descriptions of new Genera and Species,” 
by G. H. K. Thwaites, Esq.; presented by the author. 

Mr. Thomas Moore communicated a paper “ On a Variety of Las- 
trea Filix-mas found by him in the Neighbourhood of Guildford, 
Surrey, in December last.” (See Phytol. iii. 137).—G. E. D. 


On a Variety of Lastrea Filix-mas. By 'THomas Moors, Esq.* 


Wartst walking through a wood in the neighbourhood of Guild- 
ford, in December, 1847, my attention was particularly arrested by a 
remarkable fern, which I at first thought to be a species distinct from 
any which I had previously seen. I was accordingly induced to ga- 
ther one or two of its then half-perished fronds, with the intention of 
examining them more closely at a leisure moment. On giving the 
plant this further examination, I found it to constitute a very distinct 
variety of Lastreea Filix-mas, apparently identical with examples 
which I had observed in the herbarium of the Society, from King’s 
Cliff Valley, near Bridgewater, sent by Mr. Clark. Subsequently Mr. 
Newman assured me it was the variety of that species which he had 
figured at p. 197 of his ‘ History of British Ferns,’ and mentioned at 
p- 201 in these words: “This plant in habit and general appearance 
much more nearly resembles Athyrium Filix-foemina than the species 
which I am now describing (Lastrza Filix-mas), but the scales of the 
stem, the texture of the frond, and the character of the involucre (al- 
though I have only seen it after the bursting of the capsules) are de- 
cidedly those of Filix-mas, or a closely allied species.” I had 
supposed Mr. Newman’s plant and my own to be the same, although 
he does not very distinctly explain, nor indicate its peculiarities. 

What should form a species, or be considered a variety among 
plants generally and ferns especially, is at present decided by no 
very explicit rule; and while this continues the case, it seems the 
most desirable course to rank the plant under notice as a variety of 
Lastrea Filix-mas, although very distinct as such from the common 


* Read before the Botanical Soeicty of London, 7th April, 1848. 


138 


state of that species. I propose that it should bear the name of 


incisa. 


1 will now, in a brief review of the species (British) and its varie- 
ties, endeavour to point out their differences. 
Lastrea Filix-mas, Pres]. — Fronds broadly lanceolate, sub-bipin- 


Var. 


Var. 


Has. 
Var. 


Has. 


nate; pinne linear-lanceolate; basal pinnules more or less 
distinct, the rest confluent all oblong, crenato-serrate or with 
toothed incisions; lateral veins of pinnules simply forked or 
3- many-branched; sori in a proximate line on each side of 
midvein ; indusium entire, very persistent. 
a. Pinnules obtuse-oblong crenato-serrate, their late- 
ral veins simply forked, or sometimes 3-branched; sori con- 
fined to lower half of pinnules. 

Aspidium Filix-mas, Swartz, Willdenow, Smith, Hooker, 


&c. Common. 

8.incisa. Robust; pinnules elongate and (especially those 
next the main rachis) regularly divided by deep incisions, 
the lobes more or less serrated ; lateral veins many-branched ; 
sori extending nearly the entire length of pinnules. Schkuhr’s 
Aspidium depastum appears to be a monstrous state of this 
variety, which is not the Aspidium erosum of Schkuhr, as 
suggested by Mr. Francis, that plant being figured with 
glandular indusia, and otherwise different. 

Near Bridgewater; near Guildford ; near Cockermouth. 
y. abbreviata. Small; sori confined to base of contracted or 
obsolete pinnules forming a linear series on each side of mid- 
rib of pinne. 

Polystichum abbreviatum, De Candolle (fide Newm. § 
Bab.) ? Aspidium Filix-mas recurvum, Francis. 
Probably not uncommon in dry situations. 


A monstrous form of the variety incisa in the herbarium of the 
Society (King’s Cliff Valley, near Bridgewater, Mr. Clark), has the 
pinnules very irregularly and deeply cleft, and manifests an indica- 
tion of producing forked pinne, in which state it very nearly coin- 
cides with Schkuhr’s figure of Aspidium depastum. 

A curious form found near Woolwich by Dr. Bossey, in the herba- 
rium of the Botanical Society, though fruitful, has the lobes of the 
pinne depauperated, giving the pinne the appearance of the leaves 
of the Comptonia asplenifolia. I am not aware to what extent it may 
have been observed; probably merely an individual plant which had 
been affected by local causes. 


139 


The fronds of this species of Lastraa grow in a circle from the 
crown of the caudex, and attain from one to four or five feet in height, 
the base of the stipes being densely covered with pale-coloured, 
chaffy scales, of various sizes: they are sub-bipinnate, broadly lan- 
ceolate, often oblong-abrupt, with an acuminated apex. The pinne 
are linear-lanceolate, acute, alternate, the lowest shorter than those 
about the middle of the frond ; they are pinnate next the main rachis, 
the pinnules having a narrow attachment, but being scarcely stalked; 
in the rest of the piune the pinnules are usually more or less com- 
bined at the base, most so in the variety abbreviata, but less so in 
the variety incisa, than in the normal state, in which latter the pin- 
nules and lobes are of an oblong-obtuse outline, crenato-serrate on 
the margin, and more acutely and closely serrate at the apex. In 
the variety incisa the pinne are somewhat more distinctly pinnate, 
and they are also more elongate, and narrow at the point, the mar- 
gins being more or less deeply incised or lobed, each of the lobes 
haying from two to four or five serratures. The midvein of the pin- 
nules and lobes is sinuous; the lateral veins are alternate, and they 
become branched near the midvein—in the normal plant usually 
simply forked, or occasionally with the posterior branch again forked; 
the anterior branch on a greater or less number of these lateral veins 
at the base of the pinnule bears a sorus just beyond the fork, so that 
the sori in this case form a short line on each side of and near the 
midvein, extending about half the length of the pinnule. _In the va- 
riety incisa the lateral veins are more compound, being sometimes 
three- sometimes four- and at the base usually many-branched; but 
the sori, as far as I have observed, are only produced on the anterior 
branch, as in the more common plant, so that they are also ranged in 
a line on each side the midvein ; they extend, however, from the base 
nearly to the apex of the pinnule. In the variety abbreviata, on the 
other hand, the sori are confined to the base of the obsolete pinnules, 
forming a line against the rachis of the pinne. The sori are covered 
by smooth, very persistent, reniform indusia, each of which is con- 
nected to the back of the vein by the sinus, which is turned away 
from the apex of the pinnule or lobe. 


ATE. THomas Moore. 
‘ ( 4 e fs é 
April, 1848. \en 
Z @es ad —% 4 * 
ca) INY 
* dy BAB \ Sea 


= 22 


140 


Further Remarks on the Second Edition of the ‘ London Catalogue 
of British Plants.” By JosepH Sipeporuam, Esq. 


Mr. Warson’s letter in the last number of the ‘ Phytologist’ (Phy- 
tol. iii. 83), asking “Is Gentiana acaulis wild in England ?” seems to 
call for a word of reply from me, inasmuch as it casts a doubt on my 
former statement. I am sorry that it is not in my power to give any 
further information on the subject, as Mr. Crozier has been dead 
some time, and of Mr. Townley I have seen nothing for some years, 
nor do I know where to find him. There can be no doubt as to the 
species referred to being the Gentiana acaulis; no one with half an 
eye could mistake it for any other British gentian; therefore the only 
conclusions are, either that Mr. Townley found the plant apparently 
wild, or that he told a deliberate falsehood; the latter I cannot be- 
lieve to be the case, as he could have no motive for practising such a 
deceit. The only doubt I have is that it had been introduced, as 
Linaria Cymbalaria was on the rocks in Wales. I am glad Mr. Wat- 
son has taken up the subject, as no doubt he will tell us what is 
meant by a naturalized species and one that is zmperfectly natural- 
ized, and thus explain some of the apparent inconsistencies in the new 
‘London Catalogue,’ so many of which were pointed out when the 
first edition made its appearance, and of which there was such a 
meagre attempt at an explanation. 

Mr. W. says that the three other species mentioned in my letter 
are “certainly introduced, but imperfectly naturalized :” this, of 
course, calls for his definition of the word naturalized as regards 
plants. 

Allow me to give my idea of the meaning of the term. Whena 
plant is introduced into another country and establishes itself, so that 
either by seed or otherwise it propagates, and increases the geogra- 
phical range of its species, without the interference of ian, and does 
not again disappear in the course of a few years, I should call the 
plant naturalized. I am much obliged to Mr. Pascoe for his remarks 
on the subject, especially as regards Oxalis stricta, and quite agree 
with him as to the difficulty of drawing a line of distinction between 
the native, naturalized, and imperfectly naturalized species. 

The line which the compilers of the ‘ London Catalogue’ have 
drawn appears to have been executed with a very trembling hand, as 
it is singularly indistinct in some places, and in others exceedingly 
crooked, and apparently drawn without regard to any rule or guide. 
By what rule, for instance, should they consider that Cheiranthus 


141 


Cheiri and the Vincas, &c., are not native, whilst Impatiens noli-me- 
tangere, Helleborus foetidus, Trifolium ochroleucum, &c., are put 
down as undoubtedly indigenous. Surely it is very hard upon the 
turnip to place it side by side with such plants as Mimulus luteus, 
and on the pear-tree to be excluded altogether, when such plants as 
Sisyrinchium anceps are let in. What can we infer but that the for- 
mer have Jost caste on account of their antiquity, and that to find fa- 
vour with the compilers of the ‘ London Catalogue’ as a naturalized 
species, the plant must be simply a new discovery. 


JOSEPH SIDEBOTHAM. 
Manchester, April 17, 1848. 


Notes of a Five Hours’ Ramble on the Findhorn. 
By ALEXANDER CROALL, Esq. 


SoME will perhaps smile at the idea of a botanical excursion of jive 
hours in length; but those who have little time to spare must make 
the most of it they can; and after all it not unfrequently happens that 
when we have least time we do the most good. 

The result of our short ramble was certainly such as to leave room 
for regret that our time was so limited; while we had every reason to 
be satisfied with the enjoyment we obtained, as well as with the spe- 
cimens collected. 

Having previously made arrangements for spending a day on the 
banks of the Findhorn, in company with Dr. Innes, of Forres, a no less 
amiable man than an acute and enthusiastic botanist, we appointed 
Saturday, 8th April, for our excursion. 

Our first peep at Aurora was rather chilling for our spirits. A heavy 
shower of snow had fallen during the night, and shrouded all nature in 
a wintry mantle. The sun, however, soon dissipated the nebulous 
canopy, and the snowy shroud gradually yielded to his influence. 
The air, however, was still cold, and showers of hail and sleet falling 
at intervals, kept our courage at rather a low temperature. Now or 
never, however, was our motto, and off we started, between ten and 
eleven a.m., and, without any incident worthy of note, reached our 
destination about twelve. Having put up our horse and gig at the 
farm-house of Outlaw-well, we proceeded to the banks of the river. 
Occasional showers were still falling, and the wind was keen and biting; 
but the high banks of the river, crowned with their fringe of dense 

VOL. 15. % 


142 


wood, soon screened us from the blast, and the beautiful panorama 
with which we were now encircled soon banished all thoughts of the 
cold and the snow, and made us regret that days instead of hours were 
not at our disposal for its investigation. We might willingly forbear 
all-general details in this short notice were it not in the hope of in- 
ducing some more able botanist, with more time at his disposal, to 
spend a few days on the banks of this romantic stream. 

The Findhorn, for the greater part of its course, flows over a wild and 
rocky channel, and its banks are mostly composed of steep and rugged 
rocks, clothed in all the richness of nature’s garniture, and would no 
doubt well repay the most careful researches of the exploring botanist. 
The space to which our ramble was on this occasion restricted, was 
in the vicinity of the small village of Sluie, at the point where the 
primary or igneous rocks first make their appearance, and did not ex- 
tend beyond a quarter of a mile in length. The banks of the river are 
here mostly high and precipitous, often projecting over the stream to 
a considerable extent, rendering all access to its margin impossible. 
Here and there the feet of the fisherman have worn a path, narrow, 
difficult, and often dangerous, down to the margin of the stream, 
along which you can proceed for a short distance, when you must 
often retrace your steps to the summit, and then, by a similar path- 
way, make another descent to the richly moss and lichen-clad rocks 
that skirt the river. The upper part of the bank is densely clothed 
with oak, birch, larch, spruce, and Scotch fir, here and there relieved 
by the white polished bark of the poplar, or the yellow drooping cat- 
kins of the willow. 

From the bottom as well as from the summit of the projecting cliffs, 
some beautiful and highly interesting views are obtained of the dark 
winding stream ; at one time rushing over its rough craggy bed, foam- 
ing with all the wild sublimity of mountain grandeur; at another, it 
coils silently over some projecting ledge into a dark and almost 
fathomless pool, in whose eddying recesses the salmon play their 
gambols in security. Here you may see the patient angler, seated on 
a crag, almost motionless as the rock beneath him, eagerly watching 
his nibbling prey. There you may observe an old man, seated on a 
shelf scarcely larger than his body, at the bottom of a fall, up which 
the poor fish are ever and anon vainly endeavouring to make their 
way, and as they fall backwards drop quietly into the net which the 
fisherman holds in his hand ready to receive them. At one spot you 
perceive the eyry of the hawk or the eagle, with the watchful bird 
seated on a crag above, of which he seems but to form a part; while 


143 


a little beyond a populous colony of herons are already busily en- 
gaged in the duty of incubation. 

The upper part of the bank among the wood is densely carpeted 
with a profusion of the more common species of cryptogamics ; while 
the cliffs below are in many places mantled with a profusion of Sax- 
ifraga aizoides, now only beginning to expand its dark green foliage, 
but which, when in flower, will light up these rough crags with a per- 
fect glow of beauty. In many places, the damp rocks are widely cur- 
tained with Hypnum commutatum; while from the drier cliffs the 
more delicate tresses of the ivy, the honeysuckle, and the bramble are 
suspended in profusion. At these interesting scenes, however, we had 
only time to glance, our object being among the cracks and crevices 
of the rocks below. 

Our first descent was effected by a sloping bank, a little below the 
village. This slope was covered towards the bottom with stones, ap- 
parently tumbled down from the fields above. ‘They were now cover- 
ed with a close carpeting of mosses of various species, among which 
we were quite delighted to find Bryum ligulatum, affine, and roseum ; 
the first two fructifying abundantly ; the last, although in great plenty 
here, as in many other places in the district, has not yet been found 
in fruit. Bryum punctatum and turbinatum, Jungermannia Lyoni, 
Hypnum loreum and molluscum, Fissidens adiantoides, &c., &c., were 
plentiful in fruit. Leaving this spot we proceeded to the wet rocks 
above the village, where we found, among a variety of other less interest- 
ing species, Bryum marginatum, rostratum, punctatum, capillare, tur- 
binatum, and albicans, Andrea rupestris, Anictangium ciliatum, 
Dicranum pellucidum, Weissia crispula, Fissidens adiantoides, bry- 
oides, and taxifolius, Hypnum alopecurum and ruscifolium, Bartramia 
calcaria, Hdmon., Jungermannia pumila, Lyoni, julacea, pubescens, 
and Blasia, Solorina saccata, Sticta pulmonaria, Placodium plumbe- 
um, Peltidea aphthosa, Nostoc commune, &c., &c. 

Bryum affine I have found frequent in the district, but seldom in 
fruit. Br. albicans is also frequent but barren. Fissidens adiantoides 
hangs in luxuriant festoons from the dripping rocks; the fronds some- 
times six inches in length. Bartramia calcarea was also plentiful, but 
the setz were quite young, and the direction of the foliage was very 
variable ; stems with erect, and others with secund leaves were often 
found on the same plant. Solorina saccata and Placodium plumbeum 
were also abundant in fruit. Peltidea aphthosa was barren. Junger- 
mannia Blasia was also in fruit. This I also found in fruit abundant- 
ly on the day previous, in a wild rocky ravine near the Manse of 


144 


Birnie, in a ramble with the Rev. George Gordon,* where it was asso- 
ciated with remarkably luxuriant specimens of Diphyscium foliosum. 

The above list of species is small, but if viewed in connexion with 
the season, the weather, and the limited time at our command, is not 
unsatisfactory, and sufficient at least to induce a desire for more ex- 
tended investigation. Dr. Innes has found many interesting species 
in the neighbourhood of Forres, and 1 doubt not that the upper 
part of the river would amply repay the researches of a careful 
explorer. 

ALEXANDER CROALL. 


Cothill of Guthrie, Friackheim, 
by Arbroath, April, 1848. 


Reply to Mr. Sidebotham’s “ Further Remarks on the Second Edition 
of the ‘ London Catalogue of British Plants’” By HEewerr 
C. Watson, Esq. 


I RECOGNIZE the right of Mr. Sidebotham, as of any other botanist, 
to publish dissentient opinions respectiing the categories to which 
species are referred in the ‘London Catalogue of British Plants.’ 
(See Phytol. iii. 140). Where such opinions are founded on correct 
knowledge, or are expressed with a view to elicit explanations which 
cannot be conveyed in a list of names, they are entitled to respectful 
attention, and would command it from one or other of the editors of 
the ‘ Catalogue, either in the way of immediate response, or by notes 
for use in preparing any future edition. But the insufficiency of 
knowledge of the subject, by which Mr. 8. supports the self-suffici- 
ency of his strictures, will exonerate us from any obligation to answer 
them in detail. Nor should I have troubled myself to notice at all 
the last article from Mr. Sidebotham’s pen, had he not mingled mis- 
statement with mistakes or misapprehensions. If not incumbent, it 
must be at least allowable for any one to repel false assertions respect- 
ing himself or his doings. 

In the paragraph which is continued from page 140 to the cover of 
the May ‘ Phytologist, and which may be expected to appear on page 
141 of the June number, Mr. Sidebotham writes thus: “Surely it is 
very hard upon the turnip to place it side by side with such plants as 


* Mr. Gordon takes a lively interest in the progress of Natural History, only excel- 
led by his devotedness to the spiritual interests of his charge. 


145 


Mimulus luteus, and on the pear-tree to be excluded altogether, when 
such plants as Sisyrinchium anceps are let in.” Now, if any exact 
meaning is to be gathered from that vague style of expression, it must 
involve an assertion, on the part of Mr. Sidebotham, that the pear- 
tree is excluded from the list of British plants, in the second edition 
of the Catalogue referred to. But any botanist who will take the 
trouble of looking for the name of the tree in the Catalogue, may see 
“Pyrus communis,” in its proper place, no. 362, printed in the 
ordinary type used for other undisputed natives. Thus supported by 
published evidence, accessible to any botanist, I am justified in say- 
ing that Mr. Sidebotham has made out a seeming case against the 
‘London Catalogue’ by a glaring mis-statement of fact. 

Were I to put down my pen here, it would leave Mr. S. under a 
charge yery like that of deliberate falsehood. But I will not do so, 
because I think an explanation may be suggested, which will reduce 
the mis-statement into another example of that imperfect knowledge 
of British Botany, which his writings have usually betrayed, and so 
place it against him as an instance of intellectual rather than moral 
deficiency. In the list of ‘Excluded Species, appended to the ‘ Lon- 
don Catalogue,’ is the name of the service-tree, “ Pyrus domestica,” 
there placed with the sign of imperfect naturalization, because only 
a solitary tree of that species is known to be apparently wild in this 
country. Mr. Sidebotham may possibly have seen the name of Pyrus 
domestica among the excluded species,—may have supposed it to be 
the botanical name of the pear-tree,—and may have neglected to look 
for the latter in its proper place in the general list. It is true that 
such an explanation implies inadequate knowledge and hasty asser- 
tion; but I would rather refer a mis-statement to intellectual deficien- 
cy than to moral defect. 

Now, it may signify little to myself or others, whether the mis-state- 
ment was an intentional falsehood,—whether it was a reckless asser- 
tion made without care of its truth or falsity,—or only a simple 
blunder through ignorance of the difference between the pear and 
service-trees. | Whichever of these explanations be received, it will 
leave Mr, Sidebotham in a position not likely to give weight to his 
opinions on the ‘ London Catalogue,’ nor to recommend him as a trust- 
worthy botanical critic. He will show greater prudence or wisdom 
in future by abstaining from strictures upon others until he can make 
them from the vantage ground of knowledge. 

Thames Ditton, May 7, 1848. H. C. Watson. 


146 


Carex riparia and C. paludosa. By Wm. A. BromFIELp, M.D. 


BEsIDEs the characters commonly assigned in books for the discri- 
mination of these two closely allied but very distinct species, there is 
another, which, as far as my own experience goes, is of equal stability 
with those formerly noted. In C. riparia the connectivum of the 
anther is produced into a small but very distinct awn-like point, 
which is either entirely obsolete, or reduced to an extremely minute 
apiculus in C. paludosa, a difference which, though not verbally 
noticed, is accurately expressed in the admirable figures of these spe- 
cies in Curtis’s ‘ Flora Londinensis.’ The anthers of some Carices, as 
C. levigata and C. binervis, are spinulose at the tips. This circum- 
stance, and the above instance of the production of the connectivum 
into a subulate point, may;possibly be found capable of affording good 
discriminating marks, as the latter certainly appears to do with regard 
to the species in question. 

W. A. BROMFIELD. 


Eastmount, Ryde, Isle of Wight; 
May 9th, 1848. 


BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 


Friday, May 5, 1848.—John Edward Gray, Esq., F.R.S., &c., 
President, in the chair. 

Francis Brent, Esq., of Liverpool, was elected a member. 

Donations to the library were announced from the Horticultural 
Society of Berlin, and Mr. T. W. Barlow. 

British plants had been received from Mr. James Lynam. 

Mr. T. H. Goulding read a paper “On the Botany of Devon and 
Cornwall.”"—G. E. D. 


Further report of Experiments on the Cowslip and Oxlip. 
By Hewett C. Watson, Esq. 


In the pages of the ‘ Phytologist’ for June of last year, I reported 
the results, incompletely shown at that time, of two additional experi- 
ments, made with a view to ascertain the extent of variation which 
will occur among plants raised from seeds of the cowslip or oxlip. 


147 


My copy for 1847 being in the hands of a binder, I am unable to refer 
to the exact pages, or to recall precisely what was there stated. But 
the full results of the two experiments are now before me, and can be 
recorded. 

In 1846 I marked a plant of an ordinary cowslip (Primula veris), 
also one of the “Claygate Oxlip” (P. vulgaris var. intermedia of 
Lond. Cat.), both then in flower in my garden, and sufficiently near 
other species and varieties to be hybridized by bees, if hybridization 
is thus effected among these plants. The seeds of these two plants, 
so marked, were afterwards sown in flower-pots, which had been first 
carefully washed clean, and then filled with earth in which it was a 
moral certainty that no seed of any Primula could be lurking. The 
young plants were subsequently removed from the flower-pots, and 
planted out in two separate rows, in loamy soil, and distant a few 
inches from each other. Some of the young plants flowered in 1847, 
as recorded in the ‘ Phytologist ;’ others, not until this present year. 
The results of the two experiments are now before me, as follows :— 

First.—From the seeds of the Claygate Oxlip (P. vulgaris var. 
intermedia) fifteen plants are now living, and fourteen of these are 
flowering. Scarcely two of these are quite alike, the varieties gradu- 
ally passing one from another into the two extremes of cowslip and 
primrose. Grouped according to the varieties given in the ‘ London 
Catalogue,’ they will stand thus :— 

4 Primula vulgaris (or primroses), 2 of them red-flowered, and 
all producing one or more umbels elevated on common scapes, 
in addition to the single-flowered pedicels, arising from the 
sessile umbels, as in the wild primroses. 

5 Primula vulgaris var. caulescens, all the flowers being in 
umbels on elevated common scapes, 2 of the plants producing 
dingy reddish flowers. 

2 Primula vulgaris var. intermedia, or plants very closely re~ 

sembling the parent plant. 

Primula veris, with the teeth of the calyx more acute than 
usual in wild cowslips, but still quite different from the subu- 
late calyx-teeth of the true primrose. 

1 Plant without flowers, but a primrose by the form and pubes- 
cence of the leaves. 

Second.—From the seeds of the true cowslip (P. veris) there are 
sixteen plants, all yellow-flowered ; besides one red cowslip, which, 
owing to an accidental misplacement, cannot be positively included 
as one of the lot, although most probably such. Among these plants 


i) 


148 


there is a gradual transition or series ranging from the ordinary 
cowslip into the Claygate Oxlip, or even a little nearer to the caules- 
cent primrose than is the latter. Placed in groups, they may stand 
thus :-— 

10 Primula veris, most of them with flowers larger than usually 
seen in the wild cowslips of the meadows, a difference which 
may be attributed to the vigorous growth of young plants 
unimpeded by other roots around them. 

Primula veris var. major, differing from the true cowslip by 
their larger and flatter corollas, paler in colour, and by the 
more acute teeth of their calyces. 

4 Primula vulgaris var. intermedia; the flowers more like those 
of the primrose than those of the cowslip, in colour, size, 
and form. 

In connexion with the previously recorded experiments, I seem 
now to be justified in asserting; first, that seeds of a cowslip can 
produce cowslips and oxlips; and secondly, that seeds of an oxlip can 
produce cowslips, oxlips, and primroses. The transition from the 
cowslip (P. veris) to the primrose (P. vulgaris) is thus complete, but 
not direct or immediate ; for, I have not yet ascertained that a typical 
P. vulgaris can produce a typical P. veris, or vice versd, without 
passing through or producing the intermediate link of the oxlip, 
namely, the P. vulgaris var. intermedia of the ‘ London Catalogue,’ 
and several times mentioned in the ‘ Phytologist,’ under name of the 
“ Claygate Oxlip.” Iemploy the term oalip to designate the inter- 
mediate form, because it is undoubtedly to that variety of primrose or 
cowslip, or hybrid of both, that rustics apply the name: they do not 
intend Jacquin’s P. elatior, the Bardfield Primula, under a name which 
is familiar in various counties. 

It may here be observed that, in my own experiments, the seeds 
have always been taken from a single plant, examined and marked 
while in flower, and dried examples of it preserved in my herbarium ; 
so that, whether a typical form of cowslip, or a variety of oxlip, I am 
able to point out the parent or its counterpart exactly. In a former 
volume of the ‘ Phytologist’ (i. 218 and 313) I mentioned that the 
antecedent experiments wanted one or other of these requisites of 
precision ; and it therefore appears to me to be still a desideratum, to 
show by experiment that a primrose can produce a cowslip, or a cowslip 
produce a primrose, directly at the first descent, without an intermediate 
stage of the oxlip form. The hybridization hypothesis would be ne- 
gatived by the crucial experiment of this direct production or change. 


(9) 


149 


That hypothesis wears an aspect of plausibility so long as the species 
on either side can only be shown to produce the intermediate forms, 
or these latter to reproduce the two typical species, along with their 
own image ;—strange as it would be, to finda she mule producing 
mules, horses and asses. 
Hewett C. Watson. 
Thames Ditton, May 15, 1848. 


Notice of ‘ The Principles of Nature, her Divine Revelations, and 
a Voice to Mankind. By and through AnpbREw Jackson Davis, 
the Poughkeepsie Seer and Clairvoyant. London: John Chap- 
man, 142, Strand. Stereotype Edition. 1847. 


THE unparallelled success of the ‘ Vestiges’ has called into exist- 
ence, amidst an ocean of similar trash, a translation of Oken’s ‘ Physio- 
philosophy,’ and the ‘ Divine Revelations’ of the Poughkeepsie Seer. 
The three works have a very similar tendency: that of substituting 
some philosophical hypothesis for the religion which the Old and 
New Testaments teach and reveal. All three authors assume a faculty 
of judging independently of facts. The Vestigian trusts mainly to the 
inventive genius of Lamarck; Oken “has a kind of inspiration ;” 
Davis reveals his physiophilosophical ideas “ under the influence of 
mesmerism.” The first and last appear to me imposters: they must 
pardon me in saying that I doubt their own faith in what they write: 
Oken is in earnest, but, alas! it is the earnestness of a lunatic. 
Happy were it for our science if these mischievous writers would turn 
their attention elsewhere !—gladly indeed would I escape the thankless 
task of assailing others!—but after having for fifteen years publicly 
advocated the study of Natural History, it seems incumbent on me to 
use my feeble efforts in defending it against those who would avail 
themselves of the science as a means of promulgating irreligious 
opinions. Why Botany should be brought into antagonism with 
Scripture, and why leaves and flowers and fruits should invalidate the 
Christian religion, are problems I cannot solve; but the ‘Poughkeepsie 
Seer’ promulgates this doctrine, and readers and admirers seem to 
have been so abundant, that it was found necessary to stereotype the 
work, in order that a supply may be continually kept up commensu- 
rate with the demand. 

I have ever treated with contempt the ill-judged attempts to 

VOL. MT. Me 


150 ' 


depreciate the study of Natural History on account of its supposed 
tendency to infidelity : it seems to me a manifest absurdity to accuse 
God’s works of antagonism to His written law, and to assert that a 
knowledge of His works could induce a violation of His law !—that the 
revelations of Nature could interfere with the revelations of religion !— 
that truth could clash with truth! Absurd, however, as is the attempt 
to bring Natural History into disrepute on the score of this imagined 
clashing with religion, it is far less objectionable than the opposite 
fallacy, now reduced to a science under the name of Phystophilosophy, 
which professes to found a philosophical religion on the phenomena 
of Nature, irrespective of Scripture and subversive of our faith in its 
divine origin. This physiophilosophy supplies the very argument 
wanted by the timid religionists alluded to above, and verifies and 
irrevocably confirms their worst apprehensions of danger from the 
science. On this ground alone, and not from any idea that the Bible 
or religion require or can receive assistance from my pen, I have 
ventured on these observations, and having expressed my strong dis- 
approbation of physiophilosophy generally, 1 will now confine my 
observations to its boldest and most fashionable exponent, Andrew 
Jackson Davis. 

I have already said that I consider this man an imposter. I do not 
give the slightest credence to the statement that he is an illiterate man, 
or that any portions of his revelations are the result of mesmeric clair- 
voyance, or that there is anything whatever in his state, or attainments, 
or communications, beyond the combination of good memory, ex- 
tensive miscellaneous reading, and fertile invention. I readily give him 
credit for all this, but inasmuch as he denies such assistance, and 
attributes his knowledge to a totally different source, I cannot but re- 
gard him as an imposter; and I take up his work as the compilation of 
aman who has brought much jumbled reading to his aid, and who, 
where all information was wanting, has shown considerable aptitude 
in the science of invention. 

Without attempting to answer the writer (and apologizing to the 
reader for introducing the paragraph at all), I will show how this totally 
illiterate man disposes of the Trinity. 

“The original conception of the Trinity arose from the three supposed 
beings called Parama, Vishnu, and Siva. * * * This Trinity was not 
established in the world until the Egyptian priests of the Sun, and the 
Persian Magi, promoted the three beings to a higher degree of potency 
than they originally possessed; and the conception was grasped by 
Zoroaster, who immediately converted them into three united beings.” 
—ii. 552. 


° 151 


Now Mr. Davis is said to gain his acquaintance with the Trinity, 
Parama, Vishnu, Siva, Egyptian priests of the Sun, Persian Magi, and 
Zoroaster, by Divine revelations of Nature when in a state of mesmeric 
clairvoyance. If transatlantic naturalists like to believe this they are 
quite at liberty to do so, but I cannot admire the taste which dictates 
its reproduction before the British public: and I turn with disgust 
from such palpable impossibilities as this, to those passages in which 
the author can have received no assistance from books or from 
observation, and which are as purely fictitious as the adventures of 
Munchausen, the flying Dutchman, or the jumping baron; and, in my 
humble opinion, rise no higher as objects for the attention of the 
learned. That readers and admirers can be found for such trash 
must be a matter of regret to all who are capable of reflection, but 
that such readers and admirers should be among the honourable and 
influential literati of the day is a fact ‘to make angels weep.’ My ex- 
tracts are purely phytological. 

Vegetation of Saturn.—“ There are four general classes of vegetable 
developments here existing. One class assumes high and bulky 
forms, but it is produced only near the poles, where exist the minimum 
amount of light and heat. These do not exist near the equator, nor 
in the vicinity of water. They are gigantic vegetable developments 
in the form of trees; but the kinds of materials composing them are 
not to be found in any higher order of vegetable formation. The 
second class has a smooth, slim body, and the branches in length are 
twice that of the body; and they cast adeep shade. They are in ap- 
pearance similar to the Upas, but not in quality or composition. 
These bring forth delicious fruit, which is long in shape, internally 
white, and encompassed with a thick external coating. The branches 
that first eject themselves from the body are several feet from the earth, 
but not quite so high as it is from these to the top. This class should 
be understood as the second in the order of formation—as the ultimate 
and perfection of the former class. The third in order presents itself 
as a more perfect vegetable. This rises but a few feet above the sur- 
face of the ground. It has several descending boughs, which when 
developed act as new bodies by fastening themselves as roots in the 
earth. This vegetable is much complicated in its parts. Its location 
is near the equator, and to this fact its peculiarity may be attributed. 
This brings forth a kind of pulse-fruit. Being exceedingly nourishing, 
it enters very frequently into the composition of animal forms. 

“The fourth vegetable formation is the last developed and most per- 
fect. Being a succeeding development of all beneath it, its composi- 


152 * 


tion is much more perfect than that of others. Therefore it stands as 
an ultimate of the vegetable kingdom, comprehending the essences 
of all below its high order of being. Its roots and trunk are very long 
and slender, and it developes from the bottom of the trunk to the 
shooting forth of the branches, calices corresponding to the petals of 
the bud and its fruit. It is not high, but grows with exceeding spon- 
taneity ; and it is fitted for the uses of the animal economy. It is 
produced in one half of one of the years, at the equator—reproduced 
twice in one of this planet’s years. And this is the most useful 
vegetable upon the surface of Saturn. 

“There are intermediate formations, from the lowest to the highest, 
in the vegetable kingdom. But it would be impossible to classify 
these intermediate species; and the four generalizations give a distinct 
conception of the vegetable developments of this plant; the object 
being only to establish progressive succession. And this being found- 
ed in natural and invariable laws, analogy confirms this revealment.” 
— i. 176. 

The Vegetation of Jupiter.—“ The vegetable productions of Jupiter 
are more extensive than those of Saturn. Of the various species of 
plants existing upon its surface, a detailed description is not necessary 
to be given. Buta general classification will be made of the promi- 
nent kinds existing, in order that the perpetual ascension may be con- 
ceived of as here preserved in order and harmony. There are on this 
planet upward of three hundred thousand species of plants. But their 
connexions with each other are so intimate, that they warrant but five 
general classifications. 

“The first of these is an exceedingly large and bulky tree, whose 
circumference varies in size according to the circumstances under 
which it is produced. It is formed of the compositions existing in 
the planet’s materials; and being the strongest production of the 
vegetable kingdom it is consequently the most imperfect. It has 
heavy seams formed of complex fibres, which are fully developed 
about the branches in thin ejected limbs, upon which exists a species 
of fruit. This fruit is of a nature suitable to enter into the composi- 
tion of the lower order of animals, but is exceedingly deleterious to the 
higher classes. 

“The second species of plant differs from the other in height, bulk, 
and general appearance. It is encompassed with a thick bark. The 
productions of this tree are limited. It brings forth a kind of juice, 
which flows freely from the cups existing upon its exterior. This is 
useful, as itis very nourishing and invigorating to the animal economy. 


153 


“The third class of plants slightly typifies the wheat,—and is more 
homogeneous with the constitution of the higher orders of animals. 

“The fourth class approximates still nearer to animal existence. 
Being more perfect in composition than the others, it presents a varie- 
gated foliage, the extracts from which enter essentially into the forms 
of the first animals. 

“The fifth class being an ultimate of the four others described, is 
necessarily more exalted in composition. This species is a kind of 
zoophyte,—which may be considered as mediator between vegetable 
and animal existences. For while it sustains a close connexion with 
the former kingdom, it throws feelers of sensation into the latter, and 
thus it partakes of both vegetable and animal life.”—i. 187. 

I may perhaps here make a passing allusion to the human in- 
habitants of Jupiter: they walk on all fours; they inhabit tents lined 
with a bluish bark: possessing “an expansive and sweeping intellect, 
they comprehend the laws and relations of their being with one con- 
centrated thought.” 

Mr. Davis does not give us any detailed account of the phytology 
of the asteroids which intervene between Jupiter and Mars, but we are 
informed that they possess vegetables, and are shortly about to havea 
creation of animals: we hope Mr. Davis will give the world due 
notice of the event when it occurs. Concerning the vegetation of 
the remaining planets, we are furnished with the following brief but 
interesting particulars. 

The Vegetation of Mars.—“ Its surface abounds with extensive 
vegetable productions, these being still more numerous than those of 
Jupiter, less perfect, but superior to those of Earth. The animal 
formations are not so extensive; but they ascend from the lowest up 
to man in successive modifications of forms which correspond generally 
to their interior principles. And man there, is in a much more ex- 
alted state, both physical and mental, than the inhabitants of the earth ; 
but he does not approach the high state of exaltation and refinement 
which characterizes the other planets’ inhabitants. I will mention 
the kinds of vegetable productions that are most used, and not enter 
into a classification of the general species of either the vegetable or 
animal kingdom. ‘There is a species of tree existing among them that 
is of vast use. It germinates and gradually developes itself into a 
stout, bulky form, representing the spiral. Its branches are long, and 
extend far around the trunk. Its leaves are very broad, with a mixture 
of a bluish and reddish color, with more prominence of the green. Its 
blossoms are very beautiful, and its fruit is esteemed among them as 


154 


the most useful upon their planet. The form of this fruit is very round, 
typifying slightly the cocoa-nut, and is used among the inhabitants as 
a kind of bread; and its action upon the system is highly invigorating. 
The bark of this tree is also extensively used for many purposes, with 
a kind of glue that proceeds from another tree. It is used in the con- 
struction of their habitations and in the formation of garments. 
But there is another vegetable of alow stature, that produces very 
fine and beautiful fibres, which are very neatly woven together, and 
used generally among them as their main apparel.”——1. 197. 

Vegetation of Venus.—“ There are many species of plants existing 
upon its surface. It is unnecessary to classify them; for it would be 
of little importance or use to the world. ‘The trees are generally low, 
very stout, and very extensively branched. From these to the most 
delicate plant there is a constant assuming of higher stations, according 
to the ascending degrees of refinement. Yet there is much variegated 
foliage, and many useful and tender plants existing upon its surface.” 
—i. 203. 

Vegetation of Mercury.—“ The vegetable productions of this planet 
are not very numerous, and are not so refined in composition as those 
upon other planets. There are but three general classes of plants, and 
from the lowest to the highest of these we find upon earth a corre- 
spondence. But as to form and height and beauty, they do not equal 
those of any other planet. ‘The highest vegetable productions gene- 
rally rise but a few inches above the surface. There are no flowers, 
nor foliage, nor trees, that cast pleasing shades: but all vegetable forms 
are full and gross, rising but little from the surface of the ground.”-— 
1. 206. 

However firm my conviction of Mr. Davis’s extensive reading in theo- 
logy, ancient history, and all the subjects connected therewith, I feel 
disposed to give him credit for profound ignorance of botany: there 
is internal evidence of this: he may have rapidly skimmed over the 
introductory works of compilers, caught at the meaning of terms, and 
learned by rote without attempting to understand certain of the more 
ordinary definitions; but as to botanical knowledge, properly so called, 
it seems next to impossible to imagine a more complete absence of 
everything worthy the name. A little knowledge, a little study, might 
have given a degree of plausibility to the affair: like his countryman 
who detailed Sir J. W. Herschell’s zoological researches in the moon, 
he should have tutored himself into the capability of giving an air of 
truth to the heartless hoax he has attempted: he should have taught 
himself the art of giving his revelations the appearance of being 
genuine. 


155 


My specimens of the work are not chosen on account of the 
superlative presumption which they display, for in this respect they 
do not stand out at all remarkably from the great mass of speculations 
contained in the two volumes, but they are, or profess to be, purely 
botanical, and therefore I select them for exhibition in a purely bo- 
tanical magazine. Let us suppose the planets in question could really 
be visited by a botanist, and that the undertaking had fairly been ac- 
complished; what should we say to any one who gave the result of his 
discoveries in such unintelligible jargon as this? “ The fourth class 
[of plants] approximates still nearer to animal existence. Being more 
perfect in composition than the others, it presents a variegated foliage, 
the extracts from which enter essentially into the forms of the first 
animals.” The veriest tyro in botany knows that the more perfect a 
plant the less it approximates to an animal; and that variegated foliage 
indicates disease rather than perfection ; and how the extracts of va- 
riegated foliage enter into the form of the first animals I cannot con- 
ceive. In fact, the entire passage is neither more nor less than a 
number of words purposely jumbled together to mystify the reader, 
and perfectly incapable of conveying an idea to the mind of man. 
When I lately quoted, in another place, some of the choicest morceaux 
from Oken’s twin publication, a champion, willing to exonerate the Ger- 
man, suggested that the English translator had mistaken his meaning, 
—a reasonable suggestion, for Mr. Tulk were gifted with superhuman 
powers could he understand the original: no such plea, however, 
can be adduced in the present instance; the volumes come before us 
in the language in which they were written ; and however the trans- 
cendentalists or their abettors may wince, they cannot evade the fact, that 
the passages are quoted precisely as originally written, without abbre- 
viation or alteration, and in every instance entire, and not piecemeal. 
Some two hundred pages are occupied in what might be called 
travestied science, after the fashion exhibited above, in the passage 
about ‘the extracts of variegated foliage entering essentially into ani- 
mals ;’ as no portion of this is either botanical or logical, or can by 
any possibility be true or instructive, I pass it over in silence. Then 
from such premises comes the conclusion, thus ushered in. 

“1 now descend to the birth of mythological theology—which theo- 
logy is at the present day obscuring the highest and purest principles 
of the internal nature of man, destroying all elements of true and na- 
tural morality, and absolutely driving men into every species of vice, 
folly, disunity of interests and consequent wretchedness.”—i. 377. 

A pleasant picture of Christianity indeed! a mythological theology 


156 


obscuring our purest principles, destroying morality, and driving us 
into every species of vice! Self-respect would have pointed out to 
any ingenuous and sincere author two postulates for the reception 
by thinking men of such a sweeping anathema against religion as this : 
jirst, the preceding argument should have led to the inference ; 
secondly, an appeal to the present state of the Christian world should 
have supported the assertion ; whereas this anathema against Christi- 
anity, placed in the middle of the book, and even cherished as its heart 
of hearts, neither follows from any passage that has preceded, nor is 
supported by anything that follows. 

Andrew Jackson Davis, the clairvoyant, certainly never heard of 
such a science as logic, otherwise he assuredly would have seen that 
his premises do not induce his conclusions: it is very easy to write 
the assertion, that Christianity is a fable, and leads to vice; but in 
this age there is what Mr. Davis would himself call a strong prejudice 
in favour of Christianity, and before giving up that prejudice at the 
beck of a juggling clairvoyant, we want logical proof of the soundness 
of his assertions: we refuse to take his ipse dixit on points where it 
is so self-evident that he has trusted to the resources of a fertile imagi- 
nation, uncurbed by the reflective power required to preserve accord- 
ance between the component parts of his wondrous tale. 

In order to carry out the deception, he should have made the parts 
consistent with the whole, and the means accessory to the end. 
As I wish to render myself intelligible to Mr. Davis’s admirers, 
the latter position may be illustrated thus. Accomplished novellists 
(Mr. Davis zs a novelist, though not accomplished in his craft), desir- 
ous of disposing of any of their heroes by death, employ certain 
means which would, if applied to the human body, cause death: I re- 
collect Moore uses a tank of aqua fortis ; Dickens, an express train, 
&c.; and if we turn over the pages of Shakspere, swords, daggers, 
and poison, old age, and other obvious causes of death are introduced 
to cause death; but our ‘Poughkeepsie Seer’ kills the Christian 
religion without even the flourish of a weapon more fatal than the ex- 
tracts of variegated leaves, or the assertion that men in the planet 
Jupiter walk on all fours. 

I have thought it right to relinquish the editorial we, and to avow 
myself the author of these observations. J am perfectly aware that 
different opinions are entertained on all subjects; and Vestigianism, 
Okenism, mesmerism, form no exception; these have their several 
advocates, of whom I am not one, and wish to announce that I am 
not; but I claim for these remarks no fictitious importance on ac- 


157 


count of my editorial capacity: they are simply the opinions of an 
individual, and their weight and value must be in exact accordance 
with their justice and truth. I acknowledge I feel very strongly on 
the subject, and doubtless express myself strongly, but the occasion 
seems to require it; and I hope I have not exceeded the bounds of 
fair criticism in expressing my unqualified disapprobation of a work 
that I believe to be false in its assertions, false in its reasoning, and 
false in its conclusions. Epwarp NEWMAN. 


9, Devonshire Street, Bishopsgate, 
May 16th, 1848. 


Occurrence of Thlaspi perfoliatum near Cheltenham. 
By CHARLES PRENTICE, Esq. 


ALLOW me to correct an error which [ rather hastily inserted in the 
July number of the ‘ Phytologist, 1847. Thlaspi perfoliatum, Z., is 
there stated to be no longer found at Naunton Seven Springs, near 
Stow-on-the-Wold. 1 was too late for it last year, but being earlier 
this, I gathered several specimens of this very rare and interesting 
plant. C. PRENTICE. 


1, Oxford Place, Cheltenham, 
May 17th, 1848. 


Notice of ‘The Flora of Leicestershire, according to the Natural 
Orders; arranged from the London Catalogue of British 
Plants. Weicester: printed by John 8. Crossly. 1848.’ 


THE botany of Leicestershire was very imperfectly known before 
the Rev. Andrew Bloxam’s publications on the subject,—originally 
by partial lists and localities in the ‘Magazine of Natural History,’ 
and eventually in the improved form of a general list for a portion of 
the county, given in Potter’s ‘ History of Charnwood Forest,’ about 
half a dozen years ago; additions and corrections having since been 
occasionally made to our knowledge of Leicestershire plants. We are 
not aware that Mr. Bloxam’s general list was published apart from the 
quarto ‘ History ;’ so that the little work now before us, in 86 duode- 
cimo pages, may be considered to fill a vacuum in the literature of 
local botany. 

The ‘ Flora of Leicestershire’ appears in form of an arranged cata- 

VOL. II. Z 


158 


logue of species, with their usual situations of growth, indications of 
frequency or rarity, and localities for the less common species. The 
text is printed only on the alternate pages; thus leaving the opposite 
pages blank, for “ additions and memoranda,”—a good mode of print- 
ing a local list. The arrangement by natural orders is followed, and 
both arrangement and nomenclature are made to correspond with the 
‘London Catalogue of British Plants,’ published for the Botanical 
Society. This course is a judicious one. Local lists should always 
be thrown into the natural arrangement; and their usefulness is 
always increased by correspondence with some well-known standard. 
Whatever difference of opinion may exist about species and varieties, 
about generic and specific names, in which no two of our general 
floras do correspond with each other, the wide circulation of the 
‘London Catalogue,—the countless specimens distributed to herbaria, 
British and foreign, with labels corresponding to that Catalogue by 
their names and numbers,—the ease with which any moderately good 
botanist may certainly know and identify the species or variety in- 
tended by the nomenclature of the same Catalogue,—all strongly 
recommend its use as a standard, calculated to prevent misapprehen- 
sion and error, through variations of nomenclature. Moreover, the 
‘Cybele Britannica’ is arranged in close conformity with the ‘ London 
Catalogue,’ and may be regarded as the generalized and condensed 
summary of all the local lists or floras; so that the adoption of the 
same arrangement must give increased value to any later published 
flora, by facilitating comparisons between the local and the general, 
the single and the aggregate, the details and the summaries. 
Unfortunately, there are some omissions which detract from the 
usefulness and value of the ‘ Flora of Leicestershire,’ and which it 
would be well for the author to supply, by giving the needful explana- 
tions in the pages of the ‘ Phytologist,’ if it should be found now too 
late to add an explanatory sheet to the printed volume. We see, for 
instance, only the name of the printer, as above indicated, on the 
wrapper and title; and the public is thus left uninformed whether or 
not the work is a published one; and, if so, where and from whom it 
can be purchased. It must be almost needless to observe, that every 
published work ought to have the name of a London publisher on its 
title-page. The volume is anonymous, which no scientific work should 
be ; and less than all should a work be published anonymously, which 
is simply a list or record of stated facts. As no authority is given 
with the localities enumerated for the rarer species, it remains doubt- 
ful whether they are set forth on the individual credit of the anony- 


159 


mous author, or whether they are quoted from other sources; and in 
either case they are at present without warranty for their truth in a 
scientific light. Further, certain signs are employed, as a note of in- 
terrogation following a specific name, and an asterisk prefixed to a 
locality ; and as no explanation of their uses is given, they can con- 
vey no clear meaning to the reader. 

These omissions are the more to be regretted, because, while the 
list of plants bears internal evidence of general accuracy, there are 
still some exceptions to this, which unavoidably lead to distrust. For 
instance, we find the maritime Glaucium luteum located on “ Bardon 
hill, and other forest hills ;” which appears a very unlikely habitat.* 
“Subularia aquatica?” and “ Myrrhis odorata?” are thus interroga- 
tively enumerated in the list, without locality or any sort of remark in 
qualification or explanation. Localities are given for Qnanthe pim- 
pinelloides; but probably C&. Lachenalii of the ‘ London Catalogue’ 
was intended, as the latter species has been wholly omitted, although 
certainly found in the county, and in various localities ; while the true 
(2. pimpinelloides, if found at all, must be quite a recent discovery. 

If the author of the ‘Flora of Leicestershire’ will lay aside the 
anonymous mask, and give the necessary explanations on the points 
we have mentioned, the volume may then be safely recommended, as 
a serviceable contribution to the records and the literature of British 
botany. 


C. 


Notes on Shropshire Rubi. By the Rev. W. A. LeicuTon, B.A., 
F.BS. E. & L. 


(Continued from page 76). 


7. R. corylifolius, Sm. & Bab. Syn. 

The plants which may be comprehended under this species, as de- 
fined in Bab. Syn., appear to arrange themselves into two groupes, 
which, from the peculiar colour of the barren stem, may be called the 
green groupe and the dark purple groupe. Each of these groupes 
contains two forms, so that four different varieties may be enumerated: 
a. and 8. being comprised in the green groupe, y. and > in the dark 


* T learn from the author that this is an error, and the name consequently must 
be erased. I am not, however, informed what plant was intended.—£. N. 


160 


purple one. 4. and @. have much of the aspect, generally speaking, 
of the suberect brambles; y. partakes of the appearance of R. disco- 
lor, and & approaches R. cordifolius. These varieties, although 
anastomosing with each other in one or other of their characters, are 
nevertheless capable of being clearly distinguished by others. 

In the present incipient state of our knowledge of this genus, I 
shall venture to give to the student a detailed description of these 
varieties, although at the risk of being accounted tedious and guilty 
of vain repetitions. And I am the rather led to adopt this course 
from the difficulty there is very frequently in such a variable genus as 
the present, of clearly comprehending what is intended in the usual 
short characters, when considered apart from and without having the 
actual specimens under view. 


* GREEN GROUPE. 


Var. a. sublustris. Barren stem arching, nearly or quite round 
and glabrous, green, and slightly tinged with reddish purple ; 
prickles uniform in size, moderately abundant, slender, much 
longer than their short base, somewhat scattered, generally 
straight, or nearly so, sometimes a little declinate, or even 
decurved, green, or if in the sun, reddish purple at the base, 
yellow at the point; leaves digitate, 5-nate, on stout petioles 
pubescent with close-pressed scattered white shining hairs, 
armed with short decurved not very numerous prickles; leaf- 
lets coriaceous, plane, terminal one on a rather long stalk, 
intermediate ones on short stalks not above 7th the length of 
that of the terminal leaflet, lowermost quite sessile, overlap- 
ping the intermediate pair, dark bright green and nearly gla- 
brous, or with only a few scattered hairs above, under side 
clothed with dense whitish shining hairs and a dense whitish 
velvety tomentum, veins prominent, hairy, midrib armed with 
a few weak hooked prickles; terminal leaflet rotundato-cor- 
date, acuminate, coarsely but very sharply and unequally 
crenato-cuspidato-serrated, intermediate leaflets broadly ova- 
to-oblong, lowermost rather small and oblong; stipules lan- 
ceolate, smooth or nearly so on both sides, hairy on the mar- 
gins; flowering stem roundish, very slightly angular, with 
scattered whitish pubescence below, increasing upwards into 
a short dense hoary close-pressed tomentum; leaves 3-nate 
below, upper ones large and simple, often lobed, not con- 
tinued to the extremity of the panicle; panicle compound, 


161 


leafy below, naked above, branches loose, ascending but 
spreading, more or less cymose, the extremity beyond the 
leaves dense and crowded, pubescent and hoary ; the secon- 
dary branches densely tomentose and hoary. From the 
axils of the two lower leaves generally proceed long branches; 
prickles few, slender, straight, more or less declinate, those 
on the rachis chiefly confined to the upper portion of the in- 
ternodes; the secondary branches destitute of prickles, or 
nearly so, those of the pedicels few, slender, small, scattered, 
straight and slightly declinate; sepals clothed on both sides 
with a dense white hoary tomentum, without prickles, broadly 
ovate, cuspidate, the point varying in length, strongly reflexed 
in fruit ; petals white ; fruit black. 

Has.— Hedges between Uffington and Atcham; also between 
Atcham and Preston Boats ; near the Flash, and near Sutton Spa, all 
in the neighbourhood of Shrewsbury. Codsall Wood and Albrighton, 
near Shiffnall, all in Shropshire. 

I base this variety on R. affinis, y. of Fl. Shropshire, 226, which 
must be referred here as asynonym. Mr. Lees has communicated to 
me a specimen of R. sublustris, Lees in Steele’s ‘ Hand-Book of 
Botany ’ (collected at Temple Langhern, Henwick, near Worcester), 
which, on the label attached, he identifies with R. affinis, y. FI. 
Shropshire. It seems generally referrible here; and as I am anxious 
to avoid the addition of new names in a genus already encumbered 
with names, I venture to adopt his name sublustris for this variety. 
R. corylifolius, gathered at Twycross, Leicestershire (No. 5, Bloxam’s 
Fasciculus), ranges here also. 

Mr. George Jordon, of Bewdley, has sent me a plant gathered by 
himself in the Shropshire part of Wyre Forest, which has the termi- 
nal leaflets of the barren stem excessively large and lobed, and some- 
times with a distinct leaflet at the base, thus forming an approach to 
a 7-nate leaf. The panicle is full two feet long. This is, I presume, 
the R. sublustris y. grandifolius of Lees in Steele’s Hand-Book. 
From its general characters I should refer it to this variety, unless it 
be of sufficiently common occurrence to render it necessary to retain 
it as a distinct variety, when of course Mr. Lees’ name grandifolius 
would be very characteristic. Like all the plants of the present va- 
riety, it has a most noble and beautiful appearance. 

Var. B. Barren stem arching, subangular, angles rounded, 
glabrous, more or less glaucous, green, and slightly tinged 
with reddish purple; prickles uniform in size, confined to 


162 


the angles, few, strong, springing from an extended base, 
which equals the length of the prickles, straight, slightly de- 
curved towards the points, reddish purple at the base, yellow 
at the point; leaves digitate, 5-nate, on stout petioles pubes- 
cent with close-pressed whitish shining hairs, armed with 
stout hooked prickles; leaflets coriaceous, plane, terminal 
one on a short stalk, intermediate on very short stalks, lower- 
most quite sessile, overlapping intermediate pair, which also 
overlap the terminal leaflet, dark bright green, with few scat- 
tered hairs above, underside clothed with whitish shining 
hairs and a dense thick almost woolly tomentum;- veins pro- 
minent hairy and tomentose, midrib armed with a few hooked 
prickles ; terminal leaflet cordato-ovate, acuminate, sharply 
and less coarsely but similarly serrated to the last (@.), inter- 
mediate ones ovate, lowermost oblong, the proportion be- 
tween the leaflets more uniform than in the last variety, in 
which the lowermost leaflets are comparatively very small. 
Stipules linear-lanceolate smooth except on the margins; 
flowering stem somewhat angular, with scattered whitish pu- 
bescence below, increasing upwards especially on the panicle 
into a short dense hoary close-pressed tomentum ; leaves 
large, 3-nate; panicle consisting of two or three branches 
from the axils of the 3-nate leaves as long or longer than the 
internodes crowned with a small dense naked cyme of flowers, 
the extremity beyond the leaves conglomerated into a simi- 
lar but much larger dense and crowded naked cyme, pubes- 
cent and hoary ; prickles few, rather stout, straight and de- 
clinate, chiefly located on the upper portion of the internodes, 
the cymose extremity of the panicle being nearly destitute of 
prickles, or only with a few slender ones scattered here and 
there; sepals broadly ovate, cuspidate, clothed on both sides 
with dense white hoary pubescence and tomentum, reflexed 
in fruit, destitute of prickles ; petals white ; fruit black. 

Has.—Hedges near Shrewsbury. 

This variety is based on a portion of the plants comprehended un- 

der the second form of R. rhamnifolius of Fl. Shropsh. 228. 
I presume the plants noted under R. corylifolius, Obs. 3, in Bab. 
Syn., are referrible here. 


** DARK PURPLE GROUPE. 


Var. ¥. Barren stem arching, angular, angles- rounded, 


163 


nearly or quite glabrous, very glaucous, dark purple and 
green; prickles uniform, numerous, chiefly but not entirely 
on the angles, strong though slender in appearance, nearly 
or quite horizontal or at right angles to the stem, arising 
from a dilated base, shorter than their length, with minute 
stellate tufts of hairs, dark purple ; leaves digitate, 5-nate, on 
rather shortish petioles pubescent with short close-pressed 
scattered hoary hairs, armed with stout, declinate, moderately 
decurved prickles; leaflets rather thin, slightly coriaceous, 
plane, terminal one on a moderately long stalk, intermediate 
on very short ones, lowermost quite sessile. and overlapping 
the intermediate pair, dark dull green, nearly glabrous above, 
underside clothed with very short close-pressed whitish shin- 
ing hairs and dense whitish tomentum, soft but scarcely vel- 
vety, veins prominent hairy, midrib with few very weakly 
prickles; terminal leaflet rotundato-ovate, acuminate, sharply 
and irregularly crenato-cuspidato-serrated, intermediate and 
lowermost oval though differing in size, dilated at the lower 
side; stipules hoary and hairy especially on the margins ; 
flowering stem angular, growing in a zigzag way, with hoary 
pubescence increasing upwards into dense hoary tomentum ; 
leaves 3-nate below, simple above, not continued to the ex- 
tremity ; panicle similar in general character to that of var. 
A. densely hoary, almost of a dusty appearance, with a few 
glands; prickles rather more numerous, very long and slen- 
der though strong, straight, declinate, those on the rachis 
chiefly but not exclusively located about the upper portion 
of the internodes and joints, scattered more over the whole 
internodes rather increasing in length upwards as far as the 
naked extremity of the panicle ; the secondary branches and 
pedicels with slender long scattered declinate prickles; se- 
pals clothed on both sides with dense white hoary tomentum, 
broadly ovate, cuspidate, strongly reflexed in fruit. A few 
glands may be detected on the outside and a weak prickle 
or two at the base; petals white and pink ; fruit black. 

Has.—Hedges near Shrewsbury. 

This variety is founded on a portion of the plants included under 
the second form of R. rhamnifolius of Fl. Shropsh. 228. The speci- 
mens of R. corylifolius given in the ‘ Fasciculus of Shopshire Rubi,’ 
belong to this variety. 

I venture to hazard the conjecture that this variety is the plant 


164 


represented in E. Bot. 827, and intended by Smith in E. FI. 11. 409, 
and FI. Br. ii. 542. Mr. Babington, who has seen the corylifolius 
specimen in the Smithian herbarium, must decide this point. If it 
be, the name Smithii would be an appropriate one for this variety. 
Judging from an indifferent specimen from Mr. Lees, I incline to 
think that R. sublustris, y. caenosus of Lees in Steele’s Hand-Book is 
referrible to this variety. Its chief peculiarity appears to consist in 
an excess of hoariness which extends partially even to the barren 
stem. Mr. Lees’ remark respecting it is, “this var. often appears as 

if dusted over with some farinaceous substance — indeed, ‘ white as a 

miller.’” 

Var. 0. intermedia. Barren stem arching, angular, glabrous ex- 
cept a very few stellate tufts of hairs on the prickles, dark 
purple, slightly glaucous; prickles nearly uniform, very nu- 
merous, scattered, not confined to the angles, strong and very 
sharp, slender, horizontal, longer than the dilated base, dark 
purple ; leaves digitate, 5-nate, large, on long stout petioles, 
slightly hoary, armed with numerous strong decurved stout 
prickles ; leaflets thin, plane, terminal one on a moderately 
long stalk, intermediate pair on very short stalks, lowermost 
quite sessile and overlapping intermediate ones, dull dark 
green and glabrous on upper side, underside pale green, with 
soft scattered shining hairs, but destitute of tomentum, 
though with a good magnifier the incipient rudiments of to- 
mentum may be discerned; veins very prominent, midrib 
armed with short stout decurved prickles ; terminal leaflet 
rotundato-cordato-ovate, acuminate, very coarsely and irregu- 
larly crenato-cuspidato-serrated, intermediate ones broadly 
oblong, lowermost small in proportion, oval, both pairs di- 
lated in their lower portion; stipules narrow, linear-lanceo- 
late, margins hairy ; flowering stem angular, zigzag, slightly 
hoary with minute stellate clusters of white hairs below, 
more so upwards, with a few scattered dark purple stipitate 
glands; leaves large, lower 3-nate, upper simple and large, 
not continued to the extremity ; panicle composed of two or 
three elongated axillary branches, each bearing a small cy- 
mose head of flowers, the extremity with a large terminal cy- 
mose naked rather loose cluster of blossoms; secondary 
branches hoary and glandular; prickles numerous, strong, 
straight, declinate and slightly curved, those of the rachis 
most numerous and chiefly clustered on the upper portion of 


165 


each internode, decreasing in number and becoming scattered 
below, those of the secondary branches and pedicels smaller, 
similar in form and direction, tolerably numerous and scat- 
tered, with a few dark purple stipitate glands interspersed ; 
sepals clothed on both sides with dense white tomentum, 
ovate, cuspidate, reflexed, with astray gland or two, anda 
weak prickle or so at the base; petals ——— ; fruit black. 

This variety comprehends the plants from Crowmerle, near Shrews- 
bury, included in R. rhamnifolius, second form, Fl. Shropsh. 228, and 
mentioned under R. cordifolius, Obs. 2, in Bab. Syn., and of which 
Ksenbeck writes (tz lit.) “R. rhamnifolius, W. & N., se rapproche 
du R. cordifolius étant une variété de nétre espéce que je tiens pour 
bonne espéce. Aculei in vestris magis recti sunt, in nostratibus tan- 
tillum recurvi.” 

For the facility of comparison I subjoin the following brief distinc- 
tive characters of the four varieties above described. 

a. sublustris.—Stem round, green; prickles slender, straight ; 
leaves coriaceous, terminal one on long stalk, rotundato-cordate, 
coarsely crenato-cuspidato-serrated, whitish, tomentose, velvety be- 
neath ; flowering stem straightish, loose, cymose ; prickles of rachis 
few, slender, declinate ; secondary branches nearly without prickles.. 

B.——— Stem subangular, green; prickles strong, straight, 
slightly decurved towards the points ; leaves coriaceous, terminal one 
on short stalk, cordato-ovate, sharply less coarsely crenato-cuspidato- 
serrated, whitish, tomentose, woolly beneath ; flowering stem straight- 
ish with a dense terminal cyme; prickles of rachis few, stout, decli- 
nate ; cymose extremity nearly without prickles. 

y. Smithii 2?— Stem angular, dark purple; prickles strong, hori- 
zontal ; leaves sub-coriaceous, terminal one on moderately long stalk, 
rotundato-ovate, finely crenato-cuspidato-serrated, whitish tomentose, 
soft, not velvety beneath, lowermost dilated in lower half; flowering 
stem zigzag, with dense, terminal cyme ; prickles of rachis numerous, 
long, slender, declinate ; cymose extremity prickly and glandular. 

0. intermedia.—Stem angular, dark purple; prickles strong, hori- 
zontal ; leaves thin, terminal one on moderately long stalk, rotunda- 
to-cordato-ovate, coarsely crenato-cuspidato-serrated, pale green, 
hairy, soft beneath, lowermost dilated in lower half; flowering stem 
zigzag, lower branches elongated and spreading, with loose terminal 
cyme; prickles of rachis numerous, strong, horizontal or declinate ; 
cymose extremity prickly and glandular. 

The distinguishing marks of this species appear to be the sessile 

VOL. III. 2A 


166 


overlapping lowermost pair of leaflets of the barren stem; the zigzag 
growth of the flowering stem; the panicle consisting generally of two 
or three elongated axillary branches, with a dense crowded terminal 
cymose extremity ; the congregation of the prickles on the upper 
portion of the internodes of the rachis, and the peculiar appearance 
assumed by the flowers in consequence of the stamens and pistils 
becoming persistent after the fall of the petals, resulting from the 
fruit being very generally abortive or consisting only of two or three 
large grains. 


[To be continued]. 


W. A. LEIGHTON. 
Luciefelde, Shrewsbury, 
May, 17th, 1848. 


List of Habitats of Plants recorded in MS. ina Copy of Blackstone’s 
‘ Specimen Botanicum. (Communicated by W. PampLin, Esq.) 


I senp you the following extracted from an interleaved copy of 
Blackstone’s ‘Specimen Botanicum,’ London, 1745. I think these 
old MS. records of localities of interesting plants are generally speak- 
ing acceptable to your readers, as it enables those who live in, or 
who may have the opportunity to visit, the neighbourhood indicated, 
to search for them, and many times too with good success, as I have often 
in years past proved to my no small delight: for instance, I well re- 
member when I first noticed the Geranium Robertianum flore albo in 
the lane between Chiselhurst and Bromley, where it is recorded as 
growing in the time of Ray, and many other instances. 

The accompanying habitats are inserted, neatly written, in an 
interleaved copy of Blackstone’s ‘Specimen Botanicum’ in my 
possession. The volume formerly belonged to Stainsby Alchorne, 
Assay Master of the Mint, the friend and cotemporary of Hudson, 
Warner and Jacob; it is most probable that these notes are his own 
(Alchorne’s). 

Alchemilla vulgaris. In a wood just below Chesham Bois church, 
Bucks, 1752. 

Alsine palustris fol. tenuiss. (Spergula nodosa). Uxbridge Moor, 
abundantly. 

Althea officinalis. By the Thames side, at the Isle of Doge just 
before you come to the ferry for Greenwich. 


167 


Asplenium Ceterach. On a wall at Riverhead, near Sevenoaks, 
Kent, 1748. 

Balsamine lutea seu Noli-me-tangere (Impatiens). Near the rills 
of water in the grounds about Bath, particularly near Bathwick 
church. 

Bupleurum minimum (B. tenuissinum). By the road-side at the 
foot of Shooter’s Hill, sparingly, 1751. 

Campanula cymbalarie foliis (C. hederacea). In several bogs 
on St. Leonard’s Forest, near Horsham, and about Crawley, in Sus- 
sex, abundantly, 1750. 

Campanula esculente facie ramis et floribus patulis, Hort. Elth. 
(C. patula). In a wood called Ulberry Hill, about a mile from 
Worcester. 

Cardamine flore majore (C. amara). By the river side behind 
the town, at Lewisham. 

impatiens, Ger. Em. 260, fig. bona. By the ditch sides 
in Hell Brook, at Parson’s Green, Middlesex, plentifully. 

Carduus stellatus (Centaurea calcitrapa). By the road-side at 
Bethnall Green, and between Lewisham and Sydenham. 

Caryophyllus arvensis hirsutus flore majore (Cerastium arvense? ) 
By the Thames side, half a mile beyond Kingston, in the road to 
Cobham, plentifully. Mr. Cawte. 

minor, &c. (Dianthus deltoides;.. On Dubbar’s Hill, 
Croydon, plentifully, 1748. 

Chamedrys sativa sive vulgaris. In a field facing the upper 
church-yard at Wandsworth. 

Cynoglossum minus folio virente (C. sylvaticum). In Hatfield 
Park and thereabouts, very frequent, 1751; also near Chinckford by 
Woodford, &c. (This plant, which is not very general, I observed in 
plenty upon the hedge-banks at intervals all the way from Waltham 
Abbey, through Sewardstone and Chinckford this present May (1848). 
I remember to have seen it about twenty years ago also, very near 
into Walthamstow, but I think it has of late disappeared from there. 
—W. P.) 

Cyperus longus inodorus sylvestris. On Hinton Moor, near Cam- 
bridge. 

Dryopteris, Lob. Ic. 814 (Asp. Thelypteris). In the moist mea- 
dows at North Cray, Kent, plentifully. 

Eryngium Mediterraneum sive campestre. On the coast about 
Crimhill passage, where is the ferry over from Plymouth to Mount 
Edgecombe, in Cornwall 


168 


Filipendula vulgaris offic. Not far from the Plough, at Clapham 
Common. 

Filix saxatilis caule tenui fragili, Raii Syn. edit. 2, p. 50, No. 7. 
Plentiful on Hampton cliffs, near Bath. 

Fumaria alba latifolia, Park. In the hedges near Bonner’s Row, 
Bethnal Green; and again between Greenwich Park Wall and Charl- 
ton Church. 

Geranium saxatile (G. lucidum). About Lexden, a mile before 
you enter Colchester from London. 

Graminifolia palustris repens, Rati Syn. (Pilularia). On Enfield 
Chase, half a mile from the town towards Barnet. On a moorish 
ground a mile and a half before you come to Uxbridge, close to the 
right hand side of the road. 

Gramen cyperoides majus precox. In the wet part of Battersea 
Meadow. 

—— spicts parvis longissime distantibus, Raii Syn. 
In a wood just below Chesham Bois Church, Bucks, plentifully, 1752. 
pratense paniculatum medium. On the walls at Eltham 
leading to the old Palace. 

Helenium (Inula Helenium). By the chalk-pit at Gerards Cross, 
Bucks. 

Helianthemum vulgare petalis florum perangustis ( H. surrejanum ). 
By achalk-pit on the right hand of the road between Eltham and 
Farningham, in Kent. 

Helleborine palustris (Epipactis palustris). Abundautly by the 
roadside a mile or two before you come to Hemel Hempsted from 
Watford, Herts. 

Herba Paris (Paris quadrifolia). In a wood near Henden beyond 
Hampstead. Ina copse near Chiselhurst. 

Lentibularia (Utricularia vulgaris). In the green lane leading 
from Newington to Southgate, not far from the sluice which opens 
the New River into the New Cut. 

Lilium Convallium (Convallaria majalis). In Bishops Wood 
and the heath by Hampstead. (Still grows there in small quantity. 
—W. P.) 

Lychnis sylvestris flore albo minimo. In a field near Weybridge 
Church, called Sadlers, plentifully in July, 1747. 
que Saponaria vulgo (Saponaria officinalis). Near Kings- 
land Turnpike. 

Medicago echinata minima. Abundantly on the sandy ground 
within the beach below Sheerness; Mr. Rand, 1722; again in the 


169 


way from Sheerness to Minster, 1768. (It would be well to examine 
these localities again, for the plant being so small might be very 
easily overlooked, and it is not at all likely that a plant propagating 
itself so freely by seed would cease to exist there.—W. P.) 

Mentha piperita. In the Green Lane to Southgate from Newing- 
ton before you come to Hornsey Wood. 

Menthastrum spicatum folio longiore candicante. By the rill of 
water at the roadside the beginning of Lewisham town; and again in 
the church-yard at Hornsey, on the north side. 

Myagro affinis planta siliquis longis. In a field called Sadlers, 
near Weybridge Church; also near Esher Church. 

Myrrhis officinalis. I gathered it in May, 1746, in Bocking 
church-yard, in Essex, where there is a good deal of it. They call 
this plant in Essex sweet fern. 

Myosurus. On Epping Forest, between Woodford and Chinckford. 

Ophioglossum vulgare. In Hackney Marsh. 

Orchis Nidus Avis. Ina wood about one mile from Bromfield as 
you go to Springfield, Essex, sparingly, 1746. 
alba bifolia minor. In Cane Wood, and on the heath by 
Hampstead. 

Orchis barbata odore Hirci breviore latioreque folio (O. hircina). 
We found it as we went up a lane on the left hand going down the 
town (Dartford) from London to the church, a little before you come 
to the church. 

: odorata moschata sive Monorchis. By the side of Madam’s 

Court Hill, in the road to Tunbridge, and on the chalk hills between 
Rochester and Maidstone. 
sive Cynosorchis minor Pannonica (O. ustulata). In the 
chalk pit near Stanhill, Dartford, but not plentifully, 1746. 
spiralis alba odorata. On Enfield chase, near the town, 
and by the road-side near the tenth mile-stone on Epping Forest, by 
the Bald Stag. 

Osmunda regalis. On the low part of Hampstead Heath, and on 
Epping Forest, near Chinckford, but in both places sparingly. 

Pimpinella saxifraga major umbella candida. By the paper-mill 
just below the Abbey Church, St. Albans, also about Chesham, 
abundantly, 1748. 

Plantago aquatica minima Clusti (Limosella aquatica). In the 
Back lane to Southgate, before you come to the turning for Hornsey 
Wood. 


aquatica stellata (Alisma damasonium). By Larimer’s 


170 


Pond, near Newington Butts, and on Putney Heath, also in the back 
lane to Southgate and on Epping Forest. 

Polypodium murale pinnulis serratis. On Mount Edgecombe, 
behind a seat that commands a view of Plymouth Harbour. 

Prunus sylvestris major (?). In the hedges near Buckingham. 

Rapunculus esculentus vulgaris. About Esher, in Surrey, particu- 
larly as you go to Haversham (Hersham), plentifully. 

Reseda crispa gallica, Boccone. Between Northfleet and Graves- 
end, and all over the Isle of Thanet; likewise near Guildford. N. B. 
The Reseda which grows on Tilbury Fort walls is the Reseda maxi- 
ma of Casp. Bauhin. 

Rubus Ideus. In several woods about Chesham, Bucks, plenti- 
fully, 1753. 

Saxifraga alba radice granulosa. In St. George his fields, near 
London, and in Battersea meadows. 

Serpyllum citratum. Ger. Em. 571. On Oliver’s Mount, nigh 
Uxbridge, not plentifully, 1746. 

Sium arvense sive Segetum. In the hedges nigh Chinckford 
church, Essex, plentifully (and grows there to this day, as I have 
proved this present May, 1848.—W. P.) 

Solanum lethale (Atropa Belladonna). In the old chalk pit at 
Gerard’s Cross, 1746; and in Hatfield Park, Herts, 1751, plentifully. 

Sonchus tricubitalis folio cuspidato. By the Thames’ side below 
Greenwich Hospital. 

Stachys folio densiore candicante serrato et acuto major. By the 
road-side about Whitney, in the way from Oxford to Burford. 

Turritis vulgatior. By the road-side just above Redhill, beyond 
Uxbridge, plentifully, 1746; also between Lewisham and Bromley. 


[To be continued]. 
WILLIAM PAMPLIN. 


Notice of ‘ The Physical Atlas, a Series of Maps illustrating the 
Geographical Distribution of Natural Phenomena. By HENRY 
Berecuaus, LL.D., and ALEXANDER KEITH JounsToN, F.R.G.S. 
Edinburgh: Johnston. London: Saunders. Glasgow: Lums- 
den.’ 


Tuis elaborate work is now complete in ten numbers, and conveys 
to the mind a greater quantity of information than could be gained 
in any manner equally expeditious. As a glance at a map gives a 


171 


more complete and correct idea of the figure of a continent or island 
than could be expressed in words, so do these maps of facts give a 
more complete insight into physical phenomena than could be gained 
by any amount of reading. Where the body of facts is so immense, 
and the description of information so diversified, it follows almost as 
a matter of course that errors should occasionally creep in and omis- 
sions now and then occur. A few such we think we could point out, 
but we notice this simply for the sake of asserting that a careful and 
critical examination of several of the maps in detail has convinced us 
that the greatest care has been taken in making them correct and 
complete: and we have great pleasure in pronouncing the ‘ Physical 
Atlas’ an invaluable boon to the man of science ; and in recommend- 
ing it most cordially to the readers of the ‘ Phytologist.’ 

At the present moment, when clairvoyance, hypothetical floras, 
physiophilosophy, and vestigianism have induced many of our 
younger and weaker-minded botanists to crave rather for fictitious 
than real wonders — when a kind of diluted philosophy, a loose and 
vague generalization has been partially adopted as an easy substi- 
tute for scientific proficiency,—it is most delightful and refreshing to 
meet with a work in which truth takes its proper station, and in 
which no kind of quackery is allowed to mingle. We quote the pro- 
spectus in order to give a better idea of the undertaking than any 
description we could draw up for the occasion, and we advisedly 
pronounce that the work itself fully bears out all that the publishers 
say in its favour. 

“For imparting information, or for retaining what may already be 
possessed, those means are calculated to be most successful which 
readily commend themselves to the eye. Hence ordinary Geographical 
Maps convey more rapid and accurate knowledge regarding the posi- 
tions of places, and their relative distances from each other, than can 
be done by the most elaborate verbal description ; but the inventive 
genius of Professor Berghaus has imparted a significance to symbolical 
representation, transcending all the anticipations which have been 
formed regarding the capabilities of the art. The contents of the many 
volumes which formerly were the sole depositories of information re- 
garding the different kingdoms of nature, have been condensed and 
reproduced in a graphic shape, in his Physical Atlas, with a concise- 
ness, precision, completeness, and promptitude of expression altogether 
unattainable by any agency previously employed. And not only has 
this been the case in the reproduction of the reading matter contained 
in books, but the process has been extended to the transmutation of 


172 


the masses of statistical data expressed in the Tabular enumerations 
of works of reference. ‘The elegant substitute of Linear Delineation 
registers the most complicated results in a perspicuous form, and 
affords inexhaustible facilities for recording the continued advances of 
science. In the emphatic language of the late President of the Royal 
Geographical Society, ‘ Professor Berghaus has made the progress of 
science visible’—he has mapped out the length and breadth of philo- 
sophic research, and shown what it has done, and what it has left un- 
done, in expounding the physical constitution of the Globe. 

“The Physical Atlas has been the labour of many years; and in 
addition to scientific qualifications of the highest order, and an intimate 
acquaintance with the writings and discoveries of Brewster, Sabine, 
Jameson, Whewell, Greenough, Humboldt, Von Buch, Arago, and 
other distinguished names in modern research, Professor Berghaus 
has had facilities for the accurate and extensive execution of the un- 
dertaking beyond what any other individual could be expected to 
possess. Geography forms a part of the course of education to all 
persons preparing for public service in Prussia; and with that sedu- 
lous attention to the cultivation of physical philosophy, which charac- 
terizes the German mind, the whole of the military force and mercan- 
tile marine of the Prussian Government are expected to report minutely 
on the geographical condition of every country which they visit; and 
from his position as Principal of the National Geographical Institute, 
the most valuable reports and surveys have been made under the spe- 
cial direction of Professor Berghaus, and with reference to the comple- 
tion of his arduous task. 

“In the ‘ National Atlas,’ Mr. Johnston presented the British public 
with some specimens of this meritorious work, which had the effect of 
eliciting earnest requests from members of the Geographical Society, 
and other learned bodies, to publish an English edition of the whole; 
and in compliance with their wishes, this important publication is now 
about to be commenced. The documents, which will be found in 
another part of this prospectus, will evince the interest excited by the 
work, as well as authoritatively indicate the superior manner in which 
the present edition will be produced. 

“A liberal selection from the designs and copious MS. and letter- 
press descriptions of Professor Berghaus will constitute the basis of 
the new Atlas—a copyright arrangement having been made with him 
for the purpose; but instead of being a reprint from the original plates, 
the Maps will not only be larger in size, and more complete, but will 
contain the latest corrections from his own hand; and in addition to 


173 


this, Maps on subjects not treated of by Professor Berghaus will be 
constructed by Mr. Johnston, under the superintendence of competent 
writers, in order that the whole may be in unison with the state of 
science in Britain up to the period of publication. . 

“No theories founded on mere hypothesis will be introduced. All 
the Maps, so far as can be ascertained, will embody the results of 
actual observation and experiment. Indeed, the plan of linear de- 
lineation provides, to some extent, a guarantee against crude specula- 
tion, as it compels all systems to assume a definite shape, readily 
susceptible of direct examination as separate truths, or relatively, as 
they are in consonance with cosmical laws universally admitted. 
There will, however, be introduced on all suitable occasions, such in- 
ductive data as seem to point at the solution of unexplained phe- 
nomena—a course, which, it is presumed, is not beyond the proper 
sphere of the work, and which may not be unattended with advantage 
to scientific inquiry. 

“But the predominating rule, both in the selection and treatment 
of subjects, will be wéclity, in the widest sense of the term. The pro- 
jectors do not wish to deal with science for abstract purposes; they 
wish to deal with it as developing the resources of’ Nature, and as 
guiding art in adapting these to the exigencies of Man. ‘They, there- 
fore, solicit attention to this Atlas, as a repertory of ascertained facts 
and principles, bearing directly on many of the most important de- 
partments of human occupation. To the political economist, man of 
letters, merchant, manufacturer, navigator, and tradesman, the work 
will be of great practical advantage; while to the professor and teach- 
er it cannot fail to be of inestimable service, in materially facilitating 
the important business of education.” 

Ks 


Notes on Shropshire Rubi. By the Rev. W. A. LEIGHTON, B.A., 
F.B.S. E. & L.° 


(Continued from page 166). 


8. R. cordifolius, W. & N. 

The specimens of the ‘ Fasciculus of Shropshire Rubi’ belong to 
the typical or cordate form of this species, as defined in Bab. Syn. 
and Manual. 7 

R. affinis, &. Fl. Shropsh. 226, is the ovate or rhamnifolius form. 

WV OL.) Wn. 2B 


174 


R. rhamnifolius, first form of that work, p. 227, is (in part) the cor- 
date or typical form. . 

No. 7 of Bloxam’s Fasciculus is identical with the plant given in 
the ‘ Fasciculus of Shropshire Rubi;’ so also is a plant communicated 
to me by Mr. Lees, gathered in “thickets in Birchin Grove, Broad- 
heath, two miles west of Worcester,” and which I suppose is the R. 
cordifolius of Lees in Steele’s Hand-Book. 

The distinctly stalked lower leaflets, which never overlap the in- 
termediate pair, and which spread or are turned backward consider- 
ably, the stout red-coloured very angular and furrowed stem, with its 
very strong straight horizontal or declinate prickles, readily distin- 
guish this from R. corylifolius; whilst the different cordate shape 
and toothing of the leaves and the scattered straight declinate prickles 
of the flowering stem, combined with its different panicle, separate it 
from R. affinis. 

9. R. discolor, W.& N. 

The R. discolor and R. fruticosus of Fl. Shropsh. p. 228 and 229 
prove, as there conjectured, to be forms only of the same species. 

The leaves of this species, which are indefinitely variable in shape, 
afford no good characters whereby to determine the varieties observed 
in Shropshire, whose distinctions may rather be grounded on the 
clothing of the barren stem, the shape and direction of its prickles, 
and the clothing and armature of the panicle and flowering stem. 

Var. a. ———— Barren stem covered with minute stellate clusters 
of silky hairs, prickles confined to the angles, large, stout, 
very dilated at the base, straight and declinate, or curved 
and deflexed, clothed similarly to the stem; panicle white, 
tomentose and with long spreading hairs, prickles strong, 
tolerably abundant, decurved, silky with minute stellate clus- 
ters of hairs. 

“No. 9, R. fruticosus” of Bloxam’s Fascic. Rub. ranges here. 

Var. 8. ——— Barren stem nearly glabrous and glaucous, prickles 
large, stout, horizontal, straight; panicle white tomentose 
and much more Hairy than in @., prickles straight and decli- 
nate or deflexed. 

The specimens in the ‘ Fasciculus of Shropshire Rubi’ belong to 
one or other of the above varieties. 

Var. y. ——— Barren stem with scattered weak spreading hairs, 
prickles very numerous, decurved, or straight and declinate ; 
panicle white tomentose and very hairy, hairs long and pa- 
tent, prickles declinate and decurved. 


175 


I here arrange “No. 11, R. macroacanthus, W. & N., y. macroa- 
canthus, Bab. Syn., between Mancetter and Hartshill, Warwickshire,” 
of Bloxam’s Fascic. Rub. 

Var. 0. argenteus. Barren stem with minute close-pressed silky 
shining hairs, prickles moderately strong from a broad base, 
subulate, straight, with stellate hairs; leaves cordato-ovate, 
with a long acuminate point, sharply finely and unequally 
serrated, glabrous above, white tomentose velvety beneath ; 
panicle very tomentose and hairy, hairs short, prickles 
straight and declinate, long and slender. 

Specimens of this variety are given in the ‘ Fasciculus of Shrop- 
shire Rubi.’ 

“No. 10, R. discolor, lividus, Bab. MSS., near Twycross, Leices- 
tershire,” of Bloxam’s Fascic. Rub. has the barren stem angular, fur- 
rowed and glabrous, prickles with a very large dilated base, suddenly 
and peculiarly uncinate ; leaves large, terminal leaflet broadly oval 
acuminate doubly and coarsely serrated, glabrous above, white to- 
mentose beneath ; panicle with weak, straggling hairs below, tomen- 
tose and very hairy above, prickles very strong and uncinate. This 
seems so very different from any of the other forms that it surely 
ought to be recognized as a distinct variety. 

10. R. leucostachys, Sm. & Bab. Syn. 

The species so named in the Fl. Shropsh. p. 230, seems to be a 
sad jumble, having, according to the authentic specimens now before 
me, been founded on two specimens named by Prof. Lindley R. leu- 
costachys, but evidently referrible to R. nitidus, Bab. Syn., and one 
specimen identical with R. leucostachys, 8. vestétus. I am not at 
present acquainted with any Shropshire plant corresponding with the 
true leucostachys. : 

R. leucostachys of Lees in Steele’s Hand-Book is, according to 
specimens from Mr. Lees, identical with R. nitidus of Bab. Syn. and 
the ‘ Fasciculus of Shropshire Rubi.” 

Var. 8. vestitus, Bell Salt. 

Specimens of this are given in the ‘Fasciculus of Shropshire Rubi.’ 
It is the R. villicaulis of Fl. Shropsh. p. 231, so named by Esenbeck. 
To the other characters by which this well-marked and not uncom- 
mon plant may be recognized I would add the following :— 

On the flowering stem and panicle the prickles, which are straight 
and declinate, arising from a stout dilated purple base, frequently 
hairy, and elongated into a long slender yellow point, are very no- 
ticeable from their shining and polished aspect as well as their colour, 


176 


and are rendered more conspicuous by their issuing from the dense 
shaggy tawny white tomentum and hairs. They are also set on in a 
succession of irregular series; a series being comprised on each in- 
ternode or division of the panicle: in the lower portion of which the 
prickles are shorter and smaller, but increase in size and length up- 
wards to the next node or joint where they are longest, the longest 
prickle being not unfrequently located immediately opposite to the 
point from which the petiole of the leaf springs. 

“No. 13 of Bloxam’s Fascic. Rub., R. vestitus,” agrees with our 
Shropshire plant, as does also Mr. Lees’ R. vestitus in Steele’s Hand- 
Book, according to specimens from him. 

Var. y. argenteus, Bell Salt. 

Specimens gathered near Copthorn, near Shrewsbury (some of 
which are given in some of the copies of the ‘ Fasciculus of Shrop- 
shire Rubi’ as @. vestitws), have altogether a whiter softer closer- 
pressed tomentose appearance, with a looser and larger extra-folia- 
ceous panicle, the lower axillary branches of which are elongated, 
and the leaves are narrowed at the base, becoming in general shape 
rotundato-obovate, with less coarsely dentate margins. These, | 
presume, may constitute y. argenteus of Bab. Syn. It should, how- 
ever, be mentioned that I noticed that on the same bushes the usual 
form of 8. vestitus was recognizable, and gradations from that variety 
into the present one were easily traceable. The prickles on the 
flowering stem and panicle are not rigidly straight and declinate as 
in 6. vestitus, but curved and deflexed, though in similar, but more 
irregular series. 

ll. R. Leightonianus, Bab. Syn. 

This plant, which is fully and accurately described by my friend 
Mr. Babington in his Syn. Rub., and which he was kind enough to 
name in honour of me, is destined to be degraded from that enviable 
post by my own hands, as the following observations will clearly 
prove that it has no claims whatever to rank as a distinct species, 
and cannot be retained even as a variety. 

Having no authentic specimen in my herbarium of the plant ga- 
thered by Mr. Babington and myself at Haughmond Hill in Septem- 
ber, 1837, I was for a long time completely ignorant of what plant 
was really intended. Never suspecting leucostachys, f. vestedus to 
be identical with it, I year after year searched Haughmond Hill un- 
successfully, and without finding any bramble which I could confi- 
dently say corresponded with the description in Bab. Syn. In 1847 
Mr. Babington sent to me a specimen of what he considered R.- 


EV 


Leightonianus of his Synopsis, collected by himself “near Lyston, 
Llanwarne, Herefordshire, Sept. 14, 1847.” The first glance excited 
recollections as of an old acquaintance, and I could not divest my- 
self of the idea that it looked exceedingly like a very green state of 
leucostachys, 6. vestitus. Soon afterwards, botanizing on the Wrekin 
mountain, in this county, I found in the moist shady woods at its 
base, near a little brook which runs between the Wrekin and Law- 
rence Hill, a weakly plant in some abundance, which appeared iden- 
tical with the Herefordshire specimen sent as R. Leightonianus by 
Mr. Babington. I accordingly gathered specimens, and forwarded 
them to him, with expressions of my belief as to their identity with 
his R. Leightonianus, and of my conjectures that they were also iden- 
tical with R. leucostachys, (. vestitus. Mr. B. confirmed their iden- 
tity with R. Leightonianus, but met my difficulty as to their identity 
with leucostachys, @. vestitus, by the following note from his inter- 
leaved copy of his Syn. Rub., showing that similar doubts had at 
some time arisen in his own mind and been by investigation disposed 
of :—‘‘ R. Leightonianus is very like some states of R. leucostachys, /., 
but differs by having unequal and scattered prickles on its barren stem, 
and the prickles on the petioles and midribs nearly or quite straight 
and slender, not strong and much hooked, as in that plant.” This ex- 
planation did not, however, satisfy my mind nor remove my uncer- 
tainty, and so I set to work again. Inthe Weir Coppice, near Hooka- 
gate in the vicinity of Shrewsbury, R. leucostachys, (. vestitus, grows 
in some plenty, and I there set about to study the living plant. Isoon 
found that on the main barren stem the prickles were in the upper and 
middle portion chiefly confined to the angles and equal in size, but on 
examining the lower part, the prickles were seen to be very unequal 
in size and scattered on all sides. Similar characters were noticed in 
the prickles on a strong lateral shoot which had been sent off from a 
main barren stem in consequence of the latter having been broken off 
early in the season. The prickles on the petioles and midribs seemed 
also very variable in form, ranging from nearly or quite straight to a 
hooked form, even on the same bush. The plant assumed a more or 
less green aspect as it was more or less in shade. Of all these varia- 
tions I forwarded scraps for the consideration of Mr. B., and a day or 
so afterwards I posted off again to the Wrekin and spent several hours 
in tracing the gradations of the plant. In sunny and exposed situa- 
tions R. leucostachys, 8. vestitus, occurred of its usual size and of its 
commonly described aspect and character; but in the moist shady 
_ woods at the base of the hill it put on the R. Leightonianus or green 


178 


form, the whole plant weak, the prickles unequally scattered and 
slightly declinate, the leaves larger and rounder, thin and green on 
both sides. On ascending higher up the hill, still in the shady woods, 
but in a drier soil, the plant was in an intermediate state, rather 
stronger, but partaking much of the character and aspect of the 
Leightonianus form ; whilst the under surface of the leaves, especially 
on the flowering stem, had acquired a whiter look, the prickles were 
confined to the angles, and those on the petioles more curved. On 
reaching, however, situations fully exposed to the sun, and unin- 
fluenced by moisture or the shade of trees, the plant became truly 
leucostachys, @. vestitus. 

The variations in the number and situation of the prickles on the 
barren stem, as noticed in the Weir Coppice, were here also confirmed. 

These results quite convinced me, and I communicated them and 
my consequent convictions to Mr. Babington, who, after weighing 
them, coincided in thinking that R. Leightonianus could no longer be 
retained, but must be regarded as a state only of leucostachys, 8. 
vestitus. 

The above details are not inserted here with any view to vaunt my 
own keenness of sight and comparison,—still less with any wish or 
intention to depreciate the botanical accuracy of my justly valued 
friend Babington, or to expose the error into which he has inadver- 
tently fallen ;—but solely as hints to students of the caution required 
in investigating this variable and difficult genus, by showing the ne- 
cessity of careful and long-continued study, not only of dried speci- 
mens, but of the characters and habits of the living plants in their 
native localities and in different situations, soils, and circumstances ;— 
as well as to point out the links, trivial in themselves, but by gather- 
ing up and connecting which, the truth may be ultimately arrived at. 

Specimens of R. Leightonianus from the Wrekin are comprised in 
the Fascic. Shropsh. Rubi. 


[To be continued]. 


W.. A. LEIGHTON. 
Luciefelde, Shrewsbury, 
June Ist, 1848. 


179 


Note on the ‘ Flora of Leicestershire, with Addenda thereto. 
By Miss M. Kirsy. 


Your correspondent is evidently unacquainted with the character 
and design of the ‘ Flora of Leicestershire.’ The work, which is not 
a published one, is simply preparatory, and has been printed for local 
convenience. No botanist can be expected to furnish the author with 
a complete list of all the plants, common or rare, that have come under 
his observation; but with an arranged catalogue, and a blank page 
before him, it is easy to insert the results of his investigations. Copies 
of the Flora may be obtained of Crossley, Leicester, and have been 
forwarded to botanists in the county, with the name and address of 
the compiler, together with a personal appeal for assistance! should 
such be afforded, much valuable information will be gained; the cata- 
logue thus augmented will eventually be published, and “ authorities 
given with the localities enumerated for the rarer species.” The use 
of the asterisk is explained by a note at the foot of page 4, and refers 
throughout to Crabbe’s ‘ Natural History of the Vale of Belvoir.’ The 
note of interrogation speaks for itself, expressing doubt and a wish 
to obtain further evidence. Sedum album, Rosa rubiginosa, and Ru- 
mex pratensis, three plants thus introduced, have already had locali- 
ties assigned them. The mistake of Ginanthe pimpinelloides for 
Q#. Lachenalii was occasioned by an accidental reference to a previous 
edition of the ‘ London Catalogue,’ in which GK. Lachenalii is not to 
be found. The error of Glaucium luteum was erased as soon as dis- 
covered. It is feared that Cardamine impatiens must also disappear 
from the list; Oldbury is unfortunately in Warwickshire, the locality 
near Ashby de la Zouch will probably prove to be in Derbyshire, and 
the plant has become extinct upon Bardon Hill. 

It may be interesting to give a few addenda. 

Hesperis matronalis. 

Geranium robertianum, var. album. 

Potentilla Comarum. 

Rubus sylvaticus. 

Babingtonii, var. Bloxamii. 

radula, var. Hystrix. 

glandulosus, var. rotundifolius. 

Galium palustre, var. Witheringii. 

Tris pumila.—Apparently indigenous in Charley Meadows. 
Potamogeton zosteraceus. 

Carex fulva. 


180 


Phalaris Canariensis. 
Aira cristata. 
Pilularia globulifera. 
M. Kirsy. 


Friar Lane, Leicester, 
June 9th, 1848. 


Note on Raising Cowslips (Primula veris) from Seed. 
By Wi1i1aM GopDLey, Esq. 


HAVING raised some of the common cowslip from seed, I read Mr. 
Watson’s report of experiments (Phytol. iii. 146) with a good deal of 
interest. The following is a report of my own experiment. 

In the summer of 1846 I collected some seed of the common cow- 
slip in a pasture near this town, and so situated that I considered the 
probability of hybridization (if such does really affect the seed) to be 
exceedingly small. In the spring of 1847 the seed was sown, and 
thirty-six seedlings were produced, which were planted out in a border 
having an east aspect. This year (1848) thirty-five of the seedlings 
have flowered, and J am unable to discover in the leaves, calyx, or 
corolla, any the least departure from the ordinary form of Primula veris. 

WILLIAM GODLEY. 

Wallingford, June 8, 1848. 


Note on Raising Jacquin’s Primula (Primula Jacquinii), commonly 
called the Bardfield Oxlip, from Seed. By Epwarp NEWMAN. 


Havine been favoured by Mr. Doubleday with specimens of this 
interesting plant, I planted them without any unusual precaution ina 
border with roots of the common primrose, cowslip, double pink prim- 
rose, and polyanthus. The Bardfield plant flowered and seeded freely, 
and numerous seedlings were produced. This spring eight of the 
seedlings have flowered, and to use the words of Mr. Godley, “Iam 
unable to discover in the leaves, calyx, or corolla, the least departure 
from the ordinary form of” Primula Jacquinii. 

In this instance it will be observed there was a great facility offered 
for hybridization by insects, &c., owing to the propinquity of other 
species or varieties simultaneously blooming in the immediate vicinity : 
so little care was exercised that had the result been remarkable for 


181 


an opposite tendency, z. e. to the production of dissimilar forms, I could 
not even have asserted from which parent the seeds actually fell: and 
I could only decide positively on the parentage when I saw the flower. 

A word on hybrids. It is asserted by zoologists that a true hybrid or 
mule, for instance, that between the horse and ass, is sterile as a natural 
consequence of its hybridity. Without expressing any opinion as to 
the validity of this conclusion, I may unhesitatingly assert that its 
converse obtains in plants. No two species of a genus are normally 
more distinct than Fuchsia coccinea and F. fulgens; yet a great pro- 
portion of our most beautiful varieties are obtained from hybrids be- 
tween these two, the hybrids themselves being equally productive with 
the parents. It may possibly be suggested that this well-known fact 
induces the conclusion, that the two parents are but varieties of one 
species: but if so, how are we to define a species ?—the form, habit, 
and colour of foliage and inflorescence, being supposed to indicate no 
higher division than that of variety. I must acknowledge that | in- 
cline to discard the sterility test of hybrids in plants, and to conclude 
that nature has herself set up a law of her own, which, when left per- 
fectly to herself, she invariably enforces. Lam not aware that the 
hybrid oxlip (Primula elatior) is of usual occurrence in perfectly un- 
cultivated districts. In woods the primrose, and in old meadows the 
cowslip and Jacquin’s Primula, generally retain their characters with 
great precision ; and the occurrence of the hybrid in its usual localities 
of orchards, garden-hedges, &c., seems to me to point to two conclu- 
sions: jirst, that the presence of man in this, as in manifold instances 
besides, interferes with the ordinary course of nature; and secondly, 
that the sterility test assumed and partially proved in animals is not 
available to prove the distinctness of species in plants. 


EpwaRD NrEwMAN. 


9, Devonshire Street, Bishopsgate, 
June 9th, 1848. 


Note on the British Rubi. By the Rev. ANDREW Bioxam, M.A. 


I am glad to see a resumption in the June No. of the ‘ Phytologist’ 
of Mr. Leighton’s valuable notes on the British Rubi, and regret that 
the whole have not been published earlier, that they might be available 
to the investigators of this difficult genus during the present season. 
Having sent a very large supply of specimens of different species of 

VOL. III. 2c 


182 


Rubi to the London Botanical Society, collected last year, and which 
have now been distributed among the various members of the Society, 
I would take the liberty of suggesting to those who are becoming ac- 
quainted with the various forms, to notice especially the times of 
flowering of the different species met with in their own neighbourhood. 
The concurrent testimony of numerous observers upon this point will 
tend much to the elucidation of doubts as regards species or varieties. 
In my own neighbourhood, where the Rubi are very abundant (the 
following species growing within 100 yards of my house, viz., R. 
Ideus, nitidus, corylifolius, carpinifolius, amplificatus (Lees), sylvati- 
cus, discolor, fruticosus (HZ. B.), discolor, 8. thyrsoideus (Bab. Syn.), 
radula, Koehleri, nemorosus (Hayne), I find that R. plicatus and cory- 
lifolius (swblustris, Lees), are always the first in flower, generally the 
last week in May, and this from the observation of some years. R. 
nemorosus (Hayne), generally appears next; other species follow in 
succession, some earlier, some later. R. discolor (R. fruticosus, E. B.) 
generally flowers and fruits last of all, and from this circumstance and 
the different mode of growth which it exhibits from R. discolor, @. 
thyrsoideus (Bab. Syn.), I am strongly inclined to believe that the two 
are distinct as species. The latter is always a much earlier bramble, 
of a more straggling and less bushy-like appearance; both are abun- 
dant in this neighbourhood, and therefore afford good opportunities 
for observation. The shape, size, and torus of the primordial fruit 
should also be observed, as well as the scales at the base of the flower- 
ing shoot, as some of these may probably afford permanent marks of 
distinction. The fruit of some species differs very materially in size 
and flavour from that of others; the year 1846 was very productive in 
fruit, and that of radula, when grown in hedges well exposed to the 
sun, and a Rubus which I believe to be a form of sylvaticus, were 
particularly fine and well flavoured. Several jars of the fruit of these 
two species were preserved by me, and when mixed up with other 
preserves they gave a most delicious flavour to the whole. It is 
probably well known to many of your readers, that the fruit of the 
Rubi, whether preserved or otherwise, is peculiarly useful in com- 
plaints of gravel, &c. 

In procuring specimens, a stout pair of gloves and scissors are the 
best implements for the purpose, the latter being far superior to the 
knife; and as few vasculums are sufficiently large to hold many spe- 
cimens, I have always found that a portfolio or couple of Bristol 
boards, with a few sheets of any kind of paper to divide the separate 
species, are most convenient. 


183 


Characteristic specimens should be collected, and a portion of the 
barren stem, with its 5-nate or 3-nate leaf taken anywhere near the 
middle, should always be gathered with the flowering one; care should 
also be taken when several Rubi are growing intermixed with each 
other not to confound the barren stems of one species with the flower- 
ing ones of another; this was occasionally done by myself when I 
first commenced, under the tuition of my friend Mr. Lees, the study 
of this difficult genus, and more than once I sorely puzzled my friend 
Mr. Babington with the fruits of my carelessnes and inattention. 


A. BLOXAM. 
Twycross, Atherstone, June, 1848. 


Occurrence of Botrychium lunaria near Twycross. 
By the Rev. ANDREw Bioxam, M. A. 


Ir may not be uninteresting to observe that a botanist may almost 
every year be finding something new in his neighbourhood; for 
instance, I have lived in my present abode for ten years, and not until 
the present one have I discovered Botrychium lunaria (and there has 
been only one recorded locality for it as yet in the whole of Leicester- 
shire). I have now three different localities for it in this parish, one 
where it grows not unsparingly, and that in a field within a hundred 
yards of my house. Strange that I should have overlooked it so long 
before ! 

A. BLOXAM. 

Twycross, Atherstone, June, 1848. 


Notice of ‘ Contributions towards A Catalogue of Plants indigenous 
to the Neighbourhood of Tenby. London: Longman & Co. 1848.’ 


Loca catalogues for any part of Britain are valuable, provided 
their correctness may be relied upon; and additions to the few and 
incomplete lists for Wales are more particularly needed. Accordingly, 
we hail this publication with pleasure; although probably it is far 
from being a full list of the flowering species to be met with about 
Tenby. Though extended to fifty pages, the work is simply’a list of 
species, arranged in natural orders, with indications of frequency, and 
mention of very few localities for the less common. Judging from the 


184 


internal evidence, the author of the work has enjoyed few opportuni- 
ties for examining the botany of the tract which he has undertaken to 
illlustrate, or else he is too partially familiar with plants to have been 
able to identify all the species. Some very common species are 
wholly omitted, few or none of which can readily be supposed 
absentees from the vicinity of Tenby; for example, Ranunculus acris, 
Papaver dubium, Cardamine hirsuta, Stellaria graminea, Stellaria ho- 
lostea, Cerastium triviale, Trifolium procumbens, &c., &c. And many 
others are inserted on the authority of Mr. T. B. Flower, as “ noticed 
during a short visit made to Tenby in 1847,” which seems to justify 
an inference that these also had escaped the notice of the author of 
the work, common as they are known to be in other parts of England 
and Wales, and we can scarcely suppose them uncommon about Ten- 
by; examples occur in Sagina procumbens, Arenaria serpyllifolia, 
Potentilla fragariastrum, Angelica sylvestris, Heracleum Sphondylium, 
Daucus Carota, Scabiosa succisa, Lapsana communis, Stachys sylvati- 
ca, Euphorbia Peplus, Holcus lanatus, &c., &c. 

From this internal evidence, it may readily be presumed that the 
title of the work is literally true; and that it must be received only 
as a contribution towards a catalogue of Tenby plants. We suppose 
it to be from the hand of Dr. Randle Wilbraham Falconer, the Pre- 
face being subscribed by the initials “R. W. F.,” and dated at Tenby. 
But the name of the author is omitted on the title-page, and the pub- 
lication consequently is anonymous, however transparently so. We 
could wish this were otherwise, and cannot at all understand the mo- 
tive which prompts an author to print scientific facts anonymously, 
and thus greatly to lessen their value, through the uncertainty or even 
distrust which will of course attach to unacknowledged statements of 
fact. In looking through the list of species, we have not detected 
any improbabilities, and therefore conclude it to be credit-worthy so 
far as it goes. C. 


Notice of the ‘ Flora Hertfordiensis: being A Catalogue of Plants 
known, or reported, to grow wild, in the county of Hertford, 
with the Stations of the Rarer Species. By the Rev. R. H. 
Wess, Rector of Essendon; assisted by the Rev. H. CoLeman, 
and by various Correspondents. Pamplin, London. 1848. 
Part. 1.’ 


Tuis Flora has been long looked for; and it comes at length in an 


185 


elaborated form which places it much in advance of all it predecessors. 
The First Part includes only the order Ranunculacee of the Flora, 
treated in full; but a map of the county, and forty pages of valuable 
introductory matter, are prefixed; and these we can strongly recom- 
mend to the attention and imitation of those botanists who may be 
sufficiently zealous in the cause of science, to give the requisite time 
and thought to the working out of a Flora on a complete and scienti- 
fically serviceable plan. 

The map of the county is distinguished by colours into three prin- 
cipal Divisions, those of the rivers Lea, Colne, and Ouse; the latter 
being comparatively a small portion of the county, bordering on the 
shires of Cambridge and Bedford. These three chief divisions are 
subdivided into twelve minor Districts. The county in general, the 
divisions, and the subordinate districts are carefully and well describ- 
ed, in reference to their physical geography, by the Rev. W. H. Cole- 
man; and the number of species ascertained to occur in each divi- 
sion and district, is set forth in the description. There is likewise a 
list of all the species which have not been ascertained to occur in 
every one of the twelve districts, arranged in a tabular form, with a 
line of Nos. and blanks opposite the name of each species ; thus show- 
ing at a glance within which of the twelve districts each respective 
species has hitherto been found, as also those from which it is still a 
desideratum. This tabular list is a particularly valuable addition to 
the work. Signs are employed to distinguish the “ scarcely natural- 
ized” (*) and the “ probably introduced species” (t) from the rest. 
The Introduction is wound up by two pages of smartly penned, but 
quite good-humoured, semi-satirical lines, appropriately in place ; 
having been addressed to the authors, by way of remonstrance on their 
delay in bringing out the promised publication. The following para- 
graph, taken from the first page of the work, will afford some addi- 
tional explanations; and fully can we sympathize with Mr. Webb’s 
regrets at losing any portion of the valuable aid which his coadjutor, 
Mr. Coleman, is so very competent to give. 

“So many circumstances,” writes the Rev. R. H. Webb, “unforeseen 
and inevitable, have occurred to delay the publication of the following 
little work on the Wild Plants of Hertfordshire, that, probably, many 
persons who took a lively interest in its first announcement, have, ere 
this, despaired of ever seeing it completed ;—nor are the circum- 
stances under which it at length appears very auspicious; inasmuch 
as I am deprived of the finishing hand of my friend and former coad- 


186 


jutor, the Rev. W. H. CoLeMAN, without whose co-operation the work 
would never have been undertaken. Still, as little more than the ar- 
rangement is now necessary, and I have a considerable body of mate- 
rials on hand, I feel that I am perhaps called upon to make an effort 
to publish them,—more especially as 1 am indebted to the labours of 
many kind and zealous Correspondents for a great proportion of the 
information I possess, and who probably, together with the Public, 
might think me in a certain degree pledged to bring the work to a 
close. Acting under this impression, I have resolved to undertake 
the publication, and I propose the work should consist of Four Parts, 
which will appear consecutively every two or three months, according 
as I can prepare them; so that the whole may be completed within 
the twelvemonth.” 

The cordial thanks of British botanists are certainly due to the 
author of the preceding paragraph, for perseveringly carrying out the 
original intention, and not depriving them of this important addition 
to our local floras for English counties. The turn of thought and 
feeling conveyed in the following passage, will find a kindly echo in 
the minds of others :— 

“Tt does not occur to me that I need say more in the present stage 
of the work. It is with very mixed feelings that I have undertaken it. 
More, alas! than one kindred spirit, in whose company it was com- 
menced, has, ‘like the flower of the field, passed away. Others are 
removed to a distance, and naturally cease to take the same interest 
in the pursuit which once occupied us so gladly. Still, it is not with- 
out satisfaction that by-gone hours have been brought again before 
me,—that the plant and the place, and the pleasure of finding both, 
have come fresh into my memory; and if I should succeed in impart- 
ing any like pleasure to a rising generation of botanists (for these, like 
the flowers they seek, are ever springing anew), I shall have nothing 
to regret.” 

In treating the species, the author judiciously omits generic and 
specific characters. But he gives the derivation of names; accents 
the principal vowel in the generic name; and refers (with more 
tedious care than necessary or useful) to the pages of Smith’s ‘ Kng- 
lish Flora,’ Lindley’s ‘ Synopsis,’ Babington’s ‘ Manual,’ as also to the 
figures of ‘English Botany,’ where the species are described or il- 
justrated. The distribution of each is well and fully shown ; first, 
under the three principal divisions, and subordinately under such of 
the twelve districts in which it has been ascertained to occur; speci- 


187 


fied localities being indicated for the less widely or less frequently 
distributed species. 


C. 


BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 


Friday, 2nd June, 1848.— John Reynolds, Esq., ‘Treasurer, in the 
chair. 

John Price, Esq., of Denbigh, J. H. Blount, Esq., of Birmingham, 
and Francis Harley, Esq., of Costock, Loughborough, were elected 
members. 

The following donations were announced :— 

A collection of German mosses, presented by Dr. C. F. P. de 
Martius, of Munich; a collection of specimens of American Oaks, 
with their fruit, presented by Mr. Edward Doubleday ; British plants, 
presented by Dr. R. W. Falconer, Mr. T. Westcombe and Mr. J. H. 
Thompson. Mr. William Andrews, M.R.I.A. (the Society’s Local 
Secretary for Dublin), exhibited a beautiful collection of living spe- 
cimens of Irish Saxifrages, collected in Kerry, and comprising speci- 
mens in illustration of the varieties of Saxifraga umbrosa, S. hirsuta, 
and 8S. Geum. Mr. A. also presented leaves from a cultivated speci- 
men of an apparently new species of Saxifrage, the original plant 
having been discovered by him in Kerry, in September, 1845. Ina 
letter to Mr. G. E. Dennes, the Secretary, Mr. A. stated “that the 
form and structure of the leaf had not before been met with or de- 
scribed among the Saxifrages, and probably the flower might present 
some feature of interest.” Mr. S. P. Woodward presented specimens 
of a species of Carduus, so nearly intermediate between Carduus Fors- 
teri and C. pratensis, as to render its proper specific name doubtful 
until a larger series of specimens shall have been examined. It 
will probably prove an extreme form of the variety “ pseudo- 
Forsteri” (London Catalogue), frequently mistaken for the true C. 
Forsteri. The specimens were collected by Mr. W., on the farm of 
Mr. Thomas Arkill, at Penhill, near Swindon, Wilts, in May last.— 
G. EH. D. 


188 


Reply to Mr. Watson’s Observations, Phytol. iii. 84. 
By JoserH SIDEBOTHAM, Esq. 


AtTHoucH Mr. Watson very considerately recognizes the right of 
other botanists to question any of his assertions, it appears that he 
does not recognize their right to an answer, though I certainly cannot 
see the use of the former if the latter be denied. Mr. Watson (Phy- 
tol. iii. 84) asserts very boldly and dogmatically, that “ the other three 
species mentioned in Mr. Sidebotham’s communication are introduced 
and imperfectly naturalized.” It is very easy to make such assertions, 
but not so easy to prove them; and when called upon to do so, Mr. 
Watson affects to despise my claim, instead of honestly vindicating 
his marvellous statements, and expends his wrath on what every one 
must see was a mere lapsus calami, thus leaving the subject of my 
letter wholly untouched; in fact, Mr. Watson descends at the outset 
to low personalities, a circumstance that speaks for itself. 

In these democratic times every one thinks himself entitled to a 
hearing ; and the day has gone by when false positions can be taken, 
and erroneous statements be put forth, and allowed to go unchallenged, 
occasionally even by persons who do not lay claim to the dignity of 
intellect that would raise them to a level with those whom they would 
question. I have no doubt that Mr. Watson would be very glad if I 
and others would attend to his suggestion, and refrain from criticizing 
his productions for the future: it would save him much trouble and 
perturbation, and keep up his fond delusion that they are immaculate. 
When my remarks on the ‘ London Catalogue,’ seconded by those of 
Mr. Grindon, appeared in the first volume of the ‘ Phytologist,’ no 
attempt was made to answer the queries, or explain the inconsistencies 
pointed out; and though many of our suggestions have been attended 
to in the second edition, it is still very unworthy of its name; and un- 
til Mr. Watson explain what he means by a native, naturalized, and 
imperfectly naturalized species, every botanist will be at liberty to 
consider that he cannot do so consistently; and all know what to 
think of his dogmatical assertion that Oxalis stricta is imperfectly na- 
turalized, in spite of the evidence which has been brought to prove 
the contrary. 

Till these explanations are made every one must accord with the 
common-sense view taken by the Editor of the ‘ Atheneum,— 
“ This list is capricious and unsatisfactory, and of no authority with 
men of science.” —Atheneum, p. 413, April, 22, 1848. 


JOSEPH SIDEBOTHAM. 
Cheshire, June 14, 1848. 


189 


[As I think this discussion cannot be pursued further with advan- 
tage to science or pleasure to the readers of the ‘ Phytologist,’ I hope 
that Mr. Watson will not reply: and having expressed that hope, I 
must take the liberty in a friendly spirit to point out to Mr. Sidebo- 
tham that he does not escape from the charge of misrepresentation by 
terming that misrepresentation a lapsus calami. If Mr. Sidebotham 
by a slip of the pen wrote one thing while he meant another thing, then 
that other thing, which he intended to write, but did not, should not 
only be forthcoming, but should establish the justice of any remarks 
grounded on the now-called lapsus calami. Again, Mr. Sidebotham 
assumes that the strictures he quotes from the Athenzum are penned 
by the editor of that journal: now those who are behind the scenes 
assume, and on far better grounds, that the editor of the Atheneum 
neither knows nor pretends to know anything of Botany; and as- 
sume further, that the passage in question was penned by some tyro, 
whose blunders or presumption may have been exposed by the caustic 
remarks of the author of the ‘ London Catalogue.’ It is a great 
drawback to the value of the Athenzum that its remarks on Natural 
History are not editorial: there are so few writers on any one branch 
of the science, and these few are so hostile to each other, that there 
is little chance of their reviewing one another fairly. I now never 
send a book to the Atheneum, deeming it likely to get into the 
hands of some scribbler, whose misdeeds I have chastised, and who 
may still be smarting under the lash. Edweard Newman]. 


List of Habitats of Plants recorded in MS. in a Copy of Blackstone's 
‘Specimen Botanicum. (Communicated by W. Pamptin). 


(Continued from page 170). 


Valeriana sylvestris major montana. About three miles before 
you come to Westerham, in Kent, in the road from Croydon. 

Valerianella vulgaris major species serotina. In the corn about 
Otters Pool, and near Smoakhall Wood, by Bath. 

Verbascum pulverulentum flore luteo parvo. About the ditch on 
the outside the city walls, at Norwich; also by the river Yare, be- 
tween Bishopsgate Bridge and the ferry-house, both places plentifully. 

Veronica flosculis singularibus foliis laciniatis erecta, R. Syn. 
280.6. Ina field on the right hand of the road from Sudbury to- 
wards Braintree. Mr. Andrews. . 

Vow... 111. 2D 


190 - 


Vinca pervinca minor. By the walkside behind Bellsize House, 
Hampstead, towards Tottenham Court Road. 

Urtica pilulifera. About the walls of Yarmouth, in Norfolk. 

Ulmus minor folio angusto scabro. Jn the road between Ipswich 


and Colchester. 


WILLIAM PAMPLIN. 
45, Frith Street, Soho, 
24th June, 1848. 


On the Acceleration of the Frondescence of Trees and Flowering of 
British Wild Plants in the Spring of 1848. By Epwin LEgs, 
Hsq., F.L.S., &c. 


Ir must be admitted that in all our Floras there is a looseness in 
the indications of the times of flowering of the plants described; so 
that in many instances, as in Francis Moore’s time-honoured predic- 
tions of weather, where rain was announced “ the day before or the 
day after” such a date, so in the works referred to, the month before 
or the month after would really suit just as well as the time stated. 
In fact, precision has been somewhat neglected here, and I believe 
that Mr. T. Forster is almost the only author* who has come directly 
to the point, by stating in the Flora Spectabilis and Rustic Calen- 
dar of his ‘Encyclopedia of Natural Phenomena,’ the precise times 
of plants beginning to flower, full flower, and end of flowering. Some 
years since, indeed, the amiable and observant naturalist the Rev. W. 
T. Bree, gave specimens of a ‘ Calendar of Coincidence,’ in Loudon’s 
‘Magazine of Natural History, with a view to connect the flowering 
of plants with the appearance of birds, insects, &c. I have long made 
memoranda of the same kind, but I believe nothing complete has yet 
been published. 

The alternations of temperature and changes of weather in the va- 
riable climate of England, no doubt render positive exactness impos- 
sible, and therefore I presume the average time of flowering is struck 
with respect to our native plants, and that is what is intended in all 
the Floras, whether general or local. But as this is often but a kind 
of guess-work, I am inclined to think it would be better to denote the 


* If this has been done to any extent by other botanists, I beg they will impute 
my omission of their names to ignorance of their labours. Mr. Forster has further 
worked out the subject in his ‘ Perennial Calendar,’ and I have aimed at its develop- 
ment in the ‘ Botanical Looker-Out.’ 


191 


time when plants commence flowering in the most favourable season, 
as well as the end of their flowering. In local Floras especially this 
should be attended to. That an acceleration in the time of flowering 
of many of our wild plants has taken place this year, I think I shall 
be able to prove by my own observations, compared with those of Mr. 
Forster on the one hand, and the months given in the Floras of 
Hooker, Babington, and Steele, on the other, which I take as being 
of most recent date, and one or other in every botanist’s possession. 
I think the subject may be considered interesting as contrasting 
former seasons with the present; but I must premise that my observa- 
tions will probably not fully accord further north than the midland 
counties. 

The winter was moist and mild, so that it might have beén expect- 
ed that our wild flowers would appear earlier than the general average, 
and this was the case with one exception. I do not mean, however, 
to notice stray primroses and oxlips smiling under a warm hedge, but 
shall commence with the blackthorn (Prunus spinosa), which, unless 
the season be backward, I have generally seen in flower on April Ist; 
Mr. Forster, however, says that it “usually blooms about the middle 
of April.” _I find this note in my journal, under April Ist, this year: 
“Sudden summer has at once come upon us, and to-day the tempera- 
ture is that of July, with quite a feeling of oppression. Damson and 
plum-trees in gardens, and Prunus spinosa in the hedges, in full 
flower. The hawthorn is already mostly in leaf, brambles are green 
with young shoots, the woodbine quite out in leaf, and the young 
shoots of roses apparent. White butterflies appeared.” 

April 3.—Wild cherry (Prunus avium) in flower. Leaves of horse- 
chesnut and sycamore expanded. Celandines (Mecaria verna) in full 
expansion. 

On April 8, however, the “ blackthorn weather,” as country people 
call it, came on with cold N. E. winds, arresting vegetation in some 
degree. Yet still, on April 9, hawthorn, elder, and larch, were in full 
leaf pretty generally ; and the blackthorn’s snowy clusters beautify- 
ing the hedges in all directions. Anemone nemorosa in flower. 

April 13.—The young leaves of lime and birch expanded. — Jack- 
by-the-hedge (Alliaria officinalis) in flower. Forster gives April 28 
as its first flowering day. May according to Hooker, Babington, 
and Steele. 

April 17.—The pear orchards beautifully in flower, presenting a 
glorious spectacle. Martins (Hirundo urbica) first seen this evening. 
A corps of swallows had been seen on the 10th. 


192 


April 23.—Cardamine pratensis in full flower. Mr. Babington cor- 
rectly says April in his Flora, but Hooker and Steele May. Forster, 
perhaps a little fancifully, says, under April 6, “ Flowers here and there 
in moist meadows, hence its name Lady’s Smock, this being old Lady- 
mas day in the old style.” The cuckoo heard first time this season. 

The cowslips are now in full flowering, though Forster says “not 
numerous in the meadows till about the 26th,” (of an average season). 
Bluebells (Scilla nutans) now tinting every copse with the azure of 
heaven. Forster truly says, “ Flowers about the middle of April ;” 
yet Hooker, Babington, and Steele, all indicate May. April 23 (St. 
George’s day) is, according to Forster, the maximum flowering of 
them. 

Caltha palustris in full golden perfection. Under April 22, Forster 
says it “flowers plentifully.”. Hooker and Babington give it the be- 
nefit of March, when perhaps a few stragglers may appear. It is 
seldom that the authors of our Floras are early enough in their indica- 
tions. Orange-tipped butterflies numerous in the meadows. 

Oaks putting forth young leaves this day, and frondescence every- 
where apparent, except on ash-trees and black poplars. The season 
so far a very forward one, as Forster gives May 10 as that of the “ first 
frondescence” of the oak, and I have known seasons when expanded 
foliage was not procurable on May 29. 

April 27.—Lombardy poplars (P. dilatata) in leaf. 

April 30.—Apple-trees here and there in flower in orchards. 

The mean temperature of April was 47° Fahr., but as it had a con- 
siderable proportion of gloominess, rain, and cold winds, there was 
nothing very particular in its aspect, except as being more leafy than 
usual. But the month of May set in with such extraordinary summer 
weather, and throughout maintained such a clearness of sky and 
absence of rain, as to make it remarkable to the commonest observer. 
Hence, I was anxious to notice particularly any acceleration in the 
flowering of our wild plants that might occur, and kept a look-out ac- 
cordingly. The maximum temp. of April 24 was 49°, but on the 29th 
this had risen to 56°, on the 30th to 613°, on May 4 to 70°, and on 
May 12 to 80°, the average temp. for the week ending May 17 being 
623°, near ten degrees above the average value for the season. Yet, 
strange to say, although fully in leaf, no hawthorn was in flower to my 
observation on May 1, and even on May 5 I remark: “ Apple-trees 
generally in flower, but no hawthorn blossoms yet apparent.” It is 
remarkable, in fact, that none appeared till May 7, and the flowering 


193 


was all over the country so poor and inconsiderable as to be generally 
remarked. 

May 4.—Uilac (Syringa vulgaris) in flower. 

May 7.—Ash (Fraxinus excelsior) in flower, with young foliage just 
apparent. All other forest trees in leaf, except the black poplar. 

May 8.—Horse-chesnut (Aisculus Hippocastanum) in flower. La 
burnum just expanding its blossoms. 

May 9.—The meadows are now golden-streaked with the flowers of 
Ranunculus bulbosus and acris. Forster says the maximum of flower- 
ing for bulbosus is the first half of May; for acris, end of May and 
June. Acris was well in flower this year in May, though the Floras 
give June and July for it. 

May 10.—The heat quite enervating, but vegetation progresses with 
extraordinary activity. ven the ash partially in leaf. Black poplar 
showing its first copper-coloured foliage. Apple-trees at their acme 
of beauty. Cockchaffers have appeared, but they seem very few in 
number this year. 

Lonicera caprifolium in flower. 

May 12.—Rosa spinosissima in flower ; also Geranium lucidum and 
Ranunculus parviflorus. (June, Babington). 

May 14.—Rubus cesius in flower. Always the first of the train of 
Rubi, but this date is earlier than I have before recorded. Forster 
and all the Floras say June. Mr. Leighton gives July for Shropshire. 
It was universally in flower this season in May.* 

Tragopogon pratensis in flower. June according to Hooker, Ba- 
bington, and Steele ; Mr. Forster, however, justly says that it flowers 
about the 16th of May, becomes abundant Ist of June, and declines in 
July. 

Bryonia dioica in flower. 

May 15.—Very sultry. Max. temp. of this day 813°. Holly (Ilex 
aquifolium) in flower. 

Red campion (Lychnis diurna) in flower; also Potentilla in a few 
places by roadsides. June according to Forster and all the Floras, 
which is usually the case. 

(Enanthe peucedanifolia in flower. This plant I have noticed as 


* My esteemed and observant friend the Rev. Andrew Bloxam, who is gloriously 
hedged in with Rubi at his pleasant domicile in Leicestershire, says (Phytol. iii. 182) 
that in his vicinity R. plicatus and sublustris are the first to flower, but as I know from 
observations made in his company, R. cesius is curiously enough very rare in that 
neighbourhood, it escapes his notice. 


194 


flowering about the middle of May for some years past; yet Hooker 
and Babington say June, and Steele even July. It flowers full three 
weeks before C4. pimpinelloides, and longer still before G4. Lachenalii, 
so that it may be identified by its early flowering alone. It becomes 
withered and almost lost by the middle of June. 

Ash-trees and black poplars now in full frondescence, and the leaf- 
age of trees completed. 

May 16.—Ragged Robin ee cuculi) in flower. May 22 is 
Forster’s average date; May and June, Babington and Steele; June, 
Hooker. 

Elder (Sambucus nigra) in flower. This tree has certainly flowered 
this season much earlier than usual; all the Floras indicate June, and 
Mr. Forster gives June 13 as the “sheep-shearing day,” the sign of 
which was, according to Dyer, the flowering elder. 


“Tf verdant Elder spreads 
Her silver flowers, if humble daisies yield 
To yellow Crowfoot and luxuriant grass, 
Gay shearing-time approaches.” 


LThave before observed in Bot. Looker-Out that “the elder is very 
characteristic of our transient summer, which can never be said to be 
established till the perfume of itssulphur umbels loads the evening air, 
and this frequently happens the last week in May, but in 1839 the 
flowers were not expanded till June 17 ;” a month’s differenee between 
that and the present season ! 

Great summer daisy (Chrysanthemum leucanthemum) in flower. 
June, say all the Floras, and Forster says that it is “ not abundant till 
about St. Barnaby, whence the name (June 11).” But the fact is that 
it always begins to flower in May, and the saint seems to have no just 
claim to its appropriation. 

Mouse-ear hawkweed (Hieracium pilosella) in full flower. 

Papaver Argemone in flower numerously. Forster fixes it from 
“May 24 to June 10.” The Floras say generally June. 

Glaux maritima in flower by the side of the saline Droitwich canal. 
June, Babington; July, Hooker and Steele. 

May 17.—Rosa canina in flower. Very early. “ Wild roses,” says 
Forster, “belong to the Solstitial Flora, and flower in June and July.” 

Viburnum Opulus in flower. June, say the Floras. 

Hypocheris radicata in flower. July according to Hooker, Babing- 
ton, and Steele. 

Sonchus oleraceus in flower. June, all the Floras. 


195 


Cowslips rapidly going off. Meadows refulgent with golden Ranun- 
culi, but becoming now somewhat chastened with the bronze spikes of 
Rumex acetosa. The tall mayweed (Anthriscus sylvestris) now fringes 
the evening robe of contemplation with a border of silver, seen even 
at midnight. 

May 20.—Iris pseud-acorus in flower in some quantity. I have 
found the flowering of the yellow Iris a capital test for an early or late 
season. In general it may be met with in flower on June 1, and this is 
Forster’s date in his Encyclopedia, and the season is behind if it be 
not then apparent in the marshes. On the other hand, I should reckon 
the season so many days earlier than an average one as the Iris flower- 
ed before June 1. Of course the Floras indicate no month earlier 
than June. 

In this paper I have only taken the plants that actually fell under 
my own observation, and have omitted those that did not seem at least 
in some degree illustrative. | Without “full flower” is mentioned, it 
must be understood that a few plants only were observed with unfold- 
ed petals. 

Senecio aquaticus in flower. Early in June according to Forster ; 
Hooker, Babington, and Steele, say July and August. 

Yellow rattle (Rhinanthus Crista-galli) rather numerously in flower 
in a meadow by the Severn. June according te the Floras. Forster 
says that this plant belongs to the Solstitial Flora. “ Haytime,” he 
observes, “ begins in the neighbourhood of London about the 20th of 
June, when the Rhinanthus Crista-galli flowers ; it is later by ten days 
in most other parts of England.” But it is usually said in Worcester- 
shire that the grass is ready to cut when the seeds of the yellow rattle 
are so ripe as to be rattled in their capsules. 

Orchis latifolia most luxuriantly in flower. 

May 23.—Rubus dumetorum, var. ferox, in flower. July and 
August are set down by Mr. Babington for this form, yet it was plen- 
tifully in flower in May this season. The yellow Iris generally in full 
flower. 

May 24.— Hawthorn flowers rapidly going off, succeeded by the 
elder, now displaying its silver umbels in all directions with luxuriant 
profuseness. The trees have all the leafiness of June in their aspect. 

May 25.— Rosa Doniana beautifully in flower in hedges near 
Cruckbarrow Hill. Highest temp. of day 783°. 

May 26.—Rubus suberectus in flower. June, Hooker and Steele ; 
July, Babington. 

Great snapdragon (Antirrhinum majus) in flower on several old 


196 


walls. All the Floras say July and August. It was abundantly in 
flower the first week in June. 

May 27.—Malva rotundifolia and Convolvulus arvensis in flower. 
The Floras say June for the latter, and Forster gives June 26 as its 
commencement of flowering. The meadows have already cast off 
their golden robe of buttercups, the grasses are grown high, and a 
cinereous hue prevails from their being generally in flower. The 
grating of the corn-crake resounds every evening. 

May 28.— Privet (Ligustrum vulgare) just coming into flower. 
Clare, the Northamptonshire poet, in his observant sketches, has well 
combined the privet with other summer flowers :— 


‘“* How sweet the walks by hedge-row bushes seem, 
On this side wavy grass, on that the stream ; 
While dog-rose, woodbine, and the privet-spike 
On the young gales their rural sweetness teem, 
With yellow flag-flowers rustling in the dyke.” 


Rosa villosa in flower. Doniana and canina plentifully. A few 
flowers of Cornus sanguinea expanded. 

May 30.—Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) in flower. June 6 is the 
day when, according to Forster, it “begins to flower.” He says they 
continue all through the estival season, though “they first blow early 
in the solstitial.” 

Cornus sanguinea in full flower. Woodvetch (Vicia sylvatica) in 
flower on the banks of the brook at Sapey, famous for the legend of 
the tracks of Saint Catharine’s mare and colt. The wild scene of 
broken sandstone slabs over which the brook murmurs in many a 
water-break, is indeed well worthy of a legend; and to gratify the ex- 
ploratory naturalist, I can say the “tracks” are still there! Geum 
rivale and intermedium in flower by the same brook, just above Sapey 
Pritchard Bridge. Polygonum Bistorta and the Columbine, both in 
full flower, also adorned this romantic vicinity, as well as the white 
odorous Habenaria chlorantha. The Vicia sylvatica covered the 
bushes about the banks of the brook most profusely. The Floras in- 
dicate July for its flowering. 

May 31.—Common mallow (Malva sylvestris) in flower. Com- 
mences flowering according to Fosteron June 16. This common 
road-side plant forms a very good test for an early season. The 
‘temperature that had urged on the progress of vegetation was now, 
however, on the decline, though its effects will be traced further. 
Maximum temp. of this day 693°, and the mean temperature of the 


197 


week 583°. I noticed the Libellulide to be exceedingly numerous 
this month, especially the bronze-winged fluttering Agrion Virgo, most 
commonly the attendant of the succeeding month. 

June 1.—Privet generally in flower. The elegant crimson grass- 
vetch (Lathyrus Nissolia) out most profusely, as well as the rarer 
Lathyrus Aphaca. Hooker gives May for the former, which is correct. 
Lathyrus pratensis also sparingly in blossom, though the Floras all 
say July for it. 

June 2.—Qsnanthe pimpinelloides in flower in its old habitat on 
the dry red marl at Powick. The Floras are here again “ behind time,” 
for they all say July, thongh even in ordinary seasons it begins to 
flower about the middle of June. It is remarkable, that although this 
plant is abundant in many hilly meadows between the Malvern hills 
and the Severn, I have never found it north of Worcester. 

June 4.—Woodbine (Lonicera Periclymenum) in full flower. This 
no doubt came out earlier, but I did not happen to meet with it. 
Forster says it may be called a solstitial plant, but “ flowers all sum- 
mer, from May to August.” 

Corn poppy (Papaver Rheeas) in flower. A true solstitial sign. 
“Flowers about St. Barnabas (June 11),” says Forster, “ and by mid- 
summer quite reddens the corn-fields, in some soils.” The poppy has 
been always singularly connected with corn, and perhaps Virgil’s ex- 
pression, “ rubicunda Ceres,” in the Ist Georgic, may allude to this. 
At all events, Ceres is often very much reddened with the interloping 
poppy ever clinging to her robe. 

Lapsana communis in flower. July and August according to Hook- 
er and Babington. Steele rightly says June and July. Rubus cordi- 
folius in flower, and R. suberectus most beautifully so. Many oak- 
trees almost bare from the attacks of an overwhelming army of cater- 
pillars ; I believe that of the little green Tortrix viridana. 

June 5.—Potentilla reptans and Genista tinctoria in flower. The 
latter belongs to July and August according to the Floras. 

June 6.—Sedum acre in flower. A sure solstitial sign when roofs 
glow with the expanded golden petals of this plant. Hay-making has 
commenced. 

June 9.—Barnaby bright of the old style. “ It is now the begin- 
ning of the solstitial season,” says Forster, “and consequently marked 
by many distinguishing phenomena. The various poppies, the roses, 
the pinks, and other solstitial plants, begin to flower plentifully.” 

Rosa arvensis in flower. This trailing rose, distinguished by its 
peculiar and less grateful odour, blossoms later than any of our other 

VOL. IEE. 2E 


198 


native roses, and often continues far into July. I have not observed 
it so early before. 

Helianthemum vulgare in full flower. Forster says that it begins 
to flower on June 26. The Floras unite in being too late, indicating 
July and August. Saintfoin (Onobrychis sativa) now makes a gor- 
geous show on limestone banks with its crimson flowers. Abundant at 
the Croft, Mathon, with my friend John Roby, Esq., of Malvern. 

Wild thyme (Thymus Serpyllum) and lady’s fingers, or lamb-toe 
(Anthyllis vulneraria), in flower. 


“The yellow lamb-toe I have often got, 
Sweet creeping o’er the banks in summer time; 
And totter-grass, in many a trembling knot, 
And robb’d the molehill of its bed of thyme.”—CLare. 


Thyme is placed to the account of July by Hooker and Forster, 
while Babington truly says June. 

Vicia Cracca in flower. Correctly indicated by Mr. Babington, but 
July according to Hooker and Steele. Poterium Sanguisorba. July, 
Hooker; June, Babington and Steele. 

June 11.—Qénanthe crocata in full flower, and evidently been so 
some days. Mr. Forster indicates June 12, yet all the Floras say 
July, which is rather slow travelling for the present day. Time, the 
season, or the Floras, must be “out of joint” here. Great valerian 
(Valeriana officinalis) also in flower. 

Centaurea nigra in flower. This date must be early for the Cen- 
taurea, but I find a strange discrepancy about it. Hooker gives June 
to August as the time of flowering of the black knapweed; while Ba- 
bington and Steele indicate that it does not flower ¢z// August. This, 
therefore, seems very much like a case of lapsus calami on the part 
of the learned botanists last named. Sir J. E. Smith has June— 
August in the ‘ English Flora,’ which is doubtless right. 

Prunella vulgaris in flower. Forster and all the Floras say July. 

June 12.—Vicia bithynica in full flower at Alfrick. The Floras, 
all to leeward, indicate July. Knautia arvensis in flower. This 
must be an acceleration, as Forster and all the Floras give July. 
Verbascum thapsus in bloom at the top of its spike. The Floras say 
July, but Forster indicates Midsummer-day. 

Carduus acanthoides and palustris in flower. Babington accurately 
states June for the former, but joins with Hooker and Steele in stating 
July for the latter. Forster, more precisely, says early in June. 

Hypericum hirsutum in flower. The St. John’s-worts are well 


199 


known solstitial flowers, generally keeping pretty true to Midsummer, 
but certainly earlier this year. The Floras all indicate July, and yet, 
as Mr. Forster truly observes, ‘‘ coming into flower about St. John the 
Baptist’s-day (June 94), they have thence derived the name of St. 
John’s-wort.” 

Crepis virens in flower. The fairy-ring agaric appeared this day as 
the first fruit of the recent showers, and perhaps indicative of others 
to come. Storms of rain indeed followed till 

June 15.— Geranium pratense in flower. Mr. Forster and the 
Floras all agree here. 

June 19.—Ballota nigra in full flower. The Floras not to time 
again, and Mr. Forster himself behind. The meadow-sweet (Spirea 
Ulmaria) has commenced flowering. Forster and Babington agree as 
to this beginning flowering in June, but Hooker and Steele give the 
later period of July. 

June 20.—Galium Mollugo and palustre in flower, the latter fully 
so. The common name Mr. Forster says should be “our” Lady’s 
Bedstraw, as the Virgin Mary was originally intended. Forster and 
all the Floras say July for both species. 

Many of the composite plants are now in bloom, and among them 
in woody places appear Hieracium murorum and Lactuca muralis. 
The latter would seem to be in advance, as the Floras intimate July 
for it, yet Forster with more exactness says it begins to show early in 
June. _Lapsana communis is also in full flower, leaving the Floras a 
month in the rear, but Forster again exhibits his accuracy of remark 
by indicating the middle of June.  Pyrethrum Parthenium and 
inodorum are also before the time stated in the Floras. 

Corncockle (Lychis Githago) in full flower. The Floras agree as 
to June, but the 28th is the day given by Forster, who, placing it by 
the side of the pretty but rarer Centaurea Cyanus, says they only be- 
come common in July. 

Hypericum pulchrum expanded this day. 

Convolvulus sepium exhibits its large white bells upon the lofty 
bushes close to Shrawley Wood. Certainly much earlier than usual, 
and the Floras are right in giving July as the general month. Mr. 
Forster, too, remarks that the great bellbinder belongs to the estival 
or late summer Flora, and flowers from July 2 to the end of Septem- . 
ber. " 

Deptford pink (Dianthus Armeria) in flower. The Floras say July, 
but I agree with Mr. Forster that it always begins to flower in June. 

I also noticed Reseda luteola, Polygonum amphibium, and Scro- 


200 


phularia aquatica, to be in flower this day ; all ascribed to July by 
the Floras I have examined. 

Rubus Wahlbergii splendidly in flower, allied to R. dumetorum, 
which is also now fully in flower. 

June 23.—The flowering of the various forms of bramble, perhaps 
more than anything else, proves the great acceleration that vegetation 
has received this year. July and August are the general times of 
flowering given by Mr. Babington, and it is seldom that any of the 
species flower in June except R. cesius, dumetorum, and sublustris. 
Yet this day I observed nearly every recorded form in full flower ex- 
cept R. fruticosus; while cesius and dumetorum were abundantly in 
flower in May. 

June 26.— Rubus fruticosus (discolor, Bab.).— The uppermost 
flower in numerous panicles expanded this day. This is the latest to 
flower of any of our Rubi, and in backward seasons does not expand 
its petals before August. This is the earliest date I have ever ob- 
served it. I should remark that the uppermost flowers of the panicle 
in brambles always expand first, and of course first exhibit fruit; so 
that representations of ripe fruit on lower branches with flowers above, 
as in the Eng. Bot. figure of glandulosus, and that of Keehleriin Rub. 
Germ., are incorrect. The lower branches of the panicle are indeed 
often in flower when the upper are in fruit. 

My flowering indications here end, as | think [ have brought for- 
ward instances sufficient to prove my case, though more might have 
been given, and probably others have been presented to observation in 
localities different to my own. 

I would observe, in conclusion, that in comparing my notices with 
the months of flowering given in the Floras of Sir W. J. Hooker, Mr. 
Babington, and Dr. Steele, of Dublin, I have not the slightest inten- 
tion to “hint a fault” at the labours of those learned systematic 
botanists. I wished to establish an acceleration in the flowering of 
many of our wild plants this year, and there appears certainly a 
seasonal discrepancy between us in many of the instances which I 
have remarked upon. Perhaps there is more than this, and I almost 
think that greater precision might attach to the indications of flower- 
ing by the prefix of beginning, middle, or end, to each particular 
month, as the case may be. Doubtless it requires a different eye in 
“some respects, and perhaps a mind somewhat differently moulded, to 
observe living objects abroad and describe at home from specimens ; 
and the technical botanist, in his nice discrimination of species and 
varieties in his library, must trust to the mems. of his friends, in many 


201 


instances, for their exact times of flowering, or copy the undisputed 
statements of his predecessors. 

If it be thought that such an exactitude as I wish can scarcely be 
expected in general Floras, then perhaps it might be useful to have a 
companion Catalogue formed somewhat on the plan of Mr. Forster’s 
‘Flora Spectabilis,’ and indicating, as he does, the “times of first 
flowering, full blow, and going out of bloom.” This, with illustrative 
notes, might be rendered interesting and instructive, even beyond the 
circle of the collecting botanist. 1 only throw out the hint at present. 
Mr. Forster’s work from which I have quoted is, I believe, now out of 
print, and for the pure botanist (though full of curious remarks) is 
rather too overloaded with weather prognostications, astronomical de- 
tails, and references to saints of olden days, who, however, in many 
instances had their names connected with our familiar wild plants. In 
an interleaved catalogue of the kind I advert to, and carried out on 
excursions, memoranda of flowering, habitats, and other details might 
be at once noted, which cannot be so well done in a valuable or bulky 
general Flora, but which would be of great use for reference, and the 
more so as done at the time. 

Epwin LEEs. 

Cedar Terrace, Heuwick, Worcester, 

July 4th, 1848. 


A few Words on the terms Native, Naturalized, and Imperfectly 
Naturalized. [See Phytol. ii. 188]. By S. P. Woopwarp, Esq. 


THE meaning of these terms will be sufficiently obvious to most bo- 
tanists ; if, however, any of your readers require an interpretation, the 
following remarks are very much at their service. 

1. The term native involves the idea of the species having been 
originally created in the region where it is found, or of its having 
migrated into it by natural means, @. e., unassisted by man. For ex- 
ample, the double cocoa-nut appears to be an aboriginal inhabitant 
of the Seychelles Island; whilst the common cocoa-nut has been 
wafted by wind and wave from island to island, extending its range 
every year, until we cannot trace its birth-place. Again, there are 
some geological reasons for believing (and perhaps no_ botanical 
reasons for disbelieving) that a// our British plants have migrated 
here, at some time or other, from various parts of the world ; that none 
of them were originally created here. 


; 202 


The term native may sometimes require to be qualified, but not 
with regard to British plants, which all come under the same cate- 
gory. 

2. Naturalized species are those which have been introduced 
purposely or accidentally by man, and finding conditions suitable for 
them, have continued to exist without artificial aid, and often in de- 
fiance of attempts at their extirpation. Some of these are medicinal 
plants, held in esteem long ago by monk and simpler, now only by 
the herbalist, such as the hellebore and birthwort, monks’hood and 
master-wort, belladonna, opium-poppy, and perhaps Carduus “ bene- 
dictus ! ” 

Of these the hellebores and belladonna have spread themselves over 
particular limestone districts, such as the Downs, the Chiltrens, and 
the Cottes Wolds, and so identified their distribution with undoubted 
natives, that I for one do not believe in their alleged modern and arti- 
ficial introduction. Others are pot-herbs and garden flowers, found 
near the ruins of mountains, or where cottage-gardens have been; or 
they may have been introduced in field-crops, and have established 
themselves by waysides and in waste places. The list of these’is nu- 
merous. I will only mention lucerne and flax and gold-of-pleasure, 
the winter aconite and pxony, various anemones, pinks, and honey- 
suckles, larkspur and candy-tuft, horse-radish and salsafie, saffron, 
coriander and ecarraway, balm and borage. 

3. Imperfectly naturalized.—Since the time of Ray many plants 
have been added to the British Flora, and every year adds to the list 
species which require, next year, to be struck off. Foreign vessels 
leave ballast-heaps on our coasts, upon which spring up a harvest of 
plants unknown before, and which are seldom found until farmers 
buy foreign flax and clover-seed, and then come the new dodder and 
Orobanches, grasses, and composite plants, many of which, fortunate- 
ly, do not ripen their seed in England before they are removed with 
the crop, and hence they have not become “ naturalized.”* It is pro- 
bable that many plants which are notoriously on the increase, like the 
nettle, Chenopodia, and Chelidonium majus, require more nitrogenized 
matter than exists in untilled soil; and this is why so few of the field 
and garden crops become permanently naturalized. Buckwheat, 
maize, hemp, and Solanum tuberosum, would be a grand addition to 
the British Flora, quite on a par with the Eschscholtzia, Impatiens, 


* The solitary service-tree in Bewdley Forest has now quite lost the chance it had 
for several centuries of multiplying itself and becoming “ permanently naturalized.” 


203 


Mimuli, and Martagon lilies, which are registered as growing for a 
season on some lonely rubbish-heap. ‘That a great many plants lately 
introduced into this country are fairly in the way of becoming “ natu- 
ralized,” cannot be doubted ; but it is well to keep them in a provi- 
sional list till they have proved their qualifications for permanent resi- 
dence in their adopted country. 

Amongst the doubtful natives there is one for which I wish some 
botanist would speak a good word—the chesnut; perhaps some day 
it will be found in that old and little-explored herbarium the tertiary 
strata, although Mr. Bowerbank has failed to pickle any from Shep- 
py; and meanwhile it might be inquired whether any of our ancient 
structures, like the roof of Westminster Hall, were built of home-grown 
chesnut, or whether it is only the sessile-flowered oak timber, as Mr. 
Cooper suggested. 

Those who live in the country, especially in the eastern counties, will 
witness, not without regret, a change going on in the distribution of . 
our wild plants, which threatens to be as complete as any change re- 
lated by the geologist. Every year the habitats for the more interest- 
ing plants, those which have small power of multiplying or migrating, 
become fewer, and half a century hence botanists will doubt whether 
the Pyrola, Vacciniums, Andromeda, Convallaria multiflora, Oreopte- 
ris, Lycopodia selago and clavatum, &c., ever grew in Norfolk. In 
their place we shall have a number from amongst that kind of plants 
which in the ‘ London Catalogue’ are said to be “imperfectly natu- 
ralized.” 

S. P. Woopwarp. 

July, 1848. 


Note on the Loose and sometimes Incorrect manner in which the 
Time of the Flowering of Plants is given in our Manuals of 
British Botany. By C. Drew Snooxe, Esq. 


I po not know whether in the pages of the ‘ Phytologist’ attention 
has been at all directed to the loose and sometimes incorrect manner 
in which the time of plants’ flowering is given in our Manuals of 
British Botany. A greater degree of exactitude in this respect seems 
highly desirable, and would, I presume, be easily attainable, if those 
botanists who, like myself, are but tyros in the science, were to have 
their attention directed to this subject as one within the compass of 


204 


their abilities, and were to carry on for a few years a series of observa- 
tions on the beginning and ending of the time of flowering of all those 
plants that may be situated conveniently for observation in the locality 
of each observer. In each year an observation should be recorded of 
the earliest day the plant was observed to flower, and the latest day 
on which it was seen in blossom, and after some years a comparison 
of these observations would give an average day for a commencing 
and terminating date, which might be inserted in our botanical 
manuals thus, May 12—July 5; instead of the vague “June and 
July,” &c., as at present. - 

It is likely, however, that a considerable difference in the flowering 
time of the same plant would be observed in distant parts of Britain ; 
in some plants more than in others. 

A few days ago, June 20, I walked a distance of eleven miles and 
back to obtain a specimen of buckbean (Menyanthes trofcliata), and 
was much disappointed on reaching the spot at being unable to find 
a single flower; there were some flowering stems with fruit in various 
stages of maturity. Yet in Hooker’s ‘ British Flora’ and other works 
this plant is stated to flower in June and July. 

I trouble you with these remarks in the hope that you or some 
equally competent person may be induced to bring the subject before 
the readers of the ‘ Phytologist.’ 

C. D. SNOoKE. 


Newport, Isle of Wight, 
July 3, 1848. 


[Our correspondent will find observations on the same subject in 
various numbers of the ‘ Phytologist.’ We think it one of far greater 
interest than our leading botanical writers, 2. e., Hooker and Babing- 
ton, seem to consider it. In neither the ‘ British Flora’ nor ‘Manual’ 
do we find evidence of care or of personal observation in the records 
of the time of flowering: it is our individual opinion that care and 
personal observation are needful in every branch of the science; and 
we have frequently wished the dates of flowering in these two works 
wholly expunged, or, what would be perhaps still better, introduced 
here and there from the actual observations of the writer. Why 
should not the dates be given with a view to positive utility, instead 
of being introduced like the numbers preceding the specific name as 
a mere matter of form ‘—ED. | 


205 


Notes and occasional Observations on some of the Rarer British 
Plants growing wild in Hampshire. By Wm. ARNOLD Brom- 
FIELD, M.D., F.L.S., &c. 


In presenting the readers of the ‘ Phytologist’ with the following 
list of Hampshire plants, my object has been to promote our know- 
ledge of the geographical distribution of the species in Britain, which 
important branch of philosophical Botany is now, through the impulse 
happily given it by the labours of Mr. H. C. Watson, beginning to re- 
ceive its due share of attention in this country. The time is gone 
by when such catalogues are to be viewed and their utility measured 
by their fitness as vehicles for the communication of mere rarities to 
the collector. For this reason it is that so many of the plants now 
enumerated are such as must be called common in Hants and the ad- 
jacent counties, but as restricted in their general range over the king- 
dom, the epithet is to be understood in the same limited sense. 

An early communication of this catalogue having been requested by 
the editor, it is offered in a less complete state than I could have 
wished. Some habitats are omitted for want of time to look over the 
lists and notices I have been favoured with from numerous corre- 
spondents, whose kind and zealous co-operation I shall have the 
pleasing duty of gratefully acknowledging in another place. These 
omissions, with I hope some new accessions to our county Flora, I 
trust to supply when the last part of these notes goes to press. Many of 
the older stations recordedin Turner and Dillwyn’s ‘ Botanist’s Guide’ 
are copied from the ‘ Hampshire Repository, and are generally attri- 
buted to Dr. Pulteney. I have taken them from the original and now 
very scarce volumes, for the perusal of which I am indebted to the 
kindness of a friend in Ryde. When the locality for a plant is not 
followed by the name of an observer, the occurrence of the species 
therein rests on my own authority, as having been personally seen 
there; in all other cases the name of the first discoverer or recorder 
is subjoined, either followed or not by one, two, or three notes of 
admiration. When no such interjectional sign is placed after a name, 
the station and species are taken on the sole credit of the observer. 
A single (!) implies that a dried specimen has been seen from the al- 
leged habitat; two such marks indicate the receipt of afresh or living 
example; and three, the verification by myself of both plant and sta- 
tion. Plants certainly introduced are marked ({) ; those doubtfully 
indigenous with a (+), as being the signs usually employed for this 
purpose. 

VoL.? 111. 2 F 


206 


Clematis Vitalba. Most abundantly throughout the couaty, and 
the Isle of Wight, wherever the soil contains any notable proportion 
of calcareous earth; our thick tufted hedgerows often seeming as if 
weighed down by the oppressive luxuriance of this very ornamental 
climber. 

Thalictrum flavum. Apparently rare. Oram’s Harbour, Winton; 
Mr. W. Whale! Near Southampton and at Shawford; Miss G. E. 
Kilderbee. Hill Head; Mr. W. L. Notcutt. Twyford water meadows ; 
Dr. A. D. White. Near Wickham and Droxford; Pulteney, in 
Hamp. Rep. Extremely rare in the Isle of Wight. 

Myosurus minimus. Corn-fields and waste ground. Near Bishop’s 
Waltham, and probably not rare on the mainland of Hants. Very 
common, and in some years most abundant, in the Isle of Wight. 

Adonis autumnalis. Corn-fields. Matterley Farm; Dr. Pulteney, 
in Hamp. Rep. Wonston and Bullington; Rey. D. Cockelton. In 
several parts of the Isle of Wight, but rare. 

Ranunculus Lingua. Sowley Pond; Mr. R. Jefferd. In several 
places in the Isle of Wight, but not general. Water meadows be- 
tween Lord Rodney’s Park and Bishop’s Sutton, plentifully ; Mr. H. 
C. Watson. 


hirsutus. By the baths at Lymington; observed on a 
late visit to this my native town, and during an unsuccessful search 
for the long-lost Scirpus parvulus. Isle of Wight, but not common. 
parviflorus. About Lymington and Southton, in vari- 
ous places. Andover; Mr. W. Whale. Very frequent in the Isle of 
Wight. 


arvensis. Common in the county. Much too abun- 
dant in the Isle of Wight in the corn-fields of our slovenly farmers. 
+ ?Helleborus viridis. At Langrish, near Petersfield ; Miss G. E. 
Kilderbee!!! but Iam not quite satisfied that it is truly wild there. 
Wood at Tigwell, near West Meon; Miss E. Sibley!! I have heard 
of other stations, either for this or the following species, in the neigh- 
bourhood of Petersfield, but am not yet sufficiently informed on the 
subject to communicate them here. 
Jetidus. Truly wild but not common in our vast 
beech woods, called in the county “hangers ”;* where it occupies the 
steep sloping sides of the chalk hills, as I have seen H. niger do those 
of the Apennine and Austrian Alps. Selborne, as noticed by White. 


* In this word the g is pronounced as if belonging to the second syllable, han-ger, 
not to the first, as in its more commonly known meaning. 


207 


Aquilegia vulgaris. Woods and copses, also in furze brakes in 
places innumerable in the county. Truly wild in upland situations ; 
rarer and perhaps generally naturalized in the lower more enclosed 
country. Bordean. Near Hambledon; Dr. Pulteney, in Hamp. Rep. 
Sinkhorn’s Coppice, Otterbourne; Miss A. Yonge. Near Fording- 
bridge; Miss May. About West Meon, with white, red, and blue 
flowers; Miss E. Sibley. Hockley; Miss L. Legge. Wherwell Wood, 
near Andover; Mr. Whale. In various parts of the Isle of Wight ; 
truly indigenous. 

+ ?Delphinium Consolida. Corn-fields occasionally, but rare. Near 
Andover; Mr. W. Whale. Very rare in the Isle of Wight, and 
probably brought in with seed corn. 

tAconitum Napellus. Naturalized in wet ground in a few places 
both in the county and Isle of Wight; but certainly this alpine plant 
is nowhere native in Hampshire. Near Warnford; Rev. E. M. Sladen. 

+?Berberis vulgaris. Pinglestone Down, near Old Alresford ; 
Mr. J. Forder! but not having yet seen the station, I cannot say 
whether this shrub is indigenous there or not. Very rare in the Isle 
of Wight, and I think certainly not wild in its only locality, a field 
hedge near Thorley. 

Nymphea alba. Not, I believe, rare on the mainland of the 
county, though with the following unknown to the Isle of Wight in a 
wild state. Abundant with Isnardia palustris in a pool just out of 
Brockenhurst towards Lyndhurst. Ditches near the Grange Farm at 
Gomer Pond, Gosport. Near Titchfield and Romsey; Dr. Pulteney, 
in Hamp. Rep. Newbury Common, near Hurstbourne; Miss Had- 
field! Cultivated for ornament in the Isle of Wight. 

Nuphar lutea. Pool at Embley, near Romsey, 1844. Boarhunt 
Mill; Dr. Pulteney, in Hamp. Rep. Unknown in the Isle of Wight, 
though I have no reason to suppose it rare in the county generally. 

Glaucium luteum. Common on the Hampshire coasts, on both 
sides of the Solent. 

Chelidonium majus. I mention this plant because though com- 
mon in most parts of England, as well as on the main land of Hants, 
it is decidedly the reverse in the Isle of Wight, where, if it cannot be 
called exactly rare, it is at least extremely local. 

Papaver hybridum. Frequent and sometimes abundant in the Isle 
of Wight, and probably on the mainland of Hants. All the other spe- 
cies, excepting P. somniferum, are common weeds throughout the 
county. ‘The latter comes up copiously at Ventnor, Isle of Wight, 
wherever the ground is disturbed for building, with single, full or 


208 


double, white or purple, flowers. ‘These flourish for a season, and 
then disappear till a new crop is brought to light by the same artifi- 
cial agency. 

Corydalis claviculata. In woods, thickets, and on moist shady 
banks, both on the main and Isle of Wight, but not common. ° Plen- 
tiful near Netley Abbey, and elsewhere about Southton. At Sowley 
Pond;.Mr. R. Jefferd ! ; 

Fumaria capreolata. In the Isle of Wight, pretty frequently. 
Most likely not rare on mainland, Hants, but I have not myself yet 
remarked it. 

Matthiola incana. Abundant and truly wild on cliffs of chalk 
and green sand on the southern and western coasts of the Isle of 
Wight, firmly rooted on the often perpendicular face of the naked 
chalk rock, defying all the blasts and storms of winter to dislodge it, 
and scenting the evening breeze with its delicious fragrance in 
spring and early summer. Mr. Babington describes the flower as 
“ dull pale red ;” I find them, on the contrary, of a full purple, with a 
rich velvet-like lustre, though liable to vary in intensity. He has 
very properly marked the wild plant as perennial, many stems occur- 
ring of several years’ growth, as thick as the wrist and perfectly lig- 
neous. 

+Cheiranthus Cheiri. Common in the county and island on old 
walls and buildings, but not looking like a true native. 

+?Barbarea precox. Quite a weed in very many parts of the Isle 
of Wight; on banks, fields, and even in woods, the ground being 
often completely yellow with it. Itis known here as “ bank cress,” and 
is very superior to B. vulgaris as a salad herb, from its greater 
pungency and more delicate flavour. The latter is a far less common 
species here, and chiefly confined to sides of streams and ditches ; the 
other is said to have been originally introduced to England, but is 
now as completely naturalized as any of our indubitable natives. I 
have ouce or twice fallen in with a specimen of a Barbarea having the 
pods appressed, possibly the B. stricta of the ‘Manual of British 
Botany,’ but my very few and imperfect specimens, quite out of 
blossom, have not put it in my power to decide on their identity with 
this last. 

Turritis glabra. 1 searched carefully for this plant, by directions 
kindly given to me by my friend Mr. W. Pamplin, the discoverer of 
it in the county, betwixt Froxfield and Privet, but without success, 
owing doubtless to the want of sufficiently minute indications, which 
the lapse of many years made it almost impossible for him to afford. 


209 


Arabis hirsuta. Abundant about Winchester; Dr. A. D. White! 
Isle of Wight, chiefly at Newport and about Carisbrooke Castle ; very 
local. 

Cardamine amara. Side of river between Titchfield and Hill 
Head; Mr. W. L. Notcutt. Absent from the Isle of Wight Flora. 

+ ?Hesperis matronalis. Near Wamford; Mr. Vickery. Formerly 
gathered at Bonchurch, Isle of Wight, I believe by Mr. Dawson 
Turner; and more recently, at the same place, by my friend John 
Curtis, Esq., who has figured the specimen in his exquisite work on 
British Entomology, vol. x., t. 435. I have never yet seen this spe- 
cies myself in the county, and doubt its claim to be considered as na- 
tive. It occurs plentifully in the grounds at Old Park, in this island, 
but too manifestly a stray from the flower-border to warrant its admis- 
sion even as a naturalized species. 

Brassica oleracea. Very vare at Ventnor, Isle of Wight, but 
extremely sparingly, in one station only. A specimen or two here and 
there on the cliffs occasionally. 

Diplotaxis tenuifolia. Abundant on old walls at Southampton. 
Not found in the Isle of Wight. 

tAlyssum calycinum. In plenty in a field near Bury Hall, Alver- 
stoke, on the way across the fields from thence to Privet; Miss L. S. 
Minchin! The ground was in corn this year when I visited the sta- 
tion, but the plant may reappear after harvest, or when next in lay. 
It was growing, I understand, with Camelina sativa, a curious circum- 
stance, as that plant is thought only to be found in flax-fields with 
us. On the continent it is not restricted to that crop, the culture of 
which has long been abandoned in this part of England. 

Cochlearia danica. Abundant on the flat shore of Stokes Bay. 
Very rare in the Isle of Wight. On High Down at Freshwater. 

t ?Armoracia rusticana. Meadows and pastures in several parts of 
the Isle of Wight; in some of its stations having much the look of a 
native, but seldom flowering ‘in any. More commonly it is found 
near houses, and was formerly abundant and still maintains its ground 
in the stiff soil of the Dover at Ryde, but never blossoms there. 

Thlaspi arvense. Fields in the Isle of Wight, but very local. 

Teesdalia nudicaulis. Southsea Common; Mr. Hudson!  Plenti- 
ful on the shore at Anglesea; Miss L. Minchin!!! Abundantly on 
sandy heaths and commons between Farnham and Petersfield; Mr. 
W. Pamplin. Not yet observed in the island, but I can scarcely 
think it is really wanting here. 

Lepidium campestre. Extremely common in cultivated fields on 


210 


hedge-banks and waysides in most parts of the Isle of Wight, and I 
believe not rare in the county generally. 

Lepidium Smithit. On banks and dry waste ground in many parts 
of the main and island. Frequent about Lymington and Southton. 

It is remarkable that in framing the specific characters betwixt this 
species and the last, one of the most obvious and therefore best diag- 
nostic marks has been overlooked by British writers, almost the only 
ones who could be expected to discover this striking difference in the 
habit of L. Smithii, since it is unknown over the greater part of the 
continent in a wild state. In L. campestre the stem is erect and 
simple, or copiously and corymbously branched in a very regular 
manner, the branches being straight and somewhat erect and forming 
aleveltop. In L. Smithii the usually numerous stems are always 
either ascending, inclining, or at most suberect, more commonly 
spreading or decumbent, and when not simple, branched only at the 
summit, the branches fewer, shorter, curved upwards and divaricate 
or spreading, not as in the other erect and forming a regular panicu- 
late corymb. 

ryuderale. Near Southton, as mentioned in Bot. Guide!!! 

Senebiera Coronopus. A very common weed under walls and in 

waste ground throughout the county and island. 

didyma. Rare? In great abundance under walls and 
on sea-banks along the east shore of the river at Lymington, for per- 
haps a couple of hundred yards below the last houses. Very rare in 
the Isle of Wight at East Cowes, and now I fear almost extirpated by 
building. Andover; Mr. W. Whale! a remarkably inland station for 
a plant commonly found only on or near the sea coast. 

Crambe maritima. On the shore at Calshot Castle, where the plant 
is blanched by covering it with the sand, and so prepared is sent to 
the London markets. Western Court; Dr. Pulteney, in Hamp. Rep. 

Reseda lutea. Not rare in the chalky parts of the county. Very 
common about Andover, and from thence to the Andover-road sta- 
tion. Rather uncommon in the Isle of Wight, where R. luteola is, on 
the contrary, of sufficiently frequent occurrence. 

Viola odorata. Extremely common in woods, hedges, and thickets, 
throughout the entire county and Isle of Wight, rare in the latter 
with blue flowers, they being here usually white or pale lilac. I can- 
not see the propriety of printing this humble but fragrant favourite of 
spring in the ‘ London Catalogue of British Plants’ in italics, as a sus- 
pected alien. No plant is, in my judgment, more perfectly wild than 
the sweet violet in this and in many other of our southern counties 


211 


at least, though I do not take upon myself to answer for its being so 
in the more northern ones, having never directed my attention to the 
point when a resident in those parts of the kingdom. I suspect, 
however, it is truly wild throughout Europe up to at least 55° of lati- 
tude ; and till within these very few years it’ was always permitted, as 
far as I can find, to enjoy its claim to aboriginality unquestioned ; nor 
can I perceive any just cause why such claim should now be set 
aside after having passed unchallenged from time immemorial. 

Viola hirta. Common in most parts I believe of the county. It 
covers the ground in large patches on the most exposed parts of 
Longwood Warren, near Winchester. Abundant in many parts of the 
Isle of Wight. 
palustris. Cold, wet, boggy thickets in the Isle of Wight, but 
very local, though abundant where found. 
lactea. New Forest, near Boldre. On a heath near Cur- 
bridge, Bishop’s Waltham (Curbridge Common?). Very rare on 
heaths in the island. 
tricolor, var. arvensis. This is mentioned here because it is 
the only form known to me of this very common plant inhabiting the 
Isle of Wight or the mainland of Hants. Though many, rich, rare, 
and lovely are the wild flowers of the south, we cannot here gaze or 
recline on those “ pansied” banks which breezes fresher than our own 
fan into bloom and beauty in the north. The wild heartsease is here 
an insignificant corn-flower, the least attractive of any in the chaplet 
on the brow of Ceres. 

Frankenia levis. Abundant near Portsmouth on banks and in flat, 
salt-marsh ground. In similar places and on chalk cliffs in the Isle 
of Wight, but very local. The leaves are erroneously described as 
linear, being in truth oblong, and only linear by the revolution of their 
margins; this part of the specific character should be framed accord- 
ingly. 

Parnassia- palustris. This elegant plant formerly grew on a tract 
of boggy ground, called William’s Moor, close to Ryde, but long ago 
drained and converted into excellent pasture and arable; Mr. J. 
Lawrence. I have never found it since in any part of the Isle of 
Wight, or heard of its occurrence within the county. 

Drosera rotundifolia. Common in bogs, both here and on the 
mainland. 


longifolia. Gomer Pond, in plenty. Embley, near 
Romsey. In bogs on the New Forest, as all about Tachbury Ower, 
&e., with D. rotundifolia; Mr. W. Pamplin. About Titchfield; Mr. 


212 


W. L. Notcutt; and in various other places. Not found in the Isle 
of Wight. 

Drosera anglica. Forest of Bere; Dr. Pulteney, in Hamp. Rep. 

Tamarix gallica (anglica?). Erroneously introduced as growing 
at Hurst Castle: and Freshwater must be expunged from the Hamp- 
shire Flora, being only known in cultivation as an ornamental shrub 
within the limits of the county. 

N. B. Elatine hexandra and E. Hydropiper grow in Frensham 
Pond, Surrey, close upon the Hampshire border, and may be reason- 
ably expected to occur in the latter county. 

Dianthus prolifer. In some abundance on the turfy parts of Ryde, 
Dover, where I have seldom failed to see it for these last ten years, 
though not always in equal plenty. First noticed there I believe by 
C. C. Babington, Esq. 

Armeria. Gravelly and sandy fields; rare. I have one 
or two mainland stations for this species, but cannot at present refer 
to my authorities. Very rare in the Isle of Wight, though truly wild 
there. 

+ ?Saponaria officinalis. At Odiham and between Cheriton and 
Bramdean; Dr. Pulteney, in Hamp. Rep. Freefolk; Rev. G. F. 
Dawson. I have not as yet seen any Hampshire station for this plant, 
and cannot pronounce upon the claim of the species to be called wild 
with us. The tendency in the flowers to become double is so frequent 
as perhaps to furnish no strong argument against its title to reception 
when the locality itself is above suspicion. In this island the Sapo- 
naria is obviously introduced and but very sparingly naturalized. 

Silene anglica. Abundant in many parts of the Isle of Wight in 
sandy corn-fields, and extremely plentiful amongst turnips at the close 
of summer. Of this we have two well-marked forms. Ist. An up- 
right variety, which I call strzcta, with very erect often simple stem, 
and erect or diverging branches; the capsules on diverging, not reflexed 
pedicels. This, which with Mertens and Koch (Deutschland’s Flora) 
I take to be the S. gallica of authors, is more commonly met with 
amongst corn and summer crops, though sometimes with the follow- 
ing later in the year. 2nd. Var. audumnalis. Stems diffuse or pro- 
cumbent, pedicels (in fruit) finally deflexed. This is a large coarse 
plant, quite unlike the former in habit, with long, straggling, much 
branched stems, two or three feet in length, and much larger, more 
spreading leaves ; abundant in cultivated (chiefly turnip) fields at the 
close of summer, flowering on till destroyed by the frost. I can find 
no structural difference betwixt these two forms beyond those of habit, 


213 


which I am inclined to think derive their origin from the season, the 
coldness and humidity of the late autumnal month producing a succu- 
lent and plethoric state of the plant and a greater development of all 
its parts. I nowhere find the latter variety distinctly mentioned as 
such, remarkable as it certainly is. 

Silene nutans. Shores of Stokes Bay, Gosport. Abundant on 
sandy banks in Sandon Bay, Isle of Wight, and on the brow of a 
steep precipice above St. Lawrence, where it was first remarked by 
John Curtis, Esq., author of the beautiful work on British Entomology. 
maritima. Abundant in Stokes Bay. Rare in the Isle of 
Wight at East Cowes, &c. Surely distinct enough from S. inflata ? 
noctifiora. Said to be found at Alverstoke. Brown Down in 
Stokes Bay; Miss Jane Garrett. I have not yet seen Hampshire spe- 
cimens, but hope to report it a native ere long. 

Lychnis vespertina. 
diurna. Both these are extremely abundant in the Isle of 
Wight, though dissevered in many parts of Britain. Surely very dis- 
tinct as species? 

Spergula subulata. Isle of Wight, rare, on high gravelly or stony 
pastures. 


nodosa. Wetsandy ground. Rare in the Isle of Wight. 

Alsine peploides. Abundant on the Hampshire coasts. 

Stellaria glauca. Bogs on the borders of Hampshire towards 
Farnham; Mr. O. Newnham. 

Menchia erecta. Profusely, and whitening the ground on many 
parts of the shore in Stokes Bay. Abundant on many of the Isle of 
Wight downs, at some hundreds of feet elevation. 

Malachium aquaticum.  Plentiful, but rather local in the Isle of 
Wight in wet places, damp thickets, &c. 

Cerastium arvense. Abbotston Downs (near Old Alresford) ; Mr. 
W. Pamplin. 

[To be continued]. 


W. A. BROMFIELD. 
Eastmount House, Ryde, Isle of Wight, 


July 5th, 1848. 


Supposed Scotch Locality for Asplenium fontanum. By the Rev. 
W. T. BREE, M.A. 


I wisH to put a question to you on the subject of a somewhat 
doubtful species of British fern. But first of all, having the pen in 
WoL: II. 2G 


214 


my hand to write to you, I cannot resist the inclination I feel to offer 
you my thanks for your critique on Mr. Andrew Jackson Davis’s 
‘ Principles of Nature ’* in the June number (Phytol. ii. 149). Judg- 
ing from the extracts which you have given from that work, and this 
is all I know about it, 1 cannot for a moment suppose that it ever can 
‘become popular among the readers of the ‘ Phytologist,’ or even be 
perused by them without disgust. _ However, you have done well in 
warning botanists against such pernicious absurdities; and I cannot 
but applaud you for having on this occasion dropped the editorial we, 
and for speaking out in propria persond. But now to turn to the fern, 
which is a more agreeable subject. Are botanists aware of any native 
habitat of the Polypodium fontanum of Hudson (Asplenium fontanum 
of Francis)? or is it not generally believed that this elegant species 
is no longer to be found wild in Britain, if indeed it ever had a legiti- 
mate claim to be considered native? In the first edition of your 
‘History of British Ferns’ you notice the plant, incidentally, as I may 
say, among your preliminary remarks at p. 4, and give a figure of it 
at the foot of the page; but it seems to have been entirely omitted in 
the second and enlarged edition. On a visit a few weeks ago to 
Lady Maria Finch, at Boxley Abbey, near Maidstone, I observed in 
her garden a living plant of P. fontanum: upon asking the gardener, 
a very intelligent Scotchman, where the fern had been procured, and 
remarking at the same time, that, of course, it was of foreign, not 
British origin, he assured me he received it from a friend in Scotland, 
who had gathered it in a spot where he had himself previously found 
it in some abundance. I took down from his mouth in pencil the 
exact locality for the fern; but regret to say that I have accidentally 
lost the memorandum, and my memory will not serve me to state even 
the county in which this rarity is still to be found. The present most 
unsatisfactory notice, however, may serve to put botanists on the look- 
out, and may prove the means, perhaps, of reinstating a supposed lost 
species to its rightful place in the list of British ferns. 


W. T. BREE. 
Allesley Rectory, July 6, 1848. 


* JT have received a number of letters expressing similar sentiments to those of 
Mr. Bree, but I am not aware that any others were designed for publication.—E. N. 


215 


Occurrence of Potamogeton rufescens and P. prelongus near 
Kelvedon. By E. G. VARENNE, Esq. 


THE remark of the Rev. A. Bloxam in the last number (Phytol. 
ili. 183), that “a botanist may almost every year be finding something 
new in his neighbourhood,” will be acknowledged to be true by most 
of those who have followed the calling of field-botanist for any length 
of time. It has often been my lot to wander by the banks of the 
meandering Blackwater during the last ten or a dozen years, without 
being able to discover any other Potamogeton than Potamogeton 
lucens, growing in abundance in the stream. Circumstances lately 
induced me to make a more accurate examination of our river pond- 
weeds, and the result is that Potamogeton lucens is really uncommon 
for about two miles of the course of the river as it surrounds the vil- 
lage of Kelvedon. Its place is supplied by Potamogeton rufescens, 
which presents itself in large masses in the bed of the river. Very 
few floating leaves are formed under such circumstances, and the 
flowers are elevated above the surface of the water without these ap- 
pendages. My attention was first-attracted to this circumstance by a 
plant which I was fortunate enough to discover while in the company 
of a fellow botanist, Mr. Bentall,in a pond near Mark’s Hall, Cogges- 
hall, in which there were as many stems in flower without floating 
leaves as there were with them. The wingless stipules, equal peduncles, 
and the form of the leaf, clearly distinguish this variety of rufescens 
from Potamogeton lucens. In drying, whether furnished with floating 
leaves or not, the peduncles, uppermost leaves, and stipules, assume a 
purplish tint. 

There is also at the present time a fine bed of Potamogeton pre- 
longus in full bearing in one situation, where it is surrounded by plan- 
tations of Potamogeton rufescens. The long peduncles and branched 
habit of Potamogeton prelongus, with the remarkable tips of its leaves, 
and their unequal size, togther with the entire submersion of the plant, 
are abundantly characteristic. 


E. G. VARENNE. 
Kelvedon, July 11, 1848. 


216 


Notice of the Discovery of Filago Jussiei near Saffron Walden. 
By G. 8. Gisson, Esq., F.L.S. 


Tuis plant I gathered four or five years ago, about eight miles from 
this town, observing a very marked peculiarity in the manner of its 
growth, but not properly examining it at that time, passed it over as 
simply a variety of F. germanica, and have specimens of it so labelled 
in my herbarium. My attention was again called to it a short time 
ago by Joshua Clarke, when on a botanical excursion in Cambridge- 
shire, and on examining the specimens brought home, and comparing 
them with those of F. germanica from the same locality, I was at once 
convinced that it was a distinct species, and probably F. Jussizi of 
Cosson and Germain. This opinion has been confirmed by several 
of our most eminent British botanists, and I have since been informed 
by one of them that it has been found simultaneously in Dorsetshire 
and Sussex. The locality for it in this neighbourhood is road-sides 
and cultivated fields, on a sandy soil, in the borders of Cambridgeshire 
and Essex. It frequently grows intermixed with F. germanica, but 
always, so far as I have observed, preserves its distinctive characters. 
Whether or not it is similar to the one called F. apiculata by G. E. 
Smith, and described in a former number of the ‘ Phytologist’ (Phytol. 
ii. 575), I am unable to decide, for although it appears to agree in some 
respects with that description, yet in others there isa decided difference. 

The following are some of the more striking points by which it may 
always be readily distinguished from F. germanica. Heads with much 
fewer flowers, often not half as many as in F. germanica, generally 
less cottony, particularly the young heads, which are overtopped by 
the leaves. Flowers much larger, rather paler in colour, and sharply 
pentagonal. Involucral scales rather broader. Leaves broader, not 
spear-shaped, as those in F. germanica always are, but spathulate, 
broadest near the end, apiculate, narrowed towards the base; more 
loose and spreading on the stem. Stem much more branched, branches 
spreading, nearly horizontal in old plants, slightly ascending in young 
ones. Probably it will be found to be not an uncommon plant on 
light soils. 

G. 8. Gisson. 

July 12, 1848. 


217 


On the Geographical Distribution of British Plants. 
By the Rev. W. H. Coteman, M.A. 


Mucu valuable advice has been given to the authors of local Floras 
in the several works of Mr. Watson, and the present writer has largely 
profited by his suggestions. Having been long engaged in a work of 
this nature, and therefore having, as he trusts he may say without 
presumption, acquired some experience, he has thought that some 
account of the method pursued by himself and his colleague may be 
acceptable to the readers of the ‘ Phytologist, and useful to those 
who shall hereafter be engaged in any similar work. 

In collecting materials for a Flora of an English county, it was soon 
discovered that the work would be extremely imperfect, as a view of 
the botanical productions of the county collectively, unless not only 
diligent search had been made for the rarer species in every part of 
it, but also some security could be given that the prevalence of the 
plants presumed to be common was uniform throughout it. Some 
years after observations had been commenced, it was found that so 
little progress in this respect had been made, that if the materials had 
then been published, the work could hardly have been called a Flora of 
the county, but merely one of two or three of the principal towns, with 
some scattered records of the rest of the county. It was no satisfac- 
tion, however it might have proved an excuse, to observe that many 
others of our local Floras were liable to the same objection; and it 
was therefore determined to seek a remedy for the defect. 

The first plan that suggested itself for this purpose was that of 
forming catalogues of plants found within a circle of five miles radius 
round each of the principal towns of the county. But upon tracing 
these circles on a map it was found that some of them would partially 
overlie one another; while large tracts remote from any large town 
would still be excluded. Some plan was therefore sought which should 
not be liable to either of these objections. And first the purely geo- 
metrical one was tried of dividing the whole county into a series of 
irregular hexagons, by joining the points dissecting the distance be- 
tween every two adjacent principal towns. ‘This was easily enough 
done on the map, but was found to be useless in the field, and after 
some trial was given up. The old political divisions called hundreds 
were proposed, but found too arbitrary: and unions of parishes were 
found to give unnatural districts difficult to determine in the field. It 
was therefore at length determined to adopt some purely natural divi- 


218 


sion, which might readily be marked upon any good map at home, and 
easily be recognized by a good eye in the field. And a system of 
division founded upon the river drainage was preferred to all others, as 
on the whole most likely to give useful botanical results, and as falling 
in with Mr. Watson’s system of provinces, of which indeed it was the 
carrying out into particulars. After some consideration, and some 
changes, the county was divided into twelve districts, averaging about 
fifty statute square miles each, and consisting as far as possible of the 
basins, or definite portions of the basins, of the principal rivers. 

All former observations on the frequency of the more ordinary spe- 
cies were now considered as relating exclusively to the home district ; 
and for the others, when catalogues could not be obtained from resi- 
dent correspondents, expeditions were undertaken to them for the 
purpose of ascertaining their common, as well as rare productions. 
As soon as the number on record in any district approached 400, 
the still unobserved species which seemed likely to occur there were 
formed into lists of desiderata. Some curious features, which had 
formerly escaped notice, or were matters of mere surmise, now began 
to come to light, or to receive confirmation. Digitalis, Conium, Po- 
tentilla argentea, Artemisia vulgaris, Carex paniculata, and others 
which the experience of the home district alone would have set down 
as common, were now found to be either wholly wanting or very scarce 
in some of the districts: while others, as Trifolium fragiferum, Ophrys 
apifera, Carex axillaris, &c., which home experience had seemed to 
prove rare, were found to be widely distributed over the county: and 
scarcely a fourth part of the whole Flora was found to be so universally 
distributed as to occur in every one of the twelve districts. | Another 
advantage of the plan was that the desire to obtain as complete a list 
as possible for each of the districts induced repeated excursions into 
most of them in succession; whereby not only were their recorded 
Floras increased, but new species and new stations for the rarer ones 
were frequently brought to light: and that correspondents, having a 
local interest in the reputation of their respective districts, were stimu- 
lated to increase their diligence. And thus, though the more distant 
districts could not be expected to be equally well explored with those 
nearer home, the Flora of the county is at least in a great measure 
rescued from the reproach which it would otherwise have been 
susceptible of, and can no longer be charged with offering a single 
brick as a specimen of the whole house. 

In fact, the plan of subdivision above detailed has been found to be 
attended with so much advantage, that the adoption of one of a similar 


219 


kind is strongly recommended to all botanists about to undertake the 
task of compiling county Floras. For experience has shown that it 
is almost impossible for any one person, however active, satisfactorily 
to examine an area of more than four or five miles radius round his 
own residence, unless he has unlimited command of time. Any county 
therefore proposed to be examined should be divided into as many 
districts, of from fifty to eighty square miles each on the average, as it 
conveniently and naturally can be. Even much smaller districts than 
this would often be desirable, if there were any reasonable probability 
of obtaining catalogues of their productions. But as there are com- 
paratively few botanists in any one county who are capable of form- 
ing such catalogues, and the editor-in-chief will generally be driven 
to rely very much on his own observations, he will be forced to dimi- 
nish the number and increase the size of the districts beyond what 
would be advantageous if practicable. 

It may be useful to add an account of the method pursued in cata- 
loguing the plants of a district. A book was prepared containing the 
county list in single columns, with twelve ruled columns on the same 
page, corresponding to the number of districts. Some promising spot, 
as central as possible within any district, was then repaired to, and 
the observer started on his walk with a small vasculum in hand, in 
which he deposited a small characteristic “pinch” (no larger than 
was absolutely necessary for indentification) of every species that oc- 
curred. When the box grew full, or a convenient halting-place was 
reached, the prepared list was taken in hand and deliberately read 
through: and as often as it occurred to the memory that such a spe- 
cies had been gathered, a figure corresponding to the number of the 
district was entered in the proper column opposite to its name. When 
the list had thus been gone through seriatim, the collecting box was 
opened, and its contents singly but rapidly removed; and if it was 
doubted concerning any of them whether or not it had been recorded, 
the book was referred to. This was seldom necessary with a tolerable 
memory, not more than 1 per cent. being generally omitted in the 
first marking. The box being emptied, the walk was renewed and a 
second collection made of everything not previously recorded. In 
this manner as many as 300 species have been catalogued in a single 
day. Iftwo hunt together this process is much expedited, and in de- 
fault of leisure of the principal, at any particular season, the services 
of a beginner may be made use of, to bring or send from the district 
a fragment of every species he may meet with. 

After a considerable number (about 400) had been catalogued, a 


220 


“ desiderata list” was formed for each district. These were arranged 
in six classes, which were found very natural and convenient in prac- 
tice; namely, 1. Arvenses, z. e., corn-field plants; 2. Pratenses, 
meadow and pasture plants; 3. Sylvestres, or wood plants; 4. Sepin- 
cole, hedge and road-side plants; 5. Domestice, plants growing on 
walls or about houses; and 6. Aquatiles, marsh and water plants. 
With these lists in hand especial search was now made for the missing 
species in their respective habitats, and as they were found, they were 
struck out. It is obvious that these, escaping as they did the first re- 
searches, must in general have been of less frequent occurrence than 
others found at an earlier period; though some latitude was required 
for season, or the inconspicuous nature of the plants. 

The data acquired in the course of the investigation of the Flora of 
the county in question on the above plan, may serve to correct the 
statement of Mr. Watson (in one of his works, which the writer has 
not now at hand to quote with precision), to the effect that a single 
square mile will be found to contain half the species of a county. This, 
however, will be found to be a considerable overstatement, unless a 
square mile be selected containing every variety of soil and situation. 
If it be assumed that a certain number (/) of species are common to 
every square mile of a county, and that the remainder are uniformly 
distributed over it, so that every additional square mile should add so 
many additional species to the Flora of the list; then if F and F’ be 
respectively the numbers in the Floras of the whole county (contain- 
ing a square miles), and of any portion of it containing 2 square miles : 
ak’ —nF 

a—n- 

For the particular county in question this formula gives 502 species 
common to each square mile; the whole Flora being about 900: so 
far more than confirming Mr. Watson’s estimate. But there are two 
things which entirely vitiate the above calculation. For first, the law 
of distribution assumed makes all but the most common species equally 
rare, which every botanist knows to be contrary to the truth. And 
secondly, the square mile has been assumed to be an average one: 
that is, to contain clay, sand, gravel, limestone, peat, &c., arable, 
pasture, heath, wood, waste, streams, bog, marsh, standing water, &c., 
in similar proportion to the county at large: all of which it is needless 
to say can hardly be found in one and the same square mile. So that 
instead of five-ninths of the Flora being common to every square mile, 
the writer’s experience has been that scarcely one-fourth is common 
to every fifty square miles. And his opinion is, that if a square mile 


it may easily be shown that f= 


221 


_be taken at a venture, its Flora may be considered as a good one if it 
amount to as many as 200 species. ‘ 
W. H. CoLeman. 
Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, 
July 14th, 1848. 


[The author of the foregoing paper was desirous of its being pub- 
lished anonymously, fearing that it might be considered somewhat 
commendatory of the ‘ Flora of Hertfordshire, a work to which he ob- 
viously refers, and one which is well known to be partially, perhaps 
principally, his own production. Botanists will, however, at once 
perceive that Mr. Coleman’s valuable remarks are merely explanatory, 
not laudatory, and that there is no necessity whatever for my depart- 
ing so far from a positive rule as to publish them without his name.— 


E. N.] | 


Characters of Malva verticillata and Malva crispa. 
By Hewett C. Watson, Esq. 


In the second volume of the ‘ Phytologist’ (Phytol. ii. 936 and 973) 
are some remarks on the Malva verticillata and crispa, between which 
there was difficulty of showing good distinctive characters. Those of 
the fruit, explained by Mr. Borrer and Sir William Hooker, are true 
so far as they go; but they are little obvious unless in the perfectly 
mature state, previous to which the characters assigned for M. verti- 
cillata apply to the fruit of M.crispa. The distinctions afforded by 
the ramification, as pointed out by Mr. Motley, are very obvious in 
examples of the two species now growing in my garden within two 
yards of each other, and originally raised in flower-pots in a frame, 
under conditions of soil, moisture, &c. equalised as exactly as could 
be. Both species grew into upright simple stems, in their early stage. 
After they were turned out of the flower-pots into the open ground, 
their growth became much more luxuriant and branching. The plants 
of M. crispa continued to grow principally upwards by the elongation 
of the stem, which produced distant branches, also tending upwards 
at an angle of thirty degrees, more or less. The plants of M. verticil- 
lata, on the contrary, threw out several branches near the surface of 
the ground, divaricating from the central stem at an angle of fifty de- 
grees, more or less, and giving that verticillate aspect to the ramifica- 
tion which the specific name may have been intended to denote. 

Vor. 1. 2u 


222 


These branches were much stronger on M. verticillata, even thicker 
and longer than the central stem on some of the plants; whereas those 
of M. crispa were comparatively small and short. 

Besides the differences above noted and confirmed, I find some 
others which increase the probability of the two plants being suffi- 
ciently distinct as species. The flowers of M. crispa are larger, with 
their petals scarcely exceeding the calyx, and more widely lobed than 
in the other species; the axis of the fruit is elongated conspicuously 
above the carpels; the stem almost destitute of hairs. In M. verticil- 
lata the flowers are smaller, with narrower petals, which are nearly 
twice the length of their calyx, and the lobes of which do not divari- 
cate like those of the former; the axis of the fruit is broader and 
shorter, scarcely exceeding the carpels; the stem is sprinkled with 
stiff hairs, disposed in a stellate form. 


H. C. Warson. 
Thames Ditton, July 17, 1848. 


Localities for Botrychium lunaria, and Inquiry respecting Sedum 
Forsterianum. By W. TuickIns, Esq. 


In the last number of the ‘ Phytologist’ a new locality for Botry- 
chium lunaria in Leicestershire is given, and as the plant is con- 
sidered to grow but sparingly in Warwickshire also, it may perhaps 
be worth mentioning that last year I found it abundantly a little be- 
yond Moxhall, on some heathy ground on the right of the turnpike 
road from Coleshill to Lichfield, and that a few weeks ago I discovered 
it in a similar habitat near Coleshill Pool, perhaps the same locality 
as that given in Newman, of which I was unconscious at the time. 
Last year also I saw it in quantities, though in a very dwarf state, 
growing with Viola lutea in some high pastures on Masson, near 
Matlock, Derbyshire. I have found it, too, near Wirksworth in the 
same county. 

In your March number, in a remark of yours on Sedum Forsterianum, 
you say “ You were not fortunate enough to meet with it at Barmouth, 
where Mrs. Russell records its occurrence.” 

The enclosed Sedum, which I take to be “ Forsterianum,” is from 
a plant I brought from Barmouth in 1837, and have had in cultivation 
ever since. It grew ina very dry, exposed situation, and only ina 
similar one have I ever prevailed on it to flower. I am therefore 
doubtful on reading your description of the different constitutions of 


223 


the two Sedums, whether it may not be “rupestre” after all. The 
cyme enclosed is the only one on any of my plants this year: it is 
not nearly so characteristic of “ Forsterianum” as the cymes of former 
years have been, not so compact and hemispherical, but it may be 
enough so for your practised eye to decide that it really is the plant 
I hold it to be. 

W. THICKINS. 


Keresley, near Coventry, 
July 18, 1848. 


[The specimen enclosed has lost that distinguishing characteristic 
of colour to which I have before alluded; but although on this ground 
I cannot venture to pronounce any confident opinion on the subject, 
T may state that had not a query been suggested I should have had 
no idea that the plant differed from the ordinary form of Sedum 
rupestre When grown in a dry and exposed situation, such for instance 
as asunny wall. In using the name Sedum rupestre I may as well 
state that I adopt it as conventionally employed by Smith, &c. I have 
great doubts as to its identity with the Sedum rupestre of Linneus and 
continental botanists— Edward Newman. | 


Note on certain Monstrosities in Trientalis europea. 
By W. M. Oeitvig, Esq. 


WHILE botanizing on the first of the present month, in Baldoven 
Woods, about five miles north from Dundee, in company with my 
friend Mr. Gardiner, we found three monstrosities in Trientalis eu- 
ropxa, Z. One had two flowers enclosed in one calyx. Another had 
four, three of which were fully opened. The third had a number of 
the stamens converted into petals. Thinking that these facts may be 
interesting to some of your readers, I send them for insertion in the 
‘ Phytologist.’ 

W. M. OGILVIE. 


Castle Street, Dundee, 
July, 1848. 


224 


Occurrence of Mimulus luteus near Brechin. 
By W. ANDERSON, Esq. 


Durine last month I collected specimens of Mimulus luteus on 
the muir below the bridge of Dun, about four miles from Brechin. 
The plant was in great abundance, and perfectly naturalized. 

Mr. Kerr, of Montrose, has observed it growing near Dun Mill, 
situated near the Brechin road, for the last five years, and here also 
it is most abundant and perfectly naturalized. 

This plant is rapidly spreading itself over the country, and now 
appears in some places to be quite indigenous. Although we are well 
aware of its native origin, and know that in Scotland it must have 
originally been an outcast from a garden, yet I think its claims to a 
place in the British Flora are now fully equal to those of Impatiens 
noli-me-tangere or Iberis amara. 

I have forwarded these observations for publication in the ‘ Phy- 
tologist’ because I regard the record of plants, known to be intro- 
duced, thus naturalizing themselves, as affording additional informa- 
tion on the geographical distribution of plants. 


WILLIAM ANDERSON. 
Dun Nursery, Brechin, 
20th July, 1848. 


[From Mr. Anderson’s observations, and several others which [ 
have met with in different journals, 1 am quite inclined to agree with 
him in regarding Mimulus luteus as now “ perfectly naturalized” in 
Britain. The same may I think be said of the originally American 
Impatiens fulva. The Mimulus and the Impatiens are now to all ap- 
pearance so firmly established that I believe it would be difficult, if 
not impossible, for man to eradicate them. Thus we have two plants 
whose exotic origin is admitted by all, taking up their abode amongst 
us, freely multiplying their kind, and bidding fair to maintain their 
position against all casualties. These instances certainly lead to the 
belief, if not to the conviction, that very many of our now-unques- 
tioned natives may have had a similar exotic origin, and we must 
anticipate that the botanists of future generations will accept the Im- 
patiens and the Mimulus as equally indigenous with those species 
whose introduction bears an earlier and therefore obscurer date. I 
do not see why we should make laws to exclude plants because we 
fancy we have witnessed their introduction: the loss of a rood of 


225 


ground on one coast aud the gain of a rood on another, are no less a 
loss and a gain because they have taken place before our eyes. — 
Edward Newman. | 


BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 


Friday, July 7th, 1848.—John Edward Gray, Esq., F.R.S., Presi- 
dent, in the chair. 

The following donations were announced :— 

‘Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London,’ from November 
16th, 1838, to March 7th, 1848, presented by that Society ; Vols. 1, 
2 and 3 of ‘Transactions of the Zoological Society of London,’ pre- 
sented by that Society ; ‘ Proceedings of the American Philosophical 
Society, presented by that Society ; a parcel of specimens from St. 
Mary’s, Azores, presented by Thomas Carew Hunt, Esq., Her Ma- 
jesty’s Consul at St. Michael’s. Among the specimens are eight spe- 
cies not before ascertained to grow in the Azores, but all found also 
in south Europe. British plants had been received from W. H. 
Purchas. Dr. Semple, F.G.S., of Torrington Square, and John 
Moore, Esq., Surgeon, of Leicester, were elected members. 

Mr. Thomas Sansom presented a specimen of Schistostega pennata, 
H. & T., collected by him in a cave by the side of the mountain 
road from Capel Cerig to Llanrwst, in May last.—G. E. D. 


THE DUNDEE NATURALISTS ASSOCIATION. 


3rd May, 1848.— Mr. Ogilvie (the Secretary), in absence of the 
President, in the chair. 

The ‘Flora of Leicestershire’ was announced as a donation from 
the author to the Association, and a parcel of plants was announced 
from Mr. Ogilvie. 

Mr. Ogilvie read an interesting paper, being an account of three 
days’ botanizing on the Sidlaw hills. The more interesting plants 
found by Mr. Ogilvie we the following: Andrea rupestris, Dicra- 
num heteromallum, Diphyscium foliosum, Fontinalis antipyretica, 
Buxbaumia aphylla, Hypnum triquetrum, Neckera crispa (barren), 
Orthotrichum rupincola, Polytrichum nanum, Trichostomum heterosti- 
chum, 'T. canescens, 8. ertcoides, Arthonia Swartziana, Stereocaulon 
condensatum, Parmelia pulverulenta, Lecanora ventosa, Bzomyces 


226 


roseus, B. rufus, B. placophyllus, Peltidea venosa, Hysterium conige- 
num (new to the county), &c. 

A specimen of Bellis perennis appeared on the table from Mr. Law- 
son, the flower-head of which was oblong, and of extraordinary size. 
A note accompanied the specimen, mentioning that it had been ga- 
thered on the Law hill of Dundee, by Mr. William Hill. 

6th June, 1848.—The President in the chair. 

A paper by Mr. Anderson was read, communicating the two follow- 
ing new stations for rare plants. Specimens of both were exhibited. 

Vinca minor. In a wood to the westward of the farm-house of 
Barrelmill, about two miles from Brechin, abundant and naturalized. 

Carex cespitosa. Brechin Castle Terrace. 

Mr. Lawson communicated the following notes of new localities 
for rare plants in the county :— 

Asperula odorata. Linlathen. 

Aquilegia vulgaris. Lainlathen, naturalized. 

Primula veris. Den of Duntrune, confined to a dry bank, P. vul- 
garis being abundant in the moist and low grounds, but not mingling 
with P. veris on the dry ground referred to. 

Chenopodium Bonus-Henricus. Road-side at south entrance to 
Den of Duntrune, beside the Fragaria elatior station. West side of 
Magdalen Yard Green. 

Origanum vulgare. Very abundant in Den of Balruddery. 

Luzula multifiora, Ley. Linlathen. 

Polemonium ceruleum. Lainlathen, naturalized. 

Petasites vulgaris. With white flowers, near Mains Castle. 

Sedum Telephium. Inner side of a hedge by the road-side be- 
tween Stobswell tavern and the Den of Mains. On a bank by the 
way side, a short way above Adam’s public-house, at Strathmartine. 
Only naturalized in both stations. 

Parmelia physodes. In fruit on trees of a clump at the road-side 
between Adam’s public-house at Strathmartine, and the Sidlaw hills. 

A paper was read by Mr. Ogilvie, being a second visit to the Sid- 
law hills: he exhibited specimens of the plants collected, for some 
of which new stations were mentioned, viz. :— 

Chenopodium Bonus-Henricus. Road-side between Camperdown 
and Dronley. 

Carum Carui. Road-side near Balbenckly farm-house. 

Mr. Ogilvie likewise mentioned that he found the Alchemilla alpina 
on the Sidlaw hills, where it was first found by Mr. Lawson, in 1844. 


227 


Ath July, 1848.—The President in the chair. 

A paper by Mr. Gorrie was read, entitled “The Spring of 1848 ; 
its Climate and Vegetation ;” in which he traced clearly the progress 
of vegetation during the bygone spring, and the effects of the season 
upon it. These observations were prefaced by some general remarks 
on the subject of great interest. 

Mr. Ogilvie exhibited a specimen of Trientalis europea, showing a 
monstrosity in the flower (See Phytol. i. 223). He likewise men- 
tioned having gathered Pyrola minor in Baldovan woods, with white 
flowers. 

Mr. Wyllie exhibited a specimen of Pyrola media from the Sidlaw 
hills, being a new station for the plant. He likewise mentioned the 
occurrence of Dianthus deltoides at the Mains, two miles from 
Dundee. 

Mr. Lawson presented a specimen of Statice Armeria, with the 
flowers elevated on footstalks. He gathered the specimen on the 
rocky coast between Arbroath and Auchmithie. 

John Ord, Esq., of Melmerby, near Ripon, and Mr. George Milne, 
Jun., Dundee, were elected Fellows; and Messrs. George Palmer, 
A. Low, and James Wyllie, Dundee, were elected Associates.—G. L. 


Notice of ‘The Plant; a Biography. Ina Series of Popular Lec- 
tures. By M. J. ScHLEIDEN, M.D., Professor of Botany to the 
University of Jena.’ Translated by ARTHUR HeEnrFrRey, F.L.S., 
&c., Lecturer on Botany at St. George’s, Hospital, London, 
Author of ‘Outlines of Structural and Physiological Botany.’ 
With five coloured plates and thirteen wood-engravings. Lon- 
don: H. Bailliére, 219, Regent Street. 1848. 


Ir is really refreshing to find that there still exist in Germany na- 
turalists of no mean reputation, whose labours demand and really de- 
serve a notice of a very different description from that elicited by the 
ravings which, dignified by the high-sounding title of Physto-philo- 
sophy, were recently imported from that modern cloud-land, and pub- 
lished here under the auspices of one of our learned societies ; and it 
is also gratifying to see that we possess an English botanist, not only 
capable of understanding, but able, as well, to render into intelligible 
and not inelegant vernacular, a popular production of one of the most 
distinguished phytologists of the present day. We do not say that 
Schleiden’s new book is by any means what we expected to find it ; 


228 


nor can we say that we think it what it ought to have been; still it is 
a step, and an important one, in the right direction—that of popular- 
izing one of the most pleasing branches of Natural History.. We are 
especially thankful to Schleiden for the following protest against cer- 
tain insane nothings which have already been exposed in these pages. 
He says :— 

“ True to my own convictions, I have kept free from all the pratings 
of the physio-philosophers of the Schelling school, and I am firmly 
persuaded that science has no need of these fopperies to make it ap- 
pear interesting to the uninitiated. Humboldt in his ‘Views of Nature,’ 
Dove in his masterly ‘ Lectures on the Climate of Berlin, have proved 
that science may really appear lovely and captivating, without adorn- 
ing herself with the false tinsel of those conscious or unconscious 
falsehoods, which would substitute poetry for thought, imagination for 
knowledge, or dreams for truths. I have endeavoured to adorn these 
essays with as many graces as my imperfect zxsthetic culture enabled 
me to impart, but that it has not been my intention to enter the lists 
with those masters of language, need scarcely be mentioned. I be- 
lieve, however, that if men of science would more often seek to intro- 
duce truth into society, in fair attire, the path of that intolerable, 
mystical and pretentious, empty chattering, would be more effectually 
arrested than by any rational argumentation against it.”—p. 2. 

From a casual glance at its contents, Schleiden’s book would at 
first sight appear, like the [rishman’s letter, to treat “de omnibus re- 
bus et quibusdam aliis,” many of the said things seeming to bear 
about as much relation to Botany as to the French Revolution. For 
example, we have one lecture upon ‘The Eye and the Microscope,’ 
another ‘ About the Weather,’ and two in reply to the question ‘ What 
does Man live upon?’ This diversity of subjects, however, upon 
further acquaintance with his pages, is seen to be only a part of the 
author’s plan, and, in connexion with the more purely botanical lec- 
tures, it is skilfully rendered subservient to the aim declared in the 
following extract :— 

“‘ My chief aim was, in fact, the satisfaction of what may be called 
a class-vanity. A large proportion of the uninitiated, even among the 
educated classes, are still in the habit of regarding the botanist as a 
dealer in barbarous Latin names, a man who plucks flowers, names 
them, dries and wraps them up in paper, and whose whole wisdom is 
expended in the determination and classification of this ingeniously 
collected hay. This portrait of the botanist was, alas! once true, 
but it pains me to observe, that now, when it bears resemblance to so 


229 


few, it is still held fast to by very many persons; and I have sought, 
therefore, in the present discourses, to bring within the sphere of ge- 
neral comprehension the more important problems of the real science 
of Botany, to point out how closely it is connected with almost all the 
most abstruse branches of philosophy and natural science, and to show 
how almost every fact, or larger group of facts, tends, as well in 
Botany as in every other branch of human activity, to suggest the 
most earnest and weighty questions, and to carry mankind forward 
beyond the possessions of sense, to the anticipations of the spirit.”— 
pl. 

To this end, instead of treating plants as so many independent be- 
ings, isolated from all other natural objects, the author traces their 
intimate connexion with the rest of organic and inorganic creation— 
with the soil to which they are attached, the air which surrounds them, 
the water in which, as a convenient vehicle for absorption, the various 
matters necessary for their nutriment are contained, and even with the 
animal world, which derives from the vegetable kingdom so large a 
portion of its sustenance. He says :— 

“ The vegetable world, if it be but looked upon as something more 
than the materials for a herbarium, offers so many points of contact 
to the human race, that those who devote themselves to its study, in- 
stead of having to complain of want of material, become oppressed 
with the multitude of interesting questions and problems which crowd 
upon them. The different subjects of consideration may be conveni- 
ently arranged under four aspects; Istly, the condition of the plant 
itself as a question of scientific inquiry; 2ndly, the relations of the in- 
dividual plants to each other; 3rdly, the relations of plants as organisms 
to the organism of the whole earth; and 4thly, the relation of the 
human race to the vegetable world. But since each of these four re- 
lations is fulfilled by the plant at one and the same time, it is infinitely 
difficult, if not impossible, to keep each aspect clear and unmixed ; 
and when we enter upon one of these relations with the desire to sub- 
ject it to closer investigation, we are always involuntarily constrained, 
sooner or later, to direct our attention to the rest, and to draw them 
within the circle of our researches. Though we establish upon these 
questions, according to their order, the following branches of study: 
Theoretical, or Pure Botany; Systematic Botany ; Geographical and 
Applied Botany; yet not one of these can be treated from its own 
principal point of view alone, if it would lay claim to a scientific or 
profound character ; still more difficult is it, however, to keep strictly 
within the boundaries of these four divisions when the object in view 

VOu.. 111. 21 


230 


is not dry scientific teaching, but a lively demonstration of the more 
important points. In the following essays, therefore, the division into 
these four branches can only be adopted to a limited extent, and a freer 
treatment becomes necessary from the abundance of material which 
continually allures us to turn aside from our path, to gather here and 
there a bright or fragrant flower ; or the companionship in which we 
wander through the land of science, induces us oftentimes to leave the 
straight but dusty and fatiguing high road, now to pursue our course 
through lanes which wind among pleasant meadows, now to explore 
a shady forest path.”—p. 3. 

Plants being built up of exceedingly minute cells or vesicles, of 
various forms and as varied contents, it is evident that a thorough ex- 
amination of their internal structure should precede all other conside- 
rations. It is to a careful investigation of the minute crganized con- 
stituents of plants that we owe the immense advances in Botany as a 
science, which have so completely distanced the labours of its early 
cultivators, whose performances were the more valuable in proportion 
as they employed in their researches that instrument to the improve- 
meuts in the construction and mode of using which modern naturalists 
owe much of their pre-eminence. Thus we see that a preliminary 
chapter on the microscope, in connexion witlr the eye as the organ of 
vision, is perfectly relevant to the more immediate subject of the 
succeeding lectures. Of sight, the author well observes, that “it is 
the sense which originally introduces and unceasingly expands our 
whole knowledge of the corporeal world, and we may, therefore, with 
great propriety, call it the Sense of the Naturalist ;” for, in the words 
of Seneca, appropriately used as the motto to this lecture, 


“ Oculus ad vitam nihil facit, ad vitam beatam nihil magis.” 


The second lecture relates to “The Internal Structure of Plants.” 
And here, contrasting the comparatively trifling results of the most 
boasted labours of man, effected with so much toil and such exten- 
sive preparation of material and machinery — contrasting these with 
the stupendous and infinitely varied works of Nature, produced by 
the simplest causes and resulting from numerous combinations of the 
simplest means; the author remarks that “we need not ascend to the 
stars to recognize how little Nature requires to the unfolding of won- 
ders:” and continues,— 

“Let us tarry a moment with the vegetable world. From the slen- 
der palm, waving its elegant crown in the refreshing breezes, high 


231 


aloft over the hot vapours of the Brazilian forests, to the delicate 
moss, barely an inch in length, which clothes our damp grottoes with 
its phosphorescent verdure; from the splendid flower of Victoria re- 
gina, with its rosy leaves cradled in the silent floods of the lakes of 
Guiana, to the inconspicuous yellow blossom of the duck-weed on 
our own ponds; — what a wonderful play of fashioning, what wealth 
of forms ! 

“From the six-thousand-years-old Baobab, on the shores of 
Senegal, the seeds of which perhaps vegetated before the foot of man 
trod the earth, to the fungus, to which the fertilizing warmth of a 
summer night gave an existence which the morning closed — what 
differences of duration! From the firm wood of the New Holland 
oak, from which the wild aboriginal carves his war-club, to the green 
slime upon our tombs, what multiformity, what gradations of texture, 
composition and consistence! Can one really believe it possible to 
find order in this embarrassing wealth, regularity in this seemingly 
disorderly dance of forms, a single type in these thousandfold varie- 
ties of habit? Till within a few years of the present time, indeed, 
the possibility was not yet conceived, for as I have before remarked, 
we may never expect to be enabled to spy into the mysteries of 
Nature until we are guided by our researches to very simple relations. 
Thus could we never attain to scientific results respecting the plant 
till we had found the simple element, the regular basis of all the va- 
rious forms, and investigated and defined its vital peculiarities. By 
the help of the improved microscopes we have at last advanced far 
enough to find the point of departure of the general theory of the 
plant. 

“ The basis of the structure of all the so very dissimilar vegetables 
is a little closed vesicle, composed cf a membrane usually transparent 
and colourless as water; this botanists call the ‘cell, or ‘ vegetable 
cell” A review of the life of the cell must necessarily precede the 
endeavour to comprehend the whole plant, nay, it is as yet, properly 
speaking, almost the only really scientific part of Botany.”—p. 42. 

The author then, with the aid of coloured figures, enters upon a 
more minute history of the cell, as the foundation of all the tissues 
which go to make up the infinitely varied forms of plants; describ- 
ing its appearance, contents, and mode of reproduction — each cell 
having the property of forming within itself a number of other cells, 
each of which is also endowed with the same property—and showing 
in what manner the vascular and woody tissues all proceed from the 
simple cells which are the primitive form of vegetable structure. 


232 


“ We may regard the cell as a little independent organism, living 
for itself alone. It imbibes fluid nutriment from the surrounding 
parts, out of which, by chemical processes which are constantly in 
action in the interior of the cell, it forms new substances which are 
partly applied to the nutrition and growth of its walls, partly laid up 
in store for future requirements; partly again expelled as useless and 
to make room for the entrance of new matters. In this constant play 
of absorption and excretion, of chemical formation, transformation 
and decomposition of substances, especially consists the life of the 
cell, and, since the plant is nothing but a sum of many cells united 
into a definite shape, also the life of the whole plant. 

“ These cells in the course of their development become crowded 
closely together, and thus form the whole mass of the plant, the cel- 
lular tissue, which, however, may be divided into three principal 
classes of tissue, according to the different forms of the cells, and 
more especially according to their importance to the life of the plant.” 
—p. 45. 

One of the most curious things connected with the cell-structure of 
plants is the power possessed by those minute bodies, which all owe 
their origin to the same constituents, of forming the most varied 
substances in their interior, which substances may be primarily di- 
vided into such as are soluble in water and such as are insoluble. 
To the former class belong albumen, gum, sugar, and the acids; and 
to the latter the fatty and aromatic oils. The most remarkable of 
these substances is starch, whether regarded as playing a most im- 
portant part in the nutrition of the animal kingdom, for which pur- 
pose it is stored up in great quantity in various parts of the plant, 
but more especially in the roots, tubers, seeds, fruits, and more rarely 
the pith; or as affording the only known mark of distinction between 
the chemical composition of the elementary tissues of plants and 
those of animals, since it occurs in the former in addition to the oxy- 
gen, hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen common to the two kingdoms. 

In the lecture upon “ The Propagation of Plants,” the author, after 
referring to the almost infinite forms of animal life, all which, directly 
or indirectly, derive their sustenance from the vegetable world, pro- 
ceeds to develop his own views of the means provided for the repro- 
duction and multiplication of organisms upon which depend the very 
existence of so large a proportion of the inhabitants of our globe: 
and says— 

“That this may not be effected by a simple, well defined form of 
multiplication, as in the higher animals, is in itself evident, and be- 


233 


comes still more so when we observe that mankind and most animals 
draw upon those parts of the plants for their nourishment, which we 
usually consider to be the peculiar organs of reproduction: I mean 
the seeds.”—p. 63. 

After reverting to the power possessed by the individual cell of 
forming new cells in its interior, and thus of propagating itself, the 
author proceeds— 

“ Now the newly-formed cells have also this peculiarity, they grow 
and arrange themselves conformably to the cell in which they origi- 
nate. Thus is the power given to all plants to develop new plants 
out of any of their cells, when these come to be placed in favourable 
circumstances, and by this power is explained the facility with which 
almost all plants may be multiplied.”—p. 65. 

To this power is referrible the production of buds upon various 
parts of certain leaves, whether separated from, or while remaining 
attached to the stem; upon stems, in the axille of the leaves; and 
other irregular modes of propagation: and equally referrible to it is 
the regular mode by the production of the reproductive bodies known 
as spores and seeds; which may be explained by the fact that— 

“ Kvery plant produces within itself a definite number of single, 
free, unconnected cells, which at a certain epoch spontaneously sepa- 
rate from the plant. It is the peculiar character of those plants 
which have true leaves, to produce these cells only in the interior of 
the leaves, which at the same time often assume a very different form, 
as for instance, in the stamens. Another condition is also worthy of 
remark. Only in the very lowest plants, flowering wholly under wa- 
ter, is the propagative cell naked; in all others it is invested with a 
peculiar substance, which has not yet been chemically examined, but 
is mostly yellow and very indestructible. * * * Now these 
cells are especially destined to the reproductive function, since from 
every one of them is a new plant developed. An essential distinction, 
however, occurs in this development; one, indeed, recognized at an 
early period, and so exclusively regarded, that the higher agreement 
was altogether overlooked.”—p. 69. 

In one mode of the development of these reproductive cells, that 
which obtains in all the plants comprehended by Linneus in his 
class Cryptogamia, they are at once scattered upon the earth, or in 
the water, wherever the new plants are to grow. And then, 

“ Hither the whole cell is gradually transformed into a new plant, 
new cells originating in it and taking its place, in these others, and 
so on, which is the case in the Alge, Fungi, Lichens, and part of the 


234 


Liver-mosses; or the cell expands into a longish utricle or tube, but 
only one extremity of this tube becomes filled with cells, which gra- 
dually grow up into a new plant, the remaining portion of the cell, 
meanwhile, decaying; this is the case in the remaining Liver-mosses, 
the Mosses, Ferns, Lycopodia and Equiseta. * * Tn all these 
Cryptogamia the reproductive cells are called spores, or germinal 
grains.” —p. 70. 

In the Phanerogamia, or flowering plants, the operations of repro- 
duction and germination are much more complicated. The repro- 
ductive cells are called pollen, and are formed in those peculiar 
modifications of leaves called the stamens. Here, instead of at once 
falling to and germinating upon the ground or in the water, the cells 
require the intervention of the reproductive apparatus known as the 
ovary, style and stigma. In the hollow part of this apparatus, named 
the ovary, are little protuberances formed of cellular tissue, — the 
seed-buds or ovules, and in each of these is a large cell, or the em- 
bryo-sac. 

“ At the flowering period the pollen falls upon the stigma, and then 
commences the development of the reproductive cells. Hach one 
extends itself into a long filament, exactly as in the Cryptogamia, 
and in this form penetrates to the cavity of the germen, to enter one 
of the seed-buds, and finally, into the embryo-sac. The extremity 
which has passed in now becomes filled with cells, and these deve- 
lop forthwith into a perfect, though as yet simple and minute plant- 
ule, the so-called embryo or germ. Simultaneously with the deve- 
lopment of the pollen-cell into the embryo, the seed-bud is perfected 
into a seed, the germen into the fruit. A pause in the growth now 
suddenly occurs, and the seed may often be preserved for a long time 
in this apparently dead condition. But when favourable external 
circumstances come into play, the life begins anew with the further 
unfolding of the plant, which is commonly called germination.” — 
pe 74. 

Such is, in fact, Schleiden’s theory of the development of the em- 
bryo in the ovule; and we were long ago struck, long, indeed, before 
we read anything which has been written upon the subject, with the 
analogy between pollen-grains and spores—between anther-cells and 
the thece of ferns: and it is but a step further in the same direction 
to conceive the same analogy to obtain also between the first act of 
germination of a spore upon the ground or in the water, and the de- 
velopment of an embryo from a pollen-grain in the embryo-sac of an 
ovule. This latter process, it is true, is not germination: but it isa 


235 


step preliminary to it, and strictly analogous to the emission of the 
tubular elongation from the lower portion of a spore when a suitable 
medium has been attained as a preliminary to the eyo. of the 
first leaf-like expansions of the young cryptogam. 

The lecture upon “The Morphology of Plants” treats upon the 
doctrine which traces all the variously formed organs of plants to 
modifications under certain circumstances of what, under certain 
other circumstances, would have been a leaf. 

The fifth lecture is “ About the Weather,” and little else; and the 
following extract contains the cream of the matter, showing the con- 
nexion of vegetation with the varying conditions of the atmosphere. 

“We have seen that heat and its varied distribution according to 
latitude and longitude, height and depth, is the peculiar fundamental 
phenomenon, around which the others group themselves, upon which 
they are dependent. Most intimately is the degree of moisture of 
the air connected with it, and warmth and moisture are the primary 
conditions of all vegetable life. On those two principal forces, there- 
fore, hangs almost entirely the distribution of plants over the earth. 
The animal world follows the plants, since the vegetable feeders are 
directly, the Carnivora indirectly, connected with determinate forma- 
tions of plants. So that heat and cold are not the only consequences 
of the position of the sun in regard to the earth, but also the whole 
life existent thereon: the action of its mightiest forces in the raging 
hurricane, which hurls four-and-twenty-pounders through the air, to 
the invisible labour of the most minute Infusorium; the roar of the 
Chilian pine, and the low whisper of the northern birch; from the 
roar of the lion, the slayer of the gazelle, even to the pipe of the 
mouse-hunting screech owl, whose discordant note the awakened 
sleeper’s superstition interprets as ‘ komm mit, komm mit’ (come with 
me). The fox and tiger point to the barn-door fowl] and the giraffe, 
these to barley-fields and acacia-groves, these again to the corre- 
sponding zones of Europe and to the glowing savannahs of Africa. 
On the sun depend not only vitality and motion, but also the first ar- 
rangement, and its shining rays are the pencils with which it paints 
the light and shade, the glowing yellow of the arid sand, the cool 
green of the moist meadow, with which it lays down the geography 
of plants and animals upon the surface of the earth, and even sketches 
the design of an ethnographic chart of the human race.”—p. 126. 

The sixth and seventh lectures contain replies to the question, 
“ What does man live upon?” ‘To this question most people would 
give the negative reply, Man cannot live upon air; but then, says the 


236 


naturalist, Man can live very well upon air; nay, in point of fact, he 
does live on air alone, and nothing else whatever: and it is his busi- 
ness, aided by cheinistry, to make good the assertion. 

The Guacho of the Pampas consumes daily ten or twelve pounds 
of meat; the word bread does not exist in his vocabulary: the Ivish- 
man regales himself on “potatoes and point:” the hunter of the 
prairies roasts the hump of the buffalo he has brought down with his 
bullet: the Chinese enjoys his fattened rats and delicate puppies : 
the Greenlander in his snow-hut consumes with the greatest gusto his 
whale fat: the negro-slave sucks his sugar-cane and fattens upon the 
farinaceous banana: the oriental merchant, when setting out on a 
journey, fills his bag with sweet dates: and the Siamese crams him- 
self with rice: “wheresoever over the whole inhabited earth we ap- 
proach and demand hospitality, in almost every little spot a different 
kind of food is set before us, and the ‘ daily bread’ offered in another 
form ;” and these so varied kinds of nourishment contain a few simi- 
lar matters, which peculiarly serve for the food of man, whence the 
unity of the end produced from the multiplicity of materials. 

Four elementary substances, out of the fifty-three or thereabouts, 
which have been discovered in the numerous substances by which 
we are surrounded, alone take an essential share in the composition 
of all that is termed organic or living existence: these four are oxy- 
gen, hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen; and these form all the substances 
of which plants and animals are composed. 

“ The four elements under consideration form numerous compounds 
’ by their union one with another; btt only two classes of these have 
a very deep importance in relation to the organic world. One of the 
classes comprehends the substances which are compounded of all four 
elements. This includes albumen, fibrine, caseine and gelatine. All 
animal bodies are formed out of these substances, which, when sepa- 
rated from them as dead matter, all pass rapidly by decomposition 
into water, ammonia and carbonic acid, which are diffused through 
the air. The second class, on the other hand, includes the substances 
devoid of nitrogen, namely, gum, sugar, starch, the liquors prepared 
from them, such as spirit, wine, beer, and, lastly, all the various kinds 
of fat. All these merely pass through the animal body, since the car- 
bon and hydrogen are burnt off by means of the oxygen received in 
respiration, and are expired as carbonic acid and water. By this 
slow but uninterrupted process of combustion is maintained the heat 
indispensable to life. But by the recent brilliant discoveries in che- 
mistry and physiology we have become aware that the animal body is 


237 


incapable of composing from their elements, or of forming from any 
other substance excepting caseine, the substances albumen, fibrine, 
&c., absolutely necessary to its development and support; that the 
animal must indeed receive substances ready prepared, in order to 
apply them to its nutrition, or to convert them into gelatine for the 
formation of its bony structures. Albumen, fibrine and caseine are 
therefore rightly named by Liebig the exclusive materials for nutri- 
tion; they cannot be replaced by any other substance ; when they 
are entirely withheld the body must necessarily die of starvation. 
But the components devoid of nitrogen must also be present, as it 
were for fuel on the hearth of organic life; and these substances, 
which are in common life also called food, Liebig appropriately de- 
nominates materials for respiration.”—p. 136. 

After some further interesting illustrations of the different classes of 
vegetables which produce these materials in the greatest abundance, 
the author introduces some brief historical sketches of the introduc- 
tion of coffee, chocolate and tea as beverages, for the purpose of call- 
ing attention to an unsolved physiological problem. “ Everywhere 
have these beverages become necessaries of life; everywhere is the 
origin of their use enveloped in mystical obscurity ; everywhere has 
man, not led by rational considerations, by knowledge of their proper- 
ties and action, or by comparison of them with already known nutri- 
tive substances, but, as it were, instinctively, added them to the num- 
ber of his daily wants.” Chemistry has endeavoured to discover the 
cause of this phenomenon ; and the result has shown that in all these 
substances exists an element, distinguished from all other vegetable 
productions by the very large proportion of nitrogen contained in it ; 
but experiments have hitherto failed to detect any special action 
upon the animal economy resulting from the administration of large 
quantities of pure theine, the substance alluded to. 

Returning from this digression, the author goes on to show in what 
way the recent revelations of chemistry as to the constituents of sub- 
stances used as food, account for the varying habits of those nations 
into whose ordinary diet enter a greater or less amount of either ani- 
mal or vegetable products; and continues :— 

“Our investigations have thus led us to recognize that the whole 
animal world lives upon the vegetable kingdom, either immediately 
by actual vegetable food, or mediately by the vegetable feeders collect- 
ing the peculiar nutritive matters for the Carnivora, from the plants, 
depositing the material for respiration, which contains no nitrogen, in 
the form of fat. But we do not arrive at the conclusion of our inqui- 

VOE.-111, 2K 


238 


ries here; for the question comes: ‘ What do plants live upon ?? — 
p. 146. 

The reply to this question involves the consideration of those im- 
portant agricultural subjects, the properties and mode of action of 
manures. In the preliminary observations upon the chemical consti- 
tuents of the vegetable fabric, oxygen, hydrogen and carbon, which 
form cellulose, the absence of nitrogen from these constituents is 
mentioned, and the necessity for a supply of that gas adverted to, in 
order that the plant may be enabled to perform certain chemical pro- 
cesses necessary for the elaboration of the nutrient matters taken up 
by the roots. 

“ The inquiry into the nutrition of the plant includes, therefore, the 
inquiry into the sources of carbon and nitrogen; oxygen and hydro- 
gen being sufficiently provided by water and atmospheric air. The 
notion which has hitherto been generally received is, that the plant 
extracts its carbon and nitrogen from manure, or from the humus of 
the soil. 

*“* All animal and vegetable bodies, so soon as they are dead, pass 
over into a state of decomposition, by means of which they are dissi- 
pated, sooner or later, in the atmosphere, being changed into carbonic 
acid, ammonia and water. So long as this process is incomplete, a 
residue, itself much altered, of a brownish or black colour, remains, 
which at the commencement of the decomposition is called manure, 
and towards its close humus, or vegetable mould. It is a complex 
mixture of very manifold products of decomposition. Now it was 
argued thus: carbon and nitrogen are abundant in humus; in a soil 
that is rich in humus or is well manured, plants thrive better than in 
one which is poor in humus; consequently, humus is the source of 
the carbon and nitrogen of plants. But this reasoning is altogether 
inconclusive.”—p. 148. 

Itis manifestly inconclusive, because it does not account for the source 
of the immense quantities of nitrogen and carbon derived from the soil 
in cases wherein no, or comparatively very little, organic matter is re- 
turned to localities supplying organisms in which carbon and nitrogen 
abound. About 4,000 tbs. per acre of dry wood, containing about 
1,600 tbs. of carbon, are annually derived from forests which receive 
no other manure or humus than what they obtain from their own 
leaves or broken wood: and by carefully conducted experiments in- 
stituted upon land nearly five acres in extent of area, for twenty-one 
years, it has been shown that the average annual harvest gained from 
the soil gave a result of twice as much nitrogen, three times as much 


239 


carbon and hydrogen, and four times as much oxygen, as had been 
given to it in manure during the year, even supposing that the whole 
amount of the nutrient qualities of the manure had entered the plants, 
which is never the case. 

. “And thus, as the final result of our inquiry, we arrive at the fol- 
lowing grand view of the interchange of matter between the three 
kingdoms of Nature. Decomposition and the process of respira- 
tion set free all vegetable and animal substances (diminishing the 
amount of oxygen in the air) in the form of carbonic acid, ammonia 
and water, which diffuse themselves in the atmosphere. The plant 
_ takes possession of these substances, and forms from them, accompa- 
nied by an incessant increase of the oxygen of the atmosphere, com- 
pounds rich in carbon and hydrogen, but devoid of nitrogen, such as 
starch, gum, sugar, and the various fatty matters, and others rich in 
nitrogen, namely, albumen, fibrine and caseine. These compounds 
are for the service of the animal, which builds up its corporeal frame 
from the latter, and burns the former in the respiratory process, for 
the maintenance of the necessary heat. This theory stands now firm 
and unshakable upon the facts which have been brought forward, and 
. the naturalist is perfectly correct when he says, that man, through 
the mediation of plants in the first instance, lives upon air. Or we 
may express it in this way: the plant collects the matters from the 
atmosphere, and compounds from them the food of man. But life it- 
self is but a process of combustion, of which decomposition is only 
the final conclusion. Through this combustion all the constituents 
return back into the air, and only a small quantity of ashes remains 
to the earth from which they came. But from these slow invisible 
flames rises a new Phenix, the immortal soul, into regions where our 
science has no longer any value.”—p. 152. 

But then comes the question, “If the plant draws carbonic acid, 
ammonia and water from the air—if this is its only source of food— 
what is the use of manure?” One answer to this question is derived 
from physics, explaining the action of humus in general, the other 
from chemistry, showing the necessity for manure, and the advantages 
derived from its use. 

Carbonic acid, ammonia and water being the food of plants, the 
question arises, how and by what organs do plants absorb these mat- 
ters. Water to the amount of 99 »p cent. at least is taken up by the 
roots; but plants have been proved to consume a far greater quantity 
of water than falls in the form of rain, even supposing them to absorb 
all the rain which falls, which is by no means the case. 


240 


“The watery vapour of the atmosphere must, therefore, be brought 
to the plant in some other way, and this happens through the pro- 
perty of absorbing the moisture of the atmosphere, which is possessed 
by most of the constituents of the soil. No substance possesses this 
property in so high a degree as the humus, originating out of the 
gradual decomposition of organic matters. The humus is also re- 
markably distinguished for its special power of extracting, and as it 
were collecting the carbonic acid and ammoniacal gas of the air; no 
solid substance of the soil equals it in this particular, and water itself 
only ranks second after it. Hummus consequently contains, under all 
circumstances, water impregnated with carbonic acid and ammonia, 
and in proportion as this is withdrawn from it by the roots of the 
plants, the loss is replaced out of the atmosphere. This is certainly 
the principal road by which water is conveyed into the plant, most 
probably the most essential canal through which it is fed with am- 
monia, and there is no doubt that at least a great portion of the car- 
bonic acid is thus brought to it.”—p. 161. 

The progress of vegetation, from the earliest appearance of plants 
in their simplest possible form, up to the most complicated structure, 
is well pourtrayed in the following extract, which also exhibits the 
mode in which humus or vegetable mould is gradually accumulated 
upon the previously bare surface of rocks, until a rich soil is formed, 
capable of supporting a luxuriant vegetation. 

“ Look at a recently exposed surface of a block of granite, for in- 
stance, on the summit of the Brocken; there we find that vegetation 
is soon developed, in the form of a little delicate plant, which re- 
quires the microscope for its recognition; and this is nourished by 
the small quantity of atmospheric water impregnated with carbonic 
acid and ammonia. This, the so-called violet-stone, a scarlet, pul- 
verulent coating over the bare stone, which, on account of the pecu- 
liar smell of violets which it emits when rubbed, has become a cu- 
riosity, industriously sought by the thoughtful wanderer on the 
Brocken. By the gradual decay and decomposition of this little 
plant, a very thin layer of humus is by degrees produced, which now 
suffices to procure from the atmosphere food sufficient for a couple 
of great blackish brown lichens. These lichens, which densely 
clothe the heaps of earth round the shafts of the mines of Fahlun 
and Dannemora, in Sweden, and through their gloomy colour, which 
they impress on all around, make those pits and shafts look like the 
gloomy abysses of death, have been appropriately called by botanists 
the Stygian and Fahlun lichens. But they are no messengers of 


241 


death here; their decay prepares the soil for the elegant little alpine 
moss, the destruction of which is speedily followed by the appearance 
of greener and more luxuriant mosses, until sufficient soil has been 
formed for the whortle-berry, the juniper, and finally for the pine. 
Thus, from an insignificant beginning, an ever-increasing coating of 
humus grows up over the naked rock, and a vegetation, continually 
stronger and more luxuriant, takes up its position, not to be nourished 
on that humus, which increases instead of decreasing with every de- 
caying generation, but by its means to be supplied with nourishment 
from the atmosphere.”—p. 162. 

But that this fertilizing humus is of itself incapable of furnishing 
the requisite pabulum to all plants indifferently, is evident from the 
scanty vegetation of localities where it abounds; and that it is not of 
itself the only requisite for a luxuriant vegetation is also evident from 
the number of plants which flourish where the soil contains but a 
small proportion of humus. 

“When we look to the wild vegetation of our own latitudes, we 
find two principal classes of soil: one a peat or bog soil, which con- 
sists almost wholly of humus, therefore of decomposed organic mat- 
ter, the other of calcareous, sandy, or argillaceous soils, in which the 
inorganic constituents prevail in so great a degree, that the humus, in 
the blackest soils, does.not amount to more than 10 » cent. at most, 
and even in the most fertile, and those clothed with the richest vege- 
tation, often scarcely forms $y cent. And that peat or bog soil, so 
rich in humus, can only afford sustenance to 300 of the 5,000 flower- 
ing plants growing in central Europe; and there are not perhaps 
fifty plants, therefore not one per cent., of which the actual conditions 
of healthy growth are furnished by the bog soil, which would not also 
thrive exceedingly well in other places, if the necessary moisture 
were afforded them. * * On the other hand, the other class 
nourishes the whole vegetation of our latitudes, in a multiplicity 
which is varied enough to our eyes, unused to the tropical world, and 
we generally find the richest abundance on the soils which are poor- 
est in humus, but richest in inorganic constituents, on basaltic, grani- 
tic, porphyritic and calcareous soils.”—p. 167. 

As a general summary we may quote one more paragraph from this 
lecture, of which we fear our readers are by this time heartily tired. 

“We have, then, three opposite conditions here: the common soil, 
bog soil, and that of gardens. The first nourishes an abundance of 
different plants, which, however, remain the same, in fixed conse- 
quence, through thousands of years. The bog soil is extraordinarily 


242 


poor in vegetables; it only brings forth the most formless and use- 
less plants. Lastly, the garden soil not only nourishes in luxuriance 
every plant that is committed to it, but even continually multiplies 
the abundance of vegetable forms to infinity, to which, however, op- 
posing climate sets a limit so soon as the favouring influence of cul- 
ture is withdrawn. ‘Then two other conditions present themselves, in 
contrast, to our consideration. We have on the one side the common 
soil, possessing little or no organic remains, and abundance of plants; 
on the other, the bog and garden soils, both rich to superabundance 
in the black constituent called humus, which has been formed by the 
decomposition of animal and vegetable organisms. And nevertheless, 
we find such a difference of influence on vegetation between the bog 
and garden land. But this is readily explained by the manner in 
which they have been formed. The peaty soil originates from the 
decomposition of organic substances in the presence of much water. 
The consequence of this is, that the water takes up and carries away 
all the soluble salts which were contained in those organisms, so soon 
as ever they are set free. In the garden soil, on the contrary, all 
those soluble salts remain behind, come immediately into the posses- 
sion of the plants, and, under a rich culture of the soil, accumulated 
in them to an extraordinary degree, while the organic constituents, 
through uninterrupted decomposition, are continually diminished in 
quantity, and so can never accumulate in the way they do in the peat 
or bog soils, where the presence of water, after a certain time, re- 
strains or very much retards the further progress of decomposition. 
A more striking proof of the correctness of the new views of the nutri- 
tion of plants could not easily be given, than these statements; views 
which were almost simultaneously established and made known by 
one of the most distinguished chemists, Liebig, and one of the most 
eminent and practical agriculturists, Boussingault.”—p. 170. 

In the eighth lecture — “ On the Milk-sap of Plants,” — the author 
enters into some interesting details relating to three great families of 
plants abounding in milk-sap. These families are the Euphorbiacee, 
the Apocynacee, and the Urticacex ; the latter order, however, has 
been properly broken up, the milky plants formerly included in it 
being now grouped together in a new order, the Moracez, and to 
these most of the author’s observations more strictly apply. The 
milk-sap of all the plants included in these orders contains more or 
less of caoutchouc, which occurs in the form of little globules. These 
are prevented from coalescing by an albuminous substance, in the 
same way as are the butter-globules in milk. Exactly like the cream 


243 


(butter) in milk, the caoutchouc-globules rise to the surface of the 
milk-sap of plants when left to stand, here form a cream and coa- 
lesce, and cannot, any more than butter, be separated again into their 
distinct globules.” The principal part of the caoutchouc used in this 
country is obtained from Siphonia elastica, a member of the Euphor- 
biaceous group, but that of the best quality seems to be furnished by 
Cynanchum ovalifolium, an Apocynaceous species native to Pulo 
Penang. But while all three orders contain certain members whose 
sap is wholesome and even nutritious, as that of the cow-tree, they all 
abound in the most deadly poisons: witness among others the 
Wourari poison, the mode of preparing which by the Indians, and 
their use of it for poisoning their arrows, has been well described 
by Schomburgk, and quoted in a former number of the ‘ Phytologist ’ 
(i. 47). Asa pendant to that account we may give the following 
graphic sketch of a Javanese forest :— 

“Two very different trees grow in those little visited primeval 
forests of Java. All the paths leading to them are closed and watched, 
like those leading to the gates of the Holy of Holies. With fire and 
axe must the road be made through the impenetrably interwoven 
mass of Lianes, the Paullinias, with their clusters of great scarlet 
blossoms several feet long, the Cissi, or wild vines, on the wide- 
spread creeping roots of which thrives the giant flower of the Rafflesia 
Arnoldi. Palms, with spines and thorns, rush-like plants, with cutting 
leaves, wounding like knives, warn the intruder back by their attacks, 
and in every part of the thicket threaten the fearful nettles formerly 
mentioned. Great black ants, whose painful bite tortures the wanderer, 
countless swarms of tormenting insects pursue him. Are these obsta- 
cles overcome ?:—yet follow the dense bundles of bamboo stems, as 
thick as a man’s arm, and often fifty feet high, the firm glassy bark of 
which repels even the axe. At last the way is opened, and the ma- 
jestic aisles of the true primeval forest now display themselves. 
Gigantic trunks of the bread-fruit, of the iron-like teak (Tectonia 
grandis), of Leguminose, with their beautiful blossoms, of Barringto- 
nias, figs and bays, form the columns which support the massive green 
vault. From branch to branch leap lively troops of apes, provoking 
the wanderer by throwing fruit upon him. From a moss-clad rock 
the melancholy orang-outang raises himself gravely on his staff, and 
wanders into deeper thickets. All is full of animal life; a strong con- 
trast to the desert and silent character of many of the primeval forests 
of America. Here a twining, climbing shrub, with a trunk as thick 
as one’s arm, coils round the columns of the dome, overpassing the 


244 


loftiest trees, often quite simple and unbranched for a length of a 
hundred feet from the root, but curved and winding in the most varied 
forms. The large, shining, green leaves alternate with the long and 
stout tendrils with which it takes firm hold, and greenish white heads 
of pleasant-smelling flowers hang pendant from it. This plant, be- 
longing to the Apocynacez, is the Tjettek of the natives (Strychnos 
Tieuté, Lesch.), from the roots of which the dreadful Upas Radia, or 
sovereign poison, is concocted. A slight wound from a weapon poi- 
soned with this,—a little arrow made of hard wood, and shot from 
the blow-tube, as by the South Americans,—makes the tiger tremble, 
stand motionless a minute, then fall as though seized with vertigo, and 
die in brief but violent convulsions. The shrub itself is harmless, and 
he whose skin may have been touched with its juice need fear no 
consequences. As we go forward, we meet with a beautiful slender 
stem, which overtops the neighbouring plants. Perfectly cylindrical, 
it rises sixty or eighty feet smooth and without a branch, and bears 
an elegant hemispherical crown, which proudly looks down on the 
more humble growths around, and the many climbers struggling up 
its stem. Woe to him who heedlessly should touch the milk-sap that 
flows abundantly from its easily wounded bark. Large blisters, pain- 
ful ulcers, like those produced by our poisonous sumach, only more 
dangerous, are the inevitable consequences. This is the Antiar of 
the Javanese, the Pohon Upas (signifying poison-tree) of the Malays, 
the Ipo of Celebes and the Philippines (Antiaris toxicaria, Lesch.). 
From it comes the common Upas (anglicé poison), which is especially 
employed for poisoning arrows, a custom which appears to have ex- 
tended formerly throughout all the Sunda islands, but which is now, 
since the introduction of fire-arms, only to be met with among the 
savages of the rugged and inaccessible mountains of the interior of 
the island.”—p. 203. 

Turning from these envenomed denizens of the tropical forests, we 
find, in the ninth lecture, an interesting and agreeable “ Sketch of the 
Cactus Tribe,” an order of plants possessing properties the very opposite 
to those we have just been considering, though in form many ofits mem- 
bers closely resemble some of the singular leafless Euphorbias. None of 
the Cactacez are poisonous; the juices of all are more or less agreeable; 
while the beauty of their flowers, combined with the extreme oddity 
and eccentricity of their varied forms, renders them objects of admira- 
tion and curiosity with all lovers of plants. Our author has devoted 
much attention to this bizarre tribe; and his elaborate memoir upon 
their anatomy is referred to with approbation by Lindley, in the 


245 


‘Vegetable Kingdom.’ As Schleiden well observes, “ Everything 
about these plants is wonderful ;” even their internal structure differs 
widely from that of all other members of the exogenous class, and in 
the absence of leaves (which organs are replaced by hairs and spines), 
in the peculiar structure of their epidermis, and in the extraordinary 
quantity of oxalic acid secreted (forming insoluble crystals of oxalate 
of lime with the proportionate quantity of that earth taken up into the 
system), the Cactacez offer some of the most curious phenomena to 
be found in the whole vegetable race. 

“ With the exception of the genus Pereskia, no plant of the order 
possesses leaves. Those parts of the Cactus alatus, and the Indian 
fig, which are commonly called leaves, are nothing but flattened ex- 
pansions of the stem. On the other hand, they are all distinguished 
by an extraordinary fleshy stem, which, clothed by a grayish-green, 
leathery cuticle, and beset, in the places where leaves are situated in 
regular plants, with various tufts of hairs, spines, and points, gives, by 
its very varied degrees of development, the varied character of the 
plants. The torch-thistles rise in form of nine-angled or often round 
columns, to a height of thirty or forty feet, mostly branchless, but 
sometimes ramifying in the strangest ways, and looking like candelabra; 
the Indian figs are more humble; their oval, flat branches, arranged 
upon one another on all sides, produce special forms. The lowest and 
thickest torch-thistles connect themselves with hedgehog and melon 
Cactuses, with their projecting ribs, and thus lead us to the almost per- 
fectly globular Mammillarias, which are covered very regularly with 
fleshy warts of various heights. Finally, there are forms in which the 
growth in the longitudinal direction prevails, which, with long, thin, 
often whip-like stems, like that of the serpent Cactus, so often culti- 
vated here, hang down from the trees upon which they live as para- 
sites.”"—p. 215. 

Linneus seems to have known only about a dozen species of this 
family, which were all grouped together in his genus Cactus: Schlei- 
den states the number now known at more than four hundred, distri- 
buted into ten genera; and Lindley, in his ‘Vegetable Kingdom,’ 
gives the number of species at eight hundred (with two marks of 
doubt), and sixteen genera. America is the exclusive station of the 
order, no other part of the globe appearing to possess a legitimate 
claim to a single indigenous species, though many have rapidly 
become naturalized in Europe and other parts of the Old World, 
since their introduction from America. The driest situations, where 
they are exposed to the burning rays of the tropical sun, are their 

VOL. 111. 21 


246 


favorite localities, and there, amidst surrounaing aridity, they elaborate 
that pleasantly flavored acid juice so refreshing to the traveller, and 
which even the wild ass knows instinctively how to avail himself of, 
by stripping off the spines of the Melocactus with his hoof, and then 
sucking the cooling lymph from the fleshy tissue. The peculiar 
habit of the plants belonging to this order has given rise to some 
plausible but unfounded opinions connected with them, which are 
well exposed in the next extract. 

“The Cactacee have long been compelled, in science, to serve as 
the prop of a statement which, altogether false, has yet been frequently 
put forward by distinguished botanists ; I mean, the assumption that 
many, or even all plants are capable of imbibing their nutriment from 
the air. Even in the present day has this idea been again revived, 
with all the long-ago-refuted reasons, by Liebig, whose ‘ Organic 
Chemistry’ has made so imposing an appearance. It is believed, 
that from the vast amount of watery juice in the Cactus tribe, joined 
to the fact that most of them, and exactly those richest in sap, vege- 
tate on dry sand, almost wholly devoid of vegetable mould, where 
they are besides exposed, often three-fourths of the year, to the parch- 
ing sunbeams of an eternally serene sky ; from this combination of 
circumstances, even, it is thought that we may the more safely con- 
clude, that these plants draw their nourishment from the air, since in 
our own hot-houses also it has been observed, that the branches of 
Cactus stems, cut off and left forgotten in a corner without further 
care, far from dying, have frequently grown on and made shoots three 
feet long or more. De Candolle first found the right path, when he 
weighed such Cactus shoots which had grown without soil, and found 
that the plant, though larger, was always lighter; therefore, instead 
of abstracting anything from the atmosphere, must rather have given 
up something to it. All the growth takes place, in such cases, at the 
expense of the nutritive matter previously accumulated in the juicy 
tissue, and it generally exhausts the plant to such a degree, that it is 
no longer worth preserving. It is that succulent tissue which enables 
the Cactus plants,—one might compare them with the camels,—to 
provide themselves before-hand with fluid, and thus to brave the rain- 
less season. Their anatomical structure also assists them in this re- 
spect, in a peculiar manner. We know, from the experiments of 
Hales, that plants chiefly evaporate the water they contain through 
their leaves, and the Cactus tribe have none. ‘Their stem, too, unlike 
that of all other plants, is clothed with a peculiar leathery membrane, 
which wholly prevents evaporation. This membrane is composed of 


247 


very strange, almost cartilaginous cells, the walls of which are often 
traversed by elegant little canals. Its thickness varies in different 
species, and it is thickest, and therefore most impenetrable, in Melo- 
cacti, which grow in the driest and hottest regions, while it is least 
remarkable in the species of Rhipsalis, which are parasites on the 
trees of the damp Brazilian forests.”—p. 221. 

As a inatter of course, the Cactacez could not be treated on without 
some allusion to their various economical uses. Almost all bear an 
edible fruit, which, as Schleiden well observes, may be looked upon 
as “a nobler form of our native gooseberry and currant, to which also 
they are the nearest allies in a botanical point of view.” The old 
dead woody stems of the torch-thistles (Cereus) are, as their name 
implies, used as torches; and they are carried up the Cordilleras on 
mules to serve as beams, posts, and door-sills to the houses. The 
Opuntias are used in Mexico and other parts both of America and 
Europe to form hedges: the spines of Opuntia Tuna are said to be 
so large and strong as to kill the buffaloes by the inflammation follow- 
ing wounds inflicted by them; and it was this species, planted in a 
triple row, which formed the boundary line between the English and 
French in the Island of St. Christopher. But it is in a mercantile 
view as the supporters of the cochineal insect (Coccus Cacti), that 
these plants have perhaps attained the highest importance. Hum- 
boldt has stated that the importation of cochineal from Oaxaca alone 
is valued at £500,000; the pound costing about 30s., and containing 
some 70,000 insects, which will give an idea of the enormous num- 
ber of insects, and the great extent of this peculiar kind of culture. 

The deformed and shapeless forms of the stems of these plants is 
abundantly compensated by the splendour of their flowers, none of 
which yield the palm to the splendid blossom of the night-flowering 
Cereus (Cereus grandiflorus), about eight inches in diameter, which, 
with their vanilla-like scent, unfold in the evening, are fully expanded 
about midnight, and by morning faded never to revive again. 

In the lecture on “The Geography of Plants,” the laws which re- 
gulate the distribution of the vegetable kingdom are discussed in the 
same popular style as the other branches of the science. In con- 
nexion with this subject lie, side by side, a soluble and an insoluble 
problem; the one scluble, because it can be stated definitely as “ the 
Dependence of the Distribution of Plants on the Physical Conditions 
of the Earth;” the other insoluble, “because no definite proposition 
can be laid down which the inquirer may apply himself to elucidate.” 
To the first belong such facts as are explicable upon a consideration 


248 


of the influences of climate and temperature; to the the latter, the 
more curious class which relates to the substitution, in one part of the 
globe, of certain representatives of species not found there, but which 
abound in other localities, possessing perhaps the same climatal con- 
ditions as those from which the represented species are excluded. 
Take, as a case in point, the Ericacee and their allies. 

“From the southern point of Africa to the North Cape in Mageroe, 
the heaths extend throughout the Old World, merely leaping over the 
proper tropical regions. With the same latitudes, the same climate, 
and similar conditions of soil, we find not a single species of true 
heath in all America. Other allied plants replace them, plants which 
at least belong to the same family (the Ericacez) ; but if we go to 
Australia, we find under corresponding conditions, not one Ericace- 
ous plant, but in their place appears an allied, but wholly peculiar 
family of plants, the Epacris tribe.”—p. 240. 

Then again the leafless fleshy Huphorbias of the Old World are re- 
presented, in form at least, by the Cactacez of the New; and yet the 
Cactacee, though originally strictly limited to the former, are no 
sooner introduced to many parts of the latter, than they become per- 
fectly naturalized, a proof that mere climate and soil have nothing to 
do with their original location. What, then, is the influential agent? 
In the inquiry 

“Two essentially different points have to be distinguished. The 
heath plants occur on dry, sunny, sandy plains; they eatend from the 
Cape of Good Hope, through Africa, Europe, and Northern Asia, to 
the extreme limits of vegetation in Scandinavia and Siberia; these 
plants are distributed in this great region in such a manner that South 
Africa has innumerable distinct species, of which, however, never 
more than a few individuals grow side by side, that then, towards the 
north, the number of species suddenly diminishes in an important de- 
eree while the number of individuals increases, till at last, in the north 
of Europe, a single species, the common heather (Calluna vulgaris), 
overspreads whole countries in millions of single individuals. In the 
first place, we readily see that only the first determination, that of the 
occurrence, relates necessarily to each individual; while, on the con- 
trary, the range of extension, and the mode of distribution, indicate 
causes which have scarcely any importance in reference to the single 
individual, but very great in relation to the larger groups of plants, 
which we call species, genus, tribe, &c. From this it follows, that the 
former only, the occurrence of plants, is related wholly, while the 
other two are related but partly, to conditions explicable by physical 


249 


influence ; yet we must, at first, keep more to that arrangement, since 
it is strictly logical, which will remain fixed for incalculably long 
time, while, of course, the last arrangement only holds good for the 
existing condition of science. When, namely, we review the various 
influences upon which the life and healthy vegetation of a plant are, 
according to our present physiological knowledge, dependant, we 
quickly find that only a small number of physical forces are as yet 
detected by us, in their action upon the organism, that on the other 
hand, a proportionately large number at present altogether baffle our 
endeavours after a more accurate comprehension of their action, 
although we may safely assert that the life of the plant is, and must 
be, as much dependant on them as upon the others. Merely by way 
of example, I will mention light, electricity, and the pressure of the 
atmosphere. The two first, as continually in action in every chemical 
process; the last, of essential importance in all the processes and re- 
lations between gases and vapours; must likewise powerfully affect 
the life of the plant, which consists in progressive chemical combina- 
tions and separations, in continual absorption and excretion of vapours 
and gases. The how is as yet a complete mystery to us, and many 
of the at present wholly incomprehensible conditions in extension 
and distribution, may sooner or later find sufficient explanation in 
these influences.”—p. 242. 

In his remarks upon “ the Dependance of the Distribution of Plants 
on Physical Conditions,” from which the above extract is taken, the 
author gives a graphic sketch of the various appearances successively 
presented to the eye of the botanical geographer as he scans the ve- 
getation of the globe, from the “snow-covered ice-plains of the ex- 
treme North, where the red-snow Alga alone reminds us of the exist- 
ence of vegetable organization,” in a southward direction, down to the 
garden of Orotava, in Teneriffe, where the gigantic arborescent lily- 
like Dracena “recounts to the musing listener the traditions of 
thousands of years.” The six zones of vegetation thus passed 
through have presented us, in conjunction with the continually in- 
creasing temperature, a continually differing and ever a more luxuri- 
ant vegetation. Ascending the Pic of Teyde, and counting by the 
limits of vegetation, we may then re-survey in a few hours’ climb, the 
wide journey from Spitzbergen to the Canaries, an extent of upwards 
of fifty degrees of latitude. In our ascent of the Pic we find that 

“Man has taken possession of the soil of the plain at its foot, and 
dislodged the original vegetation. Through vineyards and maize- 
fields we ascend, till the shades of the evergreen bay-laurel surround 


250 


us. Trees of the lace-bark tribe and similar plants succeed; we 
wander for a time through a zone of evergreen forest trees. Ata 
height of 4,000 feet we lose the plants which had so far accompanied 
us. A very small number of peculiar plants mark a quickly traversed 
zone of deciduous trees, and we come among the resinous trunks of 
the Canary pine. <A zone of Conifers shields us from the sun’s rays 
up to a height of 6,000 feet, then the vegetation suddenly becomes 
low,—from humble bushes it passes into a Flora which bears all the 
characters of the Alpine plants, till finally the naked rock sets a limit 
to all organic life, and no snow and ice bedeck the summit of the 
mountains, only because its height of 12,236 feet does not, in a posi- 
tion so near the tropics, extend up to the region of eternal snow.”— 
p. 246. 

Facts of this description inevitably lead to the conclusion that the 
intensity of light, the pressure of the atmosphere, the constitution of 
the soil, and conditions of temperature and moisture, all exercise con- 
siderable influence upon vegetation. But this will not account for the 
other class of facts adverted to; it will not explain why the common 
daisy (Bellis perennis) should occur in Europe (almost universally), 
in Australia (where it has probably been introduced), in Northern 
Asia, in some parts of Africa, and in South America, without deigning 

to favour North America with its presence, except as a choice exotic, 
- tended with the most jealous care in botanic gardens. In the words 
of our author, it does indeed seem to us 

“Wholly the result of caprice, that particular plants are distributed 
widely over the globe, while others must live cribbed in the narrowest 
spot, as, for instance, the Wulfenia, cccurring exclusively on the Ca- 
rinthian Alps; that particular families, like the Composite, flourish 
abroad over the whole earth, while others, like the peppers and the 
palms, only occur between very definite degrees of latitude on either 
side of the equator, the Proteacee only in the southern hemisphere, 
the Cactus tribe only in the western half of the earth. Just as inex- 
plicable is the mode of distribution of the families of plants. While 
the palms diminish in number from the equator into high latitudes, 
the Composite attain their highest development in the zones of mean 
temperature, their number of species diminishes from these in both 
directions, equally towards the equator and towards the poles ; while, 
finally, the grasses increase constantly from the equator towards the 
poles.”—p. 257. 

Such considerations teach us the absolute necessity for the further 
accumulation of facts ; and the necessity is not limited to this parti- 


251 


cular branch of Natural Science, but is equally extended to all, even 
to those which now seem to stand upon the surest foundation. The 
grand difficulty, as Schleiden well says, is to state the question cor- 
rectly—to know positively what we require, and to state our wants in 
positive terms. The history of every science is this :— 

“Series of facts accumulate, evidently allied in their nature; if the 
quantity become considerable, they are collected, in systematic ar- 
rangement, into a so-called science, but the seeker wanders hither and 
thither without hold or aim; material is heaped up, and yet science 
does not advance one step. Then comes a man, eminently gifted with 
genius, or frequently even merely one happily favored by accident, 
and gives definite expression to the problem, for the solution of which 
men had been tormenting themselves without knowing it; and now 
all the mental powers of the inquirers are suddenly directed to this 
one point. Down fall the barriers in rapid succession, and science 
advances with giant strides, till she comes again to a point where all 
progress is obstructed, where everywhere is met a flat and impenetrable 
wall, and now the same process of development must be repeated 
anew, in a higher stage, till again a new leader strike on the right 
place, where the wall rings hollow, and thus betrays the possibility of 
a further advance.”—p. 237. 

In the eleventh lecture we have a sketch of “The History of the 
Vegetable World,” from the first faint indications of vegetation through 
its successive stages up to the present fair clothing of our earth. 
Much of this is, of course, conjectural, though the few great land- 
marks presented to us in the grand stone herbarium of other days war- 
rant us in believing that in this case conjecture is not far wide of truth. 
A history of the early vegetation of the earth, must of necessity involve 
to a certain degree the history of the early ages of the earth itself, its 
successive changes of climate and its various rock formations; the 
following sketch contains an abridged view of the argument. 

“The gradual development of the vegetable world commenced with 
the simplest plants, and advanced gradually through the succeeding 
periods to the most perfect plants of our existing vegetation. The 
structures of the first period correspond to a tropical climate contem- 
poraneously extended all over the globe, which passed by degrees 
from the poles towards the equator into the present climatal condi- 
tions; and keeping pace with this appeared another change, for the 
plants of the oldest period, which seem to have been equally distri- 
buted over the whole earth, by degrees were confined into regions of 
distribution, and so passed into the great geographical variety of the 


252 


vegetable world. The gradual conversion of the universal tropical 
climate into the present climatal zones, may be shown in another very 
interesting manner, in quite a special instance. All ligneous trunks 
of Coniferous trees continually increase in thickness at all parts of 
their circumference. In the equatorial regions, where the climate re- 
tains the same character uninterruptedly throughout the year, this 
thickening of the trunk proceeds without interruption, and homogene- 
ously ; no mark betrays, in a smooth transverse section of the stem, 
the time which was required for its formation. As we proceed towards 
the north, however, as the climatal conditions produce continually in- 
creasing diversity in the particular seasons, the corresponding growth 
in thickness shows itself to have been furthered by the favourable 
season, and restrained or altogether interrupted by the unpropitious 
times. In a cross section of a stem are seen, the higher the latitude 
in which it has grown, the greater differences in the structure of the 
successive portions of the wood; until, finally, in the latitudes where 
there is a severe alternation of winter and summer, so striking becomes 
the difference between the wood last formed in summer and that first 
produced in the next spring, that we may count in the number of an- 
nular marks thus produced, in a cross section, with great certainty and 
accuracy, the number of years which have been occupied in the forma- 
tion of the trunk. The circular lines upon the cross section, well 
known to every forester, are thence called the annual rings. When, 
fortified with the knowledge of this fact, we compare with each other 
the trunks of the Conifers which we obtain from the various epochs of 
formation, we find that the oldest remains exhibit no trace whatever 
of annual rings; but in the course of time they become continually 
more defined, so that lastly, in the most recent formations, for instance 
in the upper brown coal, they appear marked just as distinctly as in 
the trees now living in the same localities.” —p. 286. 

‘The assumption of repeated creations advocated by some modern 
naturalists finds no favour with our author, who holds the idea “ofa 
totally new origination of vegetable germs, out of unorganized or even 
inorganic matters, to be superfluous, and therefore not to be admitted ;” 
he is content to trace back the multifarious forms of vegetation which 
now adorn the earth to the acknowledged first and simplest form— 
the cell, which we know can and does vegetate as an independent 
plant. And, as shown in the preceding sketch, 

“We see that the vegetable world begins in water, under the simplest 
forms, and in that very family in which the whole plant is represented 
by a single cell, most frequently, in the present time. In the succeed- 


253 


ing periods the other groups are added to this, making their appear- 
ance in a series which corresponds through a continually higher or- 
ganization, 2. @., continually more manifold vital processes, to the suc- 
cessively more manifold and complicated physical conditions which 
come into action. Thus the stemless Cryptogamia are followed by 
those provided with stems and leaves. Then the Gymnospores 
(Conifers and Cycadez) enter upon the field; to these succeed the 
Monocotyledons, and lastly appear the Dicotyledons. Imperfect as 
are the documents we have obtained, and little as we have yet de- 
cyphered of them, yet in no period do we find the appearance of a 
wholly new creation, but the organic beings are always added gradu- 
ally; the lowest members of one period succeeding to the highest 
members of the foregoing, in such a manner that they at least repeat 
its principal type; nay, we may even say more than this: if both ge- 
nera and species, or even families of plants, have disappeared from the 
earth, there does not exist, even in the oldest remains, any peculiar 
great group, a form of plants constituting as it were a stage of develop- 
ment of the vegetable world, which has not its representative also ex- 
hibited in the Flora of the present world. 

“This view, that the whole fulness of the vegetable world has been 
gradually developed out of a single cell and its descendants, by gra- 
dual formation of varieties, which became stereotyped into species, and 
then, in like manner, became the producers of new forms, is at least 
quite as possible as any other, and is perhaps more probable and cor- 
respondent than any other, since it carries back the absolutely inex- 
plicable, namely, the production of an organic being, into the very 
narrowest limits which can be imagined.”—p. 292. 

This, it will be said, is Vestigianism; but it differs from that doc- 
trine, inasmuch as it supposes the gradual addition of new organs to 
those previously present, not the transmutation of such organs into 
others. As the author observes—“ That the germ of inorganic life came 
forth upon the earth once, at least, out of the strife of the inorganic ele- 
ments, admits of no doubt;” still, there is another question—“ has this 
process occurred more than once? And must it have occurred more fre- 
quently?” He further asks—“ Since in these matters every one has, and 
may have, his own proper fantasies, why should not I too have mine ? ” 

The lectures conclude with one upon “The Asthetics of the Vege- 
table World.” And here we can neither pretend to follow the author 
in his metaphysical flights, nor to be able to give our readers any in- 
telligible account of them: choosing rather to quote the lines of 
Faust used as a motto to this lecture, as meeting our own case :— 

VOL. It. 2M 


6 


D4 


no 


‘The import of the shapes, I wished 
In magisterial wise tunfold ; 

But what I could not comprehend 
Might not of course by me be told. 


The grand object seems to be the “ tracing the symbolization of the 
vegetable world, through every form of Divine worship that has ex- 
isted among the various races of mankind.” But, fearing that by this 
time our readers must be aweary of a subject already extended be- 
yond all reasonable length, we must plead as an excuse for prolixity 
the generally interesting nature of a book, some idea of which we have 
endeavoured to lay before them by means of the extracts we have 
culled from its pages; not with a view of superseding a reference to 
the work itself, but rather in the hope that some at least may be 
tempted from our samples to make themselves acquainted with the | 
original; where, although certain things may be encountered calcu- 
lated to startle those who are unacquainted with the German mode of 
treating scientific matters, yet we must say that we consider the Eng- 
lish botanist to be under an obligation both to author and translator 
for the production of a book well calculated to vindicate the claims 
of Botany to a far loftier position as a science than many, even at the 
present day, are from ignorance of its merits inclined to accord it. 


L. 


Observations on certain Plants occurring near Dumfries. 
By Peter Gray, Esq. 


Axout the middle of last month I gathered Pyrola media and Ly- 
copodium alpinum: in some quantity for distribution. The only 
habitat at present known in this district for these rather rare plants is 
upon the eastern slope of those hills which hem in the vale of Dum- 
fries on its western side, above and some hundred yards to the north 
of the mansion-house of Dalskairth, in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright. 
While thus engaged I noticed so many plants not generally met with, 
and these in such profusion, that 1 am tempted to give you a brief ac- 
count of my ramble. The district in question, not to speak of the 
range of hills of which it forms a very small part, has never been ex- 
amined with much attention, although I am convinced it would well 
repay it. On the day upon which, in company with a friend, I last 
visited it, the beams of an almost vertical sun flashed on our heads, 


255 


“ Not, though in northern clime, obscurely bright, 
But one unclouded blaze of living light.” 


Our walk from Dumfries was a perfect martyrdom, the road nearly 
to the foot of the hills being entirely unsheltered, and the ground 
rising the whole way, while not a breath of wind stirred the glowing 
air. Just before entering the pass for the side of which we were 
bound, and about that part of the road where the Cumberland moun- 
tains first break on the view away over Mabie Moss and the Solway 
Firth, in the corner of a field on the right, is the first station I knew 
for Sanguisorba officinalis, which is not, however, anywise uncommon 
in our neighbourhood. A little further, nearly opposite the road 
through the moss, J picked in the hedge, from one of a number of 
plants of Linaria vulgaris, an imperfect specimen of the Peloria variety. 
The lower lip of the flower was quite flat, long, and curiously awry ; 
the spurs were two in number. I have found many incomplete, 
never a perfect example of this variety, growing on the bank now 
noticed. About a quarter of a mile onward we struck off the road 
to the left, and commenced the ascent of the hill by a foot-road, 
steeper in many parts than the roof of an ordinary house. Here, 
among immense quantities of the wood strawberry, the bilberry, 
Polypodium Dryopteris, and other neighbours more characteristic of 
the oak copse lately cut down than the present comparatively bare 
condition of the hill side, and near its summit, we found a few stray 
specimens of Rubus saxatilis in fruit; but my companion, more of an 
epicure than a botanist, who preceded me, had plucked and eaten the 
ripe drupes before I knew or could prevent him. We had now arrived 
at a limited upland, partially cultivated, and affording sites for two 
farm-houses, the northernmost named, I believe, Hillhead. Passing 
this quickly, we pushed up the hill, but were soon forced to throw 
ourselves, panting, under the welcome shade of a stunted, though, 
fortunately for us, an umbrageous tree. Indeed, I never recollect 
being exposed, on a similar occasion, to such intense heat. By-and- 
bye, however, 

— ‘There crept 

A little noiseless noise among the leaves, 

Born of the very sigh that silence heaves,” 


which later in the afternoon increased to a refreshing gale; anda 
haze having also partially veiled the sun, the remainder of our ramble 
was accomplished with something like comfort. Yet, apart from 


256 


every other consideration, the view from the point in which we 
were derned, amply compensated all the toil of the ascent. A great 
portion of a populous and fertile valley, bathed in all the radiance of a 
glorious summer’s day, lay at our feet, studded with houses, variegated 
with fences innumerable, patches of wood, and crops of every kind 
and hue, the whole surface beautifully undulating, upon which the 
eye never tired of resting, with 


“ Town and village, dome and farm, 
Each lending each a double charm.” 


Northward, and to the east, sate Queensberry among his myrmidons— 


‘* Mountains on whose barren breast, 
The labouring clouds do often rest ;” 


on our extreme right the still more majestic Criffel; and, beyond, the 
sparkling waters of the Solway, from which up the estuary and along 
the tortuous channel of the Nith the tide was stealing like a crested basi- 
lisk; while far out upon its bosom, like sea-birds, floated numbers of 
coasting vessels, clumsy and uncomely enough when close at hand, but 
graceful and gay in the distance. And opposite us, upon its table-land, 
lay Lochrutton loch, like a mirror, placid and lonely, with the white 
walled hamlet of Merkland glistening in the sun. Moving northwards 
along the full round brow of the greywacke hill upon which we stood, we 
soon came upon a profusion of Lycopodium alpinum in fruit, and very 
abundantly furnished with spikes. By the way, I may remark that 
the spores of this plant are even more inflammable than those of L. 
clavatum. Here also | picked up a Carex not unlike C. stricta in se- 
veral of its characters, and observed plenty of Empetrum nigrum (in 
fruit, of course), along with many of the plants usually found in its 
company. Returning towards Hillhead, we found Gentiana campes- 
tris sparingly ; and among the heath in abundance Habenaria bifolia 
and Pyrola media, both beautiful objects, interspersed with the yellow 
flowers and bright green foliage of Genista tinctoria, with Linum 
catharticum, &c. Near this place I gathered some years ago a single 
specimen of Pyrola rotundifolia: I have never met with another. The 
most striking object, however, was Lycopodium clavatum, on this part 
of the hill forming patches about two feet wide and many yards in 
length, winding in a curious manner among the red heather, and in 
full fruit. Farther to the southward Gymnadenia conopsea, growing 
beside its less favoured congener G. albida, cast a delicate fragrance 


257 


everywhere, mingled, in the invigorating air of these uplands, with the 
sweetness of many a mountain flower. On some well defined tracts 
of a lighter green, which are probably watercourses in winter, H. viri- 
dis occurs, though more sparingly, with Botrychium lunaria on several 
dry knolls farther to the south; and about the margin of a rivulet in 
the same direction, Lycopodium selaginoides. Near this spot, on one 
occasion, I gathered L. Selago, thus making four out of the six British 
species of this genus, within a very short distance of each other, on 
one hill-side. On the banks of this stream, still lower down the hill, 
a friend used to gather Jungermannia tomentella with calyces, al- 
though never lucky enough to find it in fruit; and another orchid, not 
very frequent with us, Neottia Nidus-avis, grows in the same neigh- 
bourhood, along with Bartramia arcuata, Hypnum_brevirostre, 
Hookeria lucens, and Neckera crispa, all plentifully in fruit in their 
season, with other Cryptogamia, the names of which it is unneCessary 
to recapitulate. 

The extension of the empire of cultivation is all very good; 
but one of its results is occasionally not a little annoying. The 
plough is rapidly assuming a supremacy over one of the best, if not 
the very best, botanizing grounds about Dumfries—the borders of the 
pond that supplies water-power to Stakeford Foundry, known to cur- 
lers, skaters, and truant school boys as Maxwelltown Loch. A year 
or two bygone, urged by the apparition, a few months previously, of se- 
veral cartloads of tiles about the spot, I visited it for the purpose of 
securing what I feared would be a last bundle of Eriophorum pubes- 
cens. Instead of the object of my search, however, I found a very 
flourishing crop of Solanum tuberosum in lazy beds; and the disap- 
pointment was the occasion of a not very patriotic couplet I find in 
the margin of my Hooker. Drainage has also destroyed our locality 
for the variety of Carex limosa honoured by some botanists with the 
specific title of errigua; and I am very much afraid that Carex limosa 
herself will be obliterated this year or next by the same process, sur- 
rounded, as she is, in her only habitat in this quarter by land gaping 
for potatoes. 

Ts Carex muricata, Linn., a good species? I gathered on the 10th 
of July a few specimens of a plant which I have thus entered in my 
note-book :—“‘ Carex muricata. The spikelets of this plant are sterile 
at their upper extremity, and generally six, always more than four in 
number; the stems are from one and a half to two feet in length, as 
long as, perhaps rather longer, than the leaves; and the fruit is smooth 
on the greater part of its bordered margin, but rough at the beak. 


258 : 


On the other hand it approaches C. stellulata, in the next division, if 
not in the relative length of stems and leaves, and in the smaller size 
of the fruit, at least in the latter being green and not yellow-brown 
in colour. The spikelets are also too distant from each other, and 
the bracts too large for my idea of C. muricata. The Carex I gathered 
in 1847, in the wood beside Lincluden, seems intermediate between 
this and C. stellulata, as this is between it and the one from the road- 
side opposite Lincluden Lodge, which agrees in every point with the 
description in Hooker, the only constant and perfectly appreciable 
character common to the three being the smooth margined capsule.” 
PETER GRay. 


Queen Street, Dumfries, 
August, 1848. 


Notes of a Botanical Excursion in Hampshire. 
By Josrea Woops, Esq., F.L.S., &c. 


I starTev on the 8th of June for a little excursion into Hampshire 
and Dorsetshire. At Southampton I observed, as I do at Lewes, two 
forms of Bromus mollis. One with short branches to the panicle, 
many of them bearing two or three spicules, the whole much con- 
tracted after flowering; the other with the branches of the panicle 
much longer, and hardly or not all divided, and the panicle but 
slightly contracted after flowering. I cannot say that we do not 
sometimes observe intermediate forms, but 1 cannot clearly see in 
what the second differs from B. racemosus, except in the pubescence. 
The longer simple peduncles are generally longer than the spicule, 
as they are in B. commutatus, and not unfrequently in B. racemosus. 

On the 9th I again got upon the railway, retracing my steps as far 
as Bishopstoke, and thence proceeding to Rumsey, where my princi- 
pal object was to sce the magnificent Norman church, which I had 
never visited. I walked here along the Salisbury road, and then 
through the woods of Emly to what was once Rumsey Common, now 
a grove of fir-trees, returning by the Heathcote monument (which I 
did not see), near which I found Pyrola minor, the only prize in this 
day’s walk. 

The 10th was wet, and I spent part of the morning in sketching 
the church, and then took a fly to Lyndhurst. The landlord at the 
White Horse, at Rumsey, charged me 5s. for the sitting-room. It 
seems to me that many of our innkeepers have lately endeavoured by 


259 


an increase of charges to make up the deficiency occasioned by the 
rail-roads. I have no objection to paying a moderate sum for the 
sitting-room. I prefer having and paying for the accommodations I 
really wish, to being expected to call and pay for things which I do 
not want, but then it seems but fair that the charges which were 
added to what we eat and drink, as a compensation for the use of the 
room, should be reduced. As far as my experience goes, however, 
where we have to pay for the sitting-room we have to pay higher for 
everything else. Thus, to compare my expenses at the White Horse 
here with those at the Ship, at Swanage, where the mode of life was 
the same, and the accommodations as nearly equal as possible, I find 
that at the latter they amounted to 7s. 3d. p day, and at Rumsey to 
15s., almost every article being charged higher at the latter place, be- 
sides the charge for the sitting-room. 

After attending church at Lyndhurst I took a walk on the forest. 
There is a fine, high, heathy table-land, not devoid of trees, affording 
a magnificent view, which embraces both ranges of chalk hills, the 
Isle of Wight and the blue hills of Dorsetshire. The ascent is steep 
and bold, but this higher land is very little seen from other parts of 
the Forest, which I confess I rather complain of as tame and mono- 
tonous. There is, however, some very pleasant and well varied 
country immediately about Lyndhurst. Of plants I saw nothing rare 
for this part of the world. Carex pulicaris, Osmunda regalis and 
Pinguicula lusitanica occur in the bogs. Agrostis setacea is the 
grass of the dryer sandy and gravelly heaths, and Festuca tenuifolia 
is also not unfrequent. Babington says of F. ovina (in which he in- 
cludes duriuscula) “ Root not truly creeping,” which seems to indi- 
cate that he perceived traces which approached to a creeping root. 
Smith says of ovina, “ Root of long fibres;” of duriuscula, “ Root 
scarcely creeping.” Koch attributes a fibrous root to ovina and he- 
terophylla, which, as he often puts fibrous in opposition to creeping, 
seems to imply that in these plants he considers it as not creeping. 
Cosson and Germain, who distinguish duriuscula both from ovina 
and heterophylla, say nothing of the root. Bertoloni says that the 
root of duriuscula (including F. ovina) sometimes emits short runners. 
I find in the usual form of ovina and duriuscula, as well as in the 
foreign heterophylla, which is perhaps only a variety of duriuscula, a 
slender, creeping rhizoma, which seems to be generally wanting in 
tenuifolia. It is brittle, and I believe never comes up with the plant 
when the latter is pulled up. 

The 12th was again wet, and my walk along the Christchurch 


260 


road very unsatisfactory. 1 was quite too early for the Neottia, and 
a range of bog which looked very promising yielded nothing. 

13th. Again heavy showers in the morning, which prevented me 
from visiting Costicles Park. I took the rail-road to Brockenhurst, 
whence an omnibus conveyed me to Lymington. Of Mr. Smith’s 
Scirpus parvulus I am afraid there is very little hope, at any rate I 
was much too early for it. Sclerochloa Borreri is abundant, and 
there is also some S. procumbens. The Borreri was only just begin- 
ning to flower. The salt-works from forty are now diminished to 
eleven. On the 14th I crossed at the ferry and walked up to Sir H. 
Burrard’s monument, a beautiful spot. I then continued along the 
shore, where ({nanthe pimpinelloides is abundant, and from here to 
Wareham and Lulworth it is a common plant, not at all particular as 
to soil or situation, but rather, I think, flourishing best in a sandy 
loam. Mr. Watson thinks the roots not sufficient to characterize the 
plant, but I have never seen any when in flower or fruit where the 
root was not decisive. The children eat the tubercles under the name 
of earth-nuts. Carex divisa is abundant and very luxuriant, and we 
meet with a little Artemisia Absinthium on a gravelly soil.. Sene- 
biera didyma and Linum angustifolium occur along the shore. 

I walked from Lymington to the station at Brockenhurst without 
adding anything to the plants I had already observed. There isa 
range of hills of a dry, white gravel, with boggy ground at the bottom, 
which seemed very promising, but afforded nothing but the common 
plants of the country. The railway took me to Poole. In the even- 
ing a heavy storm came on, but the next day I walked to Bourne 
Mouth, taking in my way the station of the Simethis bicolor, Kunth, 
Anthericum planifolium, Zinn. The idea suggested by its position 
is that it originally occupied a space of perhaps twenty yards in di- 
ameter, which was cut through by a road when the fir-plantations 
were made, 7. e., as J understand, about forty years ago. It grows on 
open, barren heaths in the west of France, and I should think is not 
at all connected with the fir-trees. There seems to be only this one 
patch, at least I saw it inno other spot, though I calculated that my 
various traverses of heaths and fir-plantations (there is nothing else 
about Bourne Mouth) on this and the following days, could not be 
less than thirty miles, yet it would be a singular chance that this road 
should happen to divide the only patch of it in the country; and my 
observations go but a little way compared to the great extent there is 
of this sort of soil in the Poole basin. 

When is a tree to be deemed naturalized ? Trees and shrubs, at 


261 


least such as form hedges or yield timber are so much the subjects of 
planting that it is difficult to decide what are truly native. There is 
a hedge of Lycium barbarum on the shore near Lymington, far from 
any house, and I know not how the student would be able to pro- 
nounce that it was not wild. At Malesherbes and Etampes, in 
France, the woods abound with Cytisus Laburnum, looking quite as 
if the natural produce of the country; but it has been planted for 
fuel. In the same neighbourhood we meet with Syringa vulgaris, and 
this is also planted in Germany as a shelter for the game. We have, 
I believe, no originally indigenous Pinus in England, but the seeds 
of P. sylvestris sometimes come up abundantly and form a natural 
wood where a sandy soil has a somewhat peaty covering, as, for in- 
stance, on Esher Common. In the Poole basin the Pinus pinaster 
propagates itself, and at Alum Chine, and perhaps elsewhere, we may 
make out a strong probability of two native generations. I confess 
in such a case I think the tree ought to find a place in the English 
Flora. 

My next walk was along the shore as far as Poole harbour. The 
sea is gaining all along the shore, which keeps it nearly clear of ma- 
ritime plants. Towards the harbour the sand-hills yielded me Triti- 
cum junceum, and Festuca rubra of the form which has been called 
sabulicola by some continental botanists. We have a series in this 
tribe in the structure of the root: first, tenuifolia, which seems to 
have the least of a creeping rhizoma; then ovina and duriuscula, 
where it is very slender; next rubra, of our hills and meadows, where 
it is stouter, and perhaps two or three inches long; and lastly, that of 
the sand-hills, where it is sometimes as many feet. A little way from 
the harbour is a preventive station. The guard told me he had been 
there six years, and that soon after he came a large part of the cliff, 
above 100 feet in width from his description, gave way, and descend- 
ed so gradually into the sea that a person might have stood upon it 
without danger. 

As there are few habitations in the country there are few paths, 
and walking over a close, continued bed of heath and furze is very 
fatiguing. As there are no cattle and no sheep there are no tracks. 
I saw notices of cattle taken in to graze, but what they were to feed 
upon I do not know. I saw no cattle, nor even a sheep, and the 
whole appearance of the country is that of barrenness, more than an- 
swering to Col. Martin’s celebrated description of the land in Con- 
nemara. 

Mr. Borrer was to come on Tuesday evening to Bourne Mouth ; 

Vou, ir. 2N 


262 


meanwhile I got into the omnibus and proceeded to Parkstone, a very 
pleasant place overlooking Poole harbour, and walked along the 
shore of the harbour to a place called in the Ordnance map Lilliput. 
It is a very pleasant walk, and just below Parkstone I got Carex ex- 
tensa, Schcenus nigricans and Scirpus uniglumis. The latter is, I 
believe, a good species, though we find at Lewes a form in some de- 
gree intermediate. Returning there the next day Mr. Borrer showed 
me Tillaa muscosa on the walls of a nursery-ground. As I continued 
along the shore I saw great abundance of. Ginanthe pimpinelloides. 
Trifolium glomeratum and ornithopodioides occur near the Little Sea. 
Bartsia viscosa, Briza minor, Lotus hispidus and Ornithopus perpu- 
sillus were growing near Lilliput. Cochlearia anglica abounds by 
the ditches near the harbour. 

On Wednesday I went with Mr. Borrer to Corfe Castle. We ga- 
thered in the way Rhynchospora fusca, a plant which seems pretty 
widely scattered on the heaths about Wareham. Mr. Borrer returned 
on the same day to Bourne Mouth, and after his departure I walked 
among the clay-pits to the west of the road between Wareham and 
Corfe Castle. My principal object in taking this direction was to 
look for Trifolium resupinatum. This plant has been found at Poole 
and near Bristol, and in both instances apparently in connexion with 
clay which had been brought from the clay-pits of this district. It 
would therefore be very interesting to discover it here, and to give it 
an undoubted claim to a place among our native plants; but my 
search was in vain, the best plant in the walk being Ranunculus par- 
viflorus, which occurs in many places in Dorsetshire. Orchis conop- 
sea on the peaty heaths had a most delightful odour: on the chalky 
banks none at all. 

The next day I walked down to Cherford Bridge, and thence ram- 
bled over Fibsworth Heath. Erica cinerea and Tetralix were both in 
good flower, though not perhaps so abundantly so as they will be a 
fortnight or a month hence; and I hoped to find E. ciliaris equally 
advanced, but in places where my memory represented the ciliaris as 
bearing its full proportion of covering the ground with the other 
heaths, I could find only a few shabby plants, with hardly any indica- 
tion of their intending to flower this year. Indeed, if it had not been 
for a few remaining dried racemes of last year, I doubt if I should 
have observed the plant at all. In 1839 I gathered it in full flower 
on the 22nd August, and at Plelan, in Brittany, I had before found it : 
on the 11th July. 

In spite of the threatening weather, I set off next morning to trace 


263 


the chalk hills on the west of the town, and to ascend Creechborough. 
These chalk hills are of a much harder substance than those of Kent 
and Sussex, steep on all sides, and thence with a more mountain-like 
appearance, and the strata are highly inclined. In Botany they af- 
forded me nothing but Brachypodium pinnatum, which is exceed- 
ingly abundant on the whole range. Creechborough is a somewhat 
conical point of sand and gravel, belonging probably to the plastic 
clay, and apparently overtopping the adjacent chalk hills, but the 
day was so thick I could nowhere see the horizon, and the rain came 
on heavily while I was on Kingsbury, and continued till J got back 
to Corfe Castle, preventing my farther examination of the sand and 
clay pits for the Trifolium resupinatum. 

Saturday was fine, and as the glass was rising, I set off for Stud- 
land. The road keeps near the chalk hills and above the barren 
heaths, although it is itself, I believe, almost everywhere on the plas-~ 
tic clay beds. It is remarkable that these beds, where they climb up 
the back of the chalk hills, as on this road at Kingwood Heath and 
at Creechborough, have not the extreme barrenness of the lower beds. 
The strata are, I believe, nearly horizontal, and not inclined with the 
chalk, at least such is the notion suggested by the appearance of the 
clay-pits: these upper parts may therefore perhaps belong to a later 
formation. Over all this tract of country we find a Rubus much like 
R. plicatus, but the stem more arched and much more prickly. Mr. 
Borrer suggests that it may be R. nitidus; for my part, I hardly ven- 
ture to form an opinion on a Rubus, but in this plant the shoots are 
decidedly arched and hairy, the prickles curved, and the stalk of the 
panicle not polished. The panicle, too, seems to be nearly simple, 
in all which it differs from Babington’s idea of the Rubus nitidus. 

On this walk, as in that of Thursday, I found Orchis conopsea 
abundant in dry meadows, without smell. The descent into Studland 
was cheered by Trifolium glomeratum and subterraneum, and Medi- 
cago denticulata and Lotus hispidus, a pretty group of one tribe 
growing together. On the beach at Studland, Cynodon dactylon was 
very strong and vigorous, but not yet showing any of its “horns,” and 
beyond it, in considerable abundance, but for the most part not yet 
in flower, Filago Jussiei of Cosson and Germain. This is undoubt- 
edly the Gnaphalium pyramidatum of some authors, enumerated as a 
species or as a variety of F. germanica, and I see no reason to doubt 
its being the Filago pyramidata of Linneus, though Cosson rejects 
this idea and Koch reasons against it. Linneus does not describe 
the heads, but the flower (i. e. the compound flower) as pyramidal, 


264 


which is strikingly the case in the present plant. The observations 
of Messrs. Cosson and Germain are abundantly sufficient to stamp it 
as a good species. Passing over Ballard Down, I observed several 
of the corn plants of a chalky soil, as Linaria Elatine and spuria, and 
all these occur, not only on the chalk and limestone, but also on the 
intervening clay and loam of the Wealden formation. 

After church on Sunday I walked along the shore to the foot of 
Ballard Down, and then turned inland along the foot of the down. 
In one of the little drains that trickle from the cliff I got Scirpus Sa- 
vii, and at the foot of the downs Rubia peregrina. 

On the Monday morning I walked up Nine-barrow Down, one of the 
highest of these chalk hills. Just before reaching the open country I 
fell in with two tufts of Iris foetidissima, with yellow flowers. 1 was 
the more struck with this, as Mr. Borrer had just been mentioning 
that he thought he had seen such a thing in the gardens at Hampton 
Court. 

My chief object at Swanage was the Phalaris paradoxa, but the 
discoverer, Mr. Hussey, was not at Swanage. However, I found that 
Mr. Willcox, a surgeon of the place, was well acquainted with the 
plant and its habitat, and he kindly undertook to conduct me to the 
spot, premising, however, that the field had become a potato-ground, 
and that none of the plant was to be found. We of course looked in 
vain. It seems to have been pretty abundant in a space of about 
thirty or forty yards square, in one corner of a corn-field, and there 
was no account of any foreign seed having been sown there at any 
time. The soil seemed rather a stiff loam on the Wealden beds, 
some of which on the Isle of Purbeck are very sandy, but that is not 
the case in this field. Leaving this field and crossing a lane we 
came on the yellow variety of Iris fcetidissima, which may therefore 
be presumed to be not very uncommon in this neighbourhood. <A 
Daucus abounds here, which I take to be the maritimus of Withering 
and hispidus of De C., at least as far as regards the French plant, 
but of course the fruit was not yet formed. Mr. Willcox informs me 
that the poor employ it as a diuretic. Mr. Willcox possesses a very 
interesting collection of the fossils of the neighbourhood, particularly 
of the fishes found in the Purbeck beds, and also some leaves from 
the plastic clay. 

On Tuesday I proceeded by stage to Wareham, and thence by rail- 
road to Wool. There I engaged a lad to take my luggage to West 
Lulworth, and proceeded myself on foot, but the walk is not interest- 
ing; yet had the day been fine ] should probably have found amuse- 


265 


ment in the distant views; for the road lies very high for a conside- 
rable portion of the way. The interest of West Lulworth lies entirely 
in its singular broken shore, where we see the Purbeck limestone ris- 
ing from under the chalk hills, with more or less of the strata of the 
Wealden and of the green sand between them. In one or two places 
the strata are absolutely reversed, and the green sand appears to rest 
on a chalk very full of flints. The chalk strata are very much in- 
clined, or quite vertical, as in the Isle of Purbeck, but the singularity 
is, that there and here, these highly inclined strata are backed by ho- 
rizontal strata of chalk. A little way west of West Lulworth is a 
perforation in the limestone rock called Duddle Door, and near this - 
we find abundance of Statice spathulata. The leaf is rather broad, 
with an uninterrupted margin continued behind the mucro. In 
Sussex we have a variety with a broader leaf, but in which the mn- 
cro is usually or always terminal. Crithmum maritimum is abun- 
dant both on the chalk and the limestone, and on the chalk a form of 
Arenaria marina, with a very stout, woody root, showing several con- 
centric circles. Most botanists describe A. marina as an annual, [ 
doubt if correctly, and Babington inserts a p.?. Erythrea latifolia, I 
believe, occurs on the intermediate Wealden, but I am not very con- 
fident in my power of determining this species. In the little.bay be- 
tween Duddle Door and Lulworth I observed a good deal of a Bras- 
sica which I had noticed in August, 1837, in this neighbourhood, 
distinguished from B. oleracea by the turgid and seed-bearing beak. 
My friends Mr. Borrer and the late Mr. Janson have assured me that 
it retains this character in its progeny, and both agree that the plant 
is distinguishable in all stages, though it would perhaps be difficult 
to describe the difference so as to identify the plant independently of 
the pod. I found this plant again the next day, on the little opening 
to the shore which exists at East Lulworth, on the chalk cliffs. I 
did not anywhere observe it on the limestone, but Mr. Willcox in- 
formed me that the quarry-men in Purbeck make use in the spring of 
a cabbage they find on the cliffs. Query if this is the same, and also 
if the plant of Dover cliffs have a seed in the beak. De Candolle has 
a section of the genus Brassica distinguished by having a seed in the 
beak, but these, with the exception of B. Richeri, belong to the genus 
Erucastrum. The German and Italian Floras do not mention B. ole- 
racea as a wild plant, and they have no species to which this can be 
attributed ; for though two or three of them have constantly or occa- 
sionally seeds in the beak, the descriptions are very different in other 


266 


respects. Loiseleur mentions B. oleracea as native of the Atlantic 
shores of France, which Duby limits to those of Normandy. 

On the top of the chalk cliffs near Duddle Door grows Erodium 
maritimum, and on the banks above a large corn-field, east of West 
Lulworth, there was abundance of Ophrys apifera and a few plants of 
Orchis ustulata. These are all the rarities I noticed in the neigh- 
bourhood. On my return through Wareham I examined a plant 
which is probably the Ginanthe fluviatilis of Coleman, though the de- 
scription does not quite agree. The place where I was able to get at 
it was just above a mill on the Piddle, a little above Wareham, in a 
gentle current, and the water perhaps two feet and a half deep. The 
stems there were erect, very hollow, not angular, and somewhat thick- 
ening downwards to the root, but with a slight contraction between 
the root and the stem, with numerous whorled fibres, but not so nu- 
merous or so thick as in Q&. Phellandrium. In other places, in a 
stronger current, the stems were drawn out as described by Coleman, 
and appeared not to thicken from the middle downwards. The sub- 
mersed leaves exactly correspond with his figure and description ; 
but though I feel confident that they belonged to the same plant, I 
could not get up any in connexion with the flowering stem, which 
produced no leaves entirely under water. It does not appear that 
Q:. Phellandrium has any of these submersed leaves at this time of 
year. The plant is abundant in the Frome and Piddle, and also in 
the Avon, and probably in the Stour, flowering freely, but at present 
the seeds aie of course very imperfectly formed. Wareham stands on 
a sandy point of land between the rivers Frome and Piddle, and its 
ancient boundaries are marked on three sides by an earthen bank, 
forming a pleasant walk. The fourth is formed by the river Frome. 
This projecting point, though sandy, is of not so barren a soil as the 
heaths which occur at a little distance both on the north and south 
sides of the town. From Wareham I returned by railway direct to 
Lewes. 


JOSEPH Woops. 
Lewes, August 1, 1848. 


267 


On the Number of Botanical Species toa Square Mile of Ground. 
By Hewett C. Watson, Esq. 


In the ‘ Phytologist’ for this present month Mr. Coleman intimates 
his opinion, founded upon observations in the county of Hertford, 
“that if a square mile be taken at a venture, its flora may be considered 
a good one if it amount to as many as 200 species” (Phytol. iii. 220). 
Were it possible for a botanist to map out the whole of Britain into 
square mile sections, and fully ascertain the species of each section, 
I think it probable enough that 200 species to a mile of rural surface 
might prove over rather than under the average number. In a general 
sense, I may therefore concur with the opinion expressed by Mr. Cole- 
man, although there is some degree of discrepancy between us. 

On some of the elevated moors of Scotland, where the surface is 
pretty uniform, and is still left almost in a state of nature, many 
square mile sections might likely be found each containing less than 
one hundred, possibly even less than fifty species of flowering plants. 
But in England I doubt not that many square mile sections might 
also be taken, within which a botanist would find more than 300 spe- 
cies, and in several of them more than 400. 

By way of putting this to a practical test, since reading the valuable 

paper by Mr. Coleman, I have reckoned up the species on a square 
mile of surface immediately around my own house. I find that nearly 
400 species can be enumerated as certainly wild within the extent of 
the mile; and if adding to the list about a score of introduced and 
unsettled species, the number may be raised to 410 species or upwards. 
By enlarging the boundaries so as to extend the single mile into a 
space of twenty-five square miles, I find that my enumeration will 
give 660 species, including aliens and unsettled species or varieties. 
The whole county of Surrey would probably be found to include up- 
wards of 800 species, fully double the number in the single square 
mile. / 
I take the square mile immediately around my own abode, as being 
that one with the productions of which I feel myself most familiar. It 
presents considerable diversity of situation for plants, with little 
variety of soil; the latter being either clayey loam or gravel, with a 
few very small patches of sand. The mention of a dozen generic 
names will indicate tolerably well the variety of situation; namely, 
Hydrocharis, Actinocarpus, Calluna, Jasione, Verbena, Lycopsis, 
Helminthia, Briza, Silaus, Hyacinthus, Circea, and Orobus. 


268 ' 


I must now beg leave to apply the above fact in corroboration of a 
conjecture hazarded in print a dozen years ago, and which has been 
referred to by Mr. Coleman, from memory, not quite correctly. In the 
same paper from which I take the short extract quoted above, that 
gentleman writes thus :— “The data acquired in the course of the in- 
vestigation of the flora of the county in question on the above plan, 
may serve to correct the statement of Mr. Watson (in one of his 
works, which the writer has not now at hand to quote with precision), 
to the effect that a single square mile will be found to contain half 
the species of a county. This, however, will be found to be a con- 
siderable overstatement, unless a square mile be selected containing 
every variety of soil and situation.” (Phytol. iti. 220). 

But on reference to the passage, as actually printed in one of my 
earlier volumes, I do not find any positive statement, but simply a 
conjecture on the subject; and the conjecture is only to the effect, 
that a square mile may be found containing half of the species of a 
county, without implying that any or every square mile “ taken ata 
venture” will contain so large a number. After showing that the 
average number of species in twelve local floras for counties or lesser 
tracts does not greatly exceed 700, I added the following remark :— 
“On the average, a single county appears to contain nearly one half 
the whole number of species found in Britain; and it would, perhaps, 
not be a very erroneous guess to say, that a single mile may contain 
half the species of a county.” (‘ Remarks on the Geographical Distri- 
bution of British Plants,’ pp. 41—42. 1848). 


Hewett C. Watson. 
Thames Ditton, August 3, 1848. 


BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 


Friday, August 4, 1848.—John Reynolds, Esq., Treasurer, in the 
chair. 

The following donations were announced :— 

British plants from Dr. Mateer, Mr. Daniel Stock, Miss Griffiths, 
Mr. Daniel Oliver, jun., Mr. P. Gray, and Mrs. Russell. Foreign 
plants from John Ball, Esq. Part III. of Vol. 11 of ‘ Journal of the 
Statistical Society of London,’ presented by that Society. A complete 
set of the ‘Journal of the Pharmaceutical Society,’ presented by that 
Society. 


269 


The Rev. R. H. Webb, of Essendon, Herts, William Godley, Esq., 
of Hallingford, Berks, and F. A. Gace, Esq., of Camberwell, were 
elected members. 

Mr. Hewett Watson presented specimens of Jordan’s Filago canes- 
cens from Claygate, and Filago lutescens from Fairmile, both in Sur- 
rey. These plants are two forms of the Linnean Filago Germanica. 
The former is the commoner British form; the latter of the two (F. 
lutescens) probably answering to the Rev. G. E. Smith’s F. apiculata, 
although some parts of Mr. Smith’s description of this plant seem 
more applicable to F. Jussiei of Jordan. A plant scarcely distinguish- 
able from F. Jussizi has been lately found near Walden, in Essex, by 
Mr. G.S. Gibson. Other specimens of Filago were also exhibited 
from Mr. G. S. Gibson, sent by that botanist as examples of F. Jus- 
sizi and F. apiculata. Mr. Gibson’s specimen of the latter, gathered 
at Thetford, appears quite identical with Mr. Watson’s specimens of 
F. lutescens; and Mr. Watson intimates that the form considered by 
Mr. Gibson to be F. Jussiei (Coss. and Germ.) occurs in several places 
about Esher and Thames Ditton, intermingled with the more usual 
form of F. Germanica, which latter is the F. canescens of Jordan. 

Mr. Gibson also exhibited specimens of Apera interrupta, found by 
the Rev. W. W. Newbould near Thetford, and of Orobanche Picridis, 
found by the same gentleman at Comberton, near Cambridge. 

Mr. S. P. Woodward communicated a paper, being “ Notes on the 
Flora of Gloucestershire.”"—G. EH. D. 


Notes and occasional Observations on some of the Rarer British 
Plants growing Wild in Hampshire. By WILLIAM ARNOLD 
BrRoMFIELD, M.D., F.L.S., &c. 


(Continued from page 213). 


Malva moschata. In various parts of the county and the Isle of 
Wight, not uncommon in woods and hedges. Hayling Island. About 
Clanfield. 


sylvestris. A rare and beautiful variety of this otherwise 
abundant plant grows on chalky declivities amongst corn-fields above 
Sandown Bay, Isle of Wight, at an elevation of some hundreds of feet 
above the sea.’ The flowers are of a delicate, pale, nearly sky-blue 
colour, much like those of Cichorium Iutybus, but with a slight 
VOL. TI. 20 


270 


shade of purple. I found some years since, at Ryde, another singular 
variety of this species, in which the flowers were hardly one-fourth 
the usual size, of a deeper, more uniform purple, with fainter streaks, 
the petals narrower in proportion, more acutely notched, and scarcely 
equal to the columns of fructification which protruded in the yet not 
half expanded flower-buds. As Dr. Salter, to whom I showed it, 
aptly remarked, this variety stands in the same relation to M. sylves- 
tris (the common form) as M. pusilla does to M. rotundifolia. I have 
not since fallen in with this remarkable plant. Two additional forms 
of M. sylvestris occur in this island, the one with an erect, the other 
with a prostrate stem. A beautiful variety with white flowers of a 
satin lustre grows at Norton, Isle of Wight, and in Hayling Island. 
rotundifolia. Not so common in the Isle of Wight as M. 
sylvestris, though generally distributed over the island, and I presume 
the entire county. Most frequently here in or about farm-yards. 

{Lavatera arborea. Said to grow wild at Hurst Castle, on the 
authority of Pulteney, but I could never find it there or elsewhere in 
the county where it could be deemed indigenous. Universally culti- 
vated in the Isle of Wight, and occasionally found on waste ground 
as a stray from cottage-gardens. Sparingly naturalized on a rock at 
Ventnor. 

Althea officinalis. Abundant on many parts of the coast both of 
the mainland and island, in salt-marsh ground, and along tide rivers 
and creeks. Hayling Island. 

Tilia parvifolia. Truly wild in aboriginal woods on the chalk at 
Bordean Hill, near Petersfield, especially in Ridge Copse, and in a 
sloping wood adjoining the old chalk-pit on the right going up the hill 
(where Herminium Monorchis grows), not sparingly, May 24, 1848. 
The trees being here treated as “rice” (German Revs, Rezsholtz, 
Reisig), or brush, are cut periodically with the copse wood, the 
beeches alone being allowed to stand, and hence appear only as 
large shrubs, ten or twelve feet high, with wood of insufficient age for 
flowering. The lime here puts on its most perfectly wild form, the 
leaves extremely small, the largest even on the young and succulent 
shoots not exceeding three inches in breadth, the others much less 
(12 or 2 inches). These are very deeply cordate, and nearly equal at 
base, usually about the length of their foot-stalks, dark green above, 
glaucous beneath, and quite glabrous, but some of the trees have 
leaves of a light bright green, with red foot-stalks, which may possibly 
prove to be T. europea, hardly distinct, as Fries* remarks, from T. 


* Corpus Flor. Provin. Suec. FI. Scan. p. 80. 


271 


parvifolia, in which opinion I am inclined to agree with him, having 
often met with cultivated limes I felt at a loss to refer to either of the 
two supposed species; and in the present case I find no difference but 
that of colour by which to distinguish them. The woods at Bordean 
are of purely native growth, and consist principally of beech, inter- 
mixed with oak, ash, maple, birch, elm (Ulmus montana), and lime, 
with an undergrowth of white rice (Pyrus Aria), whip crop (Vibur- 
num Lantana), hazel, spindle-tree, &c., with here and there an old 
stock of yew and juniper. I understand the lime occurs in the woods 
of the Hon. Mr. Gaze, of Westbury, near West Meon: I have observed 
it apparently wild near Lymington; and I apprehend that Lyndhurst, 
in the New Forest, may owe its name to a prevalence there of this 
tree in former times. In the Isle of Wight T. parvifolia is very rare, 
being confined to a single locality, a small patch of copse-wood, sur- 
rounded by fields, near Yarmouth, where it is very abundant, and, as 
I from the first thought, truly indigenous, an opinion in which I am 
the more confirmed by its subsequent detection at Bordean in an in- 
dubitably native state. 

* Hypericum calycinum. Naturalized on banks of slipped clay 
along the shore a little west of Ryde, unquestionably introduced, and 
I believe never perfecting seed. Extensively planted in shrubberies. 
Androsemum. In various parts of the county, by no 
means rare. (See ‘New Botanist’s Guide’ for several stations). 
Woods at Clanfield. Very common in the Isle of Wight, where there 
are few woods or thickets in which it may not be found, though 
seldom in any plenty in one spot. A beautiful ornament to cover 
deep hollow lanes and dells from its broad handsome foliage of deli- 
cate green. 


quadrangulum. Abundant in wet thickets, on ditch- 
banks, &c., in the island and county generally. 

maculatum ? or H. dubium, rare? Borders of fields 
at Millbrook, near Southton, Mr. H.C. Watson! Hill Lane, South- 
ton, Mr. T. B. Flower! Both these gentlemen are undecided as to 
which of the above species, if such they be, their piant is referrible. 
Besides the obtuse sepals, the leaves of both these species or varieties 
are copiously reticulated beneath with pellucid anastomosing veins, 
taking the place of the dots so conspicuous in those of H. perforatum, 
and by this mark the two species may be readily distinguished in their 
earliest stage of growth, when the former might be easily confounded 
and passed by for the broad-leaved form of the latter to be noticed 
presently. This essential and unvarying character has been totally 


272 


overlooked by British writers, and was first pointed out to me by my 
friend Dr. Wood, of Manchester, but had long before been observed 
and recorded by Wahlenberg.* Since the above was written I have 
gathered H. maculatum in the woods and lanes about Clanfield, Au- 
gust 8, 1848. This certainly coincides with the description given in 
Babington’s Manual of H. maculatum rather than with the same au- 
thor’s diagnosis for H. dubium, the stems being very distinctly quad- 
rangular, the sepals mostly minutely denticulate, obtuse and submu- 
cronate, but many of them are also quite entire, and occasionally a 
little pointed, and vary in shape on the same plant from ovate-ellipti- 
cal to broadly-elliptical, but hardly at all lanceolate ; the whole ques- 
tion betwixt this and dubium being purely one of degree, and therefore 
leading naturally to the inference that both are states of one and the 
same plant. 

Hypericum perforatum. In great abundance all over the county 
and Isle of Wight, in almost every soil and situation. Of this we 
have two well-marked forms or varieties, if their extreme phases alone 
be regarded, but to which limits are unassignable. 1st. The narrow- 
leaved variety, H. perforatum, 8.angustifolium, Gaud. &c., H.veronense 
of Schrank, the leaves of which are narrowly elongate-oblongt or many 
times longer than broad. This form is common in certain parts of the 
Isle of Wight, both in open places and in woods, more usually the 
former. For further remarks on this variety see ‘ Phytologist,’ vol. 1. 
p- 461. 2nd. The broad-leaved form, H. perforatum, y. latifolium, 
Gaud., distinguished by the greater size and breadth of the leaves, par- 
ticularly of those on the main stem, where they are truly and broadly 
ovate, often an inch to an inch and a half in length. This state of the 
plant is usually to be seen in woods and under hedges, sometimes in 


* Fl, Suecica, 1st edition, 1826, ii. p. 476. 

+ I use the terms elongate-oblong, elongate-lanceolate, elongate-elliptical, to imply 
an oblong, lanceolate or elliptical superficies, drawn out or produced with straight 
sides, assuming the curve proper to each figure at the extremities only. I would 
instance as an example of the second the leaves of Epilobium angustifolium, or of 
Salix fragilis. The phrase, which long since occurred to me, and which I have con- 
stantly used in MS., though I know not what claim I can lay to its invention, strikes 
me as more precise and correct than the term linear, which as employed in botanical 
language is widely different from the idea commonly entertained of a linear object, or 
one whose dimensions approach much nearer at least to the mathematical definition 
of a line, “length without breadth.” The addition of “narrowly” or “ very nar- 
rowly ” to the above epithet describes gradations of contraction in width fully as well, 
if not better than to talk of “ narrowly or very narrowly linear,” whilst the incorrect- 
ness of a glaring pleonasm is avoided. 


273 


open fields and pastures, and so closely resembles H. dubium or macu- 
latum in aspect, that without examination of the stem, leaves, and sepals, 
it might pass for either of those species, more especially as the latter 
are occasionally a little obtuse and broader than in the ordinary form 
of the common St. John’s-wort, and the lower leaves are more spa- 
ringly dotted, or in some cases nearly imperforate, but the ancipital 
stem and absence of the pellucid net-work will prevent any possibility 
of confounding it with H. dubium or maculatum. This broad-leaved 
variety would appear to be a mere southern, or at least a mere west- 
ern form, as Koch, whose observations on the three states of H. per- 
foratum under consideration are excellent,* says that it is unknown in 
Germany, being found only in Switzerland and upper Italy. It is 
certainly common enough in England, and abounds in some parts of 
this island and county, but the figures and descriptions of the German, 
Swedish, Danish, and other floras of central and northern Europe, 
seem to apply to our third and intermediate variety, by far the most 
general, with oblong-elliptical leaves both on stem and branches, and 
which grows indifferently in woods and open situations. This too is 
the only American form of H. perforatum, which grows abundantly in 
that country, from Canada to Carolina, though supposed to have been 
originally imported, and lies under the imputation (certainly a most 
unjust one) of causing ulceration in the backs of cattle that pasture 
where it is frequent. The H. intermedium of Petermann (FI). Excurs. 
Lipsiensis) agrees well with our broad-leaved variety in every thing 
but the flower, which the author describes as being much smaller than 
in H. perforatum or dubium. 

Hypericum humifusum. Frequent in dry fields, and heathy, sandy 
places in the county and island. 
—— montanum. This most elegant species is rare and 
very local in the Isle of Wight, being exclusively confined to the 
rocky districts of the Undercliff and the south-eastern angle of the 
coast betwixt Luccombe and Bonchurch. I have no recorded main- 
land station for it at present. 
pulchrum. ‘This charming and graceful St. John’s- 
wort enlivens abundantly our sandy woods and heaths with the bright 
array of gold, scarlet, and crimson of its buds and blossoms. 
elodes. Common I believe in most parts of the county 
in marshy places, as on Petersfield Heath and near Lymington, &c. 
Abundant in some parts of the island in drains and ditches, but local. 


* Deutschland’s Flora, Vter. Band. s. 348. 


274 


Acer campestve. Woods, thickets, and hedge-rows, everywhere 

throughout the county and island, most abundantly, constituting a 
considerable proportion of the ligneous vegetation. Specimens of 
this neat and pretty little tree, of considerable size and height, are 
frequent in various parts of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, but the 
wood, formerly much esteemed for cabinet work, is now very little 
sought after. 
Pseudo-platanus. Not unfrequent in woods, thickets, and 
hedge-rows, and often far enough from habitations, but certainly a 
naturalized and not aboriginal tree in the south of England, though I 
suspect it to be indigenous to mountainous situations in the northern 
counties, where it attains to a greater bulk and stature than it com- 
monly reaches here. We have few fine sycamores in this island, and 
none of any extraordinary magnitude that I know of in the county. 
I have seen seedlings of this tree springing up by thousands on the 
bare sides of our chalk downs, but whether they perish from some- 
thing uncongenial in the situation, or are browzed down by the sheep, 
I know not, but they rarely are found to establish themselves in these 
exposed localities. 

Geranium pratense. Very rare, nor have I yet seen Hampshire 
specimens of this or of the following. Field at Breamore, Miss May. 
Walworth Road, Andover, Mr. Wm. Whale. Thought to have been 
found in a field near Ryde, as I hear from my friend Mr. Wm. Wil- 
son Saunders, but I have never met with it in the island. 

pyrenaicum. Widely: Dr. Pulteney in Hamp. Rep. 

pusillum. Fields and waste places, but not common. 
In several parts of the Isle of Wight, and doubtless also on the main- 
land, though I have no station to give for the latter. 

molle. Abundant almost everywhere in the county and 
island, exhibiting considerable difference in the size and colour of the 
flowers, which vary from bright pink or purple to white or nearly so. 
A larger, more erect form, with larger flowers, I find occasionally here 
and across the Solent, which might be mistaken, as I did on first 
sight, for G. pyrenaicum. This, which 1 unfortunately neglected to 
examine particularly, is probably identical with a plant not uncom- 
mon at the back of the Isle of Wight, according.to Mr. J. A. Han- 
key, closely resembling G. molle, but having the carpels neither 
wrinkled as in that, nor hairy as in G. pusillum, and which both that 
gentleman and Mr. W. W. Saunders conceive may be the G. pyrenai- 
cum of Reichenbach, not of Smith, &c. May not the Widley plant 
be this or my large variety above mentioned, and all three identical 


275 


with the G. molle, 8. eguale, of Babington’s Manual? Another but 
very small flowered variety, with petals scarcely longer than the 
calyx, and more deeply cut leaves, approaching G. pusillum, and 
hardly distinguishable from it but on close examination of the stamens 
and carpels, I have found occasionally in the island, but very rarely. 
Geranium rotundifolium. In rough, rocky pastures and thickets 
about St. Lawrence and Woolverton, Isle of Wight, plentifully, but 
not noticed elsewhere either in the island or on the mainland so far 
as I can learn. 
dissectum. Extremely common and often most abundant 
throughout the Isle of Wight and county generally, on dry bank- 
hedges and waste places; very rarely the flowers are white with us. 
columbinum. Dry banks, woods, and copses, abundantly 
in several parts of the Isle of Wight, but not general. Between An- 
dover and Weyhill. 
lucidum. In various parts of the county and Isle of 
Wight, on dry rocky or chalky banks and walls, but by no means 
common, though usually plentiful enough where found. Hedge-banks 
a little way out of Petersfield, towards Stroud Common. This very 
pretty Geranium is said to be extremely rare in the adjoining county 
of Sussex. 
— Robertianum. Everywhere plentiful in damp, shady 
places, occasionally with white flowers. The var. 6. purpureum 
abounds on the flat shore of Stokes Bay, and near the Priory, Isle of 
Wicht. 
Erodium cicutarium. Common on dry, sandy ground and banks, 
particularly along the coast, here and there with white flowers. 
+? moschatum. Pastures and borders of fields. Found a 
few years back near Yarmouth, by Mr. Butler, of the Bugle Inn, but 
since searched for unsuccessfully on the station, which looked like a 
wild one. I have it, as gathered near the same town, in a list of 
plants of the island lately received, but have never met with it wild 
in the county myself, or seen Hampshire specimens. 
maritimum. Dry banks and pastures by the sea in the 
Isle of Wight, but very rare. Brook Chine. Abundant at Alum Bay, 
along the descent to the beach, and especially plentiful and luxuriant 
about the mouths of the rabbit-burrows. I do not know of any main- 
land Hampshire station for this plant. 
{Linum usitatissimum. Fields: accidentally introduced, scarcely 
even naturalized. I found it August 8th, 1843, in some plenty in a 
field opposite Cliff farm, by Shanklin, along with L. angustifolium, 


276 


but sought it there in vain the following year. About Kenner, by 
Mr. D. Snooke, but I have never met with it elsewhere or since then 
in this island. The corymbose disposition of the branches is a good 
auxiliary character to distinguish this species from L. angustifolium, 
which has the branches singularly lax, irregular and divaricate, with 
the dissepiments of the capsules hairy. 

?Linum perenne. Wrickham: Dr. Pulteney in Hamp. Rep. Of 
this I have not seen specimens, and should fear the next species may 
have been mistaken for it, though Pulteney was an accurate observer, 
and mentions the latter as well in his list, from which I quote. 
angustifolium. Extremely common all over the Isle of 
Wight, in dry soils, sandy fields, on banks, and by road-sides. Abun- 
dant, even to profusion, in some places about Ryde, Shanklin, &c. 
Less frequent, I believe, on the mainland, at least 1 do not remember 
to have noticed it in plenty out of the island. 
catharlticum. Abundant all over the county and Isle of 
Wight, in dry fields and on the chalk downs, &c. 

Radiola Millegrana. Damp, sandy places, and on heaths, appa- 
rently (from its small size) rare in the Isle of Wight. 

Oxalis Acetosella. Woods and shady places, not unfrequent 
throughout the county and island. 

t corniculata. Naturalized in one or two places in the 
Isle of Wight, but sparingly, and not extending itself much. At 
Steephill and at Alverstone Mill, Albert Hambrough, Esq. I could 
not find it this spring at the latter station. 

Euonymus europeus. Extremely common all over the county and 
island in woods, thickets and hedges. Called in the Isle of Wight 
skewer or skiver wood, being much sought after for making that im- 
plement for the butchers. A variety with smaller, very dark green 
and shining leaves is frequent in the island. 

Rhamnus catharticus. Less general than the last, but still very 
frequent on mainland, Hants, especially in the interior of the county 
remote from the sea, and on the chalk. About Southampton. Plen- 
tiful about Chilcombe and elsewhere near Winchester. Abundant, 
almost to profusion, in woods and hedges in and about Appleshaw. 
Andover, on the road to Weyhill, in plenty. Woods at Bordean, 
Petersfield, Clanfield, West Meon, East Meon, &c. Decidedly rare 
in the island, and there exclusively confined to the chalk, and to the 
interior hills and valleys, nowhere approaching the sea-coast, even 
where its favourite rock juts out on the shore. The eastern or conti- 
nental tendency of this shrub is evidenced by its diminishing fre- 


217 


quency in proportion as we advance westward. In the south-western 
counties of England and in Wales it is already rare, and extremely 
so in Ireland, and in the equally maritime climate of Scotland. 

Rhamnus Frangula. Yn damp and sterile woods, thickets and heathy 
ground in very many places, and perhaps general over the entire 
county. Plentiful in woods about Bishop’s Waltham, Botley and 
Fareham. Near Southton. Very abundant in some parts of the 
Isle of Wight near the coast, as well as inland; being a much more 
gregarious shrub than the last, it forms a considerable part of the 
brush or “rice” in the woods, and sometimes attains a height of ten 
or even twelve feet, and is by no means devoid of beauty. I do not 
remember ever to have seen it on the chalk, and here it is generally 
an evidence of a poor, unprofitable, or ill-drained soil. 

Ulex europeus. In vast profusion on heaths, commons, and in 
woods all over the county and island, and which are lighted up by it 
in April and May with one blaze of golden splendour. It was this 
plant, and not the broom, as Mr. Gardiner, in his ‘ Flora of Forfar- 
shire’ represents, that incited the immortal Swedish naturalist to the 
ecstatic genuflexion recorded of him. The latter is a native of Swe- 
den, and Linneus must have been familiar with it in his tour through 
Scania, as indeed appears from his mention of it in the ‘ Itur Scani- 
cum.’ Seeds very variable in number, from three or four, to ten or 
twelve, though usually abowt ten, as Mr. Babington remarks; not all 
perfected. 
nanus. Very common on heaths, &c., flowering in autumn, 
in the Isle of Wight, and I presume through the county, yet I cannot 
satisfy myself that it is truly distinct from the foregoing. 

Genista tinctoria. _ Abundant in many parts of the Isle of Wight, 
the pastures being sometimes quite yellow withit. I have not no- 
ticed its degree of frequency in the county at large, but believe it to 
be generally common. Hayling Island. 
anglica. In moory pastures and wet, spongy bogs, not 
rare in the Isle of Wight. About Southton. On Petersfield Heath 
and various other parts of the county. 

Sarothamnus scoparius. Abundant in woods, copses, and rough, 
bushy pastures throughout the county and island, often attaining to a 
large size, ten, twelve, or fourteen feet, with a trunk as thick as the 
arm. I once picked it with white flowers, in Sandown Bay, Isle of 
Wight. 

Ononis arvensis. Extremely common. A variety with very shaggy 
stems and leaves grows in considerable plenty on Ryde Down at its 

Vol c1i1, 2P 


278 


upper end, and is doubtless that mentioned in the Dillenian editions 
of Ray’s Synopsis, tom. ii. p. 332, No. 3. 

Ononis antiquorum ? Probably not uncommon, but I have not 
(as yet) paid much attention to our two assumed species. A spinous 
form, with very small, narrow and elliptical leaves, and remarkably 
erect, compact branches, with flowers rather more upright and crowd- 
ed than usual, I found on a sea-bank, in the marshes between Co- 
sham and Farlington, near Havant, July 28th, and which I suppose 
is referrible to the present species, if such it be. In that case I have 
no station recorded for O. antiquorum in the Isle of Wight. 

{ Medicago sativa. Were and there naturalized in pastures and by 
way-sides. Persistent in a pasture field by Bonchurch farm for seve- 
ral years past, the remains of some former crop. 
lupulina. Abundant in dry, waste places almost every- 


where. 


maculata. Very common, and in some places profusely, 
in the Isle of Wight, in pastures, waste ground, and even in woods. 
I am unable to speak of its comparative frequency on the mainland, 
where it is not rare, at least along the coast. 

denticulata. Very rare? Abundant on the steep banks 
above Sandown Bay, near the Culver Cliff, a little below the summit 
or crest of the bank, for many yards. Perhaps not uncommon, but 
overlooked for its congenerous species. 

Melilotus officinalis. Very abundant in woods and on banks in 
various and distant parts of the Isle of Wight, but not very universal. 
It covers the banks of slipped clay about Sea View and the Priory, in 
many places along the shore. I have observed bees attracted to the 
mellifluous flowers of this plant in great numbers. My reasons for 
believing the yellow melilot to be biennial and not annual will be 
found in the ‘ Phytologist, vol. 11. p. 330. 

+ vulgaris. Occasionally and sporadically in cultivated 
fields, chiefly amongst clover or lucerne, with which there is little 
doubt it has been introduced, nor have I seen it apparently wild in 
any part of the county. 

Trifolium medium.  Singularly rare, if it has not been overlooked 
by myself and others, as 1 suspect, for the universal T’. pratense. 
Near the shore by the limekiln, a little to the westward of Cowes, Isle 
of Wight, Miss G. E. Kilderbee!! In Firestone Copse, at the point 
of junction of the roads to Ninham and Haven Street, in great plenty 
and very fine, Dr. T. Bell Salter. Near Netley Abbey, Mr. W. L. 
Notcutt. The scarlet trefoil, or as it is here called, Trifolium (T. in- 


279 


carnatum), occurs occasionally as a stray from cultivation, but is 
hardly naturalized. 

Trifolium arvense. Sandy fields, but not very common. On Ryde 
Down. Very abundantly and of most luxuriant growth on the sandy 
banks of debris at the foot of the cliffs in Sandown Bay, Isle of Wight. 
At St. Helen’s, and a few other places. Extremely abundant on the 
south beach, Hayling Island, the heads of flowers often subglobose, 
and the whole plant dwarf, when it is probably the variety of Ray’s 
Synopsis, Dillenian edition, vol. ii. p. 330, to judge from the descrip- 
tion, figure, and nearness to the locality given in that work. 

striatum. Sandy fields and pastures not uncommon in the 
Isle of Wight. It used to be frequent on Ryde Down, which, before 
that piece of ground was built over, produced the greater number of 
the rarer species of this genus indigenous to Britain, along with many 
other interesting plants now extinct, or nearly so, in that locality. 

scabrum. In various parts of the Isle of Wight on sandy 
and chalky fields, pastures and banks, but not very common. Ryde 
Down, &c. 

glomeratum. Sandy places, but rare. In several parts of 
the Isle of Wight. In some plenty with the next on Ryde Down a 
few years since. Sandown Bay. St. Helen’s. Freshwater, near Ly- 
mington, at Woodside, 1848. 

suffocatum. Sandy pastures by the sea; very rare? Pro- 
fasely on Ryde Down in 1843, and still to be found there by diligent 
search, but a great part of the ground on which it grew is now broken 
up and built upon. Red Cliff, at the extreme south point of the 
island on which St. Catherine’s lighthouse now stands, Mr. G. Kirk- 
patrick. 

subterraneum. Frequent in the county on dry, short pas- 
ture ground. About Southampton. Very common in the Isle of 
Wight, its long, slender flowers conspicuously whitening the turf in 
many places. On Ryde Down, &c. 

—— fragiferum. A plentiful species in rather damp meadows 
and pastures in most parts of the island, and I believe of the main- 
land also. I am not prepared to state the comparative frequency of 
this and of our other trefoils over the latter division of the county, not 
having directed my attention to the point, or received notices of their 
occurrence from others. The species belonging to the remaining di- 
vision of the genus, with yellow flowers, namely, T. procumbens, mi- 
nus and filiforme, are all common weeds of the entire county. 

? ornithopodioides. Dry banks and pastures, rare? pro- 


280 


bably only apparently so, from its small size. On Ryde Down, and 
a few other places in the Isle of Wight. 

Lotus corniculatus. Everywhere most abundant in fields, pastures 
and on heaths; particularly fine on the sea-banks in Sandown Bay, 
usually with somewhat fleshy leaves (the var., I suppose, 7. crassifo- 
lius). Another form, with long, silky hairs on the stems and leaves 
(the var. 6. villosus), occurs in several parts of the island in damp 
pastures and on ditch-banks. The state with filiform, decumbent 
stems, and narrow, fleshy leaves and stipules (L. corniculatus, var. te- 
nuis) is not unfrequent in drier places by way-sides, &c., and looks very 
much like a species. Mr. Borrer suspects this last is at most biennial, if 
not annual, since he cannot preserve it in his garden, the old plants 
dying off after perfecting seed, a fact which would go far to establish 
its claim to distinction. 
major. Common in wet meadows, by ditches, &c. 
angustissimus. Abundantly for at least fifty yards on a 
bank facing the south, in Stokes Bay, by Gosport, a little to the west- 
ward of Anglesey, Miss Jane Garrett!!! Not yet found in the island. 

Anthyllis vulneraria. Pastures, but not very common, at least in 
the Isle of Wight. A very large variety, two feet high, with far larger 
leaves and paler flowers (the A. maritima of Schweigger), grows abun- 
dantly on the steep banks at the upper end of Sandown Bay, forming 
great tufts. The red-flowered variety, 8. Dilleniz, has not been found 
in this island or county. 

Astragalus glycyphyllos. Very rare, at least on the island, where 
it is confined to three localities, in rough, rocky pasture ground, near 
Niton, but there most abundant and very fine. 

N. B.—Astragalus hypoglottis, recorded: in ‘ Botanist’s Guide’ 
found on Carisbrook Castle Hill by Mr. Griffith, certainly does not 
grow there at present, and I question if it ever did. Mr. Griffith 
seems to have been a most inaccurate observer, as I shall have occa- 
sion to show subsequently, and to have committed strange mistakes 
in his reports of species. 

Vicia hirsuta. Common in corn-fields, woods and pastures. In 
ereat profusion on sandy banks near the Culver Cliff, in Sandown 
Bay, growing by itself in great patches, and of extraordinary size. 
tetrasperma. Im similar places with the last, and about 
equally common, sometimes approaching the following pretty closely, 
even to rendering distinction difficult. 
gracilis. Yn cultivated fields, woods and hedges not unfre- 
quent and sometimes very abundant in the Isle of Wight, but uncer- 


281 


tain and capricious in its stations. I am still more than half inclined 
to regard it as a mere variety of the last, finding most of its charac- 
ters prone to variation, but in deference to the opinions of others I 
here keep it distinct. 

Vicia sylvatica. Woods, very rare? Decidedly so in the Isle of 
Wight, where this most elegant of our vetches may be seen in Luc- 
combe Copse, by the road-side from Shanklin to Bonchurch, pro- 
fusely investing the bushes with its festoons of gayest verdure, and 
long clusters of “ pale and azure pencilled flowers :” a spectacle most 
delightful and refreshing to the eye of a southern botanist. It for- 
merly grew at the entrance to Bonchurch, as I learn from my friend 
Mr. Curtis, who has figured it from thence, but 1 cannot find it there 
now. Ina wood near the east turnpike at Appleshaw, Mr. Borrer in 
Bot. Guide. I find it in the great wood there opposite the church, 
and also at Redenham House, near the same place, in a wood, abun- 
dantly ; it is, however, a scarce species in the south of England ge- 
nerally, and I find it difficult to preserve for any length of time in a 
garden, where for covering arbours it would be most desirable to pos- 
sess it as a permanent inmate. 

Cracca and V. sepium are abundant in woods and hedges 
all over the county and island. 

sativa. This and its varieties, V. angustifolia ana Bobartii, 
abound in meadows, fields, and by road-sides, in many parts of the 
island, particularly on the green sand of the eastern side, as at San- 
down, Shanklin, &c. 

- lathyroides. In dry, sandy pastures, rare? Banks in San- 
down Bay, in considerable plenty, but its chief station on Royal 
Heath is now destroyed by the late enclosures. 

Lathyrus Aphaca. Borders of fields and amongst corn; very rare? 
Grassy bank in the glebe-field at West Meon, the Miss Sibleys, and 
where I gathered fine specimens, in company with these ladies, in 
June last. Not found hitherto in the Isle of Wight. 

Nissolia. By no means rare, and often abundant in cer- 
tain years both in the island and on the main, but extremely capri- 
cious in its times and places of appearance, and hardly possible to 
preserve in cultivation. On grassy slopes above Sandown Bay I find 
it not unfrequently, and a few years since it was profuse in the gra- 
velly fields about Benbridge. In woods and thickets about Ryde, 
&c. About West Meon with Lathyrus Aphaca it is very frequent, 
but, as we have just seen, not constant companions; the Miss Sibleys!!! 
t? hirsutus. Open fields, excessively rare. A single spe- 


282 


cimen is in the herbarium of Miss Lovell, who picked it in a field 
near Brixton or Brightsone, in this island, but could not succeed in 
finding a second. Perhaps introduced accidentally ! 

Lathyrus pratensis. Hedges, thickets and damp pastures and mea- 
dows most universal and abundant. A variety with very downy 
stems and leaves I find between Ryde and Binsted. 
sylvestris. Woods and thickets rare. Abundant but very 
local in several parts of the island; most frequent in East Medina, 
about Shanklin and Luccomb. Bordean Hanger, near Petersfield, 
but picked very sparingly, July, 1848. A variety with considerably 
broader leaves occurs about the cliffs at Shanklin, and is, I doubt not, 
the L. latifolius said to grow on Sandown Beach, by Dr. Pulteney, 
in the ‘ Hampshire Repository.’ 
palustris. Boggy meadows; very rare. Heath by Botany 
Bay, Mr. W. L. Notcutt, 1842. Of this I have seen no specimens. 
maritimus. Sandown Beach, Isle of Wight, Dr. Pulteney 
in Hamp. Rep. Near Cowes, Mr. Marryat in Baxter’s ‘ Genera of 
Flowering Plants.’ Mr. Baxter informed me that Mr. M. found the 
plant on the sands near Lord Seymour’s (Norris) Castle, E. Cowes. 
A specimen of what appeared to them to be the leaves of this plant 
was found in June, 1843, by Dr. Martin and Mr. J. A. Hankey, in 
Sandown Bay, but I have never been fortunate enough to rediscover 
it in either station. The continual rapid encroachment of the sea on 
the shore at Sandown and Shanklin is quite sufficient to account for 
the disappearance of any plants inhabiting the beach, but the species 
may be reasonably expected to emerge once more into light and life 
when circumstances shall again favour the germination of the seeds, 
now probably lying dormant in their pebbly place of sepulture. 

Orobus tuberosus. Extremely common in woods, thickets and 
heathy places in the island and county generally. Of the variety ¢e- 
nuifolius I have occasionally picked a specimen in this island, but 
here, at all events, it seems rather an accidental than a permanent 
deviation from the typical form. 

Ornithopus perpusillus. Frequent on sandy or chalky pastures 
and banks in the Isle of Wight. Profusely and of large size on sandy 
banks towards the Culver Cliff, eighteen inches or more in length. 
About Fareham, Mr. W. L. Notcutt. 

Hippocrepis comosa. On dry chalky banks, pastures and downs, 
very abundantly in many parts of the Isle of Wight. At Ventnor and 
Bonchurch the close, green sward is radiant with its golden coronets, 


283 


blended with the daisy, the bird’s-foot trefoil and cowslip, into a na- 
tural carpet of the most resplendent colours. 

Onobrychis sativa. On banks and chalky slopes in various parts 
of the county and island, though not very common or always easy to 
determine whether wild or not from the universality of its cultivation. 
I believe it, however, to be a genuine native in Hampshire and the 
south of England, and our chalk downs to be its rightful, undisputed 
home. 

Prunus spinosa. Most universal and abundant in all parts of the 
Isle of Wight, and I believe of the county, in woods, thickets and 
bushy places. In some of our stiff clays it covers considerable tracts 
of ground, to the exclusion of everything else, its densely interwoven 
branches forming thickets which are absolutely impenetrable by man 
and all but the smaller quadrupeds and birds, that find a secure re- 
treat for themselves and their young in these thorny fortresses. The 
fruit or sloes, called here winter keeksies, are abundantly produced on 
certain trees and totally fail on others, probably from some defect in 
the reproductive organs: a large majority of the plants are in this 
barren condition. In this part of England P. spinosa appears under 
some very puzzling aspects, and is linked to the two following by 
such imperceptible and evanescent degrees of affinity as to defy any 
specific formula that can be formed to distinguish them, unless in 
their extremest states of divergence, and not always even then. 
insititia. Woods, hedges and thickets in all parts of the 
Isle of Wight, very common, but less abundant than the foregoing. 
A larger, taller and stouter shrub than the last, with a yellowish (of- 
ten yellowish green or olive) coloured bark, and much larger flowers, 
that appear with the leaves. Fruit globose, dark blue, as large as a 
marble, not altogether uneatable when fully ripe, and excellent for 
tarts and puddings, for which they are collected by the country peo- 
ple. lL once brought home a quart or more of these wild bullaces, 
and had them made into a tart, which was one of the best flavoured 
and most juicy I ever partook of. Yet plants occur continually in our 
hedges so exactly intermediate between the bullace and the austere, 
uneatable sloe, that Iam compelled to regard them both as forms of 
one species, and believe that the solution ofthe problem is to be 
sought for in the well-known fact that many plants evince a strong 
tendency to sport in varieties as the species advance southward, 
which in more northern latitudes continue true to their primitive or 
normal type.. In other words, that climate spontaneously works that 
amelioration in vegetables easily susceptible of improvement, which 


284 


cultivation artificially effects in the same and others to a more ex- 
alted degree of perfection. 

+?Prunus domesticus. By this name I designate (whether right or 
wrong I know not) a still larger form of our wild plums which occurs 
here and there in the Isle of Wight, chiefly in hedge-rows in the en- 
closed country, and hence perhaps less truly spontaneous than the 
two preceding. In this the leaves are large, obovate, the peduncles 
mostly solitary and the fruit still larger than in P. insititia, yet cer- 
tainly not with us at all oblong, but perfectly globose. 

t Padus. Very rare, and [ have no doubt naturalized. In 
a thicket near St. John’s, Ryde, but sparingly, and certainly, I think, 
introduced. Under the rocks, below Cook’s Castle, between Shank- 
lin and Appuldurcombe in some plenty, but scarcely indigenous. I 
have not heard of its occurrence elsewhere in the island or county, 
though as it is found wild in some parts of Kent, it may be eventually 
discovered with us in the same condition. 
— Avium. Common everywhere, and in some parts of the 
Isle of Wight abundant in woods and copses, attaining, occasionally, 
to a large size and height, and making a fine appearance in our 
woods when in blossom in April and May. In general the fruit with 
us is small, red, bitter and uneatable (red cherry), but in the sandy 
soil at Bordwood, Isle of Wight, and about Southampton, are trees 
which produce black, sweet and excellently flavoured fruit (black 
cherry, black heart), which is sold in the market. The two varieties 
are perfectly distinguishable by their flowers and foliage. I am sorry 
to see this truly distinct and well-marked species degraded from its 
rank in the ‘ London Catalogue of British Plants,’ and absolutely as- 
tonished to find it therein set down as a variety of P. Cerasus! Had 
the case been reversed, my surprise would have been less, but to find 
the greater and more widely diffused of our wild cherries merged into 
the smaller and far rarer, does, I confess, puzzle me exceedingly to 
account for. 
— Cerasus. In hedges, thickets, the sunny borders of woods 
and glades, and on steep banks, not common, though abundant in se- 
veral spots in the Isle of Wight, and apparently quite indigenous. 
It is particularly fond of growing on slopes, which it sometimes 
covers with a thicket of bushes eight, ten, or twelve feet in height. 
Such a thicket may be seen on a hill-side, surrounded by cornfields, 
about half a mile west of Niton church, and along the crests of high, 
chalky or sandy banks in various parts of the island. The fruit, 


285 


which is red and acid, is but sparingly perfected in the wild state. 
A truly distinct and unmistakeable species. 

Spirea Filipendula. Not rare, I have reason to believe, in main- 
land, Hants. On Longwood Warren, near Winton. Barton Ashes, 
Droxford, Dr. Pulteney, in Hamp. Rep.  Freefolk, Rev. G. F: Daw- 
son! Near Andover, Mr. Wm. Whale. Plentiful on downs between 
Crawley and Barton Stacey, Dr. A. D. White. Extremely rare in the 
Isle of Wight. On the downs above Steephill, Dr. Martin. I have 
looked there for itin vain. In the great plantation on the down be- 
hind Westover in one or two spots, but not abundantly. 

Geum rivale. Low, wet meadows and moist woods, apparently fre- 
quent and widely dispersed over the mainland part of the county, but 
totally failing in the Isle of Wight, though abounding, as it does, 
with situations perfectly analogous to its usual places of growth. 
Moist meadows by Netley Abbey and at Mansbridge, near Southamp- 
ton. Andover, Mr. Borrer, in Bot. Guide, and Mr. Wm. Whale. 
Shawford, Miss G. E. Kilderbee. Banks of streams, Breamore, near 
Fordingbridge, Miss May. Stoke Common, Mr. Forder! Very 
abundantly at Bishopstoke, in a water meadow close to the road be- 
tween the railway station and Fair Oak, Miss L. 8S. Minchin. 
Common in water meadows about Winton, Dr. A. D. White!!! 
Plentiful in a meadow near Bishop’s Waltham, in which Fritillaria 
Meleagris grows, directly opposite Mr. Jonas’s mill. 

Poterium Sanyuisorba. In dry, chalky pastures and on downs 
most abundantly over the Isle of Wight, and I believe equally plenti- 
ful in similar soil and situations throughout the county. 

N. B. — Sanguisorba officinalis has been reported to me as grow- 
ing in two places within the county, but I have seen no specimens 
from either station. In one of these I have every reason to believe 
that the Poterium was mistaken or intended for it, whilst considera- 
ble doubt and hesitation exist in the mind of my informant as to the 
correctness of his observations in the other locality. 

‘Of the genus Potentilla the county and island possess in abun- 
dance all the lowland and south-country species, excepting P. argen- 
tea and the submontane P. verna. The first may reasonably be 
looked for in sandy or gravelly soils; the second with less probability 
of success on.the downs in the northern part of Hampshire. Alche- 
milla vulgaris is another desideratum for our county flora. 

Comarum palustre. In spongy, peaty bogs and drains, frequent in 
the Isle of Wight and county generally. 


Von: 11. 


vo 
& 


286 


Fragaria vesca. Woods, thickets and on hedge-banks very com- 
mon everywhere. 

He elatior? I observed some years ago a Fragaria which 
is probably this species, growing very abundantly in Stratton Park, 
along the carriage-drive to the house, but had at the time no oppor- 
tunity of examining it more closely. I mention it here to call atten- 
tion to the plant and its locality, which latter, from what I recollect 
of it, was not such as would entitle the former to be pronounced indi- 
genous, though perhaps few English stations for the hautboy straw- 
berry are much less exceptionable. 

For the subjoined list of Hampshire brambles I am indebted to 
the kindness of my friend Dr. T. Bell Salter, who it is well known 
has devoted much attention to this most difficult and perplexing tribe. 

I freely confess that the uncertainty which hangs over the determi- 
nation of the species, and the endless diversity of opinion which pre- 
vails as to their number, names and characters, quite dishearten me 
from attempting their investigation; the more so, as I feel persuaded 
that to enter on their examination with any chance of ultimate suc- 
cess, would require a much greater sacrifice of time to be exclusively 
given up to the task, than I am either able or willing to devote to the 
attainment of an end, the successful issue of which, after all labour 
bestowed, is very problematical. Seeing that some of our most acute 
botanists, after years of close and careful study of the brambles, still _ 
doubt, hesitate and dispute about them, I am sensible how ineffectual 
would be any endeavours of mine to aid in the adjustment of so 
vexed and complicated a question. 

Rubus Ideus. 1n thickets and moist woods not very frequently or 
abundantly, but pretty generally spread over the Isle of Wight. I 
have not observed it on the mainland, but have no doubt of its being 
about equally frequent. The variety trifoliatus, and that with white 
fruit, less common. Westwood, near West Meon, Miss L. Sibley!!! 
Near Clanfield, W. A. B.. Abundant on Oxenbourne Down, near 
Petersfield, springing up where the furze has been burnt, and else- 
where in that vicinity, W. A. B. 

— suberectus. Observed only in damp woods in the Isle of 
Wight, near Shanklin, and generally of the form trifoliatus. It 
sometimes attains the height of eight or nine feet, with fruit of a 
bright red. Leighton’s fissus certainly does not differ from this. 

— plicatus. In bogs and damp woods in several parts of the 
Isle of Wight and the mainland. 

Salterit. The only Hampshire station I yet know for this 


287 


plant is the original one in Apse Castle Wood, but I have seen spe- 
cimens from other counties. The plant maintains its characters 
when removed into gardens. 

Rubus tenuis. Not frequent. At Selbourne and in the Isle of 
Wight, near Swainston. 
leucostachys. This species, with some others not till lately 
well distinguished, is too common for recording its several habitats. 
I mention it, however, in order to refer to the variety vestetus, like- 
wise of frequent occurrence in almost every wood, alike on the main- 
land and in the island. In the neighbourhood in which leucostachys 
‘grows, vestitus is found in the interior, whilst at the margin of the 
woods every gradation may be seen betwixt them. 
— sylvaticus. In hedges, not common, in the New Forest 
and Isle of Wight. 
Borrert. On sandy heaths in the Isle of Wight, very rare. 
carpinifolius. In hedges on a sandy soil. On the main- 
land, near Selbourne, &c. In the Isle of Wight it abounds in the 
green-sand district of the south-east of the island. In woods it as- 
sumes the form of var. roseus. 
macrophyllus. In moist, not boggy woods, probably ge- 
nerally diffused. I have noticed it near Selbourne, and in several 
parts of the island. 
Babingtonii. Rare. In a hedge-row near Selbourne. 
rudis. In hedges frequently. About Alton and Gosport, 
and in the Isle of Wight. The form? Reichenbachii rare at Sel- 
bourne and near Ryde. 
— Radula. Of unfrequent occurrence. The typical form 
and the variety Lzngua on the heaths about Bourne Mouth, and the 
variety Hystria in woods in the Isle of Wight, and probably in those 
of the mainland also. 
— glandulosus. Rare, in damp hedges. I believe Bellardi’s 
form has not been found in the south of England. The more fre- 
quent in this county is the variety Lejeuniz, but this is very local, 
having been observed in several sites around Selbourne, and one or 
two in the island. The variety rosaceus I have only seen in Sel- 
bourne Lith. 

— Wahlberg. In hedges very local, chiefly in the N. E. of 

the Isle of Wight. 
nemorosus. In hedges. A rare plant in Hampshire. It 
grows in one small district of the Isle of Wight. This species and 
the former are very apt to lose their fruit immediately after flowering. 


DuQe 2 


288 


Rubus cesius. By no means a common plant in Hampshire. 
Very local in the island, the var. pseudo-cesius being here the com- 
monest form. In Swainston Park the ground is in some parts covered 
with. a mat of dewberries, W. A. B. 

Rosa spinosissima. Abundant in various parts of the county and 
Isle of Wight, on heaths and on sandy sea-shores, pastures and hedge- 

banks. About Boldre and elsewhere in the New Forest, &c. 
tomentosa. ¥requent in the county and island, in woods and 


hedges. 


micrantha. In various parts of the Isle of Wight, by no 
means uncommon, and probably on the mainland, but I know nothing 
of its distribution in the east division of the county. 

rubiginosa. ar less frequent with us than the last, and in- 
deed apparently quite rare, at least in the Isle of Wight. Near Yar- 
mouth and Calbourne, but sparingly in both places, though truly wild. 
canina. Abundant everywhere in some one or other of its 
multitudinous forms. The var. 8. sarmentacea is one of the most 
common of these in the island. 

arvensis. Very plentiful in a variety of places in the Isle of 
Wight, chiefly in woods and thickets on the clay. On the mainland 
I believe it to be also generally distributed. 

Crategus Oxyacantha. Profusely everywhere in woods, hedges, 
and thickets throughout the entire county and island, often reaching, 
as in the New Forest, to a great size and height. The variety with 
one of the styles alone developed, C. monogyna, Jacq., is by far the 
commoner form with us, if not the only one. Another variety, with 
larger, more oblong fruit, and a third with woolly fruit and peduncles, 
occur in this island; the latter, which is not uncommon, and I sup- 
pose is the C. eriocarpa, Lindl., was first pointed out to me by my 
friend Mr. W. W. Saunders. The fruit of the hawthorn is called 
hoghails or haghails in this island. 

+? Pyrus communis. Occasionally in woods and thickets as a very 
spiny torulose shrub or small tree, but not at all common, and mostly 
sporadical, seldom perfecting fruit. More frequently it occurs in 
hedge-rows, but in other places it has a perfectly wild appearance ; 
yet from the paucity and sterility of the individuals, I am inclined to 
think the specimens found in our woods may owe their origin to the 
seeds of the cultivated pear dropped by birds. 

Malus. In woods, copses, thickets, and hedges throughout 
the county and island, truly and abundantly indigenous. 
— Aucuparia. In (mostly) hilly or rocky, but sometimes in 


289 


flat woods and copses; rare. In several parts of the Isle of Wight, 
but so sparingly in the different stations, that I was long disposed to 
regard it as merely naturalized, till I found it to be quite frequent in 
the woods near Bishop’s Waltham, Wickham, Fareham and Botley. 
In our Hampshire woods it is never to be seen otherwise than as a 
small tree of very slender proportions, but flowering and fruiting at an 
early age, preferring damp, cool situations by streams. 

Pyrus Aria. Extremely abundant in woods and copses, associated 
with the beech in most parts of the mainland of Hants, where that 
tree abounds, often constituting a large proportion of the brush or un- 
derwood on the sloping faces of the chalk-banks and hills. Profusely 
about Petersfield, on Butser Hill, Clanfield, Bishop’s Waltham. Not 
rare in the Isle of Wight, in some woods of which it abounds, but 
rather locally. There is a fine old tree of it in Youngwood’s Copse, 
near Newchurch, which I measured, in February, 1846, and found to 
be 8 ft. 82 inches in girth at 3} ft. from the ground, though not above 
16 or 17 feet in height, with a rounded, spreading head, dividing at 
36 inches from the earth into several stout arms; the large reddish or 
orange-coloured fruit not unpalatable. Called white rice or white leaf, 
sometimes whip crop (from its use in making whip-handles) in the 
Isle of Wight and county generally. 
torminalis. In woods, copses, and hedges in the lower flat 
country on the eocene or freshwater formation; not, so far as I have 
observed, on the chalk, greensand, or any rock accompanying the lat- 
ter. Plentiful in many parts of the Isle of Wight, north of the great 
central chalk range, as all along the shore westward from Ryde and 
along the Wootton River, also in various places along the coast of 
West Medina, between Cowes and Yarmouth. In woods near Fern- 
hill it forms a large portion of the rice or copse wood, and being cut 
as such is seldom seen but asa shrub, whilst in other parts of the 
island it has been permitted to reach its:natural dimensions. A tree 
in Quarr Copse, at Binstead, the largest I know of in the county, I 
found to measure, a few years ago, 5 ft. 6 inches in girth at 3 feet 
from the ground; the height of its fine round-topped and spreading 
head may be about 30 or 35 feet. The species is here called service- 
tree, and the brown dotted fruit, which ripens in October and Novem- 
ber, is sold in Ryde, tied up in small bunches, to children; the 
flavour being much like that of medlars, and very agreeably acid. 
In Sussex the berries are called checquers. On the mainland I have 
observed it about Lymington, but not as yet in the interior of Hamp- 
shire. The tree is well worthy of general cultivation, both for its 


290 


fruit and the beautiful dark green glossy aspect of its large and 
singularly shaped leaves, that remind one of those of certain Ameri- 
can oaks, particularly the trilobate variety of Quercus falcata, and, 
like them, fade to a rich purple in autumn. From similarity of name 
the true service-tree (P. domestica) has most erroneously been given 
as a native of the Isle of Wight in the ‘ Botanist’s Guide,’ and the 
mistake copied into subsequent publications. 
W. A. BROMFIELD. 


[To be continued]. 


The following species and varieties were inadvertently omitted from 
the former part of this catalogue, from the haste with which it was 
prepared for the press :— 

Ranunculus hederaceus. Pools, ditches, and drains in the Isle of 
Wight, not at all unfrequent, but much less common than R. aquatilis. 
circinatus. Marsh ditches in Brading Harbour, Isle 


of Wight. 


fluitans? A plant which I considered as the var. 
pantothrix of R. aquatilis, and which I presume to be the above, now 
considered (and perhaps justly) as a species, grows in several pools in 
this island, but must receive farther attention before I can confidently 
assert its identity with the R. fluitans of authors. 
auricomus. Notacommon Hampshire species, though 
abundant enough in certain places. Plentiful in several parts of the 
Isle of Wight, but restricted to the clay of the eocene deposit. I 
have never remarked it on the chalk or greensand. 

Aquilegia vulgaris, add, In quantity in the wood facing the 
church at Appleshaw, Mr. Wm. Whale!!! 

Papaver Rheeas. A specimen of a beautiful variety with the flower 
pure white, I picked this summer in a wheat-field above Sandown 
Bay. 


hybridum, add, Andover, Mr. Wm. Whale!! Most 
likely not rare in the county, but apt to be overlooked, as the flowers 
expand only in the early part of the day and fall before noon. 

Argemone. 1 find a variety of this, which abounds on 
the green sandstone in fields about Shanklin and Sandown, with 
petals deeply and prettily fringed or laciniate. 

Fumaria Vaillantii. Andover, Mr. Wm. Whale!! Babington 
says this is common, but I have not met with it here, nor does Mr. 
Borrer find it in Sussex. 

{ Alyssum calycinum, add, A few specimens picked in a clover- 


291 


field by the new parsonage house at Sandown, Isle of Wight, by 
Miss Lovell, 1848, doubtless introduced, but may likely become na- 
turalized hereafter ! 

Nasturtium terrestre. Wet places in the Isle of Wight, rare. In 
several parts of Sandown Level. Pond at Hardingshoot Farm, abun- 
dant. 

Silene maritima, add, Abundant on the sea-shore about Lyming- 
ton, and on Hayling island. 
nutans, add, Abundant, if I recollect rightly, on the flat 
shore of Stokes Bay. 

Spergula arvensis. Profusely in cultivated fields. I have remarked 
this plant to possess a most repulsive stercoraceous odour, not com- 
monly if at all noticed in books. 

Stellaria media, var. apetala. On the sandy flat below St. Helen’s, 
Isle of Wight. 


W. A. BROMFIELD. 


Eastmount House, Ryde, 
Isle of Wight, August 1, 1848. 


Notice of Juncus diffusus in Leicestershire. 
By the Rev. ANDREW Brioxam, M.A. 


To the Rev. W. H. Coleman is due the credit of the discovery of 
the above-named species in Leicestershire. 

He finds it in several localities in the neighbourhood of Ashby-de- 
la-Zouch, and it having been pointed out to me by him in one of 
these, I have been enabled to recognize it in my own immediate 
neighbourhood, where it has been verified by him since. I find it in 
small quantities growing amongst Juncus glaucus, in the road be- 
tween Twycross and Snarestone, by the side of Gopsal Wood, com- 
mencing about a quarter of a mile out of Twycross. It is also found 
in great abundance in a field adjoining the Ashby canal, at the back 
of Congerstone, a village about two miles distant from Twycross. 
It may probably be more universally diffused, but hitherto generally 
overlooked by botanists, as was the case with myself, from its pre- 
senting, at first sight, so few prominent marks of distinction from 
other species. 

ANDREW BLOXAM. 

August 9, 1848. 


292 


Notes on the Periods of Flowering of Wild Plants. 
By Georce Lawson, Esq. 


THIs is an interesting subject, brought before the attention of your 
readers by Mr. Lees and Mr. Snooke in your last number, and one to 
which additional attention ought undoubtedly to be directed; but I 
fear much that we must wait a little for the lulling of the species 
mania before the subject receives that attention from the authors of 
Floras which its importance demands. The knowledge and discri- 
mination of species is a most important matter, but it should not be 
looked to as the grand end of Botany, and when it excludes the in- 
vestigation of equally important departments of the science, it then 
assumes a false importance to which it is not entitled. 

The periods of the flowering of plants in different parts of Britain 
must from obvious causes be very various; but were attention to be 
directed to the subject by botanists throughout various parts of the 
country, the accumulation of facts thus collected would no doubt 
modify very considerably the flowering-periods stated in the different 
Floras, at least in many places. 

I have been in the habit for a few years past of observing the dates 
of the appearance of various flowers, more particularly in the early 
part of the season, and the following notes are the results of a num- 
ber of my lists for different years being put together, and the average 
dates struck. 

February 20. Petasites vulgaris first in flower. 

March 9. Dyaba verna in flower. In 1848 it was so late as the 
25th of March before I obserbed the Draba, but from its appearance 
it had evidently been in flower long before that date. 

March 14. Petasites vulgaris in full flower. 

March 15. Ranunculus Ficaria, Chrysosplenium oppositifolium 
and Mercurialis perennis in fl. The Ficaria and Chrysosplenium oc- 
casionally begin to produce stray flowers very early in mild winters. 

March 20. Primula vulgaris in fl.* Viola odorata and Veronica 
hederifolia in fl. 

March 24. Tussilago Farfara in fl. 

March 30. Viola hirta in fl. 


* I may remark that we have not primroses flowering promiscuonsly throughout 
the winter in Scotland, as seems to be the case in England. An exception to this 
rule may, however, be noted in the case of plants on the coast banks exposed to the 
maritime breeze, which occasionally produce an early flower. 


<a 


293 


April1. Tussilago Farfara in full fl. - Primula veris in fl. 

April 20. Saxifraga granulata in fl. 

May \. Potentilla Fragariastrum, Oxalis Acetosella and Glecho- 
ma hederacea about full fl. 

May 2. Prunus spinosa, Veronica chamedrys and Fragaria vesca 
in fl. 

May 3. Potentilla verna* and Geum urbanum in fl. 

May 4. Primula veris and Viola hirta in full fl. 

May 6. Doronicum Pardalianches in fl. Caltha palustris in 
full fl. 

May 9. Geum rivale and Galium cruciatum in fl. 

May 14. Anthoxanthum odoratum in fl. 

May 15. Luzula sylvatica in fl. 

May 21. Viola lutea in fl. (Perhaps it should be earlier). 

Rosa canina generally appears in flower about the second week of 
June or earlier. It was the 17th of June before J observed it this 
season, but it had probably been in flower a week before that time. 

I will not proceed further with my notes, as by the end of May my 
journal generally declines much every year, partly from the circum- 
stance of the busy collecting season then beginning, and partly from 
the first appearance of many plants not being so easily noticed in 
consequence of the luxuriance of surrounding vegetation. In the 
above notes it will be understood that the first flowering is meant in 
all cases where the fact is not stated to be otherwise. 


GEORGE Lawson. 
Dundee, August 12, 1848. 


On the Occurrence of Tulipa sylvestris in Fifeshire. 
By Georce Lawson, Esq. 


I BEG to record the occurrence of Tulipa sylvestris in several large 
patches under trees near to the ruins of Pitcullo Castle in the county 
of Fife, where I first observed it in the spring of 1847. It does not 
seem to produce flowers at that place (as I believe is often the case 
with this plant in other situations), and at the time I first found it I 
was not altogether certain that it really was the Tulipa, being told by 
a person living near the place that the plant “ produced blue flowers 


* Probably the Potentilla verna generally flowers earlier in this district than the 
date under which I have given it, but I possess no evidence to show that fact. 


294 


late in the season,” and therefore I did not include it in my list of 
Fife plants published in a late number of the ‘ Phytologist.’ I have 
since, however, satisfied myself as to the plant. 

The proximity of this station to the castle-ruins renders it very 
doubtful whether the plant may be indigenous, but it is thoroughly 
naturalized at any rate, and therefore demands our attention. 

GEORGE Lawson. 

Dundee, August 12, 1848. 


Note on the Variety of Primula noticed at page 128. 
By GeorGE Lawson, Esq. 


THE variety of Primula vulgaris mentioned by Mr. Collins at p. 
128 of the present volume of the ‘Phytologist,’ is by no means rare 
in the cottage gardens of this district, being much cultivated in the 
flower-border as a curiosity. | 

GEORGE Lawson. 


Dundee, August 12, 1848. 


Remarks on the Naturalization of Plants in Britain. 
By GrorceE Lawson, Esq. 


THERE was a time when the soil of Britain was not touched by 
spade or plough, and when its flora was in a state of natural purity, 
unaffected and unchanged by the commerce or operations of mankind. 
When cultivation began, however, and was gradually extended, and 
the nature of the soil changed, then in like proportion would the cha- 
racter of the flora change. Many of the aboriginal inhabitants of our 
primeval forests would decrease in numbers, and some of the rarer 
species that were confined to a small area might be exterminated al- 
together. Jn the place of these, other plants to which the changed 
conditions of the soil were suitable, would spring up from the seeds 
carried there by mankind and other causes; and thus would take 
place a change in our country’s flora, of a real, and not of an artificial 
kind. Perhaps there are not many (if there indeed be any) of the 
common annuals of cultivated grounds but have had their origin as 
British plants in this manner. 

Of late years various plants of exotic origin have been reported as 


295 


accessions to our British flora, some of these of the class of annuals 
before referred to, which would be ready again to quit the flora in the 
event of a cessation of cultivation, and others of a more permanent 
caste, which have likewise been introduced by the agency of mankind, 
but which have established themselves amongst the real indigenous 
vegetation of the land, and, as has been remarked, now bid defiance 
to all efforts at extermination. The plants of the two classes I refer 
to are alike dealt little with by botanists; and whenever any person 
reports the occurrence of such a plant in any part of this country, he 
is sure to be denounced as one desiring to attach too much im- 
portance to his observations, and it is of no avail in warding off such 
a denouncement, that the observer has the candour to express his con- 
viction that the plant has been introduced in the manner referred to. 
This should not be the case; and it would not be the case were bo- 
tanists to give that attention which is due to naturalized species ; but 
it is the present fashion for botanists capriciously to discard all spe- 
cies that cannot be proven to be really zndigenous to the country. If 
we do not begin to care something for naturalized species, we shall 
by and by only have to study the flora of Britain as dt once existed, 
which has vanished away like the baseless fabric of a vision, leaving 
but a wreck behind, which owes its rescue to the stone tablets of 
Geology. 

Although general in my condemnation of the way in which natu- 
ralized aliens are treated, I am aware that there ave botanists who do 
attach importance to these interesting plants, and I am very glad to 
see that Mr. Watson introduces these plants into his important work 
the ‘Cybele Britannica,’ although I could have wished that they 
should have had importance with him sufficient to induce his record- 
ing the geographical distribution (in this country) of such as are 
thoroughly naturalized. 

My remarks on the present occasion have been drawn forth by a 
paper, published in your August number, by Mr. Woodward (Phytol. 
iii. 201), purporting to interpret the terms native, naturalized, and 
imperfectly naturalized, the publication of which seems only calcu- 
lated to mystify and confuse what was clear enough before. 

Passing over the most considerable portion of Mr. Woodward’s 
paper, we come to the remark :— “ Buckwheat, maize, hemp, and So- 
lanum tuberosum would be a grand addition to the British Flora, 
quite on a par with the Eschscholtzia, Impatiens, Mimuli, and Mar- 
tagon lilies, which are registered as growing for a season on some 
lonely rubbish-heap.” Now, Mr. Woodward’s paper is in many 


296 - 


parts so vague, and so much beyond my limited comprehension, that 
I find it necessary to appeal to the judgment of the candid reader 
whether I interpret rightly the meaning of the above quotation. I 
understand, then, Mr. Woodward to mean, amongst other things, that 
it is a great error to suppose the Impatiens and Mimulus to be natu- 
ralized plants, seeing that the four exotics he first enumerates are 
“ona par” with them, and farther, that he means to say that the 
Impatiens and Mimulus have (in common with others) been only 
found “ growing for a season on some lonely rubbish-heap.” 

On reference to several works I find that the Impatiens Noli-me- 
tangere grew wild in Britain in Ray’s time. Ray died in 1705, or with- 
in a year of that time, if I recollect rightly, so that the plant must 
have been known as a wild plant for at least 140 years, which is no 
mean claim to entitle it to rank as a naturalized plant, and it was 
really too bad of Mr. Woodward to stigmatize it as “ growing for a 
season on some lonely rubbish-heap.” 

With regard to the Mimulus luteus, allow me to cite the following 
localities where the plant has been found more or less abundantly i ina 
naturalized state in this country. 

Ditch-bank below Dudhope Barracks, Dundee. 1815.* The sta- 
tion has been subsequently destroyed by the erection of buildings on 
the ground the plant occupied. George Palmer.* 

Side of Invergowrie burn. 1824, or earlier.t W. Jackson, Sen. 
(Phytol. ii. 421). 

Boggy margin of a mountain rill, not more than a mile or two from 
Abergavenny. 1824. Rev. W. T. Bree (Phytol. ii. 420). 

Near Dun Mill, situated near Brechin road. 18438. A. Kerr (Phy- 
tol. iii. 224). 

Near Largs. 1845. Professor Balfour (Phytol. ii. 320). 

Banks of the Forth, rather less than a quarter of a mile above the 
bridge at Stirling. 1845. F. Townsend (Phytol. ii. 421). 

Margin of the Dighty, at Strathmartin, Forfarshire. 1845. G. 
Lawson (Phytol. ii. 389). 

Banks of the Tay, a little below the ruins of Kinclaven Castle, at 
the junction of the Tay and Islay. 1845. W. Jackson, Jui. (Phytol. 
ii. 421). 

Plentiful at a burn side, about a hundred yards S.W. from Castle 


* The years noted are those in which the stations were first discovered: the 
names are those of the original discoverers, so far as known. 
+ Mr. Palmer says probably 1813, 14 or 15. 


297 


Huntly garden, Perthshire ; likewise at two ditches about a mile S.E. 
from that place. 1846. James Chalmers. 

River side near Perth. 1847. John Sime. 

Muir below the bridge of Dun, near Brechin. 1848. W. Ander- 
son (Phytol. iii. 224). 

Ditch near Brechin Castle, Forfarshire. 1848. W. Anderson and 
G. Lawson. 

Ceres, Fifeshire. 1848. John Sime. 

Rather abundant on the banks of the Esk, near Kinnaird. John 
Laing (Forfarshire Flora, 141). 

Fifeshire. Rev. John Anderson, D.D. 

A glance at the above will satisfactorily show that the Mimulus is 
not indeed confined to ‘a solitary rubbish-heap,’ but that it has very 
strong claims to be classed as a naturalized species in this country, 
and I am very desirous to see it, and many other plants equally well 
naturalized, regularly received as such in our Floras. At any rate I 
may be allowed to express a hope that Mr. Woodward will keep the 
above facts in view when he may again have occasion to write about 
Mimuli. 

I may be allowed to make a remark or two upon the Invergowrie 
station, noted above, for the Mimulus. I visited that station in June 
last, and found the plant fully as luxuriant and in as great abundance 
as in former years.* The author of the ‘ Forfarshire Flora’ states (p. 
140) that he found the plant at this station in 1830; that it was in 
cultivation at the garden of Gray twenty years before [the date of the 
Flora], say in 1827: hence he concludes that the plant is an escape 
from that garden. But the plant was recorded in the ‘ Phytologist’ 
two years and a half ago as having existed “more than twenty-two 
years before” that time, so that it could not be an escape from the 
garden referred to. In showing, however, that the Mimulus is not 
there a garden escape, I am not actuated by any desire to make out a 
case for its nativity ; and it gives me pleasure at the same time to be 
able to make the readers of the ‘ Phytologist’ aware of its real origin 
at Invergowrie. For this information I am indebted to my esteemed 
friend Mr. George Palmer, a most genuine admirer and student of 
Nature, who tells me that the Mimulus was introduced at Invergow- 
rie, and likewise at the Dudhope station, in some one or other of the 
years 1813, 14 or 15, by a Mr. Lennox (now deceased) who was an 


* T shall be glad to supply specimens, showing the luxuriance of the plant, to any 
of your readers who may feel interested and desire them. 


298 


ardent admirer and cultivator of flowers in Dundee. After its intro- 
duction by Mr. Lennox, it extended itself considerably and became 
firmly established, although it has since been destroyed at one of the 
stations, viz., the Dudhope station, as before mentioned, in conse- 
quence of improvements. Although the origin of the Invergowrie 
Mimulus is thus clearly shown, and every doubt set aside as to its 
mode of introduction, by which it is seen that it owes its original ex- 
istence entirely to mankind, yet I am not the more prepared on that 
account to consent to its being discarded from our list of introduced 
species ; for it does not now by any means depend upon mankind in 
the least degree for the maintaining its existence, being quite natu- 
ralized, even in defiance of the ambiguous Woodwardian definition 
of the term. 

Regarding Eschscholtzia crocea, if Mr.. Woodward means, in the 
sentence I have quoted, to insinuate that 1 endeavoured to get that 
plant pushed into notice as a native, I would beg to direct his atten- 
tion to p. 136 of the present volume of the ‘ Phytologist,’ where I re- 
mark in regard to it and the Eutoca, in the very same paragraph as 
I mention their occurrence, “'These have undoubtedly no claims to 
be considered as natives.” Perhaps, however, some one else (at 
whom Mr. Woodward’s significant hint may be levelled) has taken 
the Eschscholtzia by the hand, that I am not aware of. 

As I am at present writing on the subject of naturalization, I may 
mention the fact that there is every probability of the Carduus Mari- 
anus disappearing from the Monifieth station, near this place, where 
it has only been naturalized, although I believe it is considered as 
indigenous enough by some local botanists. I visited the place 
about a fortnight ago, and found that it had totally disappeared from 
the pasture-ground where it used to grow most abundantly, and is 
now limited to two very stunted and unhealthy plants, which are con- 
fined to the foot of the fence on the north side of the road, and oppo- 
site from the old station. Its disappearance is no doubt mainly 
caused by the turf becoming too firm to allow of its growth, it being 
a plant that loves loose soil. 

I likewise visited the Perthshire station for the rare and interesting 
Reseda lutea in June last, which is, I believe, allowed by botanists to 
be an indigenous plant. It was kindly pointed out to me by my 
friend Mr. David Gorrie, and I observed that the rocks where it 
grows are beginning to be covered by vegetation of a more perma- 
nent character, which will no doubt gradually displace the Reseda 
until it is completely exterminated, unless some rural operations 


299 


again uncover a portion of the rocks, and form a proper place for its 
growth. The whole of the Reseda is already collected into a little 
corner, although I believe it used to be scattered over the rocks, pro- 
bably most so when they had been but recently left by the quarry- 
man’s hammer. Here is a change taking place the reverse of that 


mentioned in my preliminary remarks. 
GEORGE Lawson. 
Dundee, August 12, 1848. 


[I confess myself, fully as much mystified as Mr. Lawson by Mr. 
Woodward’s paper, but I believe Mr. Woodward has been residing 
for many years in a remote part of the country, probably without the 
leisure or inclination to keep up his botanical reading. In connexion 
with the brief passage Mr. Lawson has cited, I beg to call Mr. Wood- 
ward’s attention to the following records :— 

“Impatiens fulva. At whatever period introduced, this plant is now 
so thoroughly naturalized, that it would be pedantry any longer to re- 
fuse it that place in the English Flora, which has been accorded on 
less strong grounds to many plants originally introduced from abroad. 
For many miles by the side of the Wey, both above and below Guild- 
ford, it is as abundant as the commonest river-side plants, the Lythrum 
Salicaria or Epilobium hirsutum; and my friend Mr. Henry Cole in- 
forms me that it is found in various places by the same river all the 
way to its junction with the Thames. It is equally abundant on the 
banks of the Tillingbourne, that beautiful tributary of the Wey; espe- 
cially at Chilworth, where it grows in boundless profusion: and near 
Albury, where I saw it for the first time in 1822.”— J. S. Mill, Phy- 
tol. 1. 40. 

“ Lilium Martagon. ‘This plant occurs in tolerable plenty near 
the village of Sampford, in this county [Essex], on the road from 
Great Bardfield to Walden. This locality was pointed out to me 
last May, by my relative Mr. R. M. Smith, of Great Bardfield, who 
has known of it for above twenty years. The spot is a high bank, 
sprinkled with low bushes, on the side of a lane leading from the vil- 
lage eastward to some unexplored part of the county. From the 
situation I cannot at all suppose that the plant can be an escape from 
any garden. When I visited the spot there were a considerable num- 
ber of plants, chiefly growing on the outsides of the clumps of bushes, 
but sometimes quite out in the grass. I do not see any mention of 
this locality in Ray’s list of the rare plants of Essex, in Camden’s 
Britannia, edit. 1695.— Hdward Doubleday; Epping, August 12, 
1841, Phytol. i. 62. 


300 


“ Lilium Martagon. I think I never shall forget the extreme plea- 
sure 1 experienced when, in 1826, I first saw this beautiful plant 
growing in a little coppice to the right of the lane leading from 
Mickleham to Headly, in Surrey. The coppice was overshadowed 
by oak trees of considerable size, and the underwood had been cut 
during the previous year, so that the tall racemes of the lily stood up 
nobly and conspicuously above the brushwood, and it would have 
been difficult for any passing observer not to have noticed them.— 
Edward Newman; August 13, 1841. : 

“ [At the end of June, 1840, in a delightful excursion which we 
believe some of the party will not soon forget, we had the gratifica- 
tion of seeing Lilium Martagon growing in the greatest profusion in 
the station last mentioned. In some parts of the coppice the plants 
were so crowded that the flowers produced a perfect blaze of the 
richest colour among the young trees.—Ed.|” Phytol. i. 62. 

“ Lilium Martagon. In addition to your stations for Lilium Mar- 
tagon, I may mention Ash, near Wrotham, Kent, where it grows 
plentifully in a very wild situation on an estate belonging to Mr. 
Gladdish.— N. B. Ward; Wellclose Square, September 1, 1841.” 
Phytol. i. 76. 

After careful inquiry respecting the woods or copses in which 
Lilium Martagon has been found, I have ascertained that no record 
exists in either instance of the planting of such woods or copses: it 
may therefore be supposed that these are of considerable antiquity, 
and as the roots of the lily are so deep in the earth, and so protected 
by a net-work of the tough roots of oak, hazel, maple, &c., as almost 
to preclude the possibility of getting them out entire, it may be fairly 
assumed that they also are denizens of some antiquity. It is in di- 
rect opposition to well-established facts to treat such plants as the 
temporary occupants of “some lonely rubbish heap ;” such is not the 
locality in which they are recorded as occurring. Edward Newman |]. 


On the Occurrence of Botrychium Lunaria in New Localities. 
- By the Rev. W. T. Bree, M.A. 


Mr. Broxam records the fact (Phytol. iii. 183) of his having found 
Botrychium Lunaria this summer for the first time near his residence 
in Leicestershire. Now I can fancy that my friend, pleased, as no 
doubt he must have been, at the discovery of a new locality for so in- 


301 


teresting a species, might yet be a little out of conceit with his own 
well-known botanical sharpsightedness for having, as he supposes, 
overlooked for ten years a plant which all the time had been growing 
close under his nose. Ifso, it may be some consolation to him to 
learn that other botanists also are sometimes liable to commit similar, 
and indeed much greater oversights. I will tell him what happened 
to myself. My first acquaintance with that prince of British Ranun- 
culi, R. Lingua, in a perfectly wild state, was on the occasion of a vi- 
sit to the fens at Whittlesea Mere. There the plant grew in great 
abundance, luxuriance and beauty, rearing its ample, bright blossoms 
some feet above the surface of the ground or water, to the no small 
satisfaction of a botanist who might see it for the first time in its na- 
tive state. I was not then aware that Ranunculus Lingua was even a 
Warwickshire plant; however, the very next summer I found an old, 
over-grown pit, in this parish (Allesley), full of the Ranunculus! and 
in this situation I have not the least doubt it had grown time out of 
mind; for the pit was one of those neglected spots, which, in spite of 
inclosures and all agricultural improvements, had retained its primi- 
tive character unchanged and unmolested by “man’s meddling.” 

But to return now to the Botrychium: my friend and neighbour, 
the Rev. W. Thickins, informed me a few weeks ago that he had 
found this fern near Coleshill Pool, in the earlier part of this summer, 
as since recorded by him in the ‘Phytologist’ (Phytol. iii. 222). 
Guided by his direction, I lately visited the spot, and accordingly 
found the Botrychium in good abundance; more so than I have ever 
seen it elsewhere. I might have gathered in a short time, I dare say, 
forty specimens, or more, within the space of less than an acre of ground. 
Now what may seem strange, and to do me no credit as a searcher 
for plants, is, that although this ground has been known to me from 
my earliest years, and to my father before me, we never found there 
Botrychium Lunaria ; neither, 1 may add, did Lady Aylesford ever 
discover it in this locality, though she frequently botanized about 
Coleshill Pool, and had a most keen eye for a minute plant. Nay, 
more, I was over the very spot last summer (1847), in company with 
some botanical friends, and we did not observe the fern. True it is, 
we were not on the look out for moonwort; nor had I the least idea 
that it had ever been found on Coleshill Heath, till Mr. Thickins 
subsequently reminded me that in the second edition of Newman’s 
Ferns it is stated that “Mr. Murcott has observed it on heathy 
ground near the upper part of Coleshill Bog.” But a botanist, I ad- 
mit, ought to have his eyes open at all times and in all places, for 

Vo, Lilt. 2k 


302 


anything and everything, if he would do his work as it should be 
done. 

It would appear, then, that we had entirely overlooked this pretty 
little fern; the evidence, I confess, is strong against us; but yet lam 
not quite so sure that this has really been the case either in Mr. 
Bloxam’s instance in Leicestershire, or my own at Coleshill Heath. 
Plants certainly do sometimes start up on a sudden in a new locality, 
and as it were spontaneously, or at least nobody knows how. I have 
elsewhere recorded (Mag. Nat. Hist. vol. ii. p. 70) the spontaneous 
appearance of Epipactis latifolia in a newly-made plantation on my 
premises. Instances, indeed, of this plant’s spontaneous appearance 
in similar situations have so repeatedly come under my observation, 
that I almost dare venture a wager, that I will make a new planta- 
tion, and that in the course of a few years the Epipactis shall make 
its appearance there of its own accord. When I speak of the spon- 
taneous appearance of a plant, I beg to be understood as not intend- 
ing to express by that term anything like the unphilosophical notion 
of what is called “spontaneous generation” in the animal kingdom. 
I simply mean the appearance of a plant of its own accord im a situa- 
tion where it was not used to grow, and in a way that one cannot 
account for : 


—— “nullis hominum cogentibus, ipse 
Sponte sua veniunt.” 


I will mention another instance, occurring also on my own premi- 
ses, and within fifty yards of this house. Some years ago I took in 
a small bit of ground, comprising but a few square yards, from a very 
old piece of turf, for the purpose of making a little thicket; this bit 
of ground was planted, among other things, with gorse and broom; 
when these shrubs were grown up, I was greatly surprised at finding 
among them some fine plants of Orobanche major (or elatior, I am 
not now sure which). How did the parasite come there? I do not 
think it likely that the seed should have been wafted to the spot by 
the wind; for, to the best of my knowledge, the plant does not grow 
in this, or any one of the adjoining parishes. ‘The nearest place 
in which I have observed it is seven or eight miles distant. Some 
phenogamous plants then, it seems, appear from time to time spon- 
taneously in new and unexpected localities. _ Cryptogamous plants, 
it strikes me, .and especially ferns, are still more likely so to do. 
The seeds of ferns, as every one knows, are extremely minute, and 


303 


accordingly may readily be conveyed to a distance by the wind and 
by other means; and lighting on a situation suitable to their growth, 
in due course vegetate and spring up. Jt should almost seem, in- 
deed, that the earth and the atmosphere are charged (so to speak) 
with the minute seeds of ferns, mosses and fungi, which are only 
waiting for favourable circumstances to call them into active life. In 
this manner I suppose it is that Asplenium Ruta-muraria and Tricho- 
manes have occasionally appeared, self-invited, in the chinks of my 
garden-wall and down among the brick-work of the cellar-windows. 
Moreover, the seeds of ferns, contrary to what I should have expect- 
ed, are known to retain their vegetative power for a great length of 
time. I have often raised ferns from seed scraped from old specimens 
preserved in an herbarium. Ferns therefore, above most other plants, 
we might expect to meet with every now and then in new localities 
where they had never occurred before. [I will now mention an in- 
stance of what I consider the spontaneous appearance of a rare, or at 
least a local species of fern, which occurred to me in the adjoiming 
parish of Berkswell. About two years ago I was greatly surprised as 
well as gratified at finding Polypodium Dryopteris in the crevices of 
a rough stone wall by the road-side, half a mile from that village. 
This wall, which was constructed of rough sandstone, without any 
mortar, had been built in the year 1829 (7. e., about seventeen years 
before I observed the fern), for the purpose of making a facing to se- 
cure the perpendicular side of the bank, on the occasion of the road 
having been widened. As many of the more common species, such 
as Lastrea Filix-mas and dilatata, Athyrium Filix-feemina, Polypo- 
dium vulgare and Asplenium Adiantum-nigrum, &c., grew originally 
on the bank before the road was widened, of course they soon esta- 
blished themselves on the newly-constructed wall, to which they 
proved a great ornament. In this situation I have often admired, and 
often gathered A. Adiantum-nigrum, which flourished there profusely, 
but never, till about two years ago (as already said) did I observe P. 
Dryopteris on the wall, and then but sparingly, and only in one spot. 
The. following year, a friend to whom I had pointed out the fern, 
found a specimen on another part of the same wall, at the distance, 
perhaps, of fifteen or twenty yards. I must remark that I have 
not the slightest suspicion of any botanical fraud (as it is called) 
having been practised in this instance by any one who might 
have planted P. Dryopteris on this wall in order to surprise and 
deceive other botanists; this, I think, in the present case ex- 
tremely improbable. However, should any reader of the ‘ Phytolo- 


304 


gist’ be cognizant of such fraud having been perpetrated within the 
parish of Berkswell, I shall feel obliged by his communicating the 
fact through the pages of this useful magazine. But till such evi- 
dence be produced, I cannot but believe that the above is an example 
of what I have called the spontaneous appearance of P. Dryopteris 
in a situation where it did not grow till of late years, and at a great 
distance, too, from any known locality for the fern; for so far as I 
know, P. Dryopteris has never hitherto been recorded even as a 
Warwickshire species. 

I must now return once more to Botrychium Lunaria on Coleshill 
Heath, which, it might seem, I had almost forgotten. I could not 
help observing that the surface of the ground on that part of the 
heath where the Botrychium grew, had been burnt within these few 
years for the purpose of clearing it of the heaths and gorse which 
grew there. The burning of the ling, &c., I should guess had taken 
place at least two, or perhaps three years before; it had not destroyed 
the heaths, gorse and other plants, for they had sprouted up again 
vigorously since the conflagration. Is it possible that this operation 
may have prepared the surface, and been the means of rousing the 
dormant seeds of the Botrychium to their full development? I ask 
this question for information. Strange things, as regards the vegeta- 
ble kingdom, are confidently said sometimes to follow a conflagration. 
And a slight alteration of the surface of the ground, it is well known, 
will often occasion an entire change in the vegetation ;* e. g., there is 
a broad, green lane, a little common I might almost call it, near this 
place, which I often cross, and which produces a remarkably fine turf 
of short, close grass; the turf is often plundered for garden purposes, 
and pared off in thin layers, leaving the soil perfectly bare in patches of 
some square yards in size. On these patches, I observe, there invariably 
comes up a dense crop, not of the grasses, &c., which had previously 
occupied the surface, but of Gnaphalium uliginosum. Again, to take 
another instance, which, perhaps, is more in point, and at which I 
have already hinted, I have somewhere read that in parts of America 


* Manures, too, are found greatly to affect the nature of the vegetation, and in a 
way one knows not how to account for. An intelligent friend, who resided some years 
in Leicestershire, himself an agriculturist, once informed me, that lime from two dis- 
tinct quarries was frequently employed in the neighbourhood as manure; and that 
after the application of one of these limes there always came up a plentiful supply of 
white clover ; after the other sort had been used, no white clover appeared, but con- 
stantly some other plant, which he named, the species of which I do not now re- 
member. 


305 


where forests have been consumed by fire, and the timber totally de- 
stroyed, if the ground be afterwards left to itself, there springs up 
from seed a growth of forest trees of an entirely different kind from 
those which had preceded it, as, e. g., pine after oak, or vice versd, 1 
quite forget the particulars, and that this fact is so certain, and so 
well known to the inhabitants, that they can calculate to a nicety 
what description of timber trees will spring up in this or that forest 
after the present growth shall have been destroyed by fire. I cannot 
vouch for the truth of these things, but I have seen them narrated 
as grave and sober statements of matters of fact. 

I hope it will not be thought that I have entered into this long, 
and, I fear, very tedious discussion, merely in my own defence, as it 
were, and with a view to screen myself from any obloquy which may 
seem to attach to one who has overlooked a plant on ground over 
which he has repeatedly botanized. The truth is not so. In the 
case of Ranunculus Lingua, a far more conspicuous plant than the lit- 
tle dwarfish fern in question, and one therefore which ought still less 
to escape detection, I have pleaded guilty, to the fullest extent, and 
confessed the defectiveness of my own botanical researches. But as 
regards the Botrychium on Coleshill Heath, I must say it is strange 
that it never should have been found either by Mr. Thickins or by 
myself until this season, if it has grown there in equal abundance 
for many former years. Mr. Bloxam’s case, too, may possibly fall 
nearly within the same category, though he may not be able to allege 
a conflagration in aid of his defence. Perhaps, therefore, Botrychium 
Lunaria might with no great impropriety be added to Epipactis lati- 
folia, Orobanche major and Polypodium Dryopteris as examples of 
plants 


‘“‘ Sponte sua que se tollunt in luminis aures.” 


W. T. Bree. 
Allesley Rectory, August 15, 1848. 


Occurrence of Filago apiculata near Great Braxted, Essex. 
By G. E. VARENNE, Esq. 


In a gravel-pit. at Great Braxted, in this county, there are to be 
found specimens of Filago apiculata, which are now coming into full 
flower. The locality is not confined to the gravel-pit, the middle of 


306 


a neighbouring wheat-field, which is not remarkably light land, pro- 
ducing also some fine specimens. 

These plants perfectly agree with the description by the Rev. G. 
E. Smith (Phytol. ii. 575), not excepting the tansy-like odour of the 
leaves, which is very distinct. It may not be amiss to mention that 
the normal form of Filago germanica abounds in both the above- 
named localities. 

The lateral position of the heads of flowers described by the Rey. 
G. E. Smith, as a peculiar character of Filago apiculata, is to be met 
with not uncommonly in specimens of F. germanica, whilst the full- 
grown varieties of F. apiculata have forked branches, which bear, in 
an uncertain manner, one, two, or three lateral heads and a terminal 
one. 

Whether the general appearance of F’. apiculata, its peculiar odour, 
the colour of the spinous points of the involucral scales, the number 
of the flowers in the heads, and the really spathulate form of the low- 
ermost leaves, are of sufficient importance to allow it to be raised to 
any higher rank than that of a variety of F. germanica, further obser- 
vation may determine, the object of the present communication being 
merely to record the existence of the plant in this part of England as 
illustrative of its geographical distribution. 


E. G, VARENNE. 
Kelvedon, Essex, 
August 16, 1848. 


Discrepancies between the actual Flowering Seasons of British 
Plants and the Months indicated by the Floral Authorities. 
By Isaran W.N. Keys, Esq. 


I nave been pleased to find that the subject on which you inserted 
a few notes from my pen in the February number of the ‘ Phytolo- 
gist’ for this year, namely, the frequently observed discrepancy be- 
tween the seasons when plants blossom, and the months recorded in 
our floral books, has received the attention of others interested in the 
accuracy of botanical description. Vide articles by E. Lees, Esq. 
and C. D. Snooke, Esq., in the last number, (Phytol. iii. 190, 203). 

The following extracts from my journal for this year, being cumu- 
lative evidence, may not be altogether uninteresting :— 

January 9.— Noticed the leaves of young plants peeping out. 
Daisies were not unfrequent in the fields. In Babington’s Manual 


307 


March is given as the first month of this plant’s appearance. The 
‘British Flora’ says “from early spring.” Query, Did the author 
comprehend January in the spring months? Particularly remarked 
the reniform leaves of Cochlearia danica; also the leaves of Gera- 
nium molle, columbinum and Robertianum. Cotyledon Umbilicus 
was exhibiting its thick, peltate leaves on old walls, at the base of the 
withered, brown raceme of the parent plant. 

January 12.— The leaves of various Geraniums presenting a fresh 
and healthful appearance in Saltram woods. Plucked a piece of 
Rubia peregrina, with large, black fruit on it. The authorities al- 

‘ready mentioned give the flowering-season of this plant as extending 
from June to August. The example which in this month I found in 
fruit must, it may be presumed, have flowered much later. In vari- 
ous spots in my walk the dandelion was displaying its golden rays. 
Babington confines this plant within the 3rd and 10th months, limits 
whieh Hooker wisely avoids. He says nothing regarding its flower- 
ing-season. Searched in the usual place in the wood for Galanthus 
nivalis, but found none. At this circumstance I was surprised. All 
other plants seemed earlier than usual, but the snowdrop, the prover- 
bial “herald of the infant year,” eschewed haste. Found Oxalis Ace- 
tosella in leaf. It flowers, according to the lists, in May. It must 
have been precocious this year. Saw several fine tufts of daisies. 

March 14.—Gathered Helleborus feetidus. Sir W. J. Hooker says 
April. Also, Pulmonaria officinalis. The last-mentioned author, as 
well as Mr. Babington, insert this plant among the “ May flowers.” 
Saw colt’s-foot in abundance. No flowers, however, so that they (ac- 
cording to authors, who place them in March and April, before the 
leaves) must have come and gone out of due course. It may be 
stated, too, that this plant is not confined to “ moist chalky and clay 
soils” (Bab.), or “moist and clayey soils” (Hook.): it grows freely 
on our dry limestone, particularly on the rejectamenta of quarries. 
Ranunculus Ficaria frequent, not plentiful. Vegetation in general 
not so forward (having regard to its condition in January) as I ex- 
pected to see it. The last-named plant flowers in April and May, 
agreeably to the authorities already quoted. It has always bright- 
ened my spring walks at an earlier period. Of primroses I saw a few. 
“ April and May” again, say the book-makers. They must be more 
timely astir. Mercurialis perennis was unfolding its blossoms. Once 
more “ April and May” are assigned as the flowering months. 

June 25.—Saw Chenopodium olidum about to expand. Babington 
sets down the 8th and 9th months for it, and Hooker the 8th only. 


308 


Verbascum virgatum in flower. Both the Manual and ‘British Flora’ 
give August for the flowering of this plant. 

July 18.—Scilla autumnalis in flower. Hooker says “September;” 
Babington comes nearer, naming “ August” as its flowering month. 

August 12.—Kchium vulgare still in flower, and likely to continue. 
so for some time. The Floras restrict it to June and July. 

Whilst I concur with one of your correspondents that the flower- 
ing-seasons of plants are loosely indicated in our Floras, I must to 
some extent plead for the authors, believing that the irregularity and 
variety of the climate of Great Britain beset them with difficulties. 
At the same time, I[ cannot but reiterate the conviction that the true 
average period might be more nearly attained than has hitherto been 
done. Towards this end, let observations be made by collectors in 
all parts of our islands, and the results made patent. We may then 
hope to avoid such disappointment and loss of time as were experi- 
enced by another of the writers in your last number, who walked 
“eleven miles and back” in vain, having been deceived by the book 


which he followed as his guide. 


Isaran- W. N. Keys. 
Plymouth, August 17, 1848. 


[I believe the secret, after all, is, as I have already explained, that 
the subject has not been held by our authors of sufficient importance 
for personal investigation.— Edward Newman]. 


Botanical Notes for 1848. By G.S. Gipson, Esq., F.L.S. 


A Few brief notices of botanical excursions, &c., during the pre- ° 
sent summer, may not be uninteresting to some of the readers of the 
‘Phytologist,’ and although several of them proved unsuccessful, in 
respect of the plants specially sought for, they may not have been 
wholly without their use. I will begin with one to Box Hill, in 
search of Teucrium Botrys. The locality where it once grew has 
been kept very secret, and perhaps wisely so, but I had the opportu- 
nity of being taken to the spot by a young friend who had gathered 
it there himself two years ago, and who therefore well knew the situ- 
ation. It is, as was described, a very stony and steep valley, facing 
the south, near the farther end of Box Hill, from Burford Bridge. It 
grew, I am informed, in tolerable plenty, over a limited space of 
ground, but unfortunately it is now (at least temporarily) destroyed 
by the land being ploughed up; it may, however, possibly reappear 


309 


in a few years, or be discovered in some similar locality; for can 
scarcely doubt that it was truly wild, the place being so far from 
houses, and the plant being an unlikely one to have been introduced 
in so uncultivated and unfrequented a part. It is worthy the atten- 
tion of botanists residing in or visiting that neighbourhood. We were 
too late in the season for most of the Orchidex, which grow there so 
abundantly, and did not notice any plants of particular interest, ex- 
cept Epipactis purpurata and Cynoglossum sylvaticum, which grew 
abundantly on one part of the hill, opposite Burford Bridge. Scro- 
phularia aquatica was growing on the driest sides of Box Hill, but 
did not vary much in character. Dipsacus pilosus, Campanula Tra- 
chelium, Nasturtium terrestre, Erigeron acre, Bromus secalinus and 
Epilobium angustifolium, do not appear uncommon. 

My next expeditions were also unsuccessful, in search of Liparis 
Leeselii, which plant is likely to be very soon exterminated in this 
country, by the progress of drainage. The first of them was to Bot- 
tisham Fen, where the plant was said to have been recently found, 
but there is so little real fenny ground remaining, that it must be 
nearly, if not quite extinct ; and though our party, consisting of four, 
dispersed ourselves over the peaty moor, we were unable, after seve- 
ral hours’ careful search, to discover any trace of it. Here grow 
Viola lactea, Apargia hirta, Alisma ranunculoides, Ranunculus Lin- 
gua (very rare), Erysimum cheiranthoides, Myriophyllum verticilla- 
tum, Scheenus nigricans, Juncus obtusifolius, Bromus erectus, Chara 
hispida, &c. In returning by Cherry Hinton we gathered Bunium 
Bulbocastanum, Orobanche elatior on Knautia arvensis, Linum pe- 
renne, abundantly, &c.; near Babraham Brachypodium pinnatum, 
Astragalus glycyphyllos and hypoglottis, Orchis pyramidalis and Fi- 
lago Jussizi. Further on, near Hildersham, is a rich little spot, 
scarcely a hundred yards in extent, on which grow Anemone Pulsa- 
tilla, Potentilla argentea, Trifolium scabrum and striatum, Dianthus 
deltoides, Thesium linophyllum, Hypocheris maculata, Phleum 
Behmeri, &c.; and in the corn-fields around, Silene noctiflora, Fu- 
maria Vaillantii, Galium tricorne, Bupleurum rotundifolium, &c., are 
often met with, also in a neighbouring copse, Aceras anthrophora. 

The second journey was to Burwell Fen, where Liparis formerly 
grew plentifully. This fen, too, has been drained within a few years, 
and to such purpose, that we were informed the land which was for- 
merly worth only five pounds per acre, would now sell for thirty. 
There is a fen beyond still undrained, where the plant may possibly 
grow, but it was too full of Arundo Phragmites and Cladium Maris- 

VO, 034, 258 


310 


cus, to admit of much examination. Among the plants we observed 
were Lathyrus palustris, Sium latifolium, Ginanthe Lachenalii, Peu- 
cedanum palustre, Nympheza alba, Ranunculus Lingua, Rumex pa- 
lustris, Sparganium simplex and natans, Potamogeton pectinatum 
and rufescens, and a Nitella, which appears to be N. hyalina or tenu- 
issimus. In returning to Newmarket along the Devil’s Ditch for se- 
veral miles, we were unable to find Barkhausia fcetida, which has 
been said to grow there, and the only uncommon plants seen, were 
Thesium linophyllum, Cineraria campestris and Brachypodium pin- 
natum. There does not seem any trace now of Asperugo procum- 
bens in Newmarket churchyard, where it once grew, or of Veronica 
spicata on the heath. Filago Jussiewi we noticed on the borders of 
some corn-fields. While speaking of this plant, I may observe that 
it has been found at intervals over a district of twenty miles in ex- 
tent, on the borders of Essex and Cambridgeshire, and was also found 
near Hertford, by James Backhouse. Since sending my former no- 
tice of it, I had the pleasure of seeing F. apiculata, of G. E. Smith, in 
a new station, near Thetford, and am quite satisfied that the two 
plants are quite distinct, as are both of them from F. germanica; the 
broad, short leaves, the bright purple points of the calyx, the very 
woolly heads, and the different growth of the branches, though not 
the only distinctive marks, are such as attract attention at first sight, 
and are, I believe, permanent. Though the characters of distinct 
species should be such as to admit of description on paper, yet it is 
not always easy to do so, even when a merely casual observer might 
be able to distinguish them by their appearance alone; however, in 
this case, there are more points of difference than in very many spe- 
cies now admitted. Thetford is a first-rate locality for the botanist, 
the sandy soil producing so many plants rarely found in other dis- 
tricts, such as Artemisia campestris, Silene Otites and conica, Galium 
anglicum, Veronica verna and triphyllos, Apera Spica-venti and inter- 
rupta, Medicago falcata and minima, Schleranthus perennis, Hypo- 
cheeris glabra, &c. 

I should feel much gratified if these few and very imperfect obser- 
vations serve as a stimulus to any fellow-botanists in ascertaining lo- 
calities of rare or little known species. I believe much remains to be 
done even in the most frequented parts of England, and that many 
new species, not merely hatr-split, but true species, would yet be 
added to our Flora. G. S. Gisson. 

Saffron Walden, August 18, 1848. 


311 


Remarks on the Period of Duration of Reseda Luteola, c. 
By Grorce Lawson, Esq. 


In February of the present year, while walking along the railway 
embankment at Ninewells, near Dundee, my attention was attracted 
by numerous plants of the Reseda Luteola that had flowered during 
the previous year, and which were sending out strong and healthy 
shoots, which gave promise of flowering again during the present 
season. One of these plants, with the previous year’s flower-stem 
still attached, I removed to my garden, in order the better to watch 
its progress; and it is now, at the present time, in full flower, and a 
most luxuriant plant it is, with the last year’s flower-stem still standing 
withered and bare, to show the perennial duration of the plant. 

From the above facts I am not desirous of arguing that this Reseda 
should be considered as in any way having claims to be classed as a 
constant perennial. Even on the very same embankment where I 
observed the perennial plants, there were the withered remains of 
many that had evidently, by their single upright flower-stem, produced 
flowers and seeds only once, and then died. The perennial plants 
observed I look upon as exceptions (although indeed numerous) to 
the general rule,—plants whose strength had not been quite exhausted, 
as is generally the case, by the production of flowers and seeds during 
the preceding year, and had thus been enabled to preserve vitality 
until the return of spring. That, as a general rule, the Reseda Lu- 
teola grows up from the seed, produces flowers, thereafter seeds, and 
then dies, will I dare say be generally admitted; but another question 
relating to its period of duration arises, about which there may exist 
more difference of opinion, and more difference in the result of obser- 
vation likewise. Is the plant an annnal or a biennial; does it spring 
from the seed and perfect flowers and seeds, then die, all in one sea- 
son, or does it require two seasons to complete this course? This 
question I feel a very considerable difficulty in answering, as my ob- 
servations on “annual” and “biennial” plants have led me to the 
conclusion that these terms only form a distinction without a diffe- 
rence. Indeed, in books the distinction and the difference are both 
very clear ; ,but when we go to the fields we find that annuals and bi- 
ennials are so accommodating to circumstances, and that the “ perzod 
of duration” of both is so changeable (the annual so very frequently 
assuming the character of the biennial, and the biennial in turn that 
of the annual), that we get into a maze of confusion and cannot tell 
which is which. Need I refer to the works of authors on the subject, 


312 


to show the difference of opinion that exists as to whether some plants 
should be classed as biennials or annuals? The fact is familiar to 
everybody. 

While thus endeavouring to draw attention to this interesting sub- 
ject, I do not shut my eyes to the many and high authorities we have 
for continuing the distinction of annuals and biennials; but at the 
same time I must be allowed to express my own candid conviction 
that the sooner the distinction is abolished the better. 


GEORGE LAWSON. 
. Dundee, August 18, 1848. 


Monstrosity in Plantago lanceolata, L. By W. ANDERsON, Esq. 


A FEw days ago, while on a short botanical excursion near Brechin, 
I picked up a specimen of Plantago lanceolata, L., presenting the fol- 
lowing curious monstrosities. Four scapes spring from one root, one 
crowned with leaves, nine in number. Another with leaves and spikes. 
Another with one leaf and seven spikes, four of them raised on pe- 
duncles from one to two inches high. And the fourth is in the normal 
state. 

I have frequently seen a single scape crowned with two or more | 
spikes, but I never saw so many on one plant. 

I have forwarded these facts for insertion in the ‘ Phytologist,’ 
thinking that they may be interesting to some of its readers. 


W. ANDERSON. 
Brechin, August 21, 1848. 


BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 


Friday, September 1, 1848.—J. E. Gray, Esq., F.R.S., President, 
in the chair. 

The following donations were announced :— 

Numbers 1, 2, and 3 of vol. 8 of the ‘ Journal of the Pharmaceutical 
Society,’ presented by that Society. Number 21 of the, ‘ Journal of 
the Royal Agricultural Society of England,’ presented by that Society. 
‘Catalogue of Plants found at the Cape of Good Hope,’ by Dr. Fer- 
dinand Krauss, presented by the author. ‘ Outlines of Botany,’ part 1, 
by William Mateer, M.D., presented by the author. British Plants 
from Mr. Barham, Dr. Mateer, Mr. Henderson, and Mr. Roby. 


313 


Miss Barnard, of Odsey, near Royston, and Mr. J. L. Lawrence, of 
Haverstock Hill, Hampstead, were elected members. 

Mr. Hewett Watson presented some beautiful specimens of Simethis 
bicolor, from Mr. Borrer, collected at Poole Heath, Dorsetshire. 

Dr. John Parkin read a paper “On the Potato Disease.” The 
writer commenced by stating that, although it was too late to adopt 
the measures recommended by him in his work ‘On the Prevention 
and Treatment of the Potato Disease,’ there was yet time for the 
adoption of those which he had advised for arresting its progress after 
it had commenced either in the haulm or the root. 

These measures, in addition to the employment of chalk and sul- 
phuric acid, and the burning of stubble, which Dr. P. recommends in 
all cases when these agents can be easily obtained and the crop is 
small, consist either in cutting off the haulm, pulling up the stem, or 
raising the roots with a fork, according as the disease exists in the one 
or the other of these parts of the plant. 

It was stated by Dr. P. that sometimes the disease commences in 
the haulm, sometimes in the root, the root proper, but more generally 
in the underground stem. The modus operandi of these measures 
-was explained by Dr. P., and this part of the subject has been fully 
treated in his work. Dr. P. further advised that the tubers should be 
left in the ground until required for use, as no doubt, he said, could 
exist that exposure to the air hastened the process of decay after it 
had attacked the tubers. The writer concluded by stating it to be 
his intention to favour the Society on a future occasion with additional 
evidence which he had obtained, not only with respect to the efficacy 
of these measures, but of those also which he has recommended for 
the prevention of the disease, and which of course are of the most im- 
portance.—G. EH. D. 


Some Account of the several alleged Species included under the 
name of Filago germanica of Linneus. By HeEwerr C. 
Watson, Esq. 


For some years past various botanists have entertained the idea 
that more than one single species are included among the plants:to 
which the name of Filago germanica is currently applied. Two 
years ago, the Rev. G. E. Smith communicated specimens of his Fi- 
lago apiculata to the Botanical Society of London, along with a diag- 


314 


nostic description, which was copied into the Report printed in the 
‘Phytologist’ (ii. 575) for July, 1846. And by another Report from 
the same Society, printed in the ‘ Phytologist’ (i11. 269) for the present 
month of September, it appears that Mr. G. 8. Gibson and I have been 
simultaneously sending to the Botanical Society similar forms of the 
F. germanica under different names. This difference of nomenclature, 
together with a clerical or typographical error in the Report, leads to 
ambiguity and confusion. And as several botanists have lately ap- 
plied to me about these plants and their names, I think it desirable 
to pen some explanations. Three apparent species are probably dif- 
fused through England ; and it will not be too late to look for examples 
of them in October. Before another summer I trust that the Botanical 
Society of London will have rendered them sufficiently familiar to all 
its members who care to receive specimens. 

By far the clearest account of these alleged species which I have 
seen, occurs in a memoir upon them by Jordan, read before the Lin- 
nean Society of Lyons in the autumn of 1846, and afterwards published 
with characteristic figures. The descriptions and figures of Jordan, 
together with specimens communicated to the Botanical Society of 
London by M. Sagot of Paris, afford the most ample means for iden- 
tifying the three English species, real or supposed. Jordan alleges, 
and probably with justice, that the attempt to describe two species 
only, instead of three or four, has led to confusion and uncertainty ; 
specimens of the intermediate species having been referred, now to 
one, now to another, of the two described; thus misapplying or 
crossing their proper characters. The descriptions of that author are 
lengthy; but the more peculiar distinctions are repeated in a con- 
densed summary, which I copy below with some trifling omissions :— 

“ Filago spatulata (Presl) is distinguished from the three others by 
its leaves, which are always more or less spatulate, never widened at 
their base, more spreading and broader; the branches much more 
open; the clusters larger, more depressed, less cottony, and furnished 
with longer and more spreading bracts; the heads less numerous, of 
a more oval form, with sharper angles, and scales of larger size and 
more curved. 

“ Filago lutescens (Jord.) is readily recognized by its yellowish to- 
mentum, and by the points of the scales which very frequently assume 
a beautiful purple colour. The form of its leaves distinguishes it per- 
fectly both from F. spatulata and F. canescens. Indeed, they are al- 
ways lanceolate above, but obtuse with a small mucro at their tip. 
The branches are but little spreading. The clusters hold exactly an 


315 


intermediate place between those of F’. spatulata and F’. canescens, by 
their form, as well as by the form, number and size of their heads, 
and by the form of the scales and length of the bracts; but they are 
frequently as cottony as those of F. canescens, and the points of the 
scales are straightish. 

“ Filago canescens (Jord.) has whitish tomentum, and the points of 
the scales pale not red. Its leaves are remarkable by their wavy 
margin, usually much revolute; they are oblong or lanceolate, like 
those of F. lutescens, but always acute. The branches are little 
spreading, repeatedly dichotomous, almost as in F. lutescens. The 
clusters are usually very round, very cottony, and furnished with 
short bracts; they are composed of numerous heads, straightish, with 
inconspicuous angles, and with nearly straight scales, very distinct 
from those of F’. spatulata. 

“ Filago eriocephala (Guss.) is remarkable by the abundance of 
grayish cottony down, which covers all parts and assumes often a yel- 
lowish green colour at the summit of the plant. The leaves are very 
numerous and imbricated ; their margins are less revolute and less un- 
dulating than in F. canescens; their form differs little from that of the 
leaves of F’. lutescens. The stems differ in habit from those of these 
two species, slightly ascending from their base, only once or rarely 
twice dichotomous at the summit, with more curved branches. The 
clusters are very round or subellipsoidal, and consist of heads straighter 
and more numerous than in the other three species. The achenia are 
remarkably small; being half the size of those of F. canescens. This 
last character is decisive, since in the other three species, which are 
otherwise very distinct, the achenia do not present such appreciable 
differences of size.” 

Such is Jordan’s account of these four alleged species. The first, 
F. spatulata, he shows to be identical with F. Jussizi of Cosson and 
Germain ; and he retains the name of F’. spatulata (Pres/) in accordance 
with the recognized rule of priority. For asimilar reason Jordan’s own 
name of F. lutescens, given to the second species, must yield before 
the earlier one of the Rev. G. E. Smith, whose F. apiculata is un- 
doubtedly the same thing ; although it seems probable that Mr. Smith 
may have had some specimens of F. spatulata in view while drawing 
up his character for F. apiculata, and may have thus laid stress upon 
the “ spathulate” leaves of the latter, while that character more truly 
belongs to the former, as is well indicated by the name. 

The third species, F. canescens, apparently intends the plant which 
ordinarily represents the Linnean F. germanica in herbaria. But in 


316 


this instance Jordan’s figures are less characteristic ; since that of F. 
eriocephala, in general habit and ramification, far better represents 
our ordinary F. germanica, than does his figure of F. canescens ; and 
the same holds true of Sagot’s French specimens, which precisely ac- 
cord with our F. germanica, growing in cultivated ground. When 
the latter grows on dry hedge-banks and similar places, it is exactly 
the plant represented by Jordan’s figure of F. eriocephala, except in 
being less cottony, and possibly having larger achenia. For the pre- 
sent, therefore, I must regard Jordan’s third and fourth species as a 
single one only, sufficiently well represented by the plant so familiar 
to British botanists under the name of F. germanica (Linn.). Boue’s 
Algerine specimens, labelled under the same name, have the copious 
tomentum of F. eriocephala, but their achenia are too immature to 
show their true size. The achenia of our common English F. ger- 
manica are rather smaller than those of F. spatulata and F. apiculata ; 
but I have seen no English specimen so densely cottony as those 
from Africa. 

I take it, therefore, that we have three apparent species in Britain, 
to which the names of germanica (or canescens), spatulata, and api- 
culata must be applied respectively ; and these it will not be difficult 
to distinguish whenever well grown specimens are examined. With 
the exception of the Rev. G. E. Smith’s Yorkshire specimens of F. 
apiculata, all the British specimens in my own herbarium belonged to 
F. germanica, until I began to seek particularly for the other two spe- 
cies in this county; and as I now find the F. germanica vastly more 
abundant and general within a circuit of thirty miles, than either of 
the others, it is probably the usual representative of the Linnean spe- 
cies in herbaria; and it is very well figured in English Botany. 

The other two species, spathulata and apiculata, are distinguished 
at once from the former by the sharply pentagonal and conical form 
of their heads, larger in size, and only about half as numerous in the 
clusters; as also by their achenia, which are larger and more shining. 
From each other they are distinguishable by colour and ramification. 
F. apiculata is more of a grass-green hue, its tomentum yellowish, 
and scales crimson or purplish at their tips, especially in an early 
stage of the flower. F. spathulata has a leaden-grey tint, with more 
decidedly spathulate leaves, even those on the branches as well as 
those at the base of the stem. The ramification is much more 
spreading, giving a general habit more like that of Filago gallica, or 
some species of Fedia, than is seen in either of the other two species, 
in which the branches, if spreading at their bases, usually curve into 


317 


a suberect position. The heads are larger and more sharply angled 
than those of F. apiculata. 

It should be added, nevertheless, that the species must be judged 
of by a combination of characters rather than by any single character 
in itself; and allowance must be made for the varied situations of 
growth. For instance, on dry gravelly roads the F. germanica is often 
much stunted, its branches spread widely, and the heads are fewer in 
number, larger in size, and more distinctly pentagonal; so that, in 
this state, it may be difficult to distinguish it satisfactorily from ex- 
amples of F. spatulata which have grown under somewhat similar 
conditions. So again, one of my finest specimens of F. germanica has 
remarkably green and broad leaves, not undulated at the margin, And 
I have examples of F. spatulata with leaves equally green as those of 
F. apiculata; indeed, of a more lively green than in many examples 
of the latter. The lowest leaves of all three are not seldom spatulate ; 
while the uppermost leaves of the true F. spatulata occasionally in- 
cline to the cordate-oblong or lanceolate form seen in the other two. 

It may be expected that all three will be found widely diffused with 
us. In the summer of 1847 a specimen was given to me by Mr. Bull 
as probably referrible to F. apiculata, although the red colour was 
scarcely perceptible on the scales. The specimen was likely gathered 
near Guildford or Godalming; and the examination lately of nume- 
rous others from this county, now satisfies me that Mr. Bull was cor- 
rect in his suggestion. Late last autumn, I found two or three very 
small and stunted specimens of the same species, in a sandy path- 
way near Ockham Pond, Surrey. Having again found it this past 
summer, and in better condition, in a lane on the sandy ridge called 
Fairmile, between Cobham and Esher, in the same county, I was in- 
duced to search the adjacent fields, and soon discovered an abundant 
crop in a neighbouring wheat-field.. I have since found the same 
very sparingly in the stubble fields near Thames Ditton, Long Ditton, 
West Moulsey, and Walton. In course of my searchings a few stray 
specimens of F. spatulata were also discovered in Thames Ditton and 
Chessington parishes ; and in crossing a wheat stubble by the Thames 
between Walton and Sunbury Loch, on the first of this September, 1 
came upon a copious supply of the F. spatulata in an excellent con- 
dition for exhibiting its characteristic distinctions as compared with 
the other two, both of which grew very sparingly amongst the plants 
of F. spatulata. Mr. G. S. Gibson has met with both species in the 
vicinity of Saffron Walden. And it appears by the ‘ Phytologist’ of 
the current month, that Mr. Woods has gathered the F. spatulata on 

VOL. UI. aa 


318 


the beach at Studland, in considerable abundance. I have heard of 
other localities for one or other species, but can say nothing positive 
concerning them. 

In conclusion, I would observe that certain questions remain to be 
settled. Which form is the ipsissima Filago germanica of Linneus? 
What is really the F. pyramidata of Linneus? Is the Filago erio- 
cephala of Gussone distinct from the F. canescens of Jordan; and if 
distinct, have we both these latter in England? Are the F. spatulata 
and F. apiculata distinct from each other, and from the plant usually 
representing F. germanica in English herbaria? Lastly, what are 
the localities or general distribution of the two former in England; 
namely, of F. spatulata and F. apiculata ? 


Hewett C. WATSON. 
Thames Ditton, 3rd Septr., 1848. 


P.S. Since sending the notes on Filago germanica, and its allies, I 
have been enabled to examine the Linnean herbarium, re-opened after 
the cleansing vacation. F. germanica is there represented by three 
specimens, on different sheets. One of these, marked “ germanica” 
in the handwriting of Linnzus, is our ordinary plant so named. A 
second is apparently F. spatulata. The third, marked “pygmea” by 
Linneus, and altered with pencil to “ germanica” by Smith, is a dis- 
torted plant, probably belonging to F. spatulata also; certainly not 
Evax pygmeza. I find no F. pyramidata in the Linnean herbarium. 

H. C. Watson. 


Occurrence of Equisetum hyemale and E.umbrosum in Northum- 
berland. By JoserH SipEBoTHAM, Esq. 


Ir may be interesting to some of your readers to know that Equi- 
setum hyemale and E. umbrosum are found in abundance on the 
banks of the Coquet, near Felton, Northumberland, and also near the 
celebrated hermitage of Warkworth. Of the umbrosum I dried a few 
barren fronds, to which any of your readers are welcome. 

JOSEPH SIDEBOTHAM. 

Manchester, September 9, 1848. 


319 


Scotch Locality for Asplenium fontanum. 
By the Rev. W. T. Brez, M.A. 


In the August number of the ‘ Phytologist’ I gave a most imperfect 
notice relative to Asplenium fontanum having been recently found in 
Scotland; but having unfortunately lost the memorandum I made at 
the time the information was given me, I was unable to state either 
the locality of the fern or the name of my informant. I have now 
ascertained through the kindness of Lady Maria Finch and her intel- 
ligent gardener, Mr. David Hutcheson, that Asplenium fontanum was 
met with by him in considerable abundance on “ shaded rocks by the 
sea two miles north-east of Stonehaven, Kincardineshire, in 1842.” 
I can now therefore entertain no doubt as to this beautiful fern being 
a native of Scotland. 

W. T. BREE. 

Allesley Rectory, Septr. 15, 1848. 


Hereditary Variations of Plants. (Extract from the ‘ Gardeners’ 
and Farmers’ Journal, of September 9, 1848). 


“THE following not less remarkable or interesting fact was related 
to us by Mr. M’Nab, namely, that he had sown the seeds of Ilex Ba- 
learica, from which he had produced the common Holly. He had 
also raised from the seeds of the tender Madeira Holly (Llea Perado) 
a variety identical with that known as Hodgin’s Holly, and although 
the offspring of a tender parent, yet, like Hodgin’s variety, it was also 
quite hardy. We regard these as extremely interesting facts. We 
have here the Ilex Balearica reverting back into the type of the genus 
the common English Holly, and this, too, although an exotic, and 
acknowledged species; while in the case of the Ilex Perado, a plant 
scarcely deserving the name of even half-hardy, it produces an off- 
spring not only wholly different and unlike itself, but what is far more 
remarkable, the progeny is hardy while the parent is tender.” —Editor 
of the ‘Gardeners’ Journal,’ in an article intituled “ Notes of a Gar- 
dening Tour,” and referring to the Botanic Garden of Edinburgh. 


320 


Authorship of the ‘ Flora Hertfordiensis. 
By the Rev. W. H. Cotreman, M.A. 


WILL you oblige me by contradicting in your next No. the inference 
conveyed in an editorial note in your last, that the principal share in 
the ‘Flora Hertfordiensis’ is due to myself? This statement is alto- 
gether unjust to Mr. Webb, with whom both the design originated of 
publishing a County Flora, and who is now carrying it into effect, 
without any co-operation on my part beyond an occasional criticism, 
and (in Part 2) my assistance in correcting the press. It is true that 
the geographical arrangement of the work was sketched by me, and 
that I formed some of the district catalogues. But at least an equal 
share in the general observations on which the work is founded be- 
longs to Mr. W.; and the present plan of the work, independent of 
the geographical arrangement, is entirely his. I should be sorry. that 
the accidental circumstance of my name being better known to the 
botanical world should create an impression that I have had the 
larger share in the execution of the work: and for this, among other 
reasons, I was desirous that my name should not have appeared ex- 
cept as an ordinary correspondent. But as I could not persuade Mr. 
Webb to agree to this, and he has run the risk of losing part of his 
own due through his anxiety to do justice to me, you will excuse me 
if I enter a strong objection against such remarks as that which has 
called forth the present observations. 


W. H. CoLeman. 
Ashby-de-la-Zouch, August 21, 1848. 


P. S.—In my paper on Botanical Geography two misprints occur, 
which materially injure the sense. On page 217, line 31, “dissecting” 
should be “ bisecting ;” and page 220, line 23, “ the Flora of the list” 
should be “the Flora of the first.” 


[I beg most explicitly to state that I had no idea of robbing Mr. 
Webb of any part of the credit due to him on account of the ‘ Flora 
Hertfordiensis ;” from his own very explicit statement in the introduc- 
tory notice I was perhaps led to believe that Mr. Coleman’s share in 
the work was greater than itis. I believe it is notorious that these 
excellent botanists were fellow-labourers in the same field.—E. New- 
man. | 


321 


New Variety of Wheat. 


ApvIcEs from St. Petersburg, to the 12th August, mention that a 
new variety of the Arnautka wheat has recently been discovered and 
cultivated in Bessarabia. It is called the Kolus or large-eared wheat, 
on account of the peculiar beauty of its ears. At present it is limited 
to mere seed-wheat, and fetches twice the price of the ordinary Ar- 
nautka. One other and more important peculiarity of this grain is, 
that it is less affected by drought than any other varieties. At the 
same time it possesses several other features, being distinguished by 
its greater fertility, its deep amber color, and its earlier ripening. 
This important discovery was made by a peasant of the name of Bu- 
latowisch, in the village of Troitzk, in the district of Bender, who, 
being a close observer of nature, detected in his crops certain ears 
which were larger and became ripe earlier than the rest of the crop. 
These he collected and sowed separately, and the result was an abun- 
dant harvest, and the introduction of a new and valuable variety of 
wheat. The Russian Government it is to be hoped will not let such 
an opportunity pass of rewarding one so deserving of a substantial 
mark of its favor. The event had created a great sensation amongst 
the agriculturists and dealers in grain, and the new wheat well merits 
being named after its discoverer.— Morning Chronicle, August 25, 
1848. 


Note on Alsine rubra, var. media, Bab. 
By Fenton J. A. Hort, Esq. 


In the September number of the ‘ Phytologist’ Mr. Woods speaks 
of having found at West Lulworth “on the chalk a form of Arenaria 
marina, with a very stout, woody root, showing several concentric 
circles.” This brief description will apply well to a plant which I 
have myself observed in several localities this summer, possessing 
characters so marked, that botanists residing on various parts of our 
coasts may think it worth their while next year to make observations 
on the permanence of the form and the extent of its distribution. I 
take it to be the Alsine rubra, var. media, of Babington (Lepigonum 
medium of Fries): Mr. Babington tells me that on further study 
of his plant on the cliff at Tenby, and I have little doubt of its iden- 
tity with mine, he is so convinced of its distinctness as to feel inclined 


322 


to follow Fries in erecting it into a separate species. The habitat is 
in each case remarkable: Mr. Woods finds it on the chalk cliff at 
West Lulworth, Mr. Babington on the (I presume, mountain lime- 
stone) cliff at Tenby, I on the soft slate at Ilfracombe, and on Devo- 
nian limestone at Plymouth and Torquay, and I believe on the new 
red sandstone near Dawlish, but in the last case I cannot vouch for 
the identity of the plant, having only seen it from the window of a 
railway carriage. Butitis worthy of notice that in no case does it 
seem to grow actually on the sea-shore like Alsine marina: I always 
find it a little above highwater mark, just within reach of the spray in 
rough weather, and so firmly wedged into crevices of the rock that 
seldom can any force or care avail to preserve the woody root attached 
to the specimen. In general appearance it resembles A. marina, but 
is more elegant; the stems are more numerous, as well as the flowers, 
with which the plant, when in full bloom, is starred all over. But 
when examined minutely, it presents characters which, with the ex- 
ception of the fleshy leaves, belong to A. rubra. The leaves them- 
selves are tipped with a minute horny point: the stems, &c., are not 
downy, but thickly covered with glandular hairs, and all the seeds 
which I have examined have a “thickened rough border,” but no 
traces of a wing. 
Fenton J. A. Hort. 
Torquay, September 27, 1848. 


Accidental Introduction of Foreign Plants into Britain. 
By Hewett C. Watson, Esq. 


In looking into the Second Part of the ‘ Flora Hertfordiensis,’ re- 
cently published, I find under the head of Erysimum orientale, page 
27, an incidental explanation to account for the appearance of foreign 
species in that county, which is well adapted to give a useful hint 
and caution to those botanists who may discover and place on record 
any similar novelties. The Author of the Flora writes of the Erysi- 
mum orientale thus :— 

“We found a single specimen of this species on a newly-repaired 
towing-path near Ware Mill, in 1841; in company with Brassica Na- 
pus, Saponaria Vaccaria, Asperula arvensis, and Echinospermum Lap- 
pula. The gravel with which the bank was repaired, was probably 
obtained from the bed of the river by dredging,” 

Now, suppose that the Author had stopped abruptly here, as some 


323 


and we should have been left with apparent evidence that the species 
botanical registrars (I am sorry to say) very probably would have done; 
mentioned were old inhabitants of Britain, the seeds of which had re- 
mained long dormant under water. But how different will the aspect 
of the case become when the concluding portion of the paragraph is 
added to the former, in the following terms: 

“and the seeds perhaps brought with flax to the Oil Mills, a 
circumstance which may account for several other scarce plants, not 
strictly native, being found in the immediate vicinity of Hertford and 
the river banks, and which, having ourselves met with, we think it 
right to include.” 

No doubt it is right and judicious to mention such plants in a Local 
Flora; because, when thus accompanied by explanatory suggestions 
respecting their origin, the record is rendered a really valuable fact to 
the botanical geographer; although, if without the full explanation, 
it might only deceive and mislead him. 


Hewett C. Watson. 
Thames Ditton, October 4, 1848. 


Note on the Botany of Wiltshire. By T. B. Ftower, Esq., F.L.S. 


As I am about preparing for publication, in the pages of the ‘ Phy- 
tologist,’ Contributions towards a Flora of the County of Wiltshire, I 
should feel greatly indebted to all those that have botanized in the 
county if they would favour me with any assistance in forming a cor- 
rect and as complete a list of the phenogamous plants and ferns as 
possible. 

Any observations on the geographical distribution, or remarks on 
species, together with such localities for the rarer and commoner 
plants that may be considered of value, are particularly solicited, 
especially when accompanied with dried specimens. 


T. B. FLower. 


Seend, near Melksham, Wilts, 
October 3, 1848. 


324 


Localities for some of the Rarer Plants of Warwickshire. 
By the Rev. ANDREW Bioxam, M.A. 


IN continuation of Mr. Kirk’s list of the rarer species of Warwick- 
shire plants, described by him in the second volume of the ‘ Phytolo- 
gist, page 969, I beg leave to add the following, as observed by me 
in the neighbourhood of Atherstone. 

Atropa Belladonna and Dipsacus pilosus, in an old stone-quarry on 
the left above Merevale Church. 

Polygonum Bistorta, in a meadow on the side of the road opposite 
to Merevale Church. 

Vicia sylvatica, Campanula Trachelium, Epilobium angustifolium, 
Cardamine impatiens, Euphorbia amygdaloides, Scirpus sylvaticus, 
Equisetum palace, Hieracium boreale, Asperula odorata, &c., Harts- 
hill Wood. 

Gnaphalium erectum, in two or three localities on the side of the 
Coleshill-road, about a mile from Atherstone, pointed out to me first 
by Mr. Nugent, of Atherstone. 

Meenchia erecta, Atherstone Outwoods, also.on Annesley Coalfield 
Heath. 

« Potamogeton lucens, reservoir at Oldbury. 

Sparganium natans, Helosciadium inundatum, Potamogeton rufes- 
cens and oblongus, in ponds on Annesley Coalfield Heath; also on 
the same heath Rubus plicatus and R. foliosus, W. & N.: this is the 
R. hirtus, & foliosus, of Bab. 2nd Supp. to the Syn. of Brit. Rubi; 
and has been found by me also on Baxterley Common, and in several 
localities in Hartshill Wood. 

Juncus diffusus, on Baxterley Common; this I believe is the first 
notice of its discovery in Warwickshire. Osmunda regalis: though I 
have not myself met with this beautiful fern, yet I understand from an 
individual who is well acquainted with it, that it grows in considerable 
abundance by the side of some of the ponds at Arbury, near Nuneaton. 
It is not, however, mentioned by Mr. Kirk in his list before alluded 
to, who describes several rare plants as growing in Arbury Park, and 
by the side of the ponds adjoining the hall. 

In reference to an observation of Mr. Bree’s, in the last No. of the 
‘Phytologist,’ [ may mention that four or five years ago I received 
from Mr. Murcott specimens of Botrychium Lunaria, from Coleshill 
Bog. I believe it has been overlooked by me in my own neighbour- 
hood from its growing amongst thick old turf, never apparently sub- 
jected to the plough, and which generally overtops its fronds. As it 


325 


soon withers, after having ripened, it is only conspicuous for about 
two months in the year. In looking for it more carefully at the proper 
season, and in likely situations, I found it in three other localities in 
the parish. I take the present opportunity of stating that I lately 
found, on a temporary manure-heap not far distant from my residence, 
Erodium moschatum and Chenopodium murale, neither of which I 


have observed in Leicestershire before. 
ANDREW BLOXAM. 
Twycross, October, 1848. 


British Rubi in Yorkshire. By the Rev. ANDREW BLoxam, M.A. 


Havine during the month of August last been sojourning for a few 
days at Horton Rectory, between Rotherham and Doncaster, I had an 
opportunity of observing the different species of Rabi growing in that 
neighbourhood, of which I send you a list, with a few remarks. 

1. R. Ideus, Linn. Horton Cliff, &ce. 

2. R. affinis, W. & N. A form coincident with that in Mr. Leigh- 
ton’s fasciculus from Shropshire. It is abundant in the hedges about 
Horton and Ravenfield, and readily distinguished by its numerous 
and strongly curved prickles on the flowering panicle, with their well- 
marked purple bases and yellow tips. When this species becomes 
better known, it will, I think, be found to be very generally diffused 
at least throughout the midland counties of England. I have it from 
Mr. Lees, in Worcestershire. Mr. Babington finds it in great abun- 
dance at Llanberris, North Wales, Mr. Leighton in Shropshire; I 
have also observed it in great quantity near Rugby and Grendon, 
Warwickshire; at Newbold Verdun and other places in Leicester- 
shire; in South Wood, near Calke Abbey, Derbyshire; and possess 
also specimens of it from Bredbury Wood, near Manchester. 

3. LR. nitidus, W. & N. Near Swinton. 

4. R. corylifolius, Sm. Horton Cliff, &c. 

5. R. discolor, &c., Bab. Syn., R. fruticosus, KE. B. Roch Abbey 
Wood, &c. 

6. R. leucostachys, Sm., 8. vestitus, Bab. Syn. This and R. cesins 
are the two prevalent forms in Roch Abbey Wood. 

7. R. sylvaticus. Horton Cliff. A form identical with that in 
Mr. Leighton’s fasciculus. 

8. R. Borreri, Bell Salt. In Denaby Wood, near Mexborough. 
Mr. Coleman finds it in considerable quantity in South Wood, Derby- 

VoL. 111. 2u 


326 


shire. It is also abundant on the Atherstone and Coleshill road, 
Warwickshire, about a mile from the former place, growing with R. 
Guntheri, W. & N., and other more common forms. I find it also in 
the neighbourhood of Rugby, on the Dunchurch-road, in several loca- 
lities. I have received it from the late lamented Mr. Edward S. Wil- 
son, from the neighbourhood of Congleton, Cheshire. The other 
closely allied, if at all distinct species, R. Sprengelii, W. & N., is 
found abundantly on Bardon Hill, Leicestershire, where it is readily 
distinguished by its beautiful pink flowers. Mr. Lees finds it on 
Bromsgrove Lickey, and Mr. Sidebotham in Bredbury Wood, near 
Manchester, from both of whom I have received specimens. This 
appears to me to be the weak, and R. Borreri, Bell Salt., to be the 
more robust, form of the same species. 

9. R. carpinifolius, W. & N. Horton Cliff. 

10. R. amplificatus, EK. Lees. R. macrophyllus, y. amplificatus, 
Bab. Syn. Horton Cliff. 

ll. R. rudis, W. & N. Near Ravenfield. 

12. R. radula, W. & N. In hedges. 

13. R. hystrix, W. & N. Radula, f. hystrix, Bab. Syn. In Roch 
Abbey Wood. This appears to me to be a perfectly distinct species 
from R. radula, and, as far as my observation extends, to be very ge- 
nerally diffused. 

14. R. Keehlert, W. & N. Common in hedges about Horton and 
Ravenfield. 

15. H. nemorosus, Hayne, dumetorum, W. & N. One of the most 
common of our British Rubi in the midland counties. 

16. R. cesius, Linn. Common. Horton Cliff and Roch Abbey 
Wood. 

17. N. saxatilis, Linn. In great abundance in two or three locali- 
ties in Roch Abbey Wood. 

Two or three other forms were also observed by me, the identity of 
which I have not as yet satisfied myself about. 


ANDREW BLOXAM. 
Twycross, October, 1848. 


327 


Notice of the ‘ London Journal of Botany, Nos. 76 to 82, for April 
to October, 1848. 


No. 76. Original Papers: ‘Sur la Famille des Linées ;” by Dr. 
Planchon. ‘On some new Musci, collected by Professor W. Jamie- 
son, on Pichincha;” by Dr. Thomas Taylor. Botanical Informa- 
tion: Dr. Thomson’s Scientific Mission to Thibet. Notes on the 
Botany of the United States; by Dr. Bromfield. On Conferva 
egagropila; by Rev. T. Salway. Thibetian Barley. Brief No- 
tices of Plants from Sir George Simpson’s Journey round the World. 
Notices of Books: ‘Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern 
Asia” ‘Descriptions et Figures des Plantes Nouvelles et Rares du 
Jardin Botanique de l’ Université de Leyde;’ par W. H. De Vriese. 

No. 77. Original Papers: “ Prodromus Monographie Ficuum ;” 
by Professor Miquel. Botanical Information: Extracts from the 
letters of Dr. Hooker, written during a botanical mission to India. 
Musa textilis, &c. North American Botany. Notices of Books : 
‘Qpuscula Omnia Botanica Thome Johnsoni.’ 

No. 78. Original Papers: “Mosses collected by T. Anderson, 
Esq., on the Coast of China, from Chusan to Hong Kong;” by W. 
Wilson, Esq. “On the Specific Characters of certain new Cryp- 
togamic Plants, collected by Professor W. Jamieson, on Pichincha, 
near Quito;” by Dr. Thomas Taylor. “Contributions towards a 
Flora of Brazil;” by Mr. George Gardner. Botanical Information: 
Extracts from Dr. Hooker’s letters, continued. A continuation of 
Mr. Howard’s account of Leichardt’s travels in New South Wales. 

No. 79. Original Papers: “Contributions to the Botany of South 
America;” by John Miers, Esq. Botanical Information: Conti- 
nuation of Dr. Bromfield’s Notes on American Botany. Herbarium 
of the late Dr. Thomas Taylor. Arrival of plants from Swan River, 
&c. Letter from Parlatore to Auguste de St. Hilaire. Notices of 
Books. ‘ Nederlandsch Kruidhundig Archiff’ Gardiner’s ‘ Flora of 
Forfarshire. Gray’s ‘ Botany of the Northern United States.” Tuck- 
erman’s ‘Synopsis of the Lichens of the Northern States and British 
America.’ Sprague and Gray’s ‘Genera Flore Americ Boreali-Ori- 
entalis illustrata.” Engelmann’s ‘Sketch of the Botany of North 
Mexico, in Wislizenus’s Tour.’ Nuttall’s ‘ Description of Plants col- 
lected by Gambel in the Rocky Mountains, &c.  Ralfs’ ‘ British 
Desmidiex.’ Hoffmeister’s ‘Travels in Ceylon,’ &c. 

No. 80. Original Papers: “Contributions towards a Flora ef 


328 


Brazil ;” by George Gardner. “ Prodromus Monographie Ficuum ;” 
_ by Professor Miquel. Botanical Information: ‘ Algee Nove Zea- 
landie.’ Herbarium and Library of the late Dr. Taylor. Notices of 
Books: ‘Posthumous Papers of William Griffith.” Mitchell’s ‘Jour- 
nal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia.’ 

No. 81. Original Papers: “Prodromus Monographie Ficuum ;” 
by Professor Miquel. “On some new Chinese Plants;” by H. C. 
Hance, Esq. “Sur la Famille des Linées;” by Dr. Planchon. No- 
tices of Books: Ralfs’ ‘ British Desmidiex.’ 

No. 82. Original Papers: “Sur la Famille des Linées ;” by Dr. 
Planchon. ‘“ Description of some Plants new to the British Flora ;” 
by W. Mitten, Esq. “Ona new kind of Phormium;” by M. Auguste 
de Jolis. Botanical Information: Extract from the Indian News. 
Dr. Stocks’ on the Botany of Scinde. Dr. Stocks’ ‘ Botanical Ex- 
cursion to Shah Bilawul.’ ‘ Notice of a Species of Fumaria new to 
Britain; by Mr. Mitten. Notices of Books: Vriese’s ‘ Descriptions 
et Figures des Plantes Nouvelles, &c. —Pritzel’s ‘ Thesaurus Litera- 
ture Botanice.’ ‘Plante Preissiane.’ Trautvetter’s ‘ Plantarum 
Imagines et Descriptiones Floram Rossicam illustrantes.’ Emerson’s 
‘Report on the Trees and Shrubs of Massachusetts.” Tuckerman’s 
‘Lichenes Americe Septentrionalis Exsiccati.’ Pappe’s ‘ List of 
South African Plants used as remedies by the Colonists.’ Miquel’s 
‘ Revisio Critica Casuarinarum.’ 

It will be seen from this list of contents of the London Journal, 
that they are addressed to general botanists, and possibly may not 
possess much interest in the eyes of those who cultivate British 
botany in particular. ‘To this the last number offers one important 
exception, by the paper of Mr. Mitten, which professes to describe 
plants not before “noticed by any writers on British Botany,” so far 
as Mr. M. was aware. New British plants come upon us so fre- 
quently now, that a writer may well be excused for supposing him- 
self to be announcing, for the first time, some plants which had 
been earlier recorded by others. Mr. Mitten requires this indulgence 
for a part of his list of novelties; perhaps not for all of them. But 
before seeing examples of the latter, we feel it unsafe to say whether 
they are truly novelties, or simply familiar plants under fresh names. 
The following is Mr. Mitten’s list :— 

1. Potentilla mixta (Nolte apud Reich. fl. Germ. Exsic. No. 1743), 
found on waste ground near Valebridge, in Keymer, Sussex, in small 
quantity. On this plant the author of the paper remarks, “ unde- 
niably very close to Potlenti/la reptans, Linn., of which it may be but 


329 


a variety.” For our own part, we have a sort of suspicion that it is 
the Tormentilla reptans of English botanists. 

2. Filago Jussiei (Cosson and Germain). Found on cultivated 
land at Hurstpierpoint, Sussex. This is the Filago spatulata of Presl, 
already several times introduced to the readers of the ‘ Phytologist,’ 
and which should hardly have been given in the October number of 
the ‘ London Journal,’ as unnoticed by any writers on British Botany, 
seeing that its discovery in two or three counties was recorded by 
Mr. G. S. Gibson, in the August number of the ‘ Phytologist;’ not 
obscurely in a mixed report, but in a distinct article expressly so in- 
tituled. It was again mentioned in the September number of the 
‘Phytologist’ (Phytol. iii. 269), as found in “several places” in Sur- 
rey, through a Report from the Botanical Society. 

3. Mercurialis ovata (Stud. et Hoppe). Found in hedgerows near 
Hurstpierpoint, Sussex. “It is,” says Mr. Mitten, “ probably but a 
state of M. perennis.” 

4. Carex paludosa, var. Kochiana. Found in ditches in the level 
near Littlehampton, Sussex. Carex Kochiana, De Cand. 

5. Lolium linicola (Sonder). Found with L. temulentum, among 
various crops on cultivated land about Hurstpierpoint, Sussex. “ It 
may be objected to L. linicola, that it has been introduced with fo- 
reign seed, which may be true.” It was recorded from a field near 
Catterick Bridge, Yorkshire, in Babington’s Manual, second edition, 
in 1847; the author of the Manual remarking that it is “ probably 
not a native.” On this record and authority probably the Lolium li- 
nicola was given in the second edition of the ‘ London Catalogue of 
British Plants,’ published last winter. Surely Mr. Mitten should 
have looked into those two fullest lists of British plants before pub- 
lishing L. linicola among plants not noticed by any writers on Bri- 
tish botany. Probably the L. multiflorum of some English botanists. 

6. Triticum biflorum (Brignoli). Found by Mr. G. Don, on rocks 
on Ben Lawers, and preserved in Mr. Borrer’s herbarium. ‘ The 
only British Triticum with which it can be confounded is T. caninum, 
from which it may be distinguished by its leaves smooth on both 
sides, its usually two-flowered spikelets, and its want of the long awn; 
it also appears to be a more slender plant, with narrower leaves.” 

7. Fumaria agraria (Lagasca). Observed by Mr. Mitten among 
the British Fumariz in Mr. Borrer’s herbarium. 

The characters, &c., of these plants are chiefly transcribed from 
Koch’s Synopsis, second edition; and we may therefore give a gene- 
ral reference to that well-known work for them. And if the plants, 


330 


or some of them, are not quite so “new to the British flora” as the 
author may have at first supposed, we are still glad to see attention 
drawn to them by Mr. Mitten. 

It may be presumed that a new Irish Saxifrage is to be described 
in the next coming number of the ‘London Journal; the October 
number containing a figure of “ Saxifraga Andrewsii, Harv.,” without 
letter-press. The figure conveys the idea of a narrow-leaved form of 
S. umbrosa, though the flowers are larger. 


C. 


Record of some of our Rarer Plants growing in the Valley of the 
Don, between Doncaster and Conisbro’ Casile. Soil calcareous. 
By PETER INCHBALD, Esq. 


Ranunculacee. Helleborus foetidus and viridis and Aquilegia vul- 
garis. In several of the woods near Doncaster the last of the three 
flourishes in the wildest profusion. Helleborus fcetidus is less fre- 
quent than H. viridis. 

Caryophyllee. Saponaria officinalis covers the banks of the Don 
near Sprotbro,’ and flowers abundantly. 

Saxifragee. Parnassia palustris and Chrysosplenium oppositifo- 
lium. I have had specimens of the rarer Chrysosplenium (alternifo- 
lium) and Adoxa moschatellina sent to me from Roche Abbey, an old 
ruin about twelve miles from Doncaster. 

Campanulacee. Campanula latifolia. The woods and hedge- 
rows are richly decorated with this elegant bell-flower late in the 
summer. 

Composite. Doronicum Pardalianches, Tanacetum vulgare, and 
Bidens tripartita. Several patches of this doubtful native, D. Parda- 
lianches, occur in the valley, far from all trace of garden cultivation. 
It flowers early in May. 

Boraginee. Echium vulgare and Cynoglossum officinale. The 
bugloss grows on the top of the keep at Conisbro’. 

Liliacee. Tulipa sylvestris, Ornithogalum luteum and Convallaria 
majalis. The leaves of the tulip are conspicuous in the grass fields 
early in the spring, but by the middle of May they are nearly hidden 
by the herbage. The flowers are seldom met with out of cultivation. 
The lily of the valley covers large tracts of ground in the woods near 
Doncaster, flowering plentifully.. 


331 


To a collector who is not afraid of long walks, the neighbourhood 
also offers the following rare plants: Ranunculus lingua, Cardamine 
amara, Astragalus Glycyphyllos, A. hypoglottis, Potentilla verna, 
Inula Helenium (I fear eradicated), Conyza squarrosa, Carlina vulga- 
ris, Gentiana Amarella, Atropa Belladonna, Samolus Valerandi, Scro- 
phularia vernalis, Leonurus Cardiaca, Euphorbia platyphylla, Stra- 
tiotes aloides, Neottia spiralis, Listera Nidus-avis, Gymnadenia 
conopsea, Ophrys muscifera, O. apifera, Narcissus biflorus, Paris 
quadrifolia, Carex digitata, Elymus europeus, Melica nutans, Las- 
trea Thelypteris, Lastrea Oreopteris, Osmunda regalis, and Equi- 
setum hyemale. 

PETER INCHBALD. 


Storthes Hall, Huddersfield, 
October 4, 1848. 


Record of the more uncommon of the Plants growing in the Neigh- 
bourhood of Huddersfield. Soil siliceous: sub-soil argilla- 
ceous. By PetTer INcHBALD, Esq. 


Ranunculacee. ®anunculus hederaceus abounds in the ditches 
and shallow rivulets in the high lands. 

Fumariacee. Fumaria capreolata is frequent amongst bushes and 
on upland fallows. It adds much to the beauty of the few hedges 
that this district contains. 

Violecee. The moors in the neighbourhood afford in abundance 
the Viola palustris. The sweet violet is exceedingly rare in the 
south-western parts of Yorkshire. 

Caryophyllee. Arenaria rubra, a true sand plant, is very common 
by road-sides, growing on the very edge of the beaten path. 

Saxifragee. Chrysosplenium alternifolium is plentiful in woods 
and by the borders of rivulets in the mountainous parts of the West 
Riding. Saxifraga umbrosa completely naturalized in the woods 
near Storthes Hall, covering large tracts. 

Rosacea. The woods abound with plants of Rubus Ideus, which 
sometimes grow to the height of five or six feet. 

Umbellifere. This tribe is but scantily spread over the district. 
(Enanthe crocata is, however, well worthy of record. 

Ericacee. Vaccinium Myrtillus is very plentiful on turfy soil in 
the woods around Huddersfield. Pyrola media occurs but sparingly. 


332 


Campanulacee. Jasione montana occurs in dry sandy lanes and 
on bank-sides. 

Composite. Solidago Virgaurea adds much to the beauty of 
Storthes Wood in the autumn months. Though but thinly scattered 
throughout the county, it flourishes here in the wildest profusion. I 
have gathered Gnaphalium rectum on sandy heath-land. 

Apocynee. Vinca minor grows interspersed with Saxifraga um- 
brosa, and in such abundance as to preclude the possibility of its 
being an escape from garden cultivation. 

Scrophularinee. Veronica montana is the commonest of the ge- 
nus in the woods and thickets in the neighbourhood. 

Orchidee. FEpipactis latifolia rears its purple spike of flowers on 
the borders of woodlands. Habenaria viridis is not unfrequent in 
grassy meadows. 

Amaryllidee. Narcissus pseudo-Narcissus has given the name of 
“ Dilly Wood” to an oak-planting near the Hall. It is said to be 
common in the woods near Halifax. 

Juncee. Luzula sylvatica. Noble plants of this species are fre- 
quent in the damp, spongy parts of Storthes Wood. It is common 
throughout the south-west district. 

Filices. Grammitis Ceterach occurs on old walls. Ophioglossum 
vulgatum in grassy pastures. 

Equisetacee. Equisetum sylvaticum is everywhere abundant in 
the woods. 


PETER ]NCHBALD. 
Storthes Hall, September, 1848. 


Notes and occasional Observations on some of the Rarer British 
Plants growing wild in Hampshire. By WM. ARNoLD BRom- 
FIELD, M.D., F.L.S., &c. 


(Continued from page 290). 


In presenting to the ‘ Phytologist’ this fourth part of my Notes and 
Observations on the plants of Hampshire, it will already have become 
obvious, from the perusal of the third portion, that a full enumeration 
of the species known or reported to inhabit the county has been ta- 
citly substituted for that selection of the rarer plants only, to which, 
as the heading to the first and subsequent divisions plainly show, I 
certainly intended to have confined myself at the outset. Several 


333 


reasons led me to deviate from the more restricted, to follow the 
wider plan, though by so doing I should nullify the title prefixed to 
these contributions, and possibly be charged with carelessness, in- 
consistency or prolixity in not adhering to my original purpose of 
conciseness. Yet, since to pass over such change of plan without a 
word in explanation might justly create surprise, I shall briefly state 
my reasons for the alteration. First, the difficulty in deciding where 
the line should be drawn betwixt common and uncommon plants had 
to be grappled with and disposed of, a difficulty the magnitude of 
which becomes greater the nearer it is approached, till at length it as- 
sumes the form of a problem, for which a satisfactory solution is 
hardly to be hoped. 2ndlv. A principal object in preparing the 
Notes was to present a view of the geographical distribution of plants 
in Hampshire that might be compared with the distribution of the 
same or different plants over other counties or areas in any given part 
of the kingdom possessing the means of comparison. But to give 
such views their full value, it is requisite that the number as well as 
the nature of the species should be recorded; this cannot be done so 
long as we exclude all mention of plants reputed common, since the 
amount of these must always remain indefinite ; besides that the 
omission of them leaves their very existence a matter of doubt and 
conjecture in some cases. It may at first sight appear trifling and 
superfluous to even name such species as Bellis perennis, Urtica di- 
oica, Poa annua and pratensis, Stellaria media, Taraxacum officinale, 
and other weeds reputed common everywhere ; but are we warranted 
in a confident assumption that there is no exception to the ubiquity 
of one or all of these, that there is no spot, perhaps an entire district, 
in which they may not approach the limit of rarity, or even fail alto- 
gether? Were such local catalogues as the present intended merely 
to subserve the acquisitive habits of the plant-collector, it would be 
highly advisable to discard from them all species which could but 
swell their bulk without profit to the inquirer; but regarded in their 
true light of statistical documents, every species, however common 
and universal, becomes an important unit when the floral census of a 
county or a kingdom has to be ascertained. A last and very impor- 
tant reason for publishing this catalogue in full, has been to enable 
my botanical friends and correspondents to see exactly, not only 
what plants are present or absent from the county and its island dis- 
trict, but in what proportion the species are rare or common, and 
from the stations quoted to judge which parts of the county have 
been best explored, and which most neglected by botanists. They 
VOL. III. 2x 


334 


will then be in a better condition to diminish the apparent infrequency 
of certain plants here given as scarce, by the communication of habi- 
tats from the less examined districts, or to supply novelties on the 
sure ground that they are such, because specially omitted by name, 
whenever attention has not been called, as I shall do in some in- 
stances, to the probability of their occurrence. For the Isie of 
Wight I am desirous rather of having new species than receiving ad- 
ditional stations for those already known to inhabit it, except, indeed, 
for plants of great or considerable rarity, fresh stations for which will 
be at all times acceptable. Desiderata for the county comprehends, 
of course, the island part of it, but as the mainland produces many 
species and genera not yet found in the latter, great care has been 
taken throughout to note this deficiency under the proper heads, so 
that a contributor need not fear to send a specimen or notice of a 
plant, however common, as an addition to the island or county flora, 
if he will be only at the trouble to refer to its place in the natural se- 
quence adopted in this catalogue, and observe whether it be entered 
or omitted. In‘the former case, he may rest assured that unless 
mention is made to the contrary, the species is common to both di- 
visions of the county; in the latter, he may feel secure that his con- 
tribution will be received with all the pleasure of a new accession to 
the Hampshire Flora. For convenience sake, the nomenclature 
employed is that adopted by Mr. Babington in the second edition of 
the Manual, as the text-book most deservedly in use with all who 
wish to keep up with the progressive state of botany in this and other 
countries of Europe. In a more elaborate and critical performance 
than a catalogue like the present, some deviations from the nomen- 
clature of the above excellent work would have suggested themselves. 

In accordance with the change of plan which has just been ad- 
verted to, and before proceeding with the remaining orders of the 
Hampshire Flora, I have judged it expedient to insert in this place a 
second supplementary list of species not at first intended for publica- 
tion in the three foregoing parts of these notes, together with some 
omissions which it has since appeared desirable to supply regarding 
plants already mentioned therein. The ensuing portions of this cata- 
logue will present a view of the entire vegetation of the county as far 
as known to me, in an unbroken series of genera and species, forming 
a Prodromus, the aim of which is to invite the attention of botanists 
to this hitherto much neglected part of England,* by showing them 


* See ‘ Phytologist, ii. 998. The gratifying response to the appeal contained in 


335 


what may be expected from farther research in a field so fertile and 
full of future promise, and to solicit their continued co-operation in 
collecting materials for an enlarged and descriptive flora already far 
advanced towards completion, the result of several years’ assiduous 
observation and research. 


Anemone nemorosa. Profusely in woods, thickets, and on hedge- 
banks in the island and county, the flowers often deep purple or rose- 
red, and occasionally semidouble. A. Pulsatilla should be looked for 
on the downs along the northern limits of the county. 

Ranunculus sceleratus. In wet places throughout the county and 
island, but certainly one of the rarer species, in the latter at least, 
though generally diffused, occuring at wide intervals, and seldom in 
abundance on any single station. R. Ficaria, Flammula, acris, repens, 
and bulbosus abound over the entire county and Isle of Wight. 

Caltha palustris. Common in the island and county, in wet or 
boggy meadows, thickets, and by streams, &c. 

Helleborus viridis, add, In the deep stony lane on the left hand 
just before the turning to Norton Farm (Selborne), and at the top of 
Middle Dorton, under the hedge, Rev. G. White. I searched for the 
plant in the former place many years ago, and again this summer, 
without finding a vestige of it, and attribute its disappearance to the 
wearing away of the loose rocky soil forming the perpendicular sides 
of the curious hollow way in question, which must have undergone 
great changes since White’s time from the action of the elements. I 
came, however, quite unexpectedly upon the species in what I have 
little doubt is White’s other station at the upper part of Great 
(Middle ?) Dorton (beech hanger), in a thick covert of briars and 
brambles, as truly wild and sequestered a spot as could well be re- 
quired by the most inveterate contender against the claim of this spe- 
cies to be called native. A solitary specimen I found several years 
ago in St. John’s Wood, at Ryde; but have never detected it since 
in any part of this island. 

foetidus, add, In considerable plenty in rough, stony 
pasture-ground about St. Lawrence and Woolverton, Isle of Wight, 


that paper may be judged of from the large number of genera and species that I have 
been enabled to erase from the list of desiderata there given, in just one year from the 
date of publication in this journal. The value and amount of these can be readily 
seen by comparison of the two lists of the then unknown and unrecorded plants above 
referred to with the present catalogue of ascertained natives. 


336 


and I have no doubt indigenous. On a sloping chalk-bank above the 
Crab and Lobster Inn at Ventnor, possibly introduced. No one who 
has witnessed the glorious profusion of this handsome evergreen in 
the profound solitudes and deep recesses of our majestic beech woods 
can, I think, reasonably hesitate to admit its right to rank amongst 
our undisputed natives. This is the commoner of our two British 
species in the south of England, as H. viridis seems to be in the 
north. The latter abounds in some parts of Yorkshire, where both 
Mr. Borrer and the Rev. G. E. Smith consider it as truly wild, and 
my opinion is now in favour of its being equally so in Hants, though 
less general and abundant than farther to the northward. It is like- 
wise the more prevalent species in Germany, where H. fcetidus is rare, 
except towards the south in the Tyrol and the coasts of the Adriatic, 
its evergreen character unfitting it probably for the severe winters of 
an interior climate from which the deciduous nature of H. viridis pro- 
tects the latter. 

Nymphea alba, add, Plentiful in the Lymington river above Hay- 
ward Mill. 

Papaver Rheeas, var. 3. strigosum, Bonningh (Prod. Fl. Monast. p. 
157). Stem more branched near the root, hairs fewer, those on the 
peduncles appressed (excepting immediately below the flower), cap- 
sules rather less globose. Near Brading, Dr. T. B. Salter! Probably 
a hybrid betwixt P. Rhoeas and dubium, which both abound in that 
neighbourhood. The P. intermedium of Beeker (Fl. der Gegend um 
Frankfort am M.) is doubtless a similar mule production wanting 
only the appressed hairs on the peduncles. 

Glaucium luteum. Varies, as Mr. Pamplin has remarked to me, 
on the Hampshire coast, with flowers inclining to orange or tawny, like 
the G.fulvum of the gardens. Hayling Island, &c. 

N. B.—- Corydalis solida was omitted in the former part of these 
Notes, because I hear from the Dean of Winchester that it is no 
longer to be found at Wickham, as recorded on his authority in the 
‘English Flora.’ The station I think the Dean told me was the site of 
an old garden, and of course inadmissible. C. lutea is found here 
and there subspontaneous on old walls, but too sparingly and imper- 
fectly established to find a place with propriety as a naturalized deni- 
zen of the Hampshire Flora. 

Fumaria officinalis, Very frequent. A shadow of suspicion has 
been cast on the indigenous origin of the fumitory, in common with 
other weeds that usually affect cultivated ground, or are chiefly found 
following the footsteps of man. I however remarked the present spe- 


337 


cies to abound on the wildest part of that wild waste called Langwood 
Warren, near Winchester, where spade or plough never contended 
against its all but hopeless sterility. 

Fumaria capreolata, add, At Oakhanger, near Selborne. 

Vaillantii. A specimen of this, or of T’. parviflora, or 
micrantha, was found by Dr. Salter in a field near Weeks’s by Ryde, 
a few years back, but the example which he kindly communicated to 
me has been accidentally lost, nor have I been able to rediscover the 
plant there or elsewhere in the island. 

Nasturtium officinale. Abundant in the county and island. 

Cardamine pratensis, hirsuta, and sylvatica. ‘The last a variety 
probably of the second; are all abundant here and on the mainland 
of Hants. . 

Sisymbrium officinale. Abundant. 

Thalianum. Copiously in fields in the Isle of Wight, 
and perhaps in the county generally, but very rare about Fareham, 
according to Mr. Notcutt. 

Alliaria officinalis. Abundant in hedges and on grassy banks all 
over the Isle of Wight, and I believe the county also. 

Brassica Napus. Common in cultivated fields and fallows over 
the island and county. I am unable to say whether or not we possess 
B. campestris, as the plant so called has always eluded my search, if 
indeed there exists any such thing apart from B. Napus, but its va- 
riety @., as it is now considered, B. Rapa, ZL. (turnip), is occasionally 
naturalized, or rather has strayed from the fields on to the adjoining 
banks in some places. 

nigra. Abundant in many parts of the Isle of Wight, 
but not universally distributed. Common about Ryde, &c. I am not 
prepared to state the distribution of this and the following in the 
county at large. 

Sinapis alba. Cultivated and waste places, but not general in the 
Isle of Wight. Very plentiful at Ventnor. On sea-banks in Sandown 
Bay, &c. 


arvensis. Far too profusely in cultivated fields everywhere. 

{ Koniga maritima. Naturalized here and there on and under 
walls, and in waste ground by the sea-shore, but in all instances ob- 
viously escaped from gardens and scarcely persistent. 

Draba verna. Walls, banks, and pastures. Abundant in the 
island and county. On Ryde Dover, &c. Hardly known about 
Fareham, Mr. W. L. Notcutt. i 

Cochlearia officinalis. Possibly not uncommon in the county, but 


338 


certainly very rare in the Isle of Wight, where I have found it but 
once on an eastern fence with C. danica on High Down Freshwater, 
directly above and at the back of Watcomb Cave, but in no great 
quantity. The var. 8. grenlandica, Sm., I have on the authority of 
my friend the Rev. G. E. Smith, as growing on the edge of Fresh- 
water Down, but not having yet fallen in with this alpine form myself, 
I am inclined to believe it was inadvertently named in place of the 
commoner state of C. officinalis, and that his station and mine are 
identical. 

Cochlearia danica, add, Plentiful on the South Beach, Hayling 
Island. 

anglica. Muddy places near the sea in the county and 
island, but rare, at least in the latter. Shores of Brading Harbour, 
Yarmouth; Mr. Snooke. Betwixt Southton and Netley. 

tCamelina sativa. See Alyssum calycinum, p. 209. Of this 1 have 
seen no specimen, and from the circumstance mentioned under the 
head now quoted, of its being mostly if not always in this country the 
associate of flax, I am in doubt as to the accuracy of the fact of its 
occurrence near Alverstoke. N. B.—Lepidium sativum occurs here 
and there partially naturalized in this island on banks, waste ground, 
and by road-sides at Sandown, Ventnor and elsewhere, but is very fu- 
gitive in all its casual stations. 

Crambe maritima. Jn various places along the south shore of 
Hayling Island, very sporadical, though truly indigenous. A single 
specimen found by me some years back, on the sandy beach at Nor- 
ton Freshwater, western coast; Dr. Pulteney in Hamp. Rep. 

Cakile maritima. Sandy shores of the county and island; ex- 
tremely common, Sandown Bay. Abundant near the south-west cor- 
ner of Hayling Island. 

Raphanus Raphanistrum. Not uncommon, and sometimes abun- 
dant in cultivated fields m the Isle of Wight, and I presume through- 
out the county. Flowers sometimes white, and with the veining of 
the petals very faint and inconspicuous. 

Frankenia levis, add, Very common in mud flats on Hayling 
Island, Emsworth, &c. 

Drosera longifolia, add, Short Heath Oakhanger, near Selborne. 
anglica. Ramsdown, near Heron Court, Christchurch, 

Mr. Curtis (in litt.), Icon ad exemplar ex loco in Brit. Entom. x. t. 
473. Mr. C.’s exquisite figure represents the true anglica, which I 
have not seen from this county, and inserted solely on the authority 


339 


of Pulteney, which is thus corroborated for a plant of decided rarity 
in the south of England. 

Parnassia palustris, add, In various parts of the (New) Forest ; 
Mr. J. S. Mill in Phytol. 1. p. 92. 

Dianthus prolifer, add, In considerable plenty on the south 
beach, Hayling Island, along the way to the Passage House, October 
3rd, 1848, and still in flower. Cumberland Fort, Portsea Island ; 
Dr. Macreight, Man. Brit. Bot. 

Armeria, add, Wicor Hard; Mr. W. L. Notcutt. 

Silene maritima, add, Abundant on Hayling Island. A variety 
with the margin of the leaves cartilaginously spinulose occurs oeca- 
sionally in the Isle of Wight. 

Lychnis Flos-cuculi. Very frequent in wet places. 

Githago. Very common, and often far too abundant 
amongst corn and other crops. 

Spergula nodosa, add, Sandy ground in the New Forest; Mr. T. 
B. Flower ! 

Sagina procumbens. Common everywhere, on and under walls in 
dry pastures, &c. 
maritima. Rare? Sandy shore, Gurnet Bay, and at St. 
Helen’s, Isle of Wight. At West Cowes, near the Yacht Club 
House; Dr. Martin!! Probably not uncommon on the Hampshire 
coast. 


apetala. Corn-fields and dry pastures frequent, at least in 
the island. Abundant near Ryde. 

Alsine rubra. Common on dry sandy ground.  Profusely on 
rocky ledges behind Bonchurch, with Crithmum maritimum, and on 
the chalk cliffs at Freshwater Gate, Isle of Wight. The plants in 
these maritime situations preserve their character as regards the shape 
and roughness of the seeds, length of the capsules, and aristate leaves, 
but the latter are semi-cylindrical beneath; or nearly so, the plant 
very much branched, forming dense tufts, the roots thick (perennial ?) 
and as well as the base of the stems, subligneous. This form ac- 
cords with the description of Arenaria macrorhiza, Req. in Bartoloni’s 
Flora Ital. iv. p. 687. A. rubra, y. macrorhiza, Moris, FI. Sard. i. p. 
278. A. media, 8. macrorhiza, D. C., in Duby Syn. ii. p. 1025, and 
which Moris judiciously considers a mere variety, assigning very suf- 
ficient reasons for his opinion. 
marina. Salt-mashes and waste ground by the sea, com- 
mon. A good species? 

Stellaria uliginosa. Frequent in wet and boggy ground. 


340 


Stellaria graminea. Abundant over the county and island. Var. 
B. intermedia, Gaud. F]. Helv. iii..p. 185. Petals much longer than 
the calyx ; leaves more or less glaucous. Near Westridge, Isle of 
Wight. 


holostea. Profusely bedecks our hedgerows with its pure, 
starry blossoms in spring and early summer. Var. 8. laciniata. 
Petals scarcely equalling the calyx in length, deeply divided almost 
to the base into three segments, of which the middle one is linear- 
lanceolate, the two exterior with a tooth on the inner side. Quarr 
Copse, Binstead, Isle of Wight, May, 1838. Of this singular variety 
I found a good many specimens, and at first imagined the laciniated 
appearance of the petals to have resulted from mutilation by insects, 
till the regularity of the monstrosity in all, which I traced in the bud, 
proved to be the work of Nature. In this state the flowers bore some 
resemblance to those of S. uliginosa. A form very similar, if not the 
same, is recorded in the ‘ Phytologist’ (Phytol. i. 264) for July, 1842, 
as found near Pont-y-Pool, by Mr. J. Bladon. 

Cerastium glomeratum and C. triviale. Very common in pas- 
tures, by road-sides, and in waste places over the county and island. 
semidecandrum. On waste, sandy ground, wall-tops, &c., 
very common in spring and early summer in the Isle of Wight, as on 
Ryde Dover, &c. A most variable and perplexing plant, on the dif- 
ferent forms of which botanists have wasted much time and ingenuity 
in endeavouring to find permanent marks of distinction where none 
exist. We need but compare the descriptions and figures of those 
who have laboured the most to elucidate our common Cerastia, to 
be convinced that not one has seized upon any absolutely fixed 
mark of distinction betwixt C. triviale, semidecandrum, tetrandrum 
and pumilum, the very multiplicity of their synonyms, and the elabo- 
rate commentary of Fries (Nov. Fl. Suec.), who has still further aug- 
mented the difficulty attending their study by increasing the species 
and changing and mixing the names first imposed, prove how little 
writers have advanced in assigning to each its precise limits. Mr. 
H. C. Watson’s pleasant but somewhat caustic remarks in ‘ Cybele 
Britannica’ on the above species, with two others of more recent cre- 
ation, are exactly in accordance with my own views of their validity, 
which have not been hastily assumed, as a few years since I devoted 
much time and pains to the study of the British species and varieties 
of this genus inhabiting the south of England. The result of my in- 
quiry, embodied in notes and descriptions too multitudinous for in- 
sertion here, even in a condensed form, was only increased perplexity, 


34] 


and of course augmented scepticism and distrust of the labours of 
others. Still I. am willing to give brevet rank to the five veteran 
Cerastiums specially introduced into these Notes, and to call them 
species by courtesy, without joining the opprobrious epithet of 
“book” to them, trusting to time either to confirm their claim to the 
honour, or to revoke the grace which bestowed it. Yet I shall pro- 
test against granting a like degree to any more of the scions or offsets 
from stocks of such dubious character and deserving, and rejoicing 
that one of these younger branches has quietly disappeared by a pro- 
cess of self-absorption, devoutly hope that another and only remain- 
ing one, still dark green and flourishing where the departed so lately 
bloomed in new-born dignity, will make its exit from the court of 
Flora in the same easy and agreeable manner without compulsion, as 
being too nearly allied, like most, I fear, of the others we are treating 
of, to that confessedly little-renowned and retiring individual, C. ob- 
scurum of Chaub., to the paternity of which personage, whoever he 
may be, it seems under no great obligations for its name or reputa- 
tion in the vegetable world. 

Cerastium tetrandrum. On dry pastures, banks, wall-tops and sandy 
heaths, frequent in the Isle of Wight, and perhaps in the county ge- 
nerally. On Ryde Dover. I believe my plant to be exactly that of 
Curtis, on a renewed examination of my specimens so named in 
1838. 


pumilum. Curt.? Sandy places rare. Abundant on the 
sandy fence of the Ferry Boat Inn, opposite Bembridge, Isle of 
Wight, April, 1842. I cannot now quite answer for the exact cor- 
respondence of my plant with the C. pumilum of Curtis, as I at that 
time considered it, what I still think it likely to be, a mere variety of 
C. semidecandrum, but my notes express no doubts of their identity, 
and I was extremely cautious about coming to conclusions until after 
repeated careful comparison of the living plants with the best and 
most authentic descriptions and figures. At that date I was not so 
much in the habit of preserving specimens of what I looked upon as 
trivial varieties as I have since been, and therefore I cannot now re- 
new the comparson of my own with Curtis’s pumilum, but having 
quoted his figure in ‘Flora Londinensis’ without a ? after it in my 
MS. notes, which it was my constant rule to do where the least doubt 
remained on my mind, I fell pretty well assured of their agreement. 
It may assist the advocates for retaining this and the remaining forms 
under their distinctive names, in coming to a conclusion on the sub- 
ject of our Isle of Wight C. pumilum, to add what I considered, 
VOL. Ii. 2Y 


342 


though not without some uncertainty, as a synonym and figures of the 
island plant. C. glutinosum, F'rées, Nov. Fl. Suec. ed. alt. p. 1382? 
Reichenb. Iconogr. Bot. ii. t. 181, fig. 315, 316? (C. semidecandrum 
of that author). In my Ryde specimen of C. tetrandrum the mem- 
branaceous margins of the sepals vary extremely in breadth, even on 
the same plant, they are mostly broader on the alternate segments, at 
one time very wide, at another nearly or quite obsolete. Flowers by 
far most frequently four-cleft, with four stamens and as many styles, 
sometimes five-cleft, with five stamens, and four-cleft on the same 
plant; whilst not unfrequently I find four-cleft flowers with five sta- 
mens and only four styles. Certainly the bracts are not scarious in 
any of my specimens of C. tetrandrum, as Mr. J. Woods has well re- 
marked in his tour in Brittany,* which I presume Mr. Babington 
means to express by the term “herbaceous.”’ My own impression after 
much careful investigation is, that C. tetrandrum is a dwarf maritime 
state of C. semidecandrum, which last may itself, as Mr. W. Wilson 
suggests, prove to be a modification of C. viscosum (C. triviale), as it 
is difficult to assign a character to the one which is not occasionally 
assumed by the other. An extremely humble plant of this genus, 
not an inch high, with four- (rarely five-) cleft flowers, spreading in 
the form of a cross, grows profusely on our downs and short pastures, 
which are quite enamelled with it in the spring, and this I have been 
in the habit of calling, I know not with what propriety, C. tetran- 
drum, though probably quite as near to any of the others we have 
been speaking of. 

Malva moschata, add, Common at Appleshaw. Not unfrequent 
at Selborne. 

Hypericum hirsutum. Extremely un d ant in woods and thickets 
in various parts of the Isle of Wight and mainland, especially on the 
chalk. 


elodes, add, Profusely in the boggy parts of Short Heath, 
at Oakhanger, near Selborne. 

Geranium pratense, add, Plentifully along the banks of the brook 
and in damp meadows adjacent betwixt the Priory Farm and Oak- 
hanger, near Selborne, following the winding of the stream for nearly 
half a mile, and still partially in bloom, September 17th, 1848. Ob- 
served in a few other places about Selborne. 

Radiola millegrana, add, On Short Heath, near Selborne. Wol- 
mer Forest. In cart-ruts on Parley Heath; Mr. Curtis. 


* Hooker’s Comp. to Bot. Mag. ii. p. 263. 


343 


Ononis antiquorum ? add, This, which is the O. spinosa of Koch, 
I find abundant in many places along the coast betwixt Emsworth 
and Portsmouth, and on Hayling Island. 

Trifolium medium. I searched carefully during two seasons for 
this species in Dr. Salter’s station in Firestone Copse, from which it 
appears to have vanished completely. 
glomeratum, add, On the bank in Stokes Bay, with Lotus 
angustifolius ; Miss G. E. Kilderbee! 

Lathyrus sylvestris, add, Abundantly near Selborne, and with 
very narrow leaflets on a steep bank at the west end of Little Dorton 
(Beech-hanger), not far from the church. 

N. B.—Vicia Bithynica has been erroneously given as a Hampshire 
species in Hooker’s ‘ British Flora, as I learn from Mr. Borrer. It 
is nevertheless a likely plant to occur, and should be looked out for, 
both inland and on the coast, along which last Trifolium maritimum 
and Vicia lutea may be reasonably expected. 

Potentilla argentea. In a lane about one mile from Liphook, on 
the road to Haslemere ; Miss Lovell! 

Prunus insititia. A variety of the bullace of a transparent red or 

yellow colour grows in a field hedge at Whitewall’s Farm, Wellow, 
Isle of Wight. 
Avium, p. 284. For “red cherry” and “black cherry” 
read “ merry,” that being the country name in this and other parts of 
England for the fruit of the wild cherry (mérises, mérisier, Fr.) or 
gean tree of Scotland (guignes, guignier, Fr.). 


[To be continued]. 
W. A. BROMFIELD. 
Eastmount House, Ryde, 
Isle of Wight, October, 1848. 


ERRATA. 


ro 


. 271, line 10 from top, for gaze read gage. 

» line 6, for cover read our. 
. 273, line 9 from top, for mere read more. 
. 274, line 25 from top, for Widely read Widley. 
. 275, line 11 from top, for bank-hedges read banks. 
. 276, line 1, for Kenner read Kennerley. 

» line 7, for Wrickham read Wickham. 

P. 277, last line, for Ryde Down read, and where it occurs, Ryde 

Dover. 


ao)el aes aoledae] 


344 


P. 281, line 4 from bottom, for Benbridge read Bembridge. 
» line 8 from bottom, for it is read zts. 
» line 2 from bottom, for compunions read companion. 
P. 282, line 2 from top, for Brightsone read Brightstone. 
P. 283, line 16 from top, for keeksies read kecksies. 
» line 22 from top, for formed read devised. 
P. 284, line 3 from top, for domesticus read domestica. 
» line 25, for distinguishable read undistinguishable. 


BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 


Friday, October 6th, 1848.— J. Reynolds, Esq., Treasurer, in the 
chair. 

Mr. G. S. Gibson exhibited specimens of Melilotus arvensis 
(Wallr.), collected in the neighbourhood of Saffron Walden, Essex, 
which appear to be an identical species with M. Petitpierreana 
(Willd.), except that the latter was founded on a white-flowered va- 
riety, according to Koch’s Synopsis, although other German botanists 
label the yellow-flowered states by the name of Petitpierreana. Mr. 
Gibson explained the distinctions between the new species and M. 
officinalis, with which the yellow flowers might cause it to be con- 
fused, but in technical characters it is otherwise more allied to M. 
alba (Des.), and from which the white-flowered variety of M. Petit- 
pierreana will with difficulty be distinguished if it should be found 
in England. 

Mr. Thomas Moore communicated a paper, being “ Notes on two 
varieties of Pteris aquilina.”"—G. H. D. 


On the Occurrence of Euphorbia salicifolia as a Naturalized Plant 
in Forfarshire. By Grorce Lawson, Esq. 


In introducing to the notice of your readers a new candidate for 
admission into our list of naturalized species, I am aware that I may 
draw upon myself the invective denunciations of the exclusive party, 
and I therefore beg leave to express a hope that we may have as lit- 
tle ill humour on the subject as possible, however great may be the 
difference of opinion that may exist thereon. Having expressed this 
hope, allow me next to mention that Euphorbia salicifolia is natural- 
ized with us here, although it is not so in botanical books; I say 


345 


naturalized, and wish to be understood that [ do not mean imper- 
fectly naturalized nor temporarily so. The station for the Euphorbia 
is in “ Mains Flowery Den,” about two miles north from Dundee, in 
Forfarshire, and any visitor will easily find the plant on the north 
bank of the Den, nearly opposite to the Castle, and on the east side 
of the old burying-ground. As a naturalized plant it has been known 
at this station by the botanists of the district from time immemorial,* 
and while we may look to its proximity to the old castle ruins as a 
conjectural proof of its not being indigenous, we may at the same 
time, with some degree of safety, conjecture that, if the histories of 
both the castle and the Euphorbia are not coeval with one another, 
the latter has at least dwelt in its present place since those days, long 
gone by, when resounded, with sounds of mirth and music, the deso- 
late walls that now softly echo the gentle love-coo of the dove. And 
if we thus consider the naturalization of the plant to have taken place 
at a period so remote, and farther, the undeniable facts that it is now 
firmly established, plentiful, and is in a thriving condition, and depend- 
ing in no way upon mankind or unnatural circumstances for a con- 
tinuance of its existence, then we have a plena probationis of its 
right of record as a naturalized species. 

It will be well known to those acquainted with the Den of Mains 
(through books or otherwise) that it contains a host of plants that 
cannot-be considered as natives, nor in some cases, indeed, as quite 
naturalized. Many of these are, I believe, the remains of a garden 
that once existed in the Den; but the Euphorbia had its existence, 
I am informed creditably, prior to that garden; and although Hiera- 
cium aurantiacum and some others have disappeared from the place, 
and Viola odorata, with, perhaps, one or two et ceteras of imperfect 
naturalization, appear on the eve of doing so, yet there is not the 
slightest doubt of the permanency of the Euphorbia; nor do I fear 
much the rural improvements which have been begun upon the Den 
(one of which, by the way, is the attempted (!) unmerciful exclusion 
of vasculum-bearers and other visitors) ; for the Euphorbia bids fair 
to withstand a good deal of the ill-usage and exterminatory efforts of 
the rightful owner of the soil (should these be attempted), in like 
manner as Dundee naturalists bid defiance to the never-ending array 
of “trespass” tickets and built-up bye-ways that hem in the smoke 
cloud of “ bonnie Dundee.” GrorGE Lawson. 

Stirling, October 9, 1848. 


* One botanical friend of mine (Mr. Palmer) has himself known it as abundant as 
it now is for forty years. 


346 


THE DUNDEE NATURALISTS’ ASSOCIATION. 


Watt Institution Buildings, Dundee, September 5, 1848.— Mr. 
Lawson, President, in the chair. 

The chairman produced several specimens showing diseases in 
wheat and rye, which had been sent him by Mr. E. J. Lance, of 
Bagshot, Surrey; and made some remarks upon them. He likewise 
laid upon the table a specimen of a white-flowered variety of Erica 
cinerea, gathered in Fifeshire by Miss Jessie Jackson. 

A communication from Mr. Wyllie was read, mentioning that Con- 
volvulus arvensis is not wholly exterminated from the Constitution- 
road, Dundee, as stated by Mr. Gardiner in his Forfarshire Flora. A 
fresh specimen gathered at the station referred to accompanied the 
communication. The President stated that although this plant is 
somewhat rare in the vicinity of Dundee, he had pleasure in commu- 
nicating an unrecorded station, viz., by the side of the Arbroath-road, 
about four miles east from Dundee, where he found it this season in 
some abundance and growing luxuriantly. 

A letter from Mr. Anderson to the President was read, communi- 
cating a new station in Forfarshire for the very interesting Linnea 
borealis. The station is thus described by Mr. Anderson :—“ Hill of 
Strathcathro: a little to the south of a cart-road that runs along the 
top of the hill, and bearing due south of the Strathcathro House, 
growing among roots of birch and Scotch fir, and within what seems to 
have been a square enclosure at one time, covering a space about 
twelve yards in diameter.” 

A paper by Mr. Kerr was read, on “ Discovery of Fossil Fish and 
Shells, &c., in the clay-pits at Carcary, on the estate of Southesk, 
March, 1848.” 

Mr. Flight presented a specimen of Knautia arvensis in a state of 
luxuriance, wherein large leaves were produced from the flower-head. 

The President gave an account of botanical rambles in Forfarshire 
and Kincardineshire. 

Mr. Ogilvie presented specimens of the following Fungi new to the 
county :— 

Two species of Spheronema, “ referred by Fries to Spheria herba- 
rum and S. complanata, but a distinct genus.” —Berkely. 

Spheria conica. On the nettle, Lawhill. 

Cyphella cupula. On dead stems of the nettle, Baldovan. 

Dindryphium curtum. On dead stems of the Senecio Jacobexa, 


347 


Baldovan. “Very interesting, the genus new to Great Britain.”— 
Berk. 

Spheria lirella. On dead stems of Pteris aquilina, Sidlaw hills. 

Spheria sp.“ Undescribed with very pretty fructification.” — 
Berk. On dead stems of an umbelliferous plant. 

Mr. Ogilvie likewise noticed a new station for Sclerotinm durum, 
which he found on dead stems of Geranium pheum, Den of Mains. 
He also mentioned a new station for Dicranum cerviculatum, viz., 
Peat bog, Sidlaw hills. The only previous authority for this moss in 
the county is that of Don, who mentions no locality. 

Mr. Jackson exhibited two fine specimens of the common otter, 
which had been recently taken at the stream of Dighty, a few miles 
from Dundee. 

A packet of specimens was announced from Mr. Anderson, of 
Brechin. 

Mr. D. Campbell, Fortingale, Perthshire, was elected a fellow.— 
G. L. 

October 38rd.— The annual meeting of this Association was held 
this evening, Mr. Ogilvie in the chair. 

The Secretary read the report of the Society’s proceedings for the 
past year, after which the following office-bearers were elected, viz., 
Mr. W. M. Ogilvie, President, Mr. John Flight, Secretary, and Mr. 
David Jackson, Treasurer. 

A communication was then read from Mr. George Lawson, being 
notes of various Fungi, found by him in Forfarshire, and which are 
‘new to the county. The following are the species enumerated by 
Mri, viz. = 

Nidularia campanulata. In flower-pot, Crescent Nursery, Dundee. 

Uredo apiculata. On leaves of Carlina vulgaris, near the Red 
Head, east coast. 

Hysterium melaleucum. On withered leaves of Vaccinium Vitis- 
idxa, Sidlaw Hills. 

Puccinia Viole. On leaves of Viola canina, Sidlaw. 

Rhytisma Urtice. On dead stems of Urtica dioica, near Mains 
Castle. 

Botrytis parasitica, var.? On flower-stem of Spirea ulmaria, Den 
of Mains. 

Corticium craterium. On dead stems of a Ribes, Den of Mains. 

Tremella virescens. On dead stems of larch, Sidlaw Hills. 


Stictis radiata. On dead branches of Sarothamnus scoparius, 
Sidlaw Hills. 


348 


Phoma, nova species? On dead stems of Sarothamnus scoparius, 
Sidlaw Hills. 

Rhytisma Andromede. On leaves of Andromeda polifolia, in 
gardens. 

Merulius lachrymans. In houses, various parts of Dundee. 

Lastobotrys Linnea. Found on specimens of Linnea borealis, re- 
ceived from Mr. Anderson, and gathered by him on the Hill of 
Strathcathro. 

Most of the names had been authenticated by the Rev. M. J. 
Berkeley, and specimens were exhibited from Mr. Lawson of the va- 
rious species mentioned. 

A beautiful specimen of the death’s-head hawk-moth (Sphinx Atro~+ 
pos) was exhibited from Mr. Jackson, captured by him in the neigh- 
bourhood. 

A vote of thanks was then tendered to the retiring office-bearers, 
and the meeting separated.— W.. M. O. 


Notes of a Cursory Examination of the Botany of Colvend, Kircud- 
brightshire, in September, 1848. By Peter Gray, Esq. 


THE middle of September is not the most suitable period of the 
year for botanical investigation; but one thing after another delayed 
so long, an excursion I had meditated for June, or July at farthest, 
that, ere the requisite furlough could be obtained, 


“ The autumn sun was shining, 
Grey mists were on the hill, 
A russet tint was on the leaves ;” 


and though, to continue the quotation, flowers certainly were “ blow- 
ing still,” so many had faded from the ken of the most Argus-eyed 
collector, that, had it not been for the kind assistance of the respected 
parish minister,—to whom I am indebted for the greater portion of the 
list which I append, and who to skill in and love for the “science of 
beauty” adds the utmost expertness and success in the taxidermist’s 
difficult art,—I should have departed as wise almost as I went regard- 
ing the flora of a district, which, from its situation and physical cha- 
racteristics, as well as from what I had ascertained during previous 
short visits and partial explorations, I expected to prove, if not pecu- 
liarly rich in the scarcer vegetable productions, at all events differing 


349 


widely in those from the neighbouring red sandstone basin of Dum- 
fries. And Mr. Fraser, who knows the ground better, and possesses 
much greater experience in such matters than I can pretend to, is of 
opinion that it will yet reward his industry with several rare species ; 
Primula farinosa, for example, which grows on the opposite side of 
Solway, within sight of his parish. 

The parish ot Colvend extends along the south-eastern coast of the 

Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, nearly from the point of Southerness to the 
estuary of the river Urr. It is bounded on the north and north-west 
by the group of granitic hills which occupies, with the exception of a 
narrow border along the bed of the Nith and the shore of the frith 
_that receives its waters, the entire south-western corner of Kirkcud- 
brightshire. These hills are generally rounded in the centre, or approach 
in form to flattened domes, rising at one point to the height of 610 
yards, and again appearing to the west of the Urr for a short distance. 
The granite of which they are composed “is usually of the variety 
termed sienite, a compound of gray quartz, grayish white or rarely 
red felspar and green hornblende, often linearly disposed, with black 
or brownish mica not unfrequently added to these ingredients, and in 
many stations passing into the regular granite.” 

Along the shore the argillaceous strata so generally diffused over 
the whole south of Scotland show themselves in a belt of greywacke, 
narrowing as we advance westward, and offering a more varied and 
interesting vegetation. A line a little to the northward the parish 
road may be taken as the boundary between the primary and transi- 
tion rocks. A short way to the east of where the water of South- 
wick flows upon the sand, the beach, previously gently sloping to 
the tide, becomes precipitous, the abraded hills which now rise 
along the shore and extend westward far as the eye can reach, pre- 
senting to the sea precipitous cliffs, ranging from 30 to 300 feet in 
perpendicular height. Around Douglas Hall or Sandyhills Bay, a 
gap in the “heughs,” as the cliffs are locally designated, is occupied 
by numerous sand-hills, perforated everywhere by rabbit and hornet- 
burrows, and bound together like the Dutch dykes by the tenacious 
roots of a thick turf of Ammophila arundinacea, glinting in its barer 
places with the pretty flowers of Erodium cicutarium. Ruppia 
maritima grows abundantly in the saltwater pools nearer the sea; 
and, on the road to the right, a single patch of Allosorus crispus, 
in the chinks of a dry stone dyke, which I did not disturb. Proceed- 
ing in a westerly direction beneath the heughs, which is practicable 
at low water, you find their shelving faces decked in many parts with 

VOL. 111. 2 Z 


350 


Crithmum maritimum, and the dark green fronds of the elegant Asple- 
nium marinum, although both, but especially the former, are in most 
cases provokingly out of reach; particularly about the mouth of the 
Piper’s Cove, one of the lions of the shore, the name of which, ac- 
cording to a veracious legend, is derived from the adventure of a mu- 
sician, whose progress (although he seems to have been unable to find 
his way back, or to have been so well treated where he got at last that 
he remained) was traced by the sound of his instrument some five 
miles across the country, and finally lost under the goodwife of Barn- 
barroch’s hearthstone. The cove is in reality an ancient copper 
working, this metal being found all along the coast in veins which 
penetrate the greywacke, and the miners having taken advantage, 
in their labours, of a natural fissure in the rock as far as it went. 
A little farther, where the waves have worn an arch in the opposing 
rocky rampart, the cliffs attain their maximum height, and their pic- 
turesque appearance here is greatly enhanced by the presence of one 
or two cream-coloured goats, the property of a neighbouring farmer, 
but of 
“The wild flock that never needs a fold,” 


reposing midway upon a narrow ledge, poising themselves on a mere 
point of rock at a dizzy height, or, in following one another with the 
most perfect nonchalance across or adown precipices, performing feats 
beyond the ability of the most agile mountebank in the world. Be- 
low Port Ling there is another break in the rock-bound coast. Here 
I found, growing among heaps of boulders, chiefly granitic, Rubus 
cesius and R. suberectus, Geranium sanguineum, Solidago Virgaurea, 
&ec., among which and side by side with the dark shining fruit of the 
blackthorn, and of Rosa spinosissima, both of a large size, hung fes- 
toons of honeysuckle in flower. Both the brambles are, I think, pretty 
common between the cliffs and the sea all along the shore westward 
from this point, especially R. cesius. In boggy ground, here, also, 
adorned with the contrasted blue and white of Scabiosa succisa and 
Pamassia palustris, I observed plenty of the foliage of Anagallis 
tenella, not a common Scottish plant, but far from scarce both on this 
shore and that of the estuary of the Nith, with a good few plants of 
Lycopodium selaginoides. Beyond Port Ling, for some distance, the 
rocks become more distinctly granular, and at Blackneuk have all 
the appearance of a coarse sandstone, containing fragments of a 
more compact structure, and seamed in such a way both in a hori- 
zontal direction and vertically, that at a little distance they look like 


351 


some huge remains of Cyclopean masonry. Here large patches of 
Rosa spinosissima occur, with Astragalus glycyphyllus, Carlina vul- 
garis, Gentiana campestris, Sedum anglicum and acre, and Scutellaria 
galericulata; and close upon the sea I found on one occasion Scolo- 
pendrium vulgare, Asplenium marinum, and A. Adiantum-nigrum, one 
patch of each, growing very sociably together on the ground, sheltered 
from the salt spray under a great rock. On the cliffs at Port o’War- 
ren, on this and a former occasion, I gathered Raphanus maritimus 
and Carex remota, and on the beach Glaucium luteum, not a scarce 
plant on this coast. ‘The hill above furnishes a magnificent prospect. 
To the south you have the boundless ocean, along which, from St. 
Bees Head to where the symmetrical peaks of Mona appear in the 
blue distance, 


“ Set like a sapphire in the casing sea,” 


fleets of merchantmen are occasionably visible fringing the horizon. 
On the left the eye takes in at a sweep a fine panorama of the English 
coast, from St. Bees to Bowness, presenting a rich and cultivated sea- 
board, rising from the wave-brink and the bright towns that border it 
with gentle undulations upward to the lofty Skiddaw, broad Saddle- 
back, and the rest of the massive group which forms the back-bone of 
“rocky Cumberland,” exhibiting, when the sun brings out their iron 
forms in relief, fearful precipices on their scarped sides one almost 
shudders to look upon, although diminished by distance to the dimen- 
sions of mountains of faery; again, on the Scottish side, across the 
narrowing frith, the expanse of sand that constitutes the point of 
Southerness, with its tall white lighthouse; next a rich carse land 
hedged in from the sea breeze by belted trees; then the brown and 
rugged cliffs, sweeping past to Hestan and the Airds of Balcary, and 
chafed by the restless surge, beyond which, and where sunshine and 
shadow are chasing each other over a smoother sea, but diversified by 
breakers margining treacherous sand-banks, flocks of white-bosomed 
sea-fowl are scattered like stars in a lower firmament; and, turning, 
your view is bounded behind by the granite hills from Criffel to Ben- 
gairn, wild and bare, but relieved from monotony by cottage, hamlet, 
and silent tarn. Near the farm-house of Port Ling I met with several 
plants of Sanguisorba officinalis, of a variety apparently analagous to 
that of Plantago lanceolata with globular heads. The majority of 
these had only one head of flowers, and that much rounder than 
usual. The coast hence to the Urr, besides most of the plants 


3D2 


already mentioned, furnishes abundance of Allium vineale, with Ver- 
bascum Thapsus and Habenaria albida about Glenstocking. 

From Castlehill, upon the Bay of Urr, where the trenches of an an- 
cient fortification are still apparent, on your way up the river Urr, you 
meet with, besides many of the more ordinary littoral plants, Scheenus 
nigricans and Blysmus rufus, between Glenluffin and Saltflats, and 
Zostera marina betwixt the latter and Roughisle, an appropriately 
named islet in the estuary. Passing on betwixt the Mark and Moat 
hills, the latter close to the shore and surmounted by some slight 
remains of one of those curious and very ancient vitrified forts, the 
execution of which the Scottish peasantry usually ascribe either to 
Auld Michael, the Pechts, or to one older and more knowing than 
either, the path, now winding fairly among the granite, conducts to a 
point overlooking a piece of the finest scenery in the entire south of 
Scotland, comprising the embouchure of the Urr, about three quarters 
of a mile in breadth, above which you stand at just the proper height, 
with Roughisle, and, on the opposite side a peninsula of Almoness 
point, couching as if to guard the entrance to the estuary ; beyond, 
the Isle of Hestan standing out in the firth; the estuary itself, irregu- 
lar in outline, indented with baylets and jutting headlands, like a 
Highland loch ; the hills on either side, bold and precipitous, on the 
western shore remarkably so, wooded to the water’s edge, and rising 
to a great height in Screel and the still loftier Bengairn. I saw it un- 
der very favourable circumstances. It was one of the finest and most 
pellucid days in autumn; above, massive but almost transparent cu- 
muli were reposing in a sky of the deepest azure; the sun was bright 
and warm, the air fresh and balmy ; below, flocks of noisy gulls cooled 
their stilts at a picnic by 


“The bright wide coming stream 
Of Solway’s tide enlarging ;” 


the handsome peacock butterfly, the glowing Lyczna, and Hipparchia 
Megaris of more sober plumage, flaunted and flickered through the 
surrounding wilderness of red heather and golden whin; beetles 
dashed past in glancing mail of steelly blue ; and 


“ Wild bees murmured in their mirth 
So pleasantly it seemed the earth 
A jubilee was keeping.” 


About a mile and a half farther up the river, Colvend is bounded by 
the adjoining parish of Urv. 


353 


Down the middle of the parish there extends a chain of five lochs, 
the most westerly of which drains its surplus waters into the Urr, 
while the Solway receives those of the other four. On the margin of 
the lowest of these, Barnhourie Loch, I found abundance of Hyperi- 
cum elodes, and Carum verticillatum in its neighbourhood. The one 
upon the road-side near the manse, styled the Manse or White Loch, 
the latter name applied, I presume, on the /ucus a non lucendo prin- 
ciple, as its waters are black as night and its bed peat, furnishes 
Typha angustifolia and Lobelia Dortmanna, the latter much taller 
and stronger than 1 ever remember to have seen it; and on its mar- 
gin Osmunda regalis and Lysimachia vulgaris, the latter rare in Scot- 
land, and the former a grateful sight anywhere. The next is a 
remarkably handsome sheet of water, of irregular outline and posses- 
sing a pretty little wooded island, but botanically barren. On the 
hill which overlooks it and from which it is best seen, the only re- 
markable thing I observed was Calluna vulgaris, 72. alb. The other 
lochs I have never examined. 

The following is a list of forty or fifty of the rarer flowering plants 
and ferns of the parish, for most of the stations for which I am in- 
debted to the source acknowledged in my opening observations. 

Anagallis tenella. All along the marshy ground bordering the sea- 
coast, and in many bogs inland. Abundant. 

arvensis, var. cerulea. Came up in great abundance in 
a corn-field belonging to Mark 8. Stewart, Esq., of Southwick, in the 
year 1843. 

Agraphis nutans, fl. alb. On the glebe, Colvend, in many places. 

Allosorus crispus. In a dyke opposite Sandyhills—one patch. 

Allium vineale. Rocks beyond Port o’Warren and Glenstocking. 
Abundant, especially in the latter locality. 

Asplenium marinum. Rocks by the coast. Plentiful. 

Astragalus glycyphyllus. Sea-side, between Boreland and Barcloy 
Hill; Blackneuk. Plentiful. 

Blysmus rufus. Banks of Urr, between Castlehill and Glenluffin. 

Botrychium Lunaria. Near Douglas Hall, and in many other 
places. Abundant. 

Carlina vulgaris. Dry hills. Not very plentiful. 

Convolvulus sepium. Road-side, farm of Millbank. 

Corydalis claviculata. In many places. 

Crithmum maritimum. Rocks by the sea-side from Douglas Hall 
to Barcloy Hill. 

Carex remota. Near Port o’ Warren. 


304 


Calluna vulgaris, fl. alb. Hill above Smithland ; Castlehill. 

Carum verticillatum. About Barnhourie Loch. 

Drosera longifolia. Margin of Anchenshien Loch. Plentiful. 

Equisetum hyemale. Near Barnbarroch School. 

Eupatorium Cannabinum. WUHeugh of Laggan; Port Ling. Very 
plentiful. 

Glaucitum luteum. Port o’ Warren, Saltflats, and other places 
along the coast. Rather scarce. 

Genista Anglica. Very common. 

Gentiana campestris. Hills on the coast. Plentiful. 

Hypericum elodes. In various marshes and ditches in the parish. 

humifusum. Common. 

Juncus maritimus. Mouth of the Urr. 

Jasione montana, fl. alb. Near Clonyard. 

Lobelia Dortmanna. Lochs. Abundant. 

Lychnis viscaria. Rocks and cliffs near Port o’Warren. 

Lycopodium selaginoides. Near Port Ling. 

Leonorus cardiaca. Lochhouse. Not very plentiful. 

Lithospermum officinale. Road-side nearly opposite Murfry, but 
nearer Southwick. 

Lysimachia vulgaris. Shore of the White Loch and Barnhourie 
meadows. Not scarce. 

Meum athamanticum. Plentiful. 

Nymphea alba. Lochs. Abundant. 

Nuphar lutea. do. do. 

Ornithopus perpusillus. In the greatest abundance in many fields, 
and by the road-sides. 

Osmunda regalis. By the margin of the Manse or White Loch, 
and in a bog on the farm of Mark. Far from plentiful in either 
station. 

Parnassia palustris. Beach near Port Ling. Abundant. 

Primula veris, P. elatior. Douglas Hall Bay. 

Rosa spinosissima. Douglas Hall, Blackneuk, and other places 
along the coast. Plentiful. 

Rubus suberectus. Near Port Ling, &c. 
cesius. do. 

Rhynchospora alba. Bog opposite Auchenlosh. 

Raphanus maritimus. Port o’Warren. Sparingly. 

Ruppia maritima. Near Sandyhills. 

Samolus Valerandi. Near Glenstocking. 

Scutellaria galericulata. Blackneuk, beach near Glenluffin, and 
by margin of Manse Loch. Scarce. 


355 


Schaenus nigricans. Sea-side near Glenluffin, abundant; and in 
different stations along to the village of Scaur. 

Sedum Anglicum. Common. 
acre. Blackneuk. Sparingly. 

Salix pentandra. By the margin of the Manse Loch, and by the 
side of a ditch opposite to Jorr. 

Typha angustifolia. Manse Loch. Abundant. 

Vaccinium oaycoccos. In many bogs, and in considerable abun- 
dance. 

Viola lutea. Hills near Barnbarroch. 

I possess a specimen of Lycopsis arvensis, received from a friend 
and labelled Colvend. It does not occur in this neighbourhood. 

Of the plants enumerated above, one or two, as Viola lutea, Litho- 
spermum officinale, and Leonurus cardiaca, were as unexpected by 
me in Colvend as they are unknown in the vale of Dumfries. Neither 
have we Scheenus nigricans, Osmunda regalis, the two Rubi, nor seve- 
ral others; and the relative proportions of other and more frequent 
forms not specially noticed is not less striking, and not altogether, I 
think, dependant on the proximity of the sea. In conclusion, I may 
mention that although I gathered a considerable number of Algz, I 
had not the fortune to find any excepting those common to all shores, 
such as, of course, the Fuci, Halidrys siliquosa, both varieties, Furcel- 
laria fastigiata, Delesseria sanguinea, D. alata, &c. 


PETER GRAY. 
Queen Street, Dumfries, 
October 10, 1848. 


Occurrence of Filago gallica and other Plants at Berechurch, Essex. 
By Tuomas Benvat1, Esq. 


On the 18th instant, Mr. Varenne and myself accompanied Mr. 
Forster on an excursion to the village of Berechurch, in this county, 
for the purpose of searching for Filago gallica. The plant I believe 
was first observed in this locality about six years ago by Mr. Garnons, 
and last autumn it was gathered by Mr. Varenne, and by him speci- 
mens were communicated to the Botanical Society of London. On 
reaching the first field where it was known to occur we were fortunate 
enough to find a considerable number of very fine specimens, and 
subsequently observed it growing plentifully in two other dry sandy 
corn-fields about half a mile distant. Filago apiculata and Jussizi 


356 


were both growing with it, and 1 may mention as a curious fact that 
in one of the fields which we examined are to be found all the known 
British species of Filago. 

Another interesting plant of the neighbourhood, and one for which 
we have no other station in the county as far as I am aware, is Gale- 
opsis ochroleuca; it was observed in some abundance last year by 
Mr. Varenne, in one of the fields where Filago gallica occurs, and had 
- we visited the spot earlier in the season we should in all probability 
have met with it again. 

Our stay at the place being limited to about two hours, we were 
obliged to confine ourselves almost entirely to the grand object of our 
visit; a few other things, however, were met with, perhaps not alto- 
gether unworthy of notice; amongst these I may mention Gastridium 
lendigerum, Anthemis arvensis, Silene anglica, and a very remarkable 
looking Rubus, apparently allied to R. cordifolius (W. § N.), having 
a naked stem, ternate leaves, and a long panicle. 


Tuomas BENTALL. 
Halstead, Essex, October 19, 1848. 


On the Finding of Ornithogalum umbellatum, Linn., near Worcester. 
By GeorcE RE«EcEr, Esq. 


I wap been aware for some years of a bulbous-rooted plant growing 
on Pitchcrop Ham, near this city, but could not be certain of the spe- 
cies, only seeing it in an immature state, for when the mowing grass 
was up I always lost sight of it, and after several ineffectual attempts 
at watching after it through Flora’s season, I this year adopted the 
process of obtaining bearings upon the precise spot from different ob- 
jects, and stepping the distance from certain points and noting it down, 
and thus I became successful at the flowering season in ascertaining 
the roots to belong to what is considered a very rare species, viz., Or- 
nithogalum umbellatum, Lznz. 

I may observe that the Ornithogalum umbellatum is a most difficult 
plant to find at its flowering season, when its petals, which are striped 
with green exteriorly, are closed, which seems to depend much upon 
the state of the atmosphere amid the mowing grass which now has so 
much outgrown its more humble neighbour, particularly if a little 
wind be stirring so as to give motion to the surrounding herbage ; for 
this season, although I was successful in finding it, I could not dis- 
tinguish it when walking in a direct line towards it until, as I may 


397 


say, 1 came close upon it. Yea, when its snow-white starry petals 
are fully expanded to meet the rays of the cheering sun, the distance 
of a few short yards is sufficient to secure it from the searching eyes 
of the expforing botanist, at which time it is a most pleasing object, 
well calculated, when found, to arrest our zeal whilst we stop to con- 
template its delicate whiteness ere we destroy the same by stooping 
to gather it for our herbarium. 

Not so in spring; it is then quite a conspicuous object in localities 
where it grows, being at this period of the year much the tallest and 
of a very different green from the surrounding grass, when a kind of 
trigonometrical survey should be made, and bearings of the precise spot 
with some particular objects obtained and the exact distance there- 
from noted down, which would not only prevent disappointment at 
the time for collecting it, but also injury to the mowing grass in 
searching for it; and doubtless such a process may be applicable to 
the finding of other plants of humble growth which are conspicuots 
in the spring, when they are little thought of, but are hid from our 
longing eyes and itching fingers by the over-growth of surrounding 
objects as the summer advances, when they are eagerly sought after 
but cannot be found from the causes before enumerated, which the 
above observations may in some measure, it is hoped, tend to obviate. 

GEORGE REECE. 

Worcester, October, 1848. 


Remarks on the “ Rubus leucostachys” of Lindley, Leighton (Flor. 
Shrops.), and Lees, and “ Rubus nitidus” of Babington and 
Leighton’s Fasciculus. By Evwin Le&ss, Esq., F.L.S. 


THE Rev. W. A. Leighton, in his elucidatory ‘ Notes on Shropshire 
Rubi,’ in the ‘ Phytologist,’ states, under R. leucostachys (Phytol. iii. 
175), that ‘‘R. leucostachys of Lees in Steele’s Hand-Book is, accord- 
ing to specimens from Mr. Lees, identical with R. nitidus of Bab. 
Syn. and the ‘ Fasciculus of Shropshire Rubi.” With a suggestive 
modesty which | wish all botanical writers would try to imitate, as 
well as come up to his investigating ardour, my untiring friend does 
not say with bramble-like asperity that I have blundered in the mat- 
ter, but implies that my conclusions are probably wrong, as being dif- 
ferent from those of Mr. Babington. 

I have almost come to the resolution to take no authority in bota- 

VOL. II. BA 


358 


nical matters save that of observation, for it would appear that a Pro- 
fessor’s opinion, even on points he has made his peculiar study, are 
still liable to be demurred to, and even the dicta of Esenbeck, as stated 
in the ‘Flora of Shropshire,’ seem now quite disregarded. I feel 
obliged, then, to offer an explanation as to “ Rubus leucostachys,” 
and my connexion with it. When, twelve years ago, I was brushing 
among thickets of perplexity, Mr. Leighton most kindly forwarded to 
me a series of duplicate specimens of Rubi that had passed under the 
scrutinizing eye of Dr. Lindley, and been named by that eminent bo- 
tanist after his own nomenclature in the then recently published 
‘Synopsis of the British Flora... Among these specimens, which I 
cherished as authorities, was one of “Rubus leucostachys,” which 
having identified with the growing plant, and recognized it as the 
form meant by Lindley in his Synopsis, I have ever since called by 
that name, and so distinguished it in Dr. Steele’s ‘ Hand-Book of 
Field Botany.’ Consequently the Rubus in question is the “leuco- 
stachys” of Dr. Lindley and myself, and substantially also that of the 
‘Flora of Shropshire,’ though it appears that Mr. Leighton himself 
had added in his herbarium a specimen of vestitus, W. & N., to the 
two named by Iandley as leucostachys. . His description, indeed, 
must be taken as applying to Dr. Lindley’s plant, as he expressly 
says, “ Determined by Professor Lindley.” To this bramble both 
Mr. Babington and Mr. Leighton now apply the name of nitidus, and 
here is the question to try. 

Having all the same plant in view, it may be asked, was Dr. Lind- 
ley right in his primary assignation of the name leucostachys to it, or 
not? To answer this question throws us back upon Sir J. E. Smith, 
who first published R. leucostachys as a species, but deriving the 
name from M. Schleicher, a Swiss botanist, who sent him a specimen so 
labelled. Iam not aware that Schleicher himself ever published a de- 
scription of his plant, and hence Sir J. E. Smith in the ‘ English 
Flora’ is the first authority for the name, and in the Smithian herba- 
rium are now three specimens named leucostachys, which on a recent 
examination I find are all identical with the R. vestitus of W. & N., 
nor do | see any material difference between them. Neither of these, 
however, appears to be the identical specimen of Schleicher, but a Ru- 
bus, sent from Henfield by Mr. Borrer, is ticketed “R. leucostachys 
of Schleicher,” and this is certainly the common form of vestitus. It 
should be observed that when Smith published his ‘ English Flora, 
the authors of ‘Rubi Germanici’ had not proceeded to the hairy 
division of the brambles, as their book came out in fasciculi. They 


359 


seem to have been unaware of the plant of Schleicher and Smith on their 
parts, and no “leucostachys” occurs even as a synonym in the Ger- 
man work. Mr. Borrer next appears upon the scene, and in Eng. 
Bot. Supp. 2631, under the name leucostachys, really figures and 
describes R. vestitus of the German Rubi. In the third edition of 
Hooker's ‘ British Flora,’ where the brambles are ably marshalled by 
Mr. Borrer, he describes leucostachys as from Eng. Bot. Supp., but 
gives a var. §. which he identifies with Dr. Lindley’s diversifolius. 
No reference is made to the German Rubi by Mr. Borrer as to their 
vestitus. Professor Lindley having in the first edition of his Synopsis 
described both leucostachys and diversifolius, but no vestitus, now in 
his second edition continues them, and having certainly (as shown by 
Leighton’s specimens and my own) our present bramble in view as 
leucostachys, blames Mr. Borrer for uniting diversifolius with it, and 
says that the latter “is surely a hundred times more different than 
leucostachys from fruticosus.” This renders it clear that Lindley’s 
leucostachys was no variety of vestitus. 

Dr. Bell Salter (Phytol. ii. 105) has the merit of clearing up the 
obscurity as far as R. diversifolius of Lindley is concerned, by show- 
ing that Mr. Borrer’s specimen of it, “had from Dr. Lindley’s own 
plant in the Hort. Soc. Gardens,” is truly R. vestitus. But Dr. Bell 
Salter makes no allusion to Lindley’s “leucostachys,” as being diffe- 
rent to the leucostachys he himself had in view as “ one of the com- 
monest species about Selborne.” It is also remarkable, if his “nitidus” 
be really the same as Lindley’s “leucostachys,” the plant now under 
review, that he lauds Dr. Lindley’s description of nitidus as applicable 
to it in his first edition, but says in his second “ he confounds it with 
R. plicatus under the misnomer of R. affinis.” This seems very con- 
fusing, and it is scarcely possible that the same plant should be men- 
tioned by Lindley under two different names. In fact, he refers the 
plant of which Leighton and myself have specimens as “the jagged- 
leaved form of R. fruticosus,” and compares it on this account with 
the similar character of rudis, which is a very just comparison. 
These jagged leaflets, a character generally perceptible, are men- 
tioned by Leighton in the FI. Shrops., but are not alluded to in Dr. 
Bell Salter’s description of his nitidus. I have ascertained from an in- 
spection of the Smithian herbarium, that the R. plicatus of ‘English 
Flora, “common in hedges in Shropshire,” and sent from thence by 
Mr. Williams, is really this species, which Mr. Leighton seems not to 
have been aware of; and in his description Sir J. E. Smith very cor- 
rectly notices the leaflets as “acute or pointed, coriaceous, more or 


360 


less plaited towards the margin, strongly and unequally serrated, 
sometimes jagged; their under surface hoary and finely downy, but 
not white or cottony, strongly ribbed, with many fine, transverse, 
parallel, connecting veins.” So that in this singular misapprehen- 
sion of a common bramble, Smith is blamed by Lindley and Dr. Bell 
Salter as having described R. nitidus from wrong specimens; while if 
Mr. Babington be now correct as to nitidus, Smith had really de- 
scribed it under the name of plicatus! My own impression is, that 
Mr. Babington and Dr. Bell Salter are mistaken in their designation 
now, as Smith and Lindley have been before; and if we are to rely 
upon Esenbeck, his R. nitidus is, after all, but a variety of plicatus, 
which I really believe is the case. Acting, then, upon this belief, I 
will now proceed to a confirmation of the view I have taken. 

The nitidus of Weihe and Nees in the Rub. Germ. is placed by 
them in their “ Divisio prima,” having the barren stem quite smooth 
—“caule folii feré glabro,” and it is evident they intend a bramble 
nearly related to R. suberectus, for they refer to Anderson’s plant in 
the Linn. Trans., as well as the plate of R. suberectus in Eng. Bot. 
2527. This plate could surely never be said to represent the bramble 
I have in view. They reiterate, too, in their general and particular 
description of R. nitidus, that the barren stem is smooth. Now the 
plant described by Dr. Lindley and myself under the name of leuco- 
stachys is at once cut adrift from nitidus by its pilose stem. Lindley 
has placed it in a division with the stems “ distinctly downy or hairy,” 
and describes the panicle as “very long, leafy, hairy.” So I find the 
shoot of the year invariably clothed with scattered hairs, and closely 
hairy at the base. And here I would remark, that in doubtful cases 
the base of the barren stem should be examined, as towards the ex- 
tremity of the shoot, even in hairy brambles, the pilosity often disap- 
pears; but in a true hairy or pilose bramble I have invariably found 
its stem much more hairy at the base, while in smooth-stemmed Rubi 
it continues smooth to the base, or in cesious ones, more bloomy still 
below. The figure of R. nitidus in Rub. Germ. is assuredly very un- 
like the bramble I have in view, and sent to Mr. Leighton, and this 
Mr. Babington admits when allocating his plant (erroneously, as I 
conceive) in the suberect group. “The panicle is here considerably 
different from that of all the preceding species. It is much more 
compound, irregular, and often rather close, nor do any of our speci- 
mens quite accord with the figure in Rub. Germ. of this part.” My 
own opinion decidedly is, that no figure in the Rub. Germ. distinctly 
exhibits the bramble before us; but in some points the description of 


361 


R. pubescens seems to agree with it, especially where it is remarked 
of the “ caules florigeri,’—“ in inferiori parte pilosi, intra paniculam 
vero tomentosi.” The leaflets, too, are said to be “ ovato-oblonga,” 
and the “ margine sub-crispa” is a remarkable character of agreement, 
but as the figure fails, and specimens are wanting, no certainty can 
exist as to the plants entirely coinciding, and most probably they do 
not. 

In this extremity, seeing that the plant before us has been always 
wrongly referred (for I cannot recognize it as nitidus), and that it 
is at any rate uncertain whether characterized at all in the ‘Rubi 
Germanici, I venture to propose a name and description that shall 
at once decide the matter, and leave nothing to doubt. As Professor 
Lindley has been much mixed up with British brambles, yet has 
hitherto escaped commemoration among them, and as this one in 
particular was described by him in his Synopsis, though with a 
wrong appellation, which I followed, it may I think properly bear his 
name, with the following diagnosis.* 

Its locality will be with the arching and rooting Rubi, and most 
correctly, perhaps, the last. in my Sub.-div. ili. Rupr ViLLos1,—“ Stem 
angular, arching, closely hairy, with occasional sete. Rachis very 
hairy.” 

R. Lindletanus. (Lindley’s plaited-leaved bramble). Stem angu- 
lar, closely hairy at the base, clothed with scattered, unequal hairs 
above ; prickles hairy, straight, with long, pale points, rather crowded, 
but confined to the angles; leaves 5-nate on hairy and densely prickly 
petioles, with appressed hairs on the upper surface, canescent and pu- 
bescent beneath, leaflets all stalked, broadly elliptical, sharply serrate 
or jagged, crisp and plaited at the edges, cuspidate; rachis almost 
smooth at the base, hairy above; panicle long, densely hairy, with 
numerous spreading, cymose branches, very crowded and divaricated 
at the top, and leafy nearly to the summit; peduncles densely hairy, 
closely armed with long, pale prickles; calyx shaggy, its sepals more 
or less prickly, with glands hidden in the dense pubescence. 

No fiyure can be indubitably referred to as representing this 
species. : 


* Before any one takes exception at this proceeding of mine, I beg him first 
carefully to compare my description, taken from the living plant, with that of Rubus 
nitidus in the Rub. Germ., p. 20, combined with the reference to the figure of R. 
suberectus in Eng. Bot., as representing their plant, and the assertion of Esenbeck 
that nitidus is but a variety of plicatus. Let my plant, too, be compared with their 
figure, t. iv. 


362 


R. plicatus, Smith, Eng. Flor. ii. 401 (certainly not plica- 
tus of W.& N.) R. leucostachys, Lindl. Syn. 2nd ed. p. 95; 
also of Leighton, Flor. Shrops. p. 230, and Lees in Steele’s 
Hand-Book of Field Botany, p. 57 (but not leucostachys of 
Smith). R. nitidus, Babington, Syn. of Brit. Rub. p. 9, and 
Leighton’s Fascic. of Shrops. Rubi (not of Rub. Germ. ac- 
cording to figure and description). 

Of rather general occurrence in wild spots on the borders of woods, 
but unequally distributed, and not acommon road-side bramble. In 
many places in Worcestershire, Devonshire, Middlesex, Bucking- 
hamshire, and Herefordshire. Shropshire, Rev. W. A. Leighton! ; 
Leicestershire, Rev. Andrew Bloxam!; and Cheshire, the late Mr. 
S. E. Wilson! Most probably in all the southern and midland 
counties. Abundantly near Aberystwith, Cardiganshire. June to 
end of August. 

This bramble may be known by its singularly crisp, platted, ellip- 
tical leaflets, with greyish green pubescence beneath, on very prickly 
petioles, which become densely prickly just where the leaflets com- 
mence. The rachis, slightly hairy at the base, becomes densely 
pilose above among the flowering branches. ‘The panicle consists of 
numerous compound branches spreading out nearly at right angles 
to the rachis, and sometimes even drooping, these are very hairy, 
thickly armed with pale, declining prickles, and leafy nearly to the 
summit; the upper floral leaves being simple, elliptical, and crisped 
or plaited similarly to the foliage of the stem; the uppermost 
branches being often closely and intricately crowded together. The 
calyces are covered with long hairs, sometimes prickly, and as well 
as the pedicels have often glands scattered upon them, but concealed 
to a superficial view in the dense pubescence. Sepals somewhat 
elongated, with a blunt termination, rather loosely reflex in flower, 
and frequently much stained with red at the base within. Petals al- 
most invariably white. Fruit rather small, consisting of many drupes, 
black. 

The barren stem is stated to be suberect by Mr. Babington, but ac- 
cording to my observation, and I have marked it carefully, it arches 
as much as any other, and most certainly I have seen it extending a 
long distance accumbent on a thicket, and very much branched. In 
the vicinity of Burnham Beeches, Bucks, where this form is abundant, 
I particularly observed it arching and rooting in the usual manner 
of the tribe this very autumn; yet no doubt occasional suberect 
forms may occur in the shade. The base of the secondary branches 


363 


is hairy, and scattered hairs are generally present on the stem, though 
as in other instances, when fully exposed to the action of the sun, it 
becomes denuded. 

It is remarkable that this bramble is not mentioned by Mr. Borrer 
in the third edition of Hooker’s ‘ British Flora,’ although a specimen 
under the name of “ plicatus” exists in the Smithian herbarium. My 
acute friend the Rev. A. Bloxam had previously informed me that 
Mr. Babington’s plicatus was identical with my leucostachys, but it 
is only since Mr. Leighton’s published observations in the ‘ Phytolo- 
gist’ that I have been able to satisfy myself fully, by an examination 
of Smith’s specimens in the Linnean Society’s museum. I presume 
that Dr. Bell Salter’s Hampshire nitidus is the same as Mr. Babing- 
ton’s, but his description seems not exactly to coincide with the com- 
mon plant I am familiar with.  R. affinis is really a suberect species, 
with a very lofty, perfectly smooth stem, and quite distinct from this 
species. 

Epwin LEEs. 

Cedar Terrace, Henwick, Worcester, 

November 2, 1848. 


Notes and occasional Observations on some of the Rarer British 
Plants growing Wild in Hampshire. By Wi tttamM ARNoLD 
BromFIELD, M.D., F.L.S., &c. 


(Continued from page 343). 


Lyihrum Salicaria. I believe throughout the county in wet places. 
Frequent about Lymington, Bishopstoke and Southampton. Side of 
Tichfield River; Mr. W. L. Notcutt. Plentiful, but rather local, in 
the Isle of Wight, in wet willow thickets, meadows, &c. Much more 
frequent in West than in East Medina. 
hyssopifolium. Gathered, many years ago, in Pan Moor, 
at Newport, Isle of Wight, by Miss E. Kirkpatrick. I have been un- 
successful in rediscovering this interesting species in the above loca- 
lity, or in finding it elsewhere within the county, but the caution and 
accuracy of that lady in determining the plants around her place of 
residence, and her full conviction on the subject, warrant its insertion 
here, without the further proof of specimens, of which I have seen 
none. A plant so fickle and transient in its stations as this, can 
scarcely be expected to persist through a series of years in the same 


364 


locality. It is a prize that must be seized and registered, or it may 
elude observation again for a lifetime. 

Peplis Portula. Very common in the county and island in 
ditches, drains and on wet commons. Plentiful on Petersfield Heath 

‘along with Isnardia palustris, and from its similarity in habit and ge- 
neral appearance to that plant, is apt to impede the ready detection 
of the latter when sought for by persons previously unacquainted 
with it. Abundant on Short Heath, near Selborne, and on Wolmer 
Forest. The stem of the water purslane is made up of four tubes 
united around a central cord. 

Ceratophyllum demersum? I recollect perfectly to have seen 
this or C. submersum in great plenty in the county a few years ago, 
I think in the river Test or Anton, below Romsey, but the exact lo- 
cality has escaped me, not having been noted at the time. Heron 
Court, near Christchurch, Mr. Curtis, in Brit. Entom. (cum icone). 
In all likelihood not rare on mainland Hants, but the genus appears 
wanting in the Isle-of-Wight flora, in common with many other 
aquatics. 

Epilobium angustifolium. Quite a frequent Hampshire plant in 
woods, thickets, on banks and in plantations, often in great quantity 
together. In vast profusion in the woods at Chawton Park, near 
Alton, especially in the valley betwixt the noble beech-hangers going 
from Beech Farm towards Meadsted, the sloping sides of which are 
literally covered with it, whilst the species is scattered over that wide 
domain for some hundreds of acres, May, 1848.* Abundant in va- 
rious places about West Meon, particularly in newly cleared copses. 
Betwixt East Meon and Clanfield. Between Petersfield and Lang- 
rish, and along the 8. W. railway, betwixt Winton and Bishopstoke, 
in both places sparingly. Plentiful at Selborne; Dr. T. Bell Salter!!! 
In great abundance on the west side of Boscombe Chine, near Bourn- 
mouth; Mr. Curtis. In several parts of the Isle of Wight in plenty, 
chiefly in boggy willow thickets, but no where occupying large tracts 
of ground, as on the mainland of the county. It abounds likewise in 
the adjoining county of Sussex, as in St. Leonard’s Forest and near 
Chichester, &c.; but it is needless to multiply instances of the occur- 
rence of a plant which increased and diffused observation has shown 
to be common in the south, though our earlier floras would make it 


* T do not remember by the way ever to have been much more annoyed abroad by 
mosquitoes than in the dry beech woods at Chawton, about the middle of the last al- 
most unprecedented hot and cloudless May, and such whacking fellows too! 


365 


appear to be frequent only in the north. It is indeed properly a 
plant of high and even arctic latitudes, but of great climatic adapta- 
tion, and admirably exemplifies that axiom of botanical geography, 
that the polar* limits of plants are far more abrupt and definite than 
their equatorial boundaries; in other words, that species proceeding 
from the equator towards either pole, have their vanishing-points 
more distinctly traced on the earth’s surface than those descending 
from higher to lower latitudes; and the reason is obvious: cold is so 
uncongenial to vegetable life, and warmth so propitious, that a small 
increase of the former, or what is the same thing, diminution of the lat- 
ter, suffices to arrest the development of a species whose constitutional 
tendency is to warm or temperate zones of habitation, but a moderate 
-excess of heat beyond what is requisite for healthy and vigorous ve- 
getation, seems to affect the majority of plants but little, as we see in 
so many alpine species, which thrive in our low and warm gardens 
as well as on their native mountains. Besides, the plants of cold cli- 
mates, in their advance towards warmer regions, can and do take 
shelter from an undue temperature in lofty, humid, or umbrageous 
places, but the deficiency of heat is very partially and imperfectly 
supplied to plants migrating from warmer to colder latitudes by shel- 
ter and radiation, conditions which can only be found in a few fa- 
voured spots. Of this species of willow-herb, two very tolerably 
constant and well-marked forms occur with us in Hants. The first of 
these is distinguished by its usually smaller size, narrower leaves, 
which are of a darker green, and much waved or wrinkled, and consi- 
derably glaucous beneath, as also by the narrower or more contracted 
spike of smaller and deeper-coloured flowers. The second variety 
resembles the garden state of the plant, in its flatter and broader 
leaves, of a brighter green, and scarcely, if at all, crisped or wrinkled, 
in its larger and paler flowers and more expanded spike, the entire 
plant very handsome and stately. The capsules I find similar in 
both forms, that is, erect and much elongated, nor have I met with 
any wild plants in which the seed-vessels were short and spreading, 
as we find them in cultivation (E. brachycarpum, Steph.), a state aris- 
ing, I suspect, from arrested development consequent on the increased 
disposition, in a plant already prone to that mode of multiplication, 
to propagate by the root, which the rich and loose soil of a garden 


. 


* T use the terms polar and equatorial as alike applicable to both hemispheres of 
our globe, whilst those of northern and southern, being of opposite attributes on each 
side of “ earth’s central line,” of course are not convertible: 


VOL. III. 3B 


366 


encourages. The former variety is by far the commoner in the Isle 
of Wight, the second, indeed, being very rare here, whilst it abounds 
in newly-cleared woodlands, and on steep banks in many places on 
the mainland: the Petersfield, Clanfield and West Meon stations 
being referrible to the large-flowered kind. I have likewise gathered 
it on Colonel Wyndham’s domain, at Singleton, near Chichester, 
where it forms a perfect little forest at least six feet high, displaying 
all that beauty of colouring and luxuriant growth which so captivated 
Linneus in this “royal plant” as, in his eyes, to invest the huts of 
the simple Laplanders, encircled by bowers of stately willow-herb, 
with the splendour of celestial abodes.* The smaller variety is more 
restricted to low, wet thickets, or damp heaths, and owes its charac- 
ters apparently to a less fertile soil; but though each retains its pe- 
culiar features under cultivation as far as has yet been tried, both 
approach one another by gradations which manifestly forbid their 
separation as species. Miss L. Sibley has found this species with 
white flowers, near Petersfield. E. angustifolium in its spiked inflo- 
rescence, distinctly clawed and spreading petals, deeply lobed style 
and declined stamens, betrays a generic as well as ordinal alliance 
with Gaura, whilst GQnothera is more faintly adumbrated in the broad, 
rounded petals, and the revolutely lobed style of the following spe- 
cies. These analogies in species of the same genus to conterminous 
genera are curious and instructive. 

Epilobium hirsutum. This handsome species abounds throughout 
the Isle of Wight, in damp places, along road-sides, and in our wet 
thickets, which are often quite filled with it, sometimes attaining a 
height of seven feet. Plentiful in most parts of the county. I do 
not remember to have ever seen or heard of a white-flowered variety 
of this plant. Occasionally cultivated in the Isle-of-Wight gardens. 
parviflorum. Very common in the county and Isle of 
Wight, along damp lanes, hedges, woods, &c. Flowers occasionally 
white, but about Selborne, where it abounds, they are of an unusually 
bright red or purple colour. A nearly glabrous variety is frequent 
with us, probably the E. rivulare of Wahlenberg, as Mr. Babington 
also supposes (Man. p. 115). 
montanum. Common all over the county and island, on 
walls, wet rocks, banks, and in woods, &c. 
palustre. By far the least frequent of the willow-herbs 
with us; at any rate, as regards the Isle of Wight, it may even be 


* Flora Lapponica, p. 113. 


367 


called rare. In a pool betwixt Ryde and Brading, ditches near 
Sandown, and a few other places. On Short Heath Oakhanger, 
_ near Selborne, and probably not uncommon in the county generally. 

Epilobium virgatum, Dr. Salter informs'me that specimens pro- 
nounced by Mr. Babington to be this real or imaginary species have 
been collected in the Isle of Wight. 

tetragonum. Extremely common in the county and island, 
in ditches, moist woods, hedges, &c. 

——— roseum. Rare? Selborne; Dr. T. Bell Salter!!! Dr. 5S. 
remarks that this plant is usually found in cultivated ground, gardens, 
&c., but that about Selborne it is perfectly agrestal, growing on 
Short Heath, in sandy ground along the streams, as well as in the 
shady lanes about the village. 

N. B.—(@nothera biennis? occurs occasionally in waste ground, 
about gardens, and in fields adjacent to them, but is nowhere, so far 
as I know, permanently established in the county or island. I have | 
great doubts if the species so denominated be always the American 
plant which passes under the name on that continent, and which has 
smaller flowers than the naturalized outcast which we call biennis. 
The species of evening-primrose are very liable to variation even in 
their native region. 

Isnardia palustris. Abundant in certain seasons in marshy spots 
and plashes, into which expands at intervals the shallow channel or 
drain for the superabundant water of the great pond on Petersfield 
Heath on its eastern side, in which neighbourhood (for it does not 
seem to be the identical station with the modem one) it was noticed 
nearly three centuries ago,by John Goodyer, of Maple Durham,* a 
Hampshire botanist of much zeal and acuteness, and rediscovered 
about a dozen years back in its present station, by Miss Rickman 
and J. Barton, Esq. In dry summers it would appear the plant is 
rarely to be found, and for several seasons I sought it, like others, 
unsuccessfully, but in the past and very moist summer of 1848, it was 
again plentiful on the wettest parts of the heath along the course of 
the channel above described, though the finest specimens were only 
to be got at by wading ancle-deep in mud and water, and these Jux- 
uriant examples very seldom bore flowers; indeed, I could find 
scarcely any in that state, when at Petersfield in July and SeptemBer, 


* Maple Durham is an ancient tenement, once a religious house, two miles from 
Petersfield, on the Portsmouth road, in the parish of Buriton, and must not be con- 
founded with the place of the same name in Oxfordshire, or with Maple Durwell, 
near Basingstoke, in this county. . 


368 


though I took much pains to discover both flower and fruit. More 
lately it has been found in a second Hampshire station, by Mr. 
Borrer, its original discoverer, or rather rediscoverer in this country, 
namely, in a pool a little way out of Brockenhurst, towards Lynd- 
hurst, growing with Nymphea alba and other aquatics, but of more 
difficult access than at Petersfield!!! A somewhat practised eye is 
required to detect the Isnardia in its native swamps, even where it is 
known to exist; for the stems, immersed in water, and half hidden 
amongst the other herbage, may be overlooked for Peplis Portula, or 
some state of a Potamogeton; it is hardly to be wondered at, there- 
fore, that it should so long have escaped notice, whilst, shrouded un- 
der a cumbrous and obsolete diagnostic phrase rather than a name,* 
its occurrence in England was not even suspected. This is assuredly 
a beautiful, though not a showy, plant; the lucid, transparent green 
of its leaves, harmoniously blending with suffusions of the richest 
olive brown and bright red veined with crimson, can hardly find a 
parallel in any other indigenous vegetable of our land. On the con- 
tinent of Europe and in America, Isnardia palustris and Leersia ory- 
zoides have the same geographical distribution, and these seem good 
grounds for believing that the like will be found to hold true in this 
country. The latter will probably reward a diligent search in our - 
Hampshire waters, and should be looked for in the localities pointed 
out in this journal (Phytol. ii. p. 1003). In Sussex it has lately been 
detected by Mr. Mitten, in a second station many miles remote from 
the original one at Henfield, namely, in Little Ease mill-pond, near 
Cuckfield, where Mr. Borrer kindly showed it to me, growing 
amongst reeds, early in the present month (October), the panicle, as 
usual, wholly included within the sheath. 

Circea lutetiana. Plentiful in various parts of the county and 
Isle of Wight, in damp, shady places, woods, &c. 

Myriophyllum verticillatum. Ponds and ditches, rare? In ditches 

communicating with the Avon, near Sopley; Dr. Pulteney in Hamp. 
Rep. Southampton Canal, by Millbrook; Mr. W. L. Notcutt. Not 
found in the Isle of Wight. 
‘spicatum. Abundant in the marsh ditches of San- 
down Level and elsewhere in the Isle of Wight. Near Hill Head; 
Mr. W. L. Notcutt. About Winchester, and frequent I believe over 
the county. 


* Anagallis aquatica flore parvo viridi caule rubro. “Ina great ditch neer the 
Moor, at Petersfield, Hamshire.” Mr. Goodyer, Merrett’s Pinaz, p. 7. 


369 


Myriophyllum alterniflorum. Abundant in some of the marsh 
ditches in Sandown Level, and in pools in several places in the Isle 
of Wight, alone or mixed with the last, but I think perfectly distinct 
from it as a species. 

Hippuris vulgaris. Apparently not uncommon in Hants, but very 
rare in the Isle of Wight, where it grows only in a few ditches on 
Sandown Level. Ina wet meadow near Bishop’s Waltham. Com- 
mon in rivers and ditches about Winton. In Winnal water-meadows, 
on the north side of that city of deep, rapid, and translucent streams, 
I find it of most luxuriant growth, with stems completely submerged 
and leaves often deeply cleft. 

Callitriche verna. Pools and ditches everywhere. 

platycarpa. Frequent on the wet margins of pools, &c., 
in the Isle of Wight, and probably all over the county, but its dis- 
tinctive characters seem to me very questionable, and just such as 
difference of locality might be supposed capable of creating. 

pedunculata. A plant which J suppose to be this, but 
which I have not yet minutely examined, grows in several places in 
the Isle of Wight, chiefly in deep still waters of ditches and drains, 
but not very commonly. 

Bryonia dioica. An extremely common and ornamental vine in 
hedges and thickets all over the county ; rather less frequent on the 
mainland close by the sea, though still far from uncommon about 
Portsmouth, in Hayling Island, and elsewhere along the coast. By 
no means rare in the Isle of Wight, but almost wholly confined to the 
chalk and greensand of the interior and central part of it, about New- 
port, Carisbrook, Gatcomb, Buccombe, &c., shunning the line of coast 
through its entire extent, even where those rocks predominate, so that 
not a single specimen has occurred to my observation anywhere near 
Ryde, Brading, Shanklin, or in the Undercliff, whilst it is equally 
wanting at Cowes and everywhere to the westward of that place. A 
specimen or two has indeed strayed as far as Freshwater parish, and a 
few plants are scattered about Shorwell within a couple of miles of 
the south-west shore; with these very partial exceptions, the bryony 
is absent over a broad belt of country embracing perhaps two-thirds 
of the island, and which defines the limits of two other species with 
nearly equal exactness, namely, Campanula Trachelium and Rham- 
nus catharticus, that grow chiefly, if not exclusively, on the chalk, 
yet are not found to follow the extension of that formation coastways. 
That an extreme maritime or insular locality does not suit the bryony, 
is apparent from its increasing scarcity westward, and its total absence 


370 


in Cornwall, Ireland, and Scotland,* and its sparing occurrence in the 
Channel Islands. Even in the Isle of Wight, in those parts where it 
does occur and that not sparingly, its distribution is manifestly more 
sporadic than on the mainland and interior, the plants growing single 
or few together in one spot, not weighing down the hedges with an 
impenetrable matting of stems and foliage for yards together as we 
often see it doing in its inland stations. The abundance of this plant 
on Longwood Warren, near Winchester, is truly remarkable; it is 
there seen trailing like cucumber-vines over the dry stony ground, in 
the most open and exposed parts of that elevated and desolate tract, 
and even when growing amongst the clumps of bushes that partially 
clothe its naked and sterile surface, seems to disdain availing itself of 
their aid to indulge its usual habit of climbing. Called mandrake 
universally in the Isle of Wight. The dull scarlet berries have the 
most sickening feetor of any plant I am acquainted with. 

Montia fontana. Very common in the county and island in wet 
places, on damp arable land, &c. The larger variety, 6. major, M. 
rivularis, Gmel. ? in drains and ditches occasionally. 

Herniaria glabra. Sandy shores, Portsmouth; Martyn. This I 
have not yet seen in or from its alleged localities. 

Scleranthus annuus. Plentiful in corn-fields and dry waste places 
all over the county and Isle of Wight. 

Tillea muscosa. Sandy barren heaths; rare. Abundantly near 
Stoney Cross, in the New Forest, along the sides of the road by the 
inn and elsewhere; Mr..Hussey! This curious and minute plant 
abounds about Poole, in Dorsetshire, and will probably be found to 
inhabit the conterminous parts of this county not uncommonly if 
specially looked for. 

Sedum Telephium, L.? In woods, thickets, on shady hedge-banks 
and grassy margins of fields. Decidedly rare in the Isle of Wight, 
where I find it only on banks and borders of fields at Pound Green, 
in Freshwater, but in some plenty, also near Ashey very sparingly. 
More frequent on the mainland. In a wood (Westwood ?) near Net- 
ley Abbey. At Otterbourne and near Bishop’s Waltham. Near a 
pond on going to Shirley across the fields; Mr. W. L. Notcutt. Is 
this the true S. Telephium of Linnzus, the Swedish plant having al- 


* The whole of Scotland is probably beyond its polar limit, which scarcely exceeds 
lat. 54° on the European continent, above which (in Sweden and Russia) it is replaced 
by the more northern and eminently eastern B. alba, erroneously given as an English 
(Cambridgeshire) species by Martyn. 


(su) 
re] 
—" 


ways the flowers yellowish green, not purple as in the more southern 
parts of Europe? 

{Sedum album. A more than doubtful native of Hants. On the 
thatched roof of an old house in Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, where I 
have remarked it for several years past, but though perfectly established 
it cannot of course be deemed indigenous. South Beach, Hayling 
Island; Rev. G. E. Smith: but there are the remains of a garden on 
the spot it was said to occupy, and the station, which is near the 
“ buildings,” is open to suspicion on this last account also. I am not 
aware of any other or less exceptionable station for this species in 
the county. When we reflect that the great bulk of the species com- 
posing this genus inhabit elevated rocks and mountain districts, we 
cannot be surprised that the few that do accommodate themselves to 
the plains or inconsiderable altitudes should have the aspect of aliens 
and interlopers in situations so foreign to their constitution. 

t dasyphyllum. On old walls and roofs, rare; most likely in- 
troduced originally, and subsequently escaped from cultivation in 
both, as it certainly is in ove of its Isle-of-Wight stations. On Brad- 
ing Church, and especially on the south porch, with Ceterach offi- 
cinarum in plenty; also on some walls in that ancient but decayed 
borough, though now almost destroyed by repairs. Abundant on 
tiled roofs at Alverstone Mill, near Newchurch, doubtless established 
from the garden of the miller, who has a great taste for horticulture. 
On the stone walls round the fields at Liphook; Miss Lovell! This 
sounds less suspicious than the foregoing stations, but I have not 
visited the spot, and doubt if the species be anywhere indigenous to 
Britain, though completely naturalized in many parts of the kingdom. 

anglicum. On most parts of the Hampshire coast in plenty. 
On Ryde Dover, St. Helens, and other places in the Isle of Wight. 
Abundant on the South Beach, Hayling Island, at Portsmouth, Gos- 
port, &c. 


acre. Walls, rocks, roofs, and sandy ground; abundantly. 
This and the preceding are the only two indubitably native Sedums 
in this island and county. 

+? reflecum. Common on walls, roofs of houses, and ruins 
(rarely and accidentally ? on rocky banks) in the Isle of Wight, and 
as far as I have remarked frequent in the county generally. Often 
planted for ornament on cottage roofs. Though perfectly naturalized 
and spontaneously disseminated, this has not with us the look of an 
aboriginal production, its proper home being probably on rocks con- 
siderably above the sea level; yet excepting perhaps its controverted 


372 


varieties, S. rupestre and Forsterianum, it appears to be less alpine in 
its habit than most of its congeners, to judge from its stations in Ger- 
many, Switzerland, &c. 

Cotyledon Umbilicus. On walls, rocks, and damp stony banks and 
hedge-rows. Rare in Hants. Hedge-banks by Bohemia, Isle of 
Wight; Mr. George Kirkpatrick!!! Abundant on hedge-banks at 
Redbridge, at the head of the Southampton Water. In quantity by 
the road-side at Great Testwood, six miles from Southton; Dr. A. D. 
White. In our drier climate this plant scarcely attains to above half 
the size it does in the western counties, where, as in Devonshire, I 
have gathered it upwards of two feet in height. 

N.B.—Sempervivum tectorum is excluded from this list of native 
and naturalized Hampshire plants as being in every instance propa- 
gated by the hand of man, and therefore not entitled to rank even 
amongst those of the second category. It is to be lamented that this 
and other vegetable productions foreign to our geographical position 
and climate, as Swertia perennis, Crocus aureus, minimus, and sati- 
vus, Gentiana acaulis, &c., &c., together with the entire of the Chan- 
nel-Island plants, which are in no wider sense British than those of 
the rock of Gibraltar or any other of our dependencies, should con- 
tinue, through a servile compliance with established custom and 
routine, often I am convinced in opposition to the better judgment 
that would reject them, still to encumber and I may say disfigure the 
pages of our general floras of the United Kingdom. I use the expres- 
sion disfigure advisedly, because whatever destroys unity of design, 
whether in works of art, fiction, or science, is as it were an excres- 
cence on their true proportions, and therefore a disfigurement in the 
strictest acceptation of the word. Why in the name of common sense 
must Crocus sativus still be doomed to linger on the soil of Britain, 
the shade of a defunct foreigner,—the merchant plant that has long 
ceased to survive the extinction of that trade which called him from 
his mountain home, in the Abbruzzi, to become like the Jew a deni- 
zen of our isle for business purposes with no ulterior view of settle- 
ment? If the species in the concrete were inadmissible, how much 
more absurd is it to retain it in the abstract—the shadow when the 
substance has fled. It is, however, refreshing to observe how most of 
these respectable representatives of by-gone error and blind devotion 
to authority are, thanks to Messrs. Babington and Watson, “ growing 
less by degrees and infinitely small,” and are not permitted by them 
to go abroad without a guard of brackets or drawn daggers, to prevent 
their breaking bounds and re-asserting their ancient but usurped right 


373 


to citizenship. Surely it would be better to drop in future all mention 
of certainly extinct or non-naturalized species, than to continue giving 
to them “a local habitation and a name,” by referring, however slightly, 
to the pages of ‘ English Botany,’ and those earlier works in which they 
first appeared on the list of natives. The former of these books will 
ever remain a standard for reference to its pictorial illustrations ; we 
should only have to regard such amongst its plates and pages as relate 
to the species in question as virtually so many blanks to be passed 
over unnoticed, and they would soon come to be looked upon in that 
light, and be neglected and forgotten. It seems to me an injudicious 
waste of time and space to rake up the ashes of a palpable and fully 
acknowledged error when further warning against it is needless; it is 
high time to clear our British flora from the mass of false natives, false 
species, and other blunders of the early days of botanical science, but 
the bracketing of often and again exposed and refuted mistakes tends 
rather to keep alive error than to suppress it; a dignified silence 
would be the most effective extinguisher to the last lingering claims 
of the species we have just alluded to. 

A word or two on the Channel Islands. It would seem as if length 
of possession and incorporation with the rest of the kingdom by insti- 
tutions, civil and ecclesiastical, had some how or other the power to 
overrule the decrees of Nature, and effect the juxtaposition of that 
group with our own shores rather than with the opposite coasts of 
France. Yet it is not clear to me that the recognition of the Queen’s 
authority in Guernsey and Jersey, or the periodical visitations of the 
Bishop of Winchester to that transmarine part of his diocese, has ef- 
fected the slightest change in the relative position of these islands 
with respect to our own since the conquest, or brought them one inch 
nearer to us than they were at that remote period; and unless it can 
be incontestably shown that the distance betwixt England and Jersey 
has diminished and is diminishing as the square of the times, or in 
some other satisfactory ratio, I humbly venture to suggest, that whilst 
we are proud to acknowledge the brave and loyal people of Sarnia 
and Cesarea as fellow legemen, and will stand by them against 
France and all the world, as they assuredly would stand by us in the 
day of trial, we should, nevertheless, henceforth and for ever (botani- 
cally speaking) cede, assign, and make over the soil of their beautiful 
islands and its native productions to that Gallic territory of which Na- 
ture insists on its still forming a part. 

There is an old and trite proverb that “a miss is as good asa 
mile ;” we may invert it, and say “a mile is as good as a miss;” for 

VOL. 111 3.C 


374 


were the Channel Islands but one as they are many miles nearer to 
France than England, the balance of proximity would incline, though 
not as greatly, yet quite as decisively, in favour of their continental 
connection, keeping out of view their similarity in geological and 
other physical features to the mainland of France as additional argu- 
ments for grouping them with the latter. 

It will perhaps be urged that the plants of the Channel Islands, 
having been incorporated with those of Britain by the older botanists, 
and all succeeding writers, the weight of the precedent sanctions the 
the continuance of the custom. But if the precedent be a bad one, 
as I think every unprejudiced person must admit it is, the mental sub- 
jection which adherence to its authority implies, is a reproach we 
should hasten to wipe away as soon as possible. Botany, in the 
time of Ray and Sherard, was not the beautiful and philosophical 
science it has since become, and that department of it, vegetable geo- 
graphy, which it is so peculiarly the province of all floras, general as 
well as local, to elucidate and extend, had not then been made a sub- 
ject of inquiry, or was even so much as thought of as matter for dis- 
quisition. An extension of the boundaries of the British flora to the 
Channel Islands, as at that time no recognized principle of unity or 
limitation was compromised by the act, might appear an indifferent 
or even natural proceeding; but the precision of a later day revolts at 
the attempt to continue the amalgamation of a portion of the French 
flora, however small, with that of England, on considerations purely 
political, for no other but these can be alleged in defence of so absurd 
a practice, unless it be an unwillingness to give up a dozen or two of 
plants long held peculiar to those islands, which have, like borrowed 
plumes, been paraded as if of native growth in all our publications 
since the days of the old botanists above mentioned.* The Sarnians 
are very tenacious of their own laws, manners and customs, and with 
all their attachment to the crown of these realms, are not ambitious 


* An advance towards getting rid of these interlopers has been made in the 
‘Manual of British Botany,’ which augurs well for their final ejectment. But is not 
the 0 appended to the plants of the Channel Islands in that work a plain though ta- 
cit acknowledgment that such have no business to appear in its pages, as not natu- 
rally associating with the professed scope and object of a purely British Flora? Why, 
then, should their retention be suffered to disfigure and mar the unity of that excel- 
lent hand-book when the remedy is so easy? Let us hope that in the next edition of 
the Manual its accomplished author will have the courage wholly to discard these 
extraneous species by omitting all mention of them; the example, once set, will as 
surely be followed as was that by which the abuse was so long upheld before. 


375 


of being thought English, nor have centuries of political annexation 
sufficed to make them so, or wholly to supplant the Norman by a 
Saxon idiom. The race is essentially French, and will ever remain 
such, their position insures it, and if to themselves, a fortcorz to the 
plants of their islands, which, could they but make themselves heard, 
would doubtless contend, in the purest dialect of Neustria, for iden- 
tity of descent with the Norman inhabitants. 

It is true a case may be conceived in which natural geographical 
relations and proximity must give way to artificial or political circum- 
stances; for let us suppose the Channel Islands situated as near to 
our own coasts as they now are to those of France, and though speak- 
ing the language and holding the customs of Britain, to have been 
long annexed to the former country, we could not, practically speak- 
ing, include them in the English flora, because, forming no part of 
the English territory, we could assert no right of property in the soil 
and its productions. Yet theoretically, we should have the better 
claim to the possession of both, and I question much whether this 
consideration would not so far outweigh the practical view of the mat- 
ter, as at once to open our eyes to the absurdity we have so long 
been committing, in the attempted junction of two dissimilar and 
widely dissevered botanical areas. For my own part, had the island 
from which I am writing been a province of France from time imme- 
morial, I should still think its flora but awkwardly assorted with that 
of Normandy, whilst at the same time, considered abstractedly, or 
apart from the question of territorial claims, I should see no greater 
impropriety if, in the construction of a Flora Gallica, the Channel 
Islands were held as forming a portion of France, than there would be 
in considering (as I suppose most people do) the Rock of Gibraltar 
as appertaining to the flora of Spain, though in the occupation of a 
foreign power. Ifthe French have no political, we have no natural, 
claim to the Channel Islands, the relations of which to the mother 
country are as purely colonial as those of Malta or Corfu: this is 
plain by their many fiscal and legal immunites, the possession of a 
mixed currency, and their own Norman courts of judicature, &c. 
They are, in short, not English, either by position or otherwise, and 
their botanical abandonment is the only course open to us if we would 
preserve unity and consistency in treating of our national floras.* 
Mais revenons & nos moutons. 


* After all, why cling so fondly to these outlying islands, if to make a bad title to 
the few peculiar plants they afford be the only motive for non-abandonment, seeing 
that the greater part of these species have been found on the south-west coasts of 


376 


Ribes nigrum. Damp or boggy woods and thickets; rare. In se- 

veral parts of the Isle of Wight, usually sparing in quantity, but I 
think truly wild. Iam not at this moment possessed of data relative 
to its distribution on the mainland of Hants. Inhabits the whole of 
central and northern Europe, even beyond the arctic circle. 
rubrum. Extremely frequent, and in some places abun- 
dant, in various parts of the Isle of Wight about Ryde, Newport, 
Freshwater, &c., in woods, thickets and hedges. I have no doubt a 
genuine native, the wild plant differing in some particulars from the 
garden variety, much in the same manner and degree as Vitis vinifera 
in its natural state does from the cultivated grape in the vineyard. 
(See Phytol. ii. p. 517). I know nothing of its distribution in main- 
land, Hants. In the woods at Redenham, near Andover; Mr. Wm. 
Whale. Widely spread over Europe from the plains to the moun- 
tains, and in America within the polar circle. 
Grossularia. Frequent, but sporadical, in woods, hedges 
and clefts of rocks in the Isle of Wight, and I believe over the whole 
county, quite wild. About Petersfield, &c. Very seldom found in 
fruit; the few berries I have seen were smooth and amber-coloured* 
(R. uva crispa, Z.). For further remarks on our wild currants see 
‘Phytologist’ 1. p. 517 to 521. 

The three foregoing species of Ribes are amongst those unfortunate 


England, and the remainder may reasonably be expected to reward the present 
active spirit of research which is rapidly increasing the number of our legitimately 
British vegetables. 

* The non-production of fruit or seed is no argument, scarcely even a presump- 
tive reason, against the indigenous origin of a species. It sometimes arises from the 
habitual defect or suppression of the necessary organs, and sometimes from the influ- 
ence of climate. Of the last we have a notable example in our common ivy (Hedera 
Helix). This shrub has an extensive range over Europe, but in the more northern 
parts, as in Sweden, where it is truly indigenous, it is only in very favoured spots in 
the southern and maritime proviuces that flowers and berries are produced. In those 
countries the ivy is scarcely known but in that form in which we see it in our woods 
and on banks, familiarly called barren or creeping ivy. The same is observed in 
southern Russia (excluding the Caucasian provinces), where Ledebour, and I think 
also, Pallas, remarks that it never fructifies. I have myself noted this increasing ste- 
rility of the ivy on advancing into the eastern and inland parts of continental Europe, 
where the winters are too rigorous for the perfect development of plants of such 
southern tendencies as the woody Araliacee. The fruit of Acorus Calamus is so 
rarely perfected, that its structure is practically known but to few botanists, as Mr. 
Brown has remarked to me; yet is it a very widely spread plant, being found over a 
great part of the globe, as are many other aquatics. 


377 


plants, which, for some reason or other, quite incomprehensible to 
myself, itis the fashion to look upon with an eye of suspicion, or even 
to denounce without scruple as a kind of vegetable squatters on the 
soil of Britam. I may partially except R. rubrum, which is generally 
admitted to be native to the north of England and Scotland, and Mr. 
Watson (Cyb. Brit.) seems disposed to credit its “apparent” claim to 
be thought indigenous in the south also, betraying, by that expres- 
sion, a still lurking reluctance to concede his full assent to the propo- 
sition. Passing on to the third species, R. Grossularia, as requiring 
the same line of defensive argument in its behalf, we find the outcry 
against its indigenous origin general; no one has a word to say in fa- 
vour of a gooseberry-bush beyond praising its fruit, there is some- 
thing (perchance in its name) which indisposes us to receive it as a 
true born Briton. Now, although the gooseberry ideally be right 
pleasantly associated, in a certain savoury mess, with mental simpli- 
city or imbecility, and even expresses, in its English vernacular, the 
type and symbol amongst animals of lack of discretion, I will incur 
the risk of beimg thought actuated by a fondness for both goose and 
fool in pleading the right of this useful, though humble shrub to be 
held an indigenous production, and I would challenge to the argu- 
ment thus: if R. Grossularia be not a native of Britain, show me 
where is its true and undoubted home. This is an important question 
to have answered, because I have uniformly observed, that in the case 
of all those plants whose indigenous origin it has been the custom to 
suspect or deny, no attempt is made to show grounds for the opi- 
nion drawn from the only true touchstone of truth in this matter, the 
geographical distribution of the species beyond the narrow limits of 
our sea-girt isle. We must look abroad for the key to this ever 
vexed question if we would wish it satisfactorily set at rest, which I 
do not despair of seeing finally achieved; but this can never be ac- 
complished so long as we rest contented with taking for granted the 
unsupported opinions of others derived from a contracted sphere of 
observation, and neglect the only data which can give us the solution 
we are seeking. See Phytol. i. p. 518, note. 

Now I find on consulting a great variety of authentic sources, that 
R. Grossularia is distributed over the major part of southern, central 
and northern Europe in precisely the same situations in which I find 
it here at home, and in no other. I cannot learn that it is a native of 
Asia,* Africa or America, from whence we might originally have de- 


* The Asiatic representative of our common gooseberry is the Siberian R. acicu- 
lare of Smith. 


378 


rived it, | therefore conclude it to be a strictly European species, and 
as such, and from its known range, likely to belong to our portion of 
that continent over which we have just seen it is so widely diffused. 
Furthermore, I find the gooseberry inhabiting the deep recesses of 
woods and rocky dells, far from the haunts of man and from cultiva- 
tion. I put these facts together, and think myself justified in drawing 
from them the inference that the gooseberry is as truly native with us 
as it is on the continent of Europe, to which quarter of the globe it 
seems exclusively appropriated. The fact of its being often, and per- 
haps more commonly than otherwise seen in hedges and other doubt- 
ful or suspicious places, is surely, taken by itself, no sound argument 
against the point contended for, because any native plant in such ge- 
neral cultivation would, as this does, be continually straying beyond 
the precincts of the garden, and the more readily as being the natu- 
ral product of the soil and climate.* . As for the hackneyed and po- 
pular mode of accounting for the propagation of this and other sup- 
posed foreigners through the agency of birds dropping the seed, the 
argument is not worth refuting, this bemg one of the many means 
employed by Nature herself for the dissemination of species the seeds 
of which are unfurnished with mechanical contrivances for their diffu- 
sion abroad.t An explanation like the above can only be adverted 
to in the case of plants which we see springing up around habitations 
or in decidedly suspicious places; beyond this it is of no weight or 
value whatever. Ido not, on perusal of the writers of continental 
floras (an extensive collection of which, old and new, I am much in 
the habit of consulting), find the same disposition to doubt the origin 
of species which seem so peculiarly to characterize the botanists of 
this country, that they must needs have recourse to the hypothetical 


* The genus Ribes belts the whole globe under our own and other temperate pa- 
rallels, the species only changing with change of climate and longitude. Thus we 
have R. Grossularia as one appropriated to the woods and rocks of the western extre- 
mity of the old world, R. nigrum, rubrum and alpinum stretching over the entire 
continent from Italy to Lapland, and eastward through Siberia to Kamtschatka, R. 
rubrum extending beyoud Behring’s Straits to the extremest arctic lands of America. 
In the south these species inhabit the mountains or higher grounds, in the north de- 
scending into the plains, and even in our central Europe are found at slight eleva- 
tions or at the sea-level, in cold, shady, or damp situations. Crossing the Atlantic, 
we find under our latitudes in Labrador and Hudson’s Bay, the analogues of our 
black currant and gooseberry in Ribes floridum, Cynosbati and some other American 
species, which finally give place on the west of the Rocky Mountains to R. sangui- 
neum and congenerous kinds with large and showy flowers. 

+ Phytol. ii. p. 518. 


379 


agency of birds, monachism, garden escapes, and other problemati- 
cal and unproved operative causes to account for the dissemination 
of half the plants of our country whose flowers are a little more spe- 
cious in appearance than ordinary,* without considering that Nature 
in her beneficence has not left the most hyperborean regions, or the 
most sterile wastes, unadorned by some rare and lovely floral produc- 
tions to gladden the ‘general desolation, whilst she scatters, with a 
yet more unsparing hand, her richer gems over temperate and fertile 
countries. Cast a glance over the inhospitable and frigid Siberia, on 


* To give one instance out of a hundred that might be adduced, it has been con- 
jectured that the Arbutus which so profusely adorns the Lakes of Killarney and their 
neighbourhood, was introduced by the monks of Mucruss from the south of Europe | 
in very early times, because a tree of such exotic aspect was thought very unlikely to 
be of native growth ; and considering the narrow limits within which it is confined in 
Ireland, and the long leap it has taken to establish itself so far to the northward of 
its limitrophe parallel on the continent of Europe, there seemed reasonable ground for 
the supposition. But more extended observation has amply shown that the sponta- 
neous growth of the Arbutus in the west of Ireland, is clearly demonstrated by some 
plants that accompany it being precisely those which are its associates in the south of 
Europe, and have their vanishing-point in nearly the same parallels and meridians 
with itself. Such are Erica mediterranea, Dabecia polifolia and Euphorbia hy- 
berna, all species of an extreme western distribution, and whose absolute spontaneity 
in Ireland never has been or can be called in question (Phytol. ii. p. 518, note). Had 
this fact been known or reasoned upon, the gratuitous assumption of the introduction 
of the strawberry-tree into Ireland by human agency would never have found favour 
with botanists ; certainly with none who, like myself, have witnessed the wild profu- 
sion in which no hand but Nature’s has flung it forth, in ever-verdant beauty, over 
mountain, crag and rocky islet, amid the splendid scenery of those unrivalled lakes. 
It affords also a triumphant illustration of the value of the study of phyto-geography 
in assisting to ascertain the real limits of plants, and which alone, I repeat as my firm 
conviction, will enable us to adjust the discordant, and I must add, often absurd 
views taken by British botanists of the origin of our indigenous vegetables. I have 
never heard a satisfactory reason, rarely, indeed, any reason at all assigned, why Tilia 
parvifolia, Fagus sylvatica, Humulus Lupulus, Daphne Mezereon, Phyteuma spica- 
tum, Vinca minor, Muscaria racemosum, Narcissus Pseudo-narcissus, Lilium Marta- 
gon, Fritillaria Meleagris, Tulipa sylvestris, Impatiens Noli-me-tangere, Helleborus 
feetidus and viridis, Viola odorata, our three Ribes and many others, should not he 
genuine natives; yet have all these in their turn been starred and daggered, and 
doubted and denounced, some by one and some by another, in a diversity of conflict- 
ing opinions that must sorely puzzle French, German, Dutch, Danish and Swedish 
botanists to comprehend, who are accustomed to consider most of the above species 
as indisputably belonging to their respective floras, and thankfully accept them at the 
hand of Nature without carping and cavilling with disputatious nicety about their 
origin. In the ‘ Manual of British Botany’ many of the typographical symbols of 
scepticism, so frequent in other works on the same subject, have been omitted, which 
is one amongst the reforms which that useful publication has effected. 


380 


the Altaic chain of mountains, and the vast plains at their feet, where 
the mean temperature of the interior of the earth’s crust is but little 
above the freezing-point the year through, yet what an array of even 
southern types of vegetation does the short and not very warm sum- 
mer of some five months’ duration at most unfold to the botanical 
traveller, in the various species of Zygophyllacew, Rutacex, Amarylli- 
daceex, Liliacexw, Tamariscacez, and even of arborescent Leguminose, 
in Halodendron, Caragana, &c., a proof that Nature is not easily re- 
pressed in her efforts to decorate this world of ours with all that is 
fair and lovely, even where climate is most opposed to her benign 
endeavours! And shall not our happy island of Great Britain possess 
some floral beauties truly her own, when the same have been so la- 
vishly bestowed on rude Siberia’s ice-bound hills and deserts? May 
not the lime and beech clothe owr slopes as well as those of France 
and Germany, our woods be carpeted with periwinkle and “ Violets 
dim,” festooned with the wild hop-vine, or made radiant with spring 
daffodils, as well as those of our neighbours across the Channel, with- 
out having our faith in the rightful possession of these gifts of Flora 
shaken or put to flight by eternally hearing from the lips of some bo- 
tanical infidel or other, the ungracious exclamation, “ vix ea nostra 
voco?” : 

It will not, I think, be difficult to trace the causes which have led 
to this remarkable scepticism in the botanists of Great Britain, which 
I shall now briefly proceed to consider. 

Isolation from the rest of Europe by natural position, and a long 
war, had, for a succession of years before the opening of the conti- 
nent in 1815, thrown our botanists upon the scanty stores of informa- 
tion relative to our native plants which could be gleaned from the few 
floras of the kingdom then extant. Since then, and previously to the 
appearance of the Manual, our standard British floras had been com- 
piled by botanists residing in the middle or northern parts of the is- 
land, and who were either not very assiduous in their investigations 
in the field (in some cases from disinclination, in others. from physical 
inability for the performance of a task so laborious and demanding 
such continued exercise of patience and perseverance), or had their 
time and thoughts engaged with professional duties, or devoted to the 
interests of the science in a more general way. Hence it happened, 
that these floras, excellent as they were in other respects, were ex- 
tremely defective on some points where minute and oft-repeated per- 
sonal observation was required to attain to accuracy. Such were the 
flowering-times of the species, their distribution over the country, and 


381 


the question of spontaneity. The want of foreign authors, by consult- 
ing whose writings these and many similar omissions and mistakes might 
have been avoided, but of whose labours we neglected to avail ourselves 
long after they were made accessible to us by the peace, gave para- 
mount authority in turn to the Floras of Withering, Smith and 
Hooker, and the tendency in mankind to credit the verba magistri 
rather than take the trouble to think and inquire for themselves, pro- 
pagated a host of errors on these heads, whilst opinions were bandied 
about at second hand, without any accession of truth from abroad, in 
an endless round of crude assertion or conjecture. Add to this, that 
the comparatively few field botanists of the day were for the most 
part men of the old Linnean school of collectors, who, if they could 
but add a rare plant to their herbarium, or a new species to the na- 
tional flora, were little solicitous to advance the philosophy of the 
science by any observations on the structure, habits or distribution of 
our indigenous vegetation. We are too prone to imagine that in the 
way of discovery all has been found that can be found, and it has 
more than once happened to myself to hear ou the announcement of 
a new plant an expression of doubt or surprise, such as, “Oh, indeed! 
but I cannot find it in Hooker, Smith or Withering ;” the process of 
inferential reasoning being apparently this: if a native, it should be 
in those authors, — those great authorities could hardly have been ig- 
norant of its existence, it has therefore probably been planted or 
otherwise introduced. 

Fries* complains, that the botanists of middle Sweden do not suf- 
ficiently confide in the genial climate and soil of Scania, and hence 
refuse admittance into the ‘ Flora Suecica’ to many plants which he 
thinks should rightfully enter therein, because not having seen them 
truly wild in their own districts, they cannot be persuaded to believe 
them so in this, the most southerly province of Scandinavia. A simi- 
lar and equally erroneous impression as regards the plants of our 
southern coast may be occasionally traced in the floras of Scotland 
and the north of England, in which some of our most indubitably na- 
tive plants have had their spontaneity questioned all over the king- 
dom, because in those parts of it they never appear as aboriginals.f 


* Fries Nov. Fl. Suec. p. 10. 

+ Thus in the ‘Flora of Forfarshire, very lately published, the author observes of 
Narcissus Pseudo-narcissus (p. 191), that “it has probably no claim to be considered a 
British plant, but is hardy and easily naturalized.” Mr. Gardiner could never have 
seen this species as it displays its boundless profusion of flowers over acres of our re- 
motest woodlands, or have studied its geographical distribution on the continent, or 


VOL; II. 3D 


382 


But this loose mode of reasoning is best met by referring to the dis- 
tribution of the suspected species abroad, which will seldom fail to 
expose the fallacious premises. Popular and historical tradition is 
the last ground I shall mention as having been advanced against the 
indigenous claim of some British species. Thus the spontaneity of 
the hop has been opposed on the faith of an old distich not very 
much to the purpose if fairly examined, and that of the cherry and 
beech on evidence which has nothing but its classicality to recom- 
mend it. With respect to the hop, Sir James Smith says, “TI have 
sometimes suspected hops not to be indigenous, which was also the 
opinion of Lightfoot with regard to Scotland. But Haller says they 
are never cultivated in Switzerland, where nevertheless the wild plant 
is abundant, and it may with equal probability be reckoned a native 
of Britain” (Engl. FI. iv. p. 241). Sir James might have added, that 
a plant found in every country of Europe, from Spain and Italy to 
Norway, Finland, and Russia, as high as 63° of latitude, and through- 
out Siberia and a part of North America, is not unlikely to be indige- 
nous to the British Isles. Iam convinced that no plant is more truly 
and incontestably wild than the hop with us; it abounds even to pro- 
fusion in the Isle of Wight, where it is never cultivated, and quite as 
much in those parts of mainland Hants where hop grounds do not 
exist as where its cultivation is most extensively carried on. Yet 
Sir Wm. Hooker brands it with the asterisk as a certainly introduced 
species, though without assigning any reason for doing so. Smith, 
we see, appeals to geographical distribution against his own scepti- 
cism, but apparently without knowing the full power of the argument 
he employs; his conversion is therefore less hearty and entire than it 
would probably have been had he traced the range of this species to 
its utmost limits. This example of the hop is instructive, as showing 
on what slight grounds, or none at all, the nativity of our plants has 
been questioned or denied. But an end to this long yet I trust not 
altogether useless digression. 


he would scarcely have formed so hasty an assumption. He would have seen that it 
is the last outlying species towards the north of its eminently European genus, ran- 
ging through Holland, Belgium, and Germany to the south shores of the Baltic, and 
‘therefore quite as likely to be indigenous with us up to the same latitude (54°) in its 
perfectly wild looking localities. Indeed, it is now admitted on all hands to be a true 
native of England, after some nonsense spoken at times, more majorum nostratum, 
about having been perhaps a garden flower and introduced by the monks, and so forth. 
I quote from the above useful and agreeably written little work to show how error may 
be originated and kept alive by such gratuitous conjectures as these. 


383 


Saxifraga granulata. Meadows and pastures; rare? Abundant 
on Magdalen Hill and elsewhere near Winton; Dr. A. D. White!!! 
Chilbolton; Dr. Pulteney in Hamp. Rep. Pingleston Down, near 
Alton; Mr. F. Forder. St. Mary Bourne, three miles from Whit- 
church; Miss Hadfield! Near Andover, at Clanville; Mr. Wm. 
Whale. Not found in the Isle of Wight. 

tridactylites. On walls, rocks, and sandy ground. In 
several parts of the Isle of Wight, but by no means common. Walls 
of Quarr Abbey, and on Gatcomb Church. Abundant on the sandy 
shore of Gurnet Bay; Miss G. E. Kilderbee!!! Common on old 
walls at Winchester. At Wallington and N. Fareham; Mr. W. L. 
Notcutt. » 

Chrysosplenium oppositifolium. In wet places, ditches, brooks, 
&e. Abundantly throughout the county and Isle of Wight. 

Se alternifolium. Very rare. Near Hedley; Mr. 
Brown in Merrett’s Pinax. Found there, but very sparingly, in 1844, 
by Mr. W. W. Reeves, to whose kindness I am indebted for a speci- 
men of a plant of uncommon occurrence in the south generally. 


[To be continued]. 


ERRATA. 


Page 336, for Beeker read Becker, and for Frankfort read Frank- 
Jurt ‘the German orthography for that city). 

Page 337, for Langwood read Longwood. 

Page 338, second line, for eastern read earthen. 

Page 339, for Bartoloni read Bertoloni, and third line from bot- 
tom, for mashes read marshes. 

Page 341, the words dark green should have been in italics, be- 
cause they allude to the Cerastium atrovirens of Babington. As the 
words stand without emphasis their meaning will probably be unin- 
telligible to nearly all readers. 

Page 343, for angustifolius read angustissimus, and lastly, for gage 
read Gage, as being a proper name. 

Wm. A. BRoMFIELD. 


Eastmount House, Ryde, 
Isle of Wight, November 6, 1848. 


384 


BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 


Friday, November 3, 1848.—J. E. Gray, Esq., F.R.S., President, 
in the chair. 

The following donations were announced :— 

‘The Hand-Book of British Ferns, by T. Moore, presented by the 
author; ‘ Proceedings of the Literary and Philosophical Society of 
Liverpool during the 36th Session,’ presented by that Society; Parts 
1 and 2 of Vol. i. of the ‘Transactions of the Tyneside Naturalists’ 
Field Club,’ presented by the Club. 

T. C. Hunt, Esq., Her Majesty’s Consul at St. Michael’s, presented 
a box of Azorean specimens, including four species not previously 
known to occur in those isles, one of them being a remarkable hand- 
some Vicia, but whether a new species, or one already described, has 
not yet been satisfactorily ascertained. 

Mr. Hewett Watson presented some foreign plants, chiefly Euro- ~ 
pean and Canarian. 

British plants had been received from Mr. Hewett Watson, Dr. 
Bromfield, Dr. Bossey, Dr. Dewar, Mr. G. S. Gibson, Mr. J. B. 
French, the Rev. Andrew Bloxam, the Rev. H. Marsham, Mr. H. 
Taylor, Mr. T. Bentall, Mr. James Ward, Mr. J. Hussey, Mr. R. 
Withers, Mr. G. Lawson, Mr. W. B. Booth, Mr. J. Storey, Mr. S. 
Hailstone, Mr. B. D. Wardale, Mr. James Bladon, Mr. J. L. Law- 
rence, Mr. F. Barham, Mr. J. W. Salter, the Rev. T. Butler, Mr. S. P. 
Woodward, Mr. T. Moore, Mr. E. G. Varenne, Mr. D. Price, Mr. J. 
Reynolds, Mr. G. Cooper, Mr. J. Rich, Mr. G. Rich, and Mr. G. E. 
Dennes. 

W. Brown, Esq., G. Hickman, Esq., R. Withers, Esq., and J. 
Stewart, Esq., were elected members. 

Mr. W. B. Booth exhibited a specimen of Erica Watsoni, one of 
the intermediate forms between E. ciliaris and E. Tetralix, referred 
to the former species by Mr. Bentham, in De Candolle’s Prodromus, 
but to the latter species by Mr. Watson, its first discoverer many 
years ago. The specimen presented by Mr. Booth resembled both 
E. Tetralix and E. Mackaii more closely than it resembled E. ciliaris, 
although still inclining partially to the last of these three by its ven- 
tricose corolla. Though apparently a hybrid between the two, with 
intermediate characters, the aristate anthers assign it to E. Tetralix 
in preference to E. ciliaris.—G. E. D. 


E., NEWMAN, PRINTER, 9, DEVONSHIRE STREET, BISHOPSGATE STREET. 


~ 2 


THE PHYTOLOGINST. 


Occurrence of Filago spatulata at Inworth, Essex. 
By E. G. VARENNE, Esq. 


Ir you and your readers are not yet quite tired of communications 
respecting Filago germanica, and its near allies, perhaps you will al- 
low me to record the occurrence of Filago spatulata, Pres/, in a field 
of cultivated land at Inworth, in this county, where it was growing 
in great profusion about the end of last month. 

It may serve as a hint to botanists (who pursue their researches in 
agricultural districts in the autumn months) not to neglect to secure 
specimens when opportunity serves, to state that two or three days 
after discovering the plant, on visiting the locality with the view of 
obtaining a few specimens for distribution, I found the field entirely 
ploughed up and the habitat temporarily destroyed. 

Filago spatulata is large and straggling, furnished with numerous 
loose leaves, which are all more or less spathulate, and nearly entirely 
conceal the young clusters of flowers. It bears a rough resemblance 
to large specimens of Gnaphalium uliginosum, and would have been 
passed over for the latter had not a few plants been gathered for ex- 
amination. The mode of growth of this species in assuming the pros- 
trate form is peculiar, and perhaps worthy of notice. In the few spe- 
cimens which attempted to grow erect, the branches hung downwards 
from the stem, somewhat after the manner of the branches of the 
weeping ash. A form with a short upright stem, from the lowermost 
portion of which several trailing branches were su off, was found 
about Kelvedon during the past summer. 

The heads of flowers, when fully developed, have very little hairi- 
ness or down on the outer surface of the scales; the number in the 
cluster in those examined was about twelve. The clusters are neither 
numerous nor very conspicuous; and the regular divaricating charac- 
ter of the branches, as usually found in Filago germanica, is not to 
be met with in the Inworth specimens of Filago spatulata. 


E. G. VARENNE. 
Kelvedon, Essex, November 13, 1848. 


ViOL.11, 35 


386 


List of the rarer Plants growing near Doncaster and Huddersfield. 
By Evinu Berry, Esq. 


In your November number of the ‘ Phytologist, there are two ar- 
ticles treating on the distribution of the rarer plants growing in the 
neighbourhood of Doncaster and Huddersfield ; in continuation I beg 
leave to forward for your insertion in the next number, some of the 
rarer plants growing about Barnsley, a locality mid-way between the 
above places; should this be acceptable to your readers, I shall in 
future extend my researches, and report upon them. 

Ranunculacee. Ranunculus hederaceus, in a pond corner of White- 
cross-wood, Worsbro’ Dale, plentifully, and several other places. 

Nympheacee. Nymphea alba, abundant in the river Dearne, two. 
miles below Barnsley. 

Fumariacee. Fumaria claviculata, in Mottram-wood. 

Violacee. Viola odorata, about Monk Bretton priory, and the 
Yews-farm. 

Leguminose. Anthyllis Vulneraria, on the canal bank by the 
Oakes-farm. Arthrolobium ebracteatum, in the same situation. 

Rosacea. Sanguisorba officinalis, in the meadows side of the 
Dearne below Barnsley. 

Onagracee. Circa Lutetiana, abundantly in the above locality. 

Umbellifere. Oinanthe Phellandrium, in a pool by Cliffe-wood. 
Sanicula Europea, in a coppice, Pag-moor. Apium graveolens, 
Grange-lane. Aigopodium Podagraria, side of the Dearne below 
Monk Bretton priory. Angelica sylvestris, White-cross-wood. To- 
rilis Anthriscus and Anthriscus sylvestris, very common here. 

Araliacee. Adoxa Moschatellina, in a shady lane by the side of 
the Dearne, near the village of Ardsley. 

Valerianacee. Valeriana officinalis, in Scorah-wood, Ardsley. 

Composite. Inula Conyza, in a field by Smithy-wood. Chrysan- 
themum segetum, one mile north of Barnsley. Centaurea Cyanus, in 
a field on Burton bank. 

Labiate. Scutellaria galericulata, on the canal banks, Ardsley. 
Ballota nigra, about Monk Bretton. Clinopodium vulgare, on the 
road-side going to the railway station. Lycopus Europeus, in the 
Grange-lane. 

Plantaginacee. Plantago Coronopus, on Nesbro-hill, plentifully. 

Alismacee. Sagittaria Sagittifolia, in the canal, Ardsley, plenti- 
fully. 

Naiadacee. Potamogeton perfoliatus, ditto. 


387 


Liliacee. Allium ursinum, plentifully in the woods. 

Juncacee. Juncus bufonius, abundant in every moist place, along 
with several other species. 

Iridacee. Iris Pseudacorus, plentiful in the bottom of Scorah- 
wood, Ardsley. 

Filices. Polypodium vulgare, Asplenium Trichomanes and Ruta- 
muraria, plentifully on the garden wall, Swarthe-hall and Birk-house. 

Graminacee and Cyperacee. Ihave omitted to mention their dis- 
tribution and localities, as sometime I may favour you with a separate 


article upon them. 
ELinu Berry. 


Park-house, Barnsley, Yorkshire, 
November 13, 1848 


Occurrence of Udora in the Lene, near Nottingham. 
By Miss Mary Krrsy. 


Mr. JAMES MitcHEL has kindly favoured me with a specimen of 
Udora, not in flower, but apparently identical with the plant of Fox- 
ton reservoirs, discovered by himself in the Lene, a rather rapid and 
very dirty stream, tributary to the Trent. After the subsidence of a 
flood, Mr. M. informs me, his attention was arrested by pieces of 
Udora left upon the grass in Nottingham meadows; he traced the 
plant to the river, and found it growing in great profusion for about 
a quarter of a mile in extent. 

Will you allow me to insert a few addenda to the ‘ Flora of Leices- 
tershire,’ for which I am indebted to botanists in the county? The 
note of interrogation to the Ophrys apifera may be erased, the Rev. 
T. C. Holland having supplied me with the locality “ near Kegworth.” 

Ranunculus Lenormandi. 

Fumaria micrantha. 

capreolata. 

Mr. Holland observes, “ It is remarkable that this flower, which was 
not previously in the field, has sprung up profusely on every heap of 
earth thrown up in digging the foundations of the nunnery at Lough- 
borough.” 

Vicia Bobartit. 

Lonicera Xylosteum. 

Galium erectum. 

Centauria nigra, var. radiata. 


388 


Orobanche elatior. 
Festuca myurus. 
Avena strigosa. 
Lolium multifiorum. 
Glyceria plicata. 
Mary Kirpy. 
Friar Lane, Leicester, November 14, 1848. 


Note on, and Query respecting the Flowering of Mentha sylvestris. 
By GeorcE Lawson, Esq. 


Your correspondent Mr. Snooke, whom the inaccuracy of our 
Floras led to walk a distance of eleven miles and back in vain, in 
search of the lovely Menyanthes, will no doubt find many sympa- 
thizers among your readers, for few field-botanists there can be but 
have occasionally experienced disappointment and chagrin in a 
similar way. 

In the end of September last I, too, found occasion to enter into 
deep sympathy with Mr. Snooke, having, along with a friend, walked 
eleven long miles and back in the vain hope of seeing Mentha syl- 
vestris in flower, at our Sidlaw Hill station. I had previously seen 
the broad patches of the plant in August; but there was at that time 
no appearance of its flowering, and as the months of August, Septem- 
ber, and October are those indicated in botanical works as the flowering 
period, I thought the end of September a good time, and accordingly 
set out at that time on a journey to the station to see the plant in flower, 
being accompanied by my friend Mr. John Syme. However, on ar- 
riving at the Mentha ground, we could trace no symptoms of flowering, 
and although the plant seemed in good health, there was no reason to 
suppose it would flower this season, the season being so far advanced, 
and not the slightest appearance of a flower-bud. 

I do not mean to find fault with our botanical authors for our Sid- 
law plant not flowering this season, the object of the present note 
being to inquire whether the Mentha, in the more genial clime of 
England (where I believe it is not a rarity as with us), is ever observed 
to remain barren for a season? If not, may the circumstance of its 
not regularly producing flowers at the Sidlaw station militate against 
its nativity there? Perhaps some of your kind southern readers may 
feel sufficient interest in the subject to favour us with the result of 
their observations in an early number of the ‘ Phytologist.’ 


389 


I never saw the Mentha in flower, and my deceased esteemed friend 
Mr. William Jackson for once informed me that he had never seen it 
either, although he had often botanized in the Sidlaw district; but its 
flowering period (if my memory serves me rightly) is stated in the 
‘Forfarshire Flora’ of Mr..Gardiner as August, September, October, 
and it would be useful, as well as interesting, for local naturalists to 
pay the station a visit during these months, for a series of years, and 
ascertain how often it does flower. 

I may add that the plant grows abundantly by the wayside; but 
nowhere on the undisturbed natural heathy ground around, and this 
circumstance may form a slight additional objection to its nativity, if 
the other is sustained. 


GEORGE LAWSON. 
7, Saunders Street, Stockbridge, 
Edinburgh, November 14, 1848. 


Notice of a New Locality for Anacharis alsinastrum, Bab. [Udora, 
see ante, 387]. By Tuomas Kirk, Esq. 


A FEW days ago, being in the neighbourhood of Watford, North- 
amptonshire, I paid a visit to Watford Locks, on the line of (I believe) 
the Junction Canal, thinking that as the locality is on the same line 
of canal as Foxton Locks, the Anacharis might be found in the re- 
servoirs attached thereto. As soon as I arrived within sight of the 
reservoirs, I noticed that the further end of the upper one was covered 
with what at that distance appeared to be a species of Potamogeton, 
or Myriophyllum, but which on a closer inspection proved to be Ana- 
charis alsinastrum, Bab. <A further search showed it to be abundant 
in all four of the reservoirs ; in some places being as much as eighteen 
inches or two feet below the surface of the water, and in others, more 
particularly in the upper reservoir, floating on the surface, but very 
abundant in all four. 

Although I searched diligently during the short time I spent at the 
locality, I could not detect the least vestige of fruit. The stems are 
two feet or more in length, and the whorls of leaves much farther 
apart than in a Leicestershire specimen in a state of fructification, 
which I possess through the kindness of the Rev. A. Bloxam. That 
gentleman, however, thinks it a similar species. Probably the diffe- 
rence is only owing to the season in which the specimens were gathered. 


390 


The summer and winter states of many aquatics are widely different. 
I observed that when water was drawn from the reservoirs into 
either of the locks, the force of the current detached small sprigs of 
the Anacharis, which were carried through the slime into the lock, 
and thence into the body of the canal, so that in all probability other 
localities exist in the canal itself, as well as in reservoirs belonging 
to it. 

The circumstance of this locality being connected with that at Fox- 
ton Locks, will strengthen the opinion of those botanists who regard 
the Anacharis as an introduced plant. I think there can be little 
doubt that one locality was supplied from the other; as apparantly 
only female plants are found in each, but how it was originally natu- 
turalized in either of these artificial situations I can scarcely conjec- 
ture. Altogether, I think all the recorded localities in this country 
seem rather to prove it an introduced plant than a true native. 

THomas Kirk. 

Coventry, November 18, 1848. 


Notes on the Flora of Dumfriesshire. By W1ILLIAM STEVENS, Esq. 


THE accompanying observations on the rarer portion of the Dum- 
friesshire Flora, have been made on various occasions during the last 
twelvemonth’s residence in that county. I do not, of course, pretend 
to give a complete list of all the rarities which may occur in the dis- 
trict, the species here enumerated being only such as have come un- 
der my own actual observation; but such as they are, they may contain 
some little not unworthy the notice of those who feel interested in the 
distribution of our native Flora. I have given them in the form of an 
arranged list of species, so that any remarks upon the general features 
of the county would be superfluous, but it will be seen that in a bo- 
tanical point of view it is by no means uninteresting. 

Ranunculus Lenormandi. This is of frequent occurrence in pools 
and ditches about Thornhill; particularly abundant in a ditch by the 
road-side near the ruins of Carlaverock Castle, on the Solway coast, 
also in the neighbourhood of Moffat. 

Thalictrum alpinum. Plentiful in a rocky ravine near the Saddle- 
back, and upon other hills in its vicinity. _ 

Subularia aquatica. Loch Skew, intermixed with Littorella lacus- 
tris, which latter is by far more abundant. 


391 


Barbarea stricta. Waste ground by the Skarr water, near Penpout ; 
it also occurs in two or three localities by the side of the Nith, between 
Thornhill and Dumfries, but sparingly. 

Viola lutea. There is a purple-flowered variety extremely abun- 
dant on nearly all the hills bounding the county of Dumfries to the 
east, and indeed in almost every meadow and bank in the upper part 
of Nithsdale, but I have only seen the true yellow form in a single 
spot upon the Leadhills, near the village of Wanlockhead, where there 
are growing together yellow, purple, and white, with almost every in- 
termediate shade of colour. 

Geranium sylvaticum. Nithside, in Drumlanrig woods, plentiful; a 
variety with the flowers much smaller, and of a rose colour, occurs in 
a plantation by the side of the Edinburgh-road, near Carron-bridge ; 
it is probably the same as that mentioned in Bab. Man. as found at 
Dollar, by Dr. Greville, and which the author supposes to be the var. 
B. fastigiatum (Fries). 

Callitriche pedunculata, 8. sessilis. Margin of Loch Skew, at the 
end nearest to the White Coombe. 

Saxifraga stellaris. Common upon the hills on the north side of 
Annandale; at the face of the Gray Mare’s-tail, growing with a pro- 
fusion of S. oppositifolia. 

Carum verticillatum is of frequent occurrence in marshy meadows 
around Penpout, Thornhill, Dalvene, &c. 

(nanthe Lachenalii. Salt marshes on the east side of the Nith, 
extending from about five miles below Dumfries to its confluence 
with the Solway. 

Peucedanum Ostruthium. At the foot of Carron-bridge. 

Valeriana pyrenaica. Drumlanrig woods. 

Saussurea alpina. Rocky ravine near the Saddleback. 

* Doronicum Pardalianches. Banks of the Nith, Drumlanrig woods. 

Erythrea littoralis. Plentiful on the Solway coast. Near the 
mouth of the Nith, in salt marshes. 

Mimulus luteus. This plant seems to be naturalized in a wood 
near T'ynron, and in a boggy meadow above Drumlanrig it is very 
plentiful and luxuriant. 

*Mieracium rigidum, 8. pictum. On rocks above Dalvene pass, 
on the Lowther hills. 

Myposotis repens. This species, which is far from being generally 
distributed, appears to be not uncommon over the south-east of Dum- 
friesshire, particularly about Moffat, where it may be seen with M. 
cespitosa to supply the place of the usually common M. palustris. 


392 


Anagallis tenella. A rather rare plant in Scotland. I observed it 
growing with Statice Limonium in salt marshes on the Solway coast, 
near the mouth of the Nith.- Is not this a somewhat uncommon 
situation for this plant? 

Atriplex erecta and A. deltoidea are common, the former on dung- 
hills and waste places, and the latter in corn-fields about Thornhill 
and Drumlanrig. 

Rumex alpinus. Several large plants by the road-side near Close- 
burn mills; and morefplentifully by the side of a stream at the Eccles, 
near Penpout, but I have never met with it in flower. 

Salix herbacea. Near and upon the summit of the White Coombe. 

Habenaria albida. UHeathy pasture near Penpout; Queensberry 
moors. 

chlorantha. A few solitary plants in Drumlanrig woods. 

Arum maculatum. Drumlanrig woods, sparingly. 

Potamogeton lanceolatus. Stagnant pools at the foot of the Mor- 
ton hills, near Locherben ; ditch near Anchen Binzie Loch. 
gramineus. Loch by the side of the Edinburgh-road, 
about five miles from Dumfries. 

Juncus maritimus. Plentiful in salt marshes near the mouth of 
the Nith. 

Carex paucifiora. Side of streams on the Lowther hills, near Dal- 
vene pass; a very long and slender state occurs in a boggy meadow 
above Drumlanrig Castle. 
atrata. Rocky cliffs on the top of a hill near Hartfell. 
rigida. Summit of Hartfell, over a space of more than 
half a mile. 
extensa. Marsh by the side of the Edinburgh-road, near 
Darrisdere ; and in great plenty above the fall of the Gray Mare’s-tail. 
capillaris. Near Hartfell, in company with C. atrata. 
irrigua. In a boggy meadow at the foot of the Morton 
hills, near the ruins of Morton Castle. The Dumfries locality for this 
plant has, I believe, been lately destroyed by drainage. 

Avena strigosa. Corn-fields near Dumfries. 

Rottboellia incurvata. Salt marshes on the Solway coast, near 
Carlaverock Castle. 

Ceterach officinarum. On walls about Drumlanrig. 

Woodsia ilvensis. This rare and handsome little fern I found in 
considerable abundance, on very steep, crumbling rocks, amongst the 
hills dividing the counties of Dumfries and Peebles, in July last; it is 
growing in dense tufts in the crevices of the rocks, and very luxuriant, 
many of the fronds measuring nearly six inches in length. 


393 


Allosorus crispus. Stony hills about Loch Skew, also very 
plentiful on the Morton range. 

Asplenium viride. Moist rocks at the Gray Mare’s-tail. 

Hymenophyllum Wilsoni. Moist rocks in several places, as Dal- 
vene Pass; Nithside; side of the Skarr water, near Penpout, &c. 

Lycopodium selaginoides. Common on the Lowthers, Morton hills, 
and Nynron, at the latter place it is pected by L. oer L. al- 
pinum, and L. clavatum. 


~ WILLIAM STEVENS. 
December, 1848. 


Inquiry respecting Thalictrum Kochit. By the Rev. D. Broveuron. 


You would confer a favour on remote country simplers like myself 
if you would insert in your next the character of Thalictram Kochii 
(Fries), mentioned by Babington in the last edition of his Manual as 
possibly growing at Twll du, in Carnarvonshire. 

I gathered a Thalictrum there in September last, which may pos- 
sibly be the one he had in view; but being at the time, like Dr. Syn- 
tax, merely in search of the picturesque, and unprovided with any 
apparatus for the importation of specimens, and not being aware at 
the time of Babington’s observation, I crammed the plant which I 
gathered into my hat, under a kind of impression that it did not ex- 
actly resemble any I had seen before ; and so when I came to extract 
it for examination, it no more resembled its ownself than Tibault did 
after he was mangled. 

The inflorescence is remarkably different from that of Thalictrum 
minus. I am not acquainted with Thalictrum elatum (Jacg.), but 
my specimen agrees better with Koch’s description of that plant than 
any other, only I should characterize it as “Floribus wmbellatis’ ver- 
ticillatisque,” not subumbellatis. 

It does not correspond with either tab. 419 or 420 of Jac. Flor. 
Aust., but is certainly more like the — ae that the caulis is szJ- 
catus. 

I should not have troubled: you with these observations but that’ 
perhaps they may stimulate the curiosity of other and better botanists 
than I pretend to. be, or induce some one out of mere charity to cor- 
rect the errors of your humble servant. 


D. Broucuton. 
Nantwich, December, 1848. 


VOL. Il. ak 


394 


P.S.—Thalictrum Kochii is not mentioned, as far as I can find, by 
Koch, De Candolle, Walpers, or Steudel. 


[ Thalictrum Kochii (Fries). “Stem hollow, straight, naked, 
smooth, striated underneath the rounded and horizontally spreading 
auricles of the sheaths, petioles angularly ribbed, leaflets roundish 
3-5 cleft paler underneath, panicle elongate erect, flowers scattered 
and with the stamens drooping, carpels from a short and very obtuse 
base ovate equal 10-ribbed.” 

The above is the character assigned for Th. Kochii in the ‘Summa 
Vegetabilium’ of Fries. It will contrast sufficiently well with the 
character of Th. minus, as given in the second (not first) edition of 
Babington’s Manual, and may enable Mr. Broughton to decide for 
himself to which of the two species his specimen from Twill dt 
should be referred. In the absence of any specimen from that ele- 
vated locality, the inferences to be drawn from their distribution in 
Scandinavia, although yet too imperfectly ascertained, would point to 
some other of the subordinate species which have been included un- 
der the vaguely general name of Th. minus, as more likely to occur 
at Twll di.—H. C. Watson.*] 


Notes on a Botanical Excursion in Roxburghshire. 
By ARCHIBALD JERDON, Esq. 


On the morning of the 7th July last, I set out to fulfil a long-plan- 
ned excursion with a friend who resides in the village of Denholm, 
about halfway between the towns of Jedburgh and Hawick. As I 
rode, the day, which had been fine in the morning, became dull and 
misty, but I continued my journey in hopes that it might clear up 
again. I arrived at my friend’s about 11 o’clock, and we immediately 
started on our expedition. 

We first bent our steps to Denholm-dean, an extensive wooded 
glen near the village, and proceeded up it for about half a mile. 
Here we met with Pyrola media, and saw where Carduus heterophy]- 
lus had been, for the flowering stems had been cut over, probably by 
some of the villagers procuring litter for their cow or pig. My friend 
also pointed out a small patch or two of Melampyrum sylvaticum, 
which I had never seen before, the species commonly found in our 


* Obligingly communicated at the request of the Editor. 


395 


woods being M. pratense. We saw also Veronica montana in a 
damp, moist spot. 

On emerging from the Dean we passed through several fields, and 
then began to ascend Ruberslaw, a conical hill of the trap formation, 
rocky towards the summit, which attains an elevation of about 1400 
feet above the level of the sea. The hill is barren and infertile, 
stunted heather (Calluna vulgaris) forming the chief herbage, and the 
trees in a belt of plantation which nearly encircles it, at no great dis- 
tance from the top, are few and deformed. Nevertheless, we found 
one or two plants worth mentioning. As we ascended, a single plant 
of Listera cordata was gathered on the open hill-side, and Orchis ma- 
culata and Gymnadenia conopsea grew in some abundance in the 
same situation. In a small hollow Lastrza Oreopteris was plentifully 
mingled with L. Filix-mas. 

We reached the summit without much difficulty, but rain and wind 
did not let us long enjoy the beautiful view, which comprehends nearly 
all Roxburghshire and Berwickshire, and is bounded only by the dis- 
tant Lammermuirs and Cheviots towards the north and east, and by 
the hill-country of Roxburgh and Selkirk shires towards the south 
and west. Among débris of rocks near the summit we found Alloso- 
rus crispus abundantly, and in crevices of the rocks Lycopodium se- 
lago, in small quantity. 

We descended the hill on the north side somewhat wet and un- 
comfortable, and no rarities met our eyes, unless a few specimens of 
Veronica scutellata in a marshy spot can be considered as such. 

After refreshing ourselves at my friend’s house in the village, we 
again sallied forth to explore Minto Crags, an abrupt eminence clothed 
with wood on the opposite side of the river Teviot. Crossing this 
river by a suspension bridge close to the village, we walked along its 
banks for some distance. Here my friend pointed out a large patch 
of Euphorbia Esula, growing in a bushy spot in the heugh or level 
waste ground which borders the river’s “ wild and willowed shore.” 
At this juncture rain again prevailed much to our discomfort, but we 
trudged on determined to accomplish our purpose. There are walks 
formed on the side of the Crags, at various heights, besides a carriage 
drive at the foot, and we gradually wound our way to the summit, 
where are the ruins of a small tower or border-keep. 

In our way up we found, growing on the rocks, Lychnis viscaria, 
which had nearly done flowering, Sedum reflexum, not yet in flower, 
and Geranium lucidum. Near the top Sedum acre was plentiful, and 
the great rarity of the place, Asplenium septentrionale, filled the cre- 


396 


vices of the rocks in some abundance. In the old castle Asplenium 
Adiantum-nigrum Se ane: here and there from the corners of 
the walls. 

Minto Crags are also of the trap foordantions but the rock is harder 
and denser than that of. Ruberslaw. They form a very picturesque 
object, the base being’ strewed with large masses of rock, of every 
shape and form, and the grey face of the precipitous parts contrasting 
well with the green foliage of the trees, which clothe the crags from 
head to foot. 

The day wearing on, we returned to Denholm, after visiting the 
beautiful flower-garden at Minto House, and I wended my way home- 
wards much pleased with my excursion. 


ARCHIBALD JERDON. 
Mossburnford, near Jedburgh, 


November 29, 1848. 


BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 


Wednesday, November 29, 1848.— Twelfth Anniversary Meeting. 
John Edward Gray, Esq., F.R.S., President, in the chair. 

Donations of British plants: were announced from Mr. Thomas 
Bodenham, Mr. J. D. Salmon, Mr. J. Tatham, junr., Mr. T. Sansom, 
Miss M. Beevor, the Rev. W. W. Newbould, Dr. Wood, Mr. F. Brent, 
and Mrs. Atkins. 

Foreign plants had been received from Mr. Anderson. 

The Secretary read the annual Report of the Council, from which 
it appeared that 23 new members had been elected since the last An- 
niversary. The distribution of specimens to the members had given 
the greatest satisfaction, and many valuable specimens had been re- 
ceived from members, and other botanists, for distribution during the 
ensuing season. The Report was unanimously adopted; after which 
a ballot took place for the Council for the ensuing year, when the 
Chairman was re-elected President, and he nominated John Miers, 
Esq., F.R.S., and E. Doubleday, Esq., F.L.S., Vice-Presidents. Dr. 
Cooke and J. W. Rogers, Esq., were elected new members of the 
Council, in the room of: John Coppin, Esq., M.A., and Dr. Parkin, 
who retire in rotation. Mr. J. Reynolds and Mr. G. E. Dennes were 
respectively re-elected Treasurer and Secretary. Mr. Thomas Moore 
was elected Librarian.—G. EH. D. 


397 


Note on Rubus nitidus of the ‘ Rubi Germanici, and on some Speci- 
mens so named in the Smithian Herbarium. By Evwtn LEEs, 
Ksq., F.L.S. 


In my last communication there are two errors (one at least attach- 
able to the compositor), which it will be best to correct,forthwith, espe- 
cially as I thus unintentionally, as the context shows, misrepresent 
my accurately-observant friend the Rev. Andrew Bloxam.. It is 
stated at p. 363 that Mr. Bloxam had informed me that Mr. Babing- 
ton’s plicatus was identical with my leucostachys, the fact being, as 
shown by the very title of the paper, that it was Mr. Babington’s ni- 
tidus to which Mr. Bloxam’s information had reference. The other 
misprint, at p. 360, is “caule folii feré glabro,” as if Weihe & Nees 
had stated the stem of nitidus to be almost smooth instead of quite 
so, without any qualification, the words being, “ caule foliifero gla- , 
bro,”—the leafy or barren stem entirely smooth. 

Being thus obliged to take up my pen, it may not be amiss to im- 
prove the opportunity by a few remarks on the specimens named 
nitidus in the Smithian herbarium, which will be a supplementary aid 
to my former observations, and at all events show what Sir J. E. 
Smith truly meant by his designations R. nitidus and R. affinis in the 
‘English Flora.’. When an eminent botanist, like Mr. Woods, says 
in a former number of the ‘ Phytologist,’ that he never ventures to 
offer an opinion on a bramble, one ought, perhaps, to feel a little dif- 
fidence when pronouncing a decision on dried specimens of Rubi; 
but an experience of more than a dozen years among thorny thickets 
enables me to recognize the physiognomy of my old lacerators, and 
so fearlessly (if I may be pardoned the vulgarism) come up to the 
scratch. 1 have been often asked what there could be worthy of at- 
tention in a common blackberry or thorny briar? But I can truly say 
in reply, that from the stony woods of the Cotswolds, where the ruby 
fruit of R. saxatilis adorns the broken oolite, to the deep glens of 
Devon, where the roaring Lyn is shaded by almost ever-verdant, 
drooping shrubs of R. suberectus; nay, on to the sandy dunes of the 
shores of North Wales, where the dewberry spreads its bloomy drupes 
among a matted mass of creeping stems; or with flowering raspberry 
bushes in the odorous and balmy woods of May; to say little of the 
sable clusters beautifying the hedges of autumn on woodland height 
or in sequestered dingle; I have found abundant food for enjoyment, 
reflection and observation. It is true that I have occasionally re- 


398 


ceived an unkind cut or rough detainer from a surly, straggling bram- 
ble on whose toe I have trodden, but there is a moral lurking even 
here ; for friends are occasionally snappish as briars, and it saves fur- 
ther laceration to wnhook quietly! But to come out of this thicket 
of digression, and return to the Rubi in the Linn. Soc. Museum. 

There are several specimens in the Smithian herbarium named R. 
nitidus, which I shall remark upon in order, but Smith himself in the 
‘English Flora’ refers only to three, upon which he founds his de- 
scription; one from Snelsmore Common, near Newbury, Berks, sent 
by Mr. Bicheno; another from St. Leonard’s Forest, Sussex, from 
Mr. Borrer; and a third from Shropshire, communicated by the Rey. 
E. Williams. One error of necessity begets another, and Sir J. E. 
Smith, as I have shown in my last paper on R. leucostachys, having 
mistaken R. plicatus of W. & N. (misled, probably, by the deceptive 
name), certainly includes under his nitidus decided specimens of R. 
plicatus, Rub. Germ. Thus Williams’s specimen, ticketed “ No. 7, 
from Shropshire,” is the plant now described as plicatus by Mr. Ba- 
bington, and no doubt belonging to that species. ‘The brambles 
from Snelsmore and St. Leonard’s Forest seem to be not precisely the 
same as the Shropshire plant, but rather small specimens of sube- 
rectus, though really not very far removed from the described nitidus 
of Esenbeck. Mr. Bicheno had provisionally named them ericeto- 
rum, which name still remains in some collections, but Welsh speci- 
mens of suberectus are almost exactly similar. 

What appears to me to be the true R. nitidus of Rub. Germ., with 
bright red flowers, and quite agreeing in its smooth stem and sube- 
rect habit with the German plant, I have found in Devonshire, and if 
I am correct in this, the German nitidus is, as Ksenbeck declares it, 
a variety of R. plicatus. In fact, after much thought and incessant 
examination, I incline to agree with the late Mr. Bicheno,* whose 
judgment was pretty clear on the subject, that R. suberectus, fissus, 
plicatus, fastigiatus and nitidus (W. § N.), are really only forms of 
one variable, but decidedly swberect and non-rooting species. ‘The 
specimens, then, named by Smith nitidus, are referrible to plicatus 
and suberectus, and it is only these that Professor Lindley could have 
had in view in the first edition of his Synopsis, where he describes R. 
nitidus on the “authority of Smith’s English Flora.” Yet in the se- 
cond edition, probably from a reconsideration of the specimens, he 
refers Smith’s nitidus to affinis, which, though wrong as to the name, 

* See a letter from that botanist to Sir J. E. Smith, preserved with the Rubi in 
the Smithian herbarium. 


399 


is partially right, as he considers Smith’s plants to be identical with 
Mr. Borrer’s R. plicatus, E. B. Supp. 2714, which he also refers to 
affinis. I can see no reason for believing, with Dr. Bell Salter (Phy- 
tol. ii. 101), that Smith drew up his description of nitidus from “ ano- 
ther species, R. cordifolius,” as he calls it “a slender straggling 
plant,” which can scarcely be said of well-grown plants of cordifoiius, 
and he refers, besides, distinctly to Williams’s specimen, which is in- 
dubitably R. plicatus. 

I shall now glance for a moment at the R. affinis of Smith’s ‘ Eng- 
lish Flora,’ and the specimens he refers to in confirmation of it. Mr. 
E. Forster is the authority for the specimens: one from “a lane at 
Hatfield, Sussex,” and “also in Epping Forest.” The identical spe- 
cimen from Hatfield still exists in the Smithian herbarium, but 
strange to say, I find it to be a variety of Lindley’s leucostachys, with 
a hairy barren stem, and therefore not essentially different from 
Smith’s plicatus (not of W. & N.), for which I have proposed the 
name of Lindleianus. Indeed, part of Smith’s description would suit 
very well for the iatter, where he mentions its “‘ densely downy pani- 
cle,” and “panicle more or less compound and corymbose, apparently 
somewhat glutinous, but not evidently glandular, nor at all bristly.” 
Smith, however, seems to have been dubious as to this bramble; for 
under Mr. Forster’s name “ R. affinis?” is written “I think so, J. EK. 
S.;” and in the ‘English Flora’ he observes that “ the species re- 
quires further investigation.” It is remarkable that the specimen 
from Epping Forest, which also seems to be a small form of Lindlei- 
anus, was sent by Mr. Forster ticketed “ nitidus,” but Sir J. E. Smith 
writes beneath, “rather affinis, J. EK. S.,” so that the affinis of ‘ Eng- 
lish Flora’ is but the leucostachys of Lindley, and essentially the 
same as Smith’s plicatus, which I have shown to be no¢ the plicatus 
of the ‘Rubi Germanici.’ There is still another specimen marked 
“nitidus” by its collector, in the Smithian herbarium, and noted as 
sent from Esher, Surrey, by “Hi. F.”. I presume Edward Forster, 
Esq.,. now one of the Vice-Presidents of the Linn. Soc., and this is 
certainly the leucostachys of Lindley, Leighton and myself, which 
we all erred in so naming, while Smith and Bicheno were also incor- 
rect in referring it to plicatus and affinis. Indeed, to this last-men- 
tioned specimen Smith has very dubiously assigned the name 
“affinis ??—J. E. 8.” The same spell of misapprehension appears to 
have infected every botanist touching upon this unfortunate bramble ; 
for Mr. Borrer, in the third edition of Hooker's “ British Flora,’ ac- 
tually refers the R. affinis of Smith’s ‘English Flora,’ described from 


400 


the specimens above mentioned, to R. Keehleri, y. pallidus, a very 
glandulose bramble, although it is expressly stated by Smith that the 
panicle is not at all bristly or setose, and the specimens preserved: 
distinctly negative its belonging to the glandular group. 

The true affinis of Weihe & Nees in ‘Rubi Germanici,’ has been 
but recently brought before the notice of British botanists; for mis- 
taken by Smith and Lindley, and undescribed by Mr. Borrer, the 
name only occurs in Mr. Babington’s Synopsis as a synonym of co- 
rylifolius, the latter, or rather my sublustris, having been mistaken for 
it, so that this bramble is absent altogether from Mr. Babington’s 
Manual. I have brought it forward in my arrangement of the Rubi 
in Dr. Steele’s “Hand-book of Field Botany, and it is satisfactory to 
observe that Mr. Babington here coincides with me, having in the 
Supplement to his Synopsis, No. II., identified the plant there men- 
tioned with specimens gathered in Cowleigh Park, Malvern, where I 
pointed it out to my indefatigable’ botanical friend the Rev. Andrew 
Bloxam. JI have since more fully studied this. bramble, and agree 
that its correct position is in the suberect section, as stated by Mr. 
Babington in his Supplement. In fact, I have observed the very 
smooth barren stems rising erect ten or twelve feet in the air before 
bending, nor have I been able to detect any of them taking root. 
Luxuriant specimens have the panicle very broad and compound, 
hairy, with numerous, spreading, corymbose branches foliaceous al- 
most to the summit. It appears to require moist ground to grow to 
full perfection, and I observed it this year growing very high and 
beautiful in damp thickets below Moorall’s Well, Colwall, Hereford- 
shire, where it produces fine fruit, not the case in dry situations, 
which shows an affinity to the habit of R. suberectus. To the loca- 
lities Mr. Babington has mentioned I can add Horsenton’ Wood, 
Middlesex, and Ecclesbourne Glen, near Hastings, Sussex. That 
R. affinis may be closely related to nitidus of Rub. Germ. is highly 
probable, but it is altogether different in appearance and habit from 
the bramble I have designated as Lindleianus, nor when once known 
can they be confounded or mistaken. R. affinis is a lofty, aspiring 
shrub, emulating its suberect congeners, but the other, it must be 
truly stated, is really a prickly, grovelling plebeian, like others of the 
same family, though as distinct in itself, deserving a place on the roll. 
EDWIN penis 
Cedar Terrace, Henwick, Worcester, 

December 4, 1848. 


AO] 


A Catalogue of the Plants growing wild in Hampshire, with occa- 
sional Notes and Observations on‘some of the more remarkable 
Species. By Witt1aM ARNoLD BRomFIELD, M.D., F.L.S., &c. 


(Continued from page 383).: 


Eryngium maritimum. Sea-coast in several places. On Ryde 
Dover very sparingly, if not now quite extinct, through building. 
Abundant on the sandy spit at Norton by Yarmouth, and at St. He- 
len’s. West side of the mouth of the Newtown River, plentifully. 
Shore near EK. Cowes; Mr. W. D. Snooke. Common along the south 
beach of Hayling Island. A variety with the stem leaves and flowers 
rose-coloured grows at St. Helen’s, Isle of Wight. 

Hydrocotyle vulgaris. Very common in low, boggy meadows and 
damp pastures in the island and county. 

Apium graveolens. Ditches and marshy places, chiefly on or near 
the coast, and where the water is brackish. Plentiful in many parts 
of the Isle of Wight, as on Ryde Dover, at Binsted, Yarmouth, Fresh- 
water, &c. Common in ditches of fresh water about Brixton or 
Brightstone, Isle of Wight. Frequent on the mainland of Hants, 
along the coast. Abundant at Emsworth and betwixt that and He- 
vant in various places. Hayling Island, Lymington, &c. 

t Petroselinum sativum. Naturalized on old walls, banks and 
waste ground here and there in the island and on the main. _ I ob- 
served it abundantly on the shingly beach at Hurst Castle, in 1838, 
where it was being gathered for domestic purposes. Walls of Caris- 
brook Castle; Mr. W. W. Saunders!!! On the stone facing of the 
bank below the church at Newchurch, Isle of Wight; Dr. T. Bell 
Salter!!! In Luccomb Chine; Miss G. E. Kilderbee!!!__ I find it in 
other places in this island, perfectly and permanently established, but 
always near houses or buildings of some kind. 
segetum. Very frequent, but rather uncertain in its 
times and places of appearing, on hedge-banks, in waste ground and 
cultivated fields over the greater part of the Isle of Wight, more es- 
pecially on stiff clay soils. Common about Ryde, and abundant this 
year (1848) on earthen fence-banks along the new line of road from 
the Dover to St. John’s, and on the hedge-bank facing the Infirmary. 
About Southampton, in Hayling Island, and probably not rare in 
mainland Hants. Maple Durham; Goodyer in Gerarde. In its sin- 
gularly lax, wiry, nearly leafless habit, and imperfect, or rather irre- 

VoL. ill. 3G 


402 


gular umbels, this species has little affinity with the preceding, and 
more resembles some Bupleurums. Its depressed, radiating tufts of 
dark green, shining, root-leaves are common and conspicuous in our 
turnip-fields and fallows during winter; and in October last I noticed 
a large field near St. Helen’s church, literally covered in parts with 
the radical leaves of this species, which was more than usually plen- 
tiful over the island generally during the past season. The fruit pos- 
sesses considerable aroma. This species seems to be wanting over 
the greater part of Europe, and to be confined principally to the At- 
lantic coasts, abounding in the west of France, but unknown in Italy, 
Austria, and all the eastern countries. 

Helosciadium nodifiorum. Profusely throughout the county and 
island, in ditches and shallow streams. A great nuisance in our 
marshy levels, its rank and rapid growth requiring constant exertion 
to keep the ditches clear of its long, procumbent, entangled stems, 
that are often as thick as the wrist, and in one summer will suffice to 
choke the drains, filling them so completely as to hide the water from 
sight. Ina series of experiments I am making on the heat of springs, 
with a view of determining the mean temperature of this island, I 
have been compelled to abandon one of the most copious and uni- 
form from the impossibility of gaining access to the source during at 
least half of the year, so completely is it concealed under an imper- 
vious covering of this encroaching umbellate. I have not yet seen 
ripe fruit of this species. The var. 8. (H. repens, Koch) is not very 
unfrequent on the margins of ponds, ditches and on wet commons in 
the island and county. This, like the last, is principally restricted to 
the Atlantic parts of Europe, but advances a little farther eastward 
into western Germany and Switzerland. 
inundatum. In several pools in the Isle of Wight, 
but by no means frequent. In partially dried-up pools above the 
shore betwixt Yarmouth and Hampstead. Abundant in a pond (now, 
I fear, quite drained) at the foot of Bleak Down, at the junction of 
the roads to Newport, Chale and Niton. Abundant in the shallows 
of the great pond on Petersfield Heath. In the first of these stations 
I found a form of Myriophyllum alterniflorum in considerable abun- 
dance some years ago, which I forgot to notice under its proper head 
in these Notes. In this variety the segments of the leaves were li- 
near, not capillary, and the bracts under the staminate flowers linear- 
lanceolate and quite entire. This agrees in the main with the figure 
and description of Morison, as quoted in Smith’s ‘ English Flora,’ iv. 
p- 148, under M. spicatum, except that in Morison’s plate the stem- 


403 


leaves are drawn of the usual tenuity, and the bracts obovate. That 
figure, if correct, represents M. alterniflorum, which, though accu- 
rately distinguished by Petiver, was lost sight of as a species by suc- 
ceeding English botanists, and confounded with the very distinct M. 
spicatum. 

Sison Amomum. Still more frequent than Petroselinum segetum 
(formerly referred to this genus), even to profusion, on banks, along 
hedges, road-sides, and borders of fields, but though often associated 
with that species, seldom straying with it into cultivated ground. 
Plentiful on hedge-banks in most of the suburban streets and out- 
skirts of Ryde. Abundant about Yarmouth, and in various other 
parts of the Isle of Wight, as well as on the mainland of Hants. 
Nore Hill and Temple, near Selborne; Professor Bell! About 
Southampton, West Meon, in Hayling Island, &c. Called spikenard 
by the country people of Hants; Miss L. Sibley. 

+? Aigopodium Podagraria. Scarcely to be called rare, but not 
very common, at least in the Isle of Wight, on damp hedge-banks 
and in orchards; seldom found remote from habitations, and yet I 
cannot but think it truly indigenous, from its universality in the 
country, its power of occupancy, and its analogy to certain other 
plants that, like the dog amongst animals, follow the footsteps and 
affect the haunts of man in all climates alike in which they are found, 
and flourish in places not more sequestered than these. Widely dis- 
persed over the county, [ find it at Andover, Winton, Selborne, Oak- 
hanger, Bordean, and other places. Less plentiful, I think, with us 
than in the north of England and Lowlands of Scotland, nor does it 
here perfect its fruit freely. 

Bunium flecuosum. Abundant in meadows, pastures, and copses 
all over the county and Isle of Wight. B. Bulbocastanum may pos- 
sibly occur on the chalk, in the north-eastern part of the county. 

Pimpinella Saxifraga. Abundant in its several forms with the 
last, and equally universal. P. magna may reasonably be looked for 
it the county in woods and thickets. 

Stum latifolium. Ditches and ponds; rare? Near Fording- 
bridge; Dr. Maton in Bot. Guide. In the Stour, at Heron Court, 
near Christchurch, Mr. Curtis in litt. (Icon. in Brit. Entom. ex loco). 
Unknown in the Isle of Wight, but probably not very unfrequent in 
the county, though I have as yet only the above two stations to re- 
cord for it. 
angustifolium. Ditches and ponds; rare? Certainly very 
scarce in the Isle of Wight. In ditches on Easton Marsh Freshwa- 


404 


ter Gate, also in a pool on the dislocated land betwixt St. Catherine’s 
Point and Black-gang, in plenty, ‘and in the Cyperus meadow at Old 
Castle Point. A plant or two has been found at Ventnor, and be- 
twixt St. Lawrence and Old Park. I have no mainland stations to 
assign for this species as yet, but judge it not likely to be uncommon 
in the county. 

Bupleurum tenuissimum. No unfrequent plant in salt-marsh 
ground along the coast. In several parts of the Isle of Wight, but 
notcommon. Near Ryde, Brading, Cowes, Yarmouth and Newtown. 
Wieor Hard, near Fareham; Mr. W. L. Notcutt. Abundant and 
very fine on sea-banks in Hayling Island. 
rotundifolium. In corn-fields and their borders on 
the chalk; possibly not rare in the county generally. Extremely 
local in the Isle of Wight, but plentiful in the chalky corn-fields 
south-east of Yarmouth, near Thorley, Wellow and Calbourn, over a 
district of some extent. I had never seen it in any intermediate sta- 
tion till I found it July 7th, 1848, at the opposite extremity of the 
island, in a wheat-field, at a height of several (about five) hundred feet 
above the easternmost end of Sandown Bay, in some plenty. Mud 
Farm, near Avington; Dr. D. A. White. Corn-fields at Tichbourne 
and Owslebury; Mr. Wm. Pamplin in New Bot. Guide. The Eu- 
phorbia-like habit and unilateral mode of branching are very charac- 
teristic of this handsome umbellate. 

Gnanthe fistulosa. In wet meadows, ditches and pools. De- 
cidedly rare in the Isle of Wight, though tolerably plentiful in a few 
localities. . At Easton Marsh Freshwater Gate, but rather sparingly. 
In several parts of Sandown Level, in the ditch at the fort, &c., more 
abundantly. Drains on the north side of Lake Common. Probably 
not rare on the mainland. I have received it from Mr. Whale, of 
Andover, but without locality, and believe I have seen and gathered 
it at Bishop’s Waltham, and in the low grounds about Winchester, 
but find no memorandum respecting it amongst my notes. In a wa- 
tery meadow near to Hook, by Hursley, not plentiful; Mr. William 
Whale! 


pimpinelloides. In meadows, pastures, on heaths and 
by road-sides, one of the commonest of our Umbelliferze over the en- 
tire Isle of Wight, but not equally abundant every year, being in 
some seasons even scarce, in others profuse, though in most, plenti- 
ful. With us it is not restricted to any particular soil, though evinc- 
ing, perhaps, a preference rather for clay than chalk; nor is it more 
partial to dry than to damp situations, as I have seen low-lying hay- 


405 


fields quite white with it. It is likewise found with the following 
species (G&. Lachenalii) in salt-marsh or brackish lands, as well as 
remote from salt water, and may sometimes be seen growing plenti- 
fully amongst wheat. I know but little of its distribution in main- 
land Hants, but suspect it to be rare at any distance from the coast, 
not recollecting to have once met with it in the interior of the county, 
or finding any memorandum to that effect. Plentiful in the borders 
of fields about Lymington, July, 1848. The periodical decrease or 
partial disappearance of the plant is remarkable in a perennial spe- 
cies, as this certainly seems to be in a garden. The round or oval 
knobs or tubers on the root are farinaceous, sweet and well-tasted, 
ereatly superior to those of earth or pig-nuts (Bunium flexuosum), as 
being wholly devoid of acrimony, and might possibly be cultivated to 
advantage, as those of Bunium Bulbocastanum are said to be in Italy 
and Norway. 

Cnanthe Lachenalit. In very wet salt-marsh land, also in damp 
pastures and heathy ground adjacent to the shore, and consequently 
where the soil is more or less saline, but far less frequent than the last, 
and invariably, I think, in the vicinity of salt water. Shores of the 
Wootton River, and along the Yar betwixt Yarmouth and Freshwater, 
in considerable plenty, in the latter station growing amongst the 
furze, on that part of Welmingham Heath contiguous to the river, and 
where the soil is comparatively dry. All over the marsh meadows at 
Easton Freshwater Gate. Salt-marsh pasture on the east side of 
Hayling Island. A most distinct and well-marked species from the 
last. 

Of Hnanthe peucedanifolia I know nothing, except from descrip- 
tion, the figures of Pollich and of ‘ English Botany, and from an in- 
different dried specimen. 1 think it highly probable it will be found 
to inhabit this county or island, and I have lately entertained a 
strong suspicion that some of my stations for Q&. Lachenalii given 
above, where the plant grows on the drier soils, may really belong to 
CE. peucedanifolia. Does this latter never grow in or near salt 
water? Ihave a specimen of a plant gathered by myself at Bulver- 
hithe, in Sussex, in 1834, which looks like Qi. peucedanifolia, but 
wants the characteristic tubers at the root, and has a many-leaved 
general involucre, but this last seems liable to considerable variation, 
being sometimes present and at other times wholly absent. From 
the description of Lloyd, in that excellent little work, the ‘Flore de 
la Loire Inférieure’ and whose account of these Ginanthes is admira- 
ble, the fruit of G&. Lachenalii and C#. peucedanifolia do not differ 


A406 | 


much, for he says, “ Fruit oblong cylindrique (oblong simply in CS. 
Lachenalii) rétréci 4 la base, reserré sous le calice.” Are the two 
species really distinct ? 

Ginanthe crocata. An extremely abundant and universal species 
in wet, boggy places, ditches, drains and sides of brooks throughout 
the Isle of Wight, and, as far as I have observed, the county gene- 
rally. In the black, rotten soil of the deep, boggy thickets that oc- 
cupy the hollows at the foot of the chalk downs, this rank and poi- 
sonous umbellate chokes the ground with a forest of tall but succulent 
and yielding stems, that emit a virose odour as they are successively 
broken down in forcing a passage through them. The plant is 
known in this island by the name of belder-root, and it is alleged, fre- 
quently proves fatal to swine that turn up and devour the large, fleshy 
tubers of which the roots consist. The existence of a yellow juice in 
this species, which gave rise to the specific name, has been a subject 
of controversy. Dr. Salter finds it in the plant of the neighbourhood 
of Poole (Phytol. ii. 116), and also, though of a paler colour, in others 
from Bembridge, in this island. I have never myself remarked such 
coloured juice to flow from fracture or incision here, but have now 
and then found minute masses of a saffron or orange yellow matter 
within the hollow of the stems, which had the appearance of an in- 
spissated exudation of the proper latex. 

Phellandrium. A common species apparently in main- 
land Hants, and thought to have been seen by the Rev. G. E. Smith 
and Mr. Curtis (Brit. Entom. xi. fol. 506), at the back of the Isle of 
Wight. I have never detected it here myself, where so many of. our 
British aquatics are wanting or exceedingly rare, from the limited 
amount of water surface the island affords, and the insularity of posi- 
tion acting as a check to their dispersion over it from other parts. 
As neither of my informants seems certain on the point, I may fairly 
assume them to have been in error, because I am ignorant of any 
spot likely, or indeed capable, of producing a plant requiring the 
depth of water which this does, near the place specified, though in 
the marsh ditches at Freshwater and Sandown the total absence of 
this Ginanthe may justly excite surprise, considering how plentiful it 
is immediately on crossing the Solent. Abundant in ditches at Go- 
mer Pond, Gosport. Plentiful with the following (CK. fluviatilis) in 
clear streams around Wincher, Gill Copse, Titchfield River, the Sal- 
terns (near Fareham); Mr. W. L. Notcutt (Phytol. ii. 206). By the 
old canal at Millbrook (Southton), Id. in litt. 

fluviatilis. In rivers and streams. Abundant in the 


407 


river Itchen, at Winchester; Mr. Babington!!! Christchurch; Mr. 
Borrer. I find it plentifully with the last in clear streams around the 
city, as in Winnalwater meadows, and growing in such quantity as 
to prove a great nuisance to the mills built over their swift and spark- 
ling torrents. In the autumn, when the old stems decay and part 
from the ground, they accumulate by degrees, and form floating 
islands of great thickness and extent, blocking up the channel and 
floodgates, and unless prevented, clogging the mill-wheels. Such an 
island, of, I should say, forty or fifty yards in length and ten or 
twelve in breadth, I saw last summer floated away through the side 
sluice for the escape of the water when the mill is standing, at one 
of the principal. flour-mills of the city, and the length of time con- 
sumed as the vast mass of entanglement sluggishly glided out of sight 
beneath the archway, though urged forward by poles, plainly showed 
the great weight of matter collected and its power in obstructing the 
stream. Ihave not yet had an opportunity of carefully examining 
this recent addition of the Rev. W. H. Coleman’s to the British 
Flora. 

Ziithusa Cynapium. Frequent, and occasionally abundant in the 
county and Isle of Wight, in weedy gardens, corn-fields and waste 
ground. In 1838 I observed an extensive wheat-field at Beanacre 
in this island, quite overrun with it. 

+? Foeniculum officinale. On waste ground, banks and cliffs along 
the coast; apparently rare in Hampshire, nor am I quite satisfied 
that it is truly indigenous to the county, though clearly so on many 
parts of the southern and eastern shores of England.* Very abun- 
dantly, and perhaps truly wild, on extremely steep banks facing the 
sea at the east side of Ventnor Cove, Isle of Wight, where it has ex- 
isted to my knowledge long anterior to the buildings that now fill the 
cove. Ona bank betwixt Luccombe and Shanklin in plenty, but in 
a spot not quite beyond suspicion. Occasionally about the borders 
of fields in several parts of the island, but mostly in single clumps, 
and in places unlike its truly natural stations. Plentiful on the 
south beach, Hayling Island, but only near the buildings and an 
abandoned garden, though it is possible it may not have had anything 
to do with one or the other, since the locality is just such as this spe- 
cies usually selects. The state of the pith in this plant affords no 
constant character; it is usually, I find, perforated in the centre with 


* Certainly native: for instance, in Pegwell Bay, near Ramsgate, at Paignton, 
near Torquay, and various other places. 


408 


a hole of mostly small diameter, sometimes in the upper, sometimes 
in the lower part of the stem, the rest, and sometimes the entire stem 
is filled up solid throughout. The sweet fennel of the gardens and F. 
piperitum of Tenore are probably only varieties of our common wild 
species. 

Libanotis montana (Athamanta Libanotis, Sm.) having now been 
found in Sussex, may with perhaps equal probability be expected on 
our Hampshire hills, the vegetation of this county inclining rather to 
the eastern than to the western type, though from its situation parti- 
cipating in the forms of both very strongly. 

Silaus pratensis. In rather moist meadows and pastures, on hedge- 
banks, by road-sides, and in open, grassy places in woods, frequent 
in very many parts of the Isle of Wight and of the county, but 
though a perennial, apt, I think, to become scarce in certain years, 
like Ginanthe pimpinelloides. Abundant in various places about 
Ryde, and particularly so this last summer of 1848, also about Brad- 
ing, Yarmouth, Cowes, Wootton, Thorley, &c., very abundantly at 
times. Along the south-coast (Portsmouth and Brighton) railway, 
betwixt Portsea and Havant, and at Langston. Meadows at Ando- 
ver, and betwixt Selborne and Oakhanger. Near Fareham; Mr. W. 
L. Notcutt. One of the neatest and prettiest of our native species of 
the order, with a powerful aroma, like the rind of the bitter orange. 

Crithmum maritimum. On rocks and cliffs by the sea; very 
abundantly, but chiefly along the south and south-western coasts of 
the Isle of Wight. On rocky ledges of the cliffs behind Bonchurch, 
some hundreds of yards from the shore, plentifully. Profusely on 
the chalk cliffs from the Needles to Compton, also betwixt Ventnor 
and Niton, in Sandown Bay and elsewhere along the coast. About 
Southampton, Gerarde, and possibly in other places along the main- 
land shores of the county, but the line of the Hampshire coast is in 
most parts so low and flat as hardly to afford congenial localities for 
the growth of this valuable plant. 

Samphire or sampire (a corruption of Saint Pierre, to whom this 
plant was dedicated, perhaps from its growing so much upon rocks) 
forms a yearly article of exportation from this island for pickling. 
The plant is collected at great personal risk by people called cliffs- 
men, who used to pay an annual tribute (now remitted) to the lord of 
the manor of Freshwater for the privilege of taking both this and the 
eggs of sea-fowl, that breed in vast numbers in the stupendous chalk 
cliffs, which rise, like impregnable ramparts, to 600 feet, at the 
extreme south-west corner of the Isle of Wight. The eggs (of 


409 


various species of gull) find a ready market in the metropolis at 2s. 6d. 
a dozen, and are considered a delicacy, though I am unable to ascer- 
tain to what class of persons the consumers belong. The samphire 
is consigned by the cliffsmen, packed in casks with salt water, to 
certain wholesale houses in London, by whom they are paid 4s. per 
bushel, cleaned and sorted. For smaller quantities, as when required 
for private consumption, the charge for collecting is one shilling a 
gallon. The samphire is considered in perfection when just about to 
flower, or towards the end of May, and the gathering lasts for several 
weeks, as the plants come successively into blossom. The herb, 
minced, is served up with melted butter, instead of caper sauce, in 
this island. 

Angelica sylvestris. Extremely common everywhere, in damp or 
wet and boggy thickets, hedges, &c. 

Peucedanum palustre? A specimen of this scarce species I saw 
August 13th, 1845, in the herbarium of the London Botanical So- 
ciety, marked “Southampton, Mrs. Dennison,” but without date, or 
other particulars to serve as a clew to its rediscovery in the county. 

Pastinaca sativa. In pastures, waste places, borders of fields and 
woods; abundant in most parts of the Isle of Wight where the soil 
is chalky. Rare about Ryde, at Binstead stone-pits. | Profusely in 
woods at Swainston, and plentiful about Luccombe, Bonchurch, Yar- 
mouth, Calbourne, Carisbrook, &c. Common at Andover. Maindell 
chalk-pit, near Fareham; Mr. W. L. Notcutt !!! 

Heracleum Sphondylium. Common everywhere in the county and 
island in damp woods, pastures and hedges. The var. 6. angustifo- 
lium I once gathered near Ryde. Var. y., with pink flowers, below 
Marvel Copse near Newport, June, 1841. 

Daucus Carota. In pastures, by road-sides and borders of fields, 
one of the most abundant and universal plants of its order over the 
entire county and Isle of Wight; our old, dry pastures are often 
quite covered with it. 
maritimus ? On cliffs, waste ground and grassy slopes by 
the sea in several parts of the Isle of Wight. Abundant on the steep 
banks in Sandown Bay, and about the cliffs and fields above Fresh- 
water Gate. Plentiful at Bonchurch. By this name I have been 
accustomed to designate a plant very common along the coasts of this 
island, but which I am quite unable to distinguish by any constant 
character from D. Carota, from which it differs materially at_ first 
sight in its much stouter, very densely hispid stem, more hairy 
leaves with somewhat broader segments, larger umbels, often 44 

NOL. ILI. 3H 


410 


inches wide, that are usually almost perfectly hemispherical in flower, 
but sometimes flat or slightly depressed, never, I think, so much cup- 
ped as in the common state of the species, and less deeply concave 
in fruit, with or without a coloured, abortive flower in the centre, the 
unexpanded flowers mostly rose-red, but becoming subsequently 
white. Fruit differing in no respect, so far as I can find on careful 
examination, from the common inland state of D. Carota; it is not 
therefore likely to be the D. maritimus of Withering, which last is 
not Lamarck’s species of that name (see De Cand. Prod. iv. p. 211) ; 
whilst ours is probably identical with the plant alluded to in the 
Manual (p. 144), as apparently the D. gingidium of Linneus, though 
it does not quite answer De Candolle’s description of this latter. It 
agrees well with the descriptions, and very fairly with the figure, of 
D. hispidus, Desf. (Fl. Atlantica, i. p. 243, t. 63), which De Candolle 
says grows on sea-cliffs at Dieppe and Treport, except that the leaf- 
lets in our plant are more deeply incised, but this character I find 
variable. Should it be identical with D. hispidus, still I cannot re- 
gard it as anything but a form of D. Carota, rendered as it were more 
obese by the proximity of the sea, though the same effect is not al- 
ways produced on the species by the maritime atmosphere, and the 
variety is found about the borders of the corn-fields 500 feet or more 
above the beach, and some distance back from the shore. De Can- 
dolle remarks of the genus Dancus, “ Species extricatu difficillime,” 
and the species-makers seem to have vied with the gardeners in get- 
ting the most they could out of the wild carrot. The Rev. G. EK. 
Smith tells me he has traced our plant through every intermediate 
gradation from the ordinary D. Carota in this island, and my own 
observation goes far to confirm the same. 

Caucalis latifolia. Yn corn-fields; very rare. About Crooks (or 
Crux) Easton, Hudson. Of this plant, which rests solely on Hud- 
son’s authority, I have seen no specimens. It is, however, a very 
likely species to occur in Hampshire. C. daucoides is still more 
likely to reward a search in the corn-fields of this county. 

Torilis Anthriscus. In waste places, along hedges, borders of 
fields and woods; extremely common over the island and county. 
Though so much larger a plant, the fruit is considerably smaller than 
in the next species, and as Curtis has remarked (Fl. Lond.), is more 
aromatic. The secondary ridges are beset with only a double row 
of ascending, scabrous prickles, that are shorter and more distant 
than in T. infesta, and terminate in simple, straight, or erect, not 
spreading or deflexed points, as in that, the interposed rows of white, 


411 


appressed spinules, too, are quite wanting to this species. Stem 
rough throughout. Outer rays of the umbellets* longer than the ripe 
fruit. 

Torilis infesta. An abundant and troublesome weed, as its speci- 
fic name implies, in most parts of the county and Isle of Wight, in 
waste and cultivated land, by way-sides, and especially in cornfields, 
which are too often seen filled with it, to the discredit of the careless 
and slovenly farmer. Most prevalent on clay, and hence much too 
plentiful on our stiff wheat lands about Ryde and the entire north 
side of the island, where the eocene are the prevailing deposits. 
Stem smooth and polished below; outer rays of the umbellets shorter 
than the mature fruit. 
nodosa. In dry, waste places, on banks, under walls, by 
way-sides, borders of fields, and amongst corn, by no means uncom- 
mon in the county and island, especially on chalk or gravel. Abun- 
dant on banks and earthen fences at Bonchurch, Ventnor, and in 
corn-fields at St. Lawrence. Extremely common in Freshwater parish, 
about Yarmouth, also about Ryde, Cowes, and in most parts of the 
island pretty frequent. At Andover, Lymington, Clanfield and else- 
where on the mainland, generally dispersed. The variety with the 
interior fruit of the umbel wholly granulato-tuberculate is the only 
form I have met with in Hampshire hitherto. It is said, however, to 
occur with all the fruit prickly; here it is only the outer hemicarps 
of the exterior fruit which are spiny, the inner hemicarps resembling 
those of the interior of the umbel in being simply tuberculated. 

Scandix Pecten-veneris. An abundant weed everywhere through- 
out the county and Isle of Wight, in cultivated land, on fences and 
hedge-banks, &c. The “crow needles” of our rustics and shepherd 
boys. 

Anthriscus sylvestris. \n moist shady places, meadows, orchards, 
groves, hedges, &c., everywhere most abundantly. 

$——— Cerefolium. A specimen of this, the garden chervil, is 
in the herbarium of the late Mrs. Robinson, of Fareham, gathered 
near that place. I once found it under the wall of a garden at Ryde, 
from which I ascertained it to have escaped, and it has since disap- 
peared. [I have collected it in a pretty well naturalized state at Farn- 


* There adopt the term umbellets from my excellent friend Dr. Darlington, of 
West Chester, Pennsylvania, in preference to umbellules, as being more congenial in 
the termination to the structure of the English language, and much superior to par- 
tial wmbels in neatness, brevity and precision. 


412 


ham, in Surrey, but have never seen it, except in the above instances, 
from this county. Mrs. R’s station, shown to me by her servant, 
who always accompanied her mistress when herborizing, was a hedge- 
bank in a field far from house or garden, and if there was no mistake, 
the locality might pass for an excellent one, but when I saw it, it was 
late in the year, and the plant had vanished for the season. Its true 
country seems to be the south-east of Europe, in Austria, Hungary, 
&e. ! 

Anthriscus vulgaris. On hedge-banks and fences, in waste places, 
under walls, and in dry, sandy ground, particularly near the sea and 
about towns, but far from common in the Isle of Wight or county ge- 
nerally. On Ryde Dover, but sparingly, and likely to be soon wholly 
extirpated, also betwixt Ryde and Springfield in very small quantity. 
Profusely abundant on banks and fences betwixt Bonchurch and 
Ventnor, along the line of the old road, 1846 — 1848. Abundant at 
Sandy Bank and Sandy Way, just out of Shorwell, 1846. I have 
also found it at a great elevation on High Down, by Freshwater, and 
on lofty cliffs betwixt Whitwell and Niton. Plentiful on earthen 
fences at Clay Hall, between Gosport and Alverstoke by Haslar. 


Cherophyllum temulentum. An abundant species in woods, 
hedges, and waste places in most parts of the Isle of Wight and 
county. 


Conium maculatum. A widely diffused, yet rather local species, 
both in the county and island, in moist woods, pastures and waste 
ground. Scarcely to be found within some miles of Ryde: a few 
plants amongst the ruins of Quarr Abbey. Abundant here and there 
about Brading, Yaverland, Luccomb, Bonchurch and along the Un- 
dercliff. Plentiful just out of Yarmouth, towards Thorley, and in 
various other places. Profusely in that garden of Hecate, Longwood 
Warren, near Winchester. A favourite station of this plant with us 
is along the top of the earthen fences which run across the downs, on 
which it flourishes prodigiously. 

Smyrnium Olusatrum. Yn waste ground, amongst ruins, and on 
hedge-banks, also (and truly wild) on sea-cliffs, damp pastures and in 
shady lanes, in innumerable places in the Isle of Wight. Profusely 
along the crest of the shore betwixt Ventnor and Steephill, and in se- 
veral places along the coast betwixt Bembridge and the Culver Cliff. 
Lanes near Foreland Farm.  Plentiful in the area of Carisbrook 
Castle, and in a vast number of places over the island, in hedges, 
lanes and pastures, both inland and along the coast; in many of 
them probably the plant was formerly cultivated, but in others it oc- 


413 


curs as truly indigenous in my opinion as the celery (Apium graveo- 
lens) to which it has long since given place at the table. I am not 
prepared to state its distribution on mainland Hants. . Mr. Notcutt 
and myself find it at Porchester Castle, a suspicious station, but it 
will probably be found in less exceptionable localities along the coast, 
remote from which I have never seen it assume an undeniably wild 
position. 

Alexanders was formerly much esteemed for the table, boiled, and 
eaten like greens, even in the time of Dioscorides. Gerarde says, 
“the roote hereof is in our age served to the table raw for a sallade 
herbe.” It is not a little singular that this plant has long survived 
all record of its use in the Isle of Wight, its very name has been quite 
forgotten, and by a strange confusion of ideas, it shares with the ge- 
nuine Apium graveolens the appellation of wild celery, and by that 
only isit known. ‘This is the more remarkable, as both species are 
common natives of the island, and the latter of course in cultivation 
in every garden, whilst the former is constantly obtruding itself on 
observation in hedges and pastures about places where there is every 
reason to believe it must at one time have been itself a well-known 
and esteemed garden esculent. 

N. B. — Echinophora spinosa has been indicated to me in a list of 
plants growing near Yarmouth, in this island. There can be little 
doubt but that an error was committed in this instance, notwithstand- 
ing there is every reason for believing the species to have formerly in- 
habited several parts of our coast, even to within a late period, as the 
_ authority for its occurrence is respectable, and not that of a single 
observer merely. Though quite a southern plant, its range may ex- 
tend, like that of many other maritime species, considerably to the 
north of its ordimary limits, where circumstances are favourable to its 
propagation. 

Adoxa Moschatellina. n moist, shady places, woods, groves, on 
hedge-banks and about the roots of trees; very frequent in the Isle 
of Wight, and as far as my observation extends, over the entire 
county. Common about Ryde, at St. John’s, &c., where I gathered 
it in fine fruit, which I believe is not very usually perfected. The 
herbage of Adoxa has a perceptible musky scent in moist weather, or 
when wetted by dew or rain; that of the flower is less transient, 
more penetrating, with some pungency, and to myself recalls the idea 
of dilute nitric or hydrochloric acid, or the smell given out by slightly 
heated steel, as when a razor is dipped into warm water. Sir James 
Smith, who appears never to have seen the fruit of Adoxa, describes 


A414 


it with Girtner, whose figures are but indifferent, as one-celled. 
Other authors justly consider it as four-celled, the four angles of the 
placenta being very evidently prolonged into complete, though very 
narrow dissepiments. The square mass occupying the centre, and to 
the top of which the seeds are attached, is quite distinct from their 
pulpy envelope, and as much entitled to be called a placenta as in 
any dry or capsular fruit whatever. This curious plant is perhaps as 
nearly allied to Saxifragacee and Caprifoliacez as to the present or- 
der (Araliacee). Its relation to Chrysosplenium is obvious. 

Hedera Helix. On old walls, rocks, trees and hedges, most abun- 
dantly. In no part of Britain, or elsewhere perhaps, is the ivy to be 
seen in greater profusion and luxuriance than in this island, and 
could the amount of surface covered by it be determined, it would 
probably be found to exceed that occupied “by any other native plant, 
the common meadow grasses not excepted. The glory of the Under- 
cliff, whose crags and rocky boundary walls are mantled with its gar- 
niture of green in lavish exuberance, contributing, with Scolopen- 
drium vulgare, Iris fostidissima and Rubia peregrina, to the perennial 
verdure of that vast and romantic terrace. 

Cornus sanguinea. Woods, thickets and hedges, all over the 
county and island in great abundanee, constituting a considerable 
per centage of the ligneous vegetation, flourishing in nearly every soil 
and situation alike. Usually with us a slender shrub, but sometimes 
a small tree, twelve or fifteen feet high, with a single trunk of several 
inches diameter. 

Viscum album. Not rare, I believe, on mainland Hants, though I 
have but few actual stations to record for a plant so generally fre- 
quent in the south-east of England as not usually to attract attention 
to its special places of growth. Hants; Mr. Wm. Pamplin in ‘New 
Botanist’s Guide. Cams Park, and at Southwick, near Fareham; at 
the latter place plentifully ; Mr. W. L. Notcutt. Hurstbourne Park, 
the seat of Lord Portsmouth, near Whitchurch, abundantly ; Miss O. 
Hadfield! At Hursley, plentiful in and about the park on crab and 
hawthorn; Mr. Wm. Whale! Bishopstoke; the Dean of Winches- 
ter. Frequent, I believe, in the New Forest. Not found in the Isle 
of Wight in a native state, at least in the present day, a curious fact 
in the geography of the species, as the country is one to all appear- 
ance admirably suited to its production, abounding, as it does, with 
all the trees to which this parasite is most attached. Reiterated in- 
quiries of the country people, who uniformly deny its existence, and 
fruitless personal search for several years, have convinced me that 


415 


some unknown, but insuperable bar is opposed by Nature to the 
spontaneous dissemination of the misletoe over this island, since, 
where it has been introduced from motives of curiosity, it has not 
multiplied and dispersed itself in the vicinity. Gathered some six- 
teen or eighteen years back in a wood at Apse Farm, near Shanklin, 
on crab and whitethorn, by Mrs. T. Harrington, as I was informed by 
the lady herself, bnt it cannot now be found there. A very maritime 
climate, as that of small islands, is possibly adverse to this plant, as 
it fails in Anglesea, the Western Isles, the Isle of Man ?, the whole of 
Treland, and is very rare in Scotland. 

Sambucus Ebulus. In waste ground, about hedges, ruins, by road- 
sids and in pastures; very rare in the Isle of Wight, if not in the 
county generally. In hedges, borders of fields, and even amongst 
the crops, near St. Catherine’s Point, in one place abundantly, also 
on banks by the road-side to the lighthouse, sparingly. In a large 
arable field under Ashey Down, a little above Kerne, where it proves 
extremely troublesome, from the obstruction the tough, creeping roots 
offer to the plough in its progress over the soil. Iam told it grows 
in one or two other spots near Kerne, but more sparingly. Between 
Newport and Carisbrook Castle; Mr. W. D. Snooke. I have never 
seen it there. Between Luccomb and Bonchurch; Mr. S. Woods in 
Bot. Guide!!! and where I found it some years ago in very small 
quantity, and almost choked with grass and bushes, betwixt Chine 
Cottage and Rose Cliff. Near Carisbrook Castle, and near Hous- 
born (Osborne?); Mr. E. Forster, jun. in Bot. Guide. In a field 
called West Close, on Ford Farm, near Red Hill; Mr. Wm. Jolliffe. 
It formerly grew in the orchard at Crooks Cottage, Middleton Green, 
but has not been seen there for many years. For the county I have 
but the following station at present: close to the palings near the 
turnpike at Warnford Park, West Meon; Miss Hawkins. Meadow 
adjoining the churchyard at King’s Worthy, about two miles and a 
half from Winton; Dr. A. D. White. Amongst the rubbish and 
ruined foundations of the Priory, Selborne; Rev. G. White. Hedge 
in Selborne Park; Dr. T. B. Salter in Phytol. i. 1134. Some of 
these stations have a suspicious appearance, whilst others are appa- 
rently natural. I believe the Danewort to be a genuine native, but, 
like Cynoglossum officinale, Atropa Belladonna and some other 
plants, partial to soils containing nitrate of potash, thus accounting 
for its frequent appearance about churchyards, ruins, and similar 
places where that salt abounds, without supposing it to have been 
originally introduced by man’s agency. 


A416 


Sambucus nigra. Abundant everywhere in the county and island, 
in woods, thickets, copses and hedgerows. « Var. 6. Leaflets ternate, 
orbicular. S. nigra, ¢. rotundifolia, D. C. Prod. iv. p. 323. By the 
road-side betwixt St. Lawrence and Niton; Mr. Wm. Wilson Saun- 
ders!!! The only tree I have seen of this curious form is the one 
above mentioned, and which has had the trunk apparently sawn off a 
few feet from the ground, but has since shot out branches vigorously, 
though I have not seen flowers. Cuttings planted in a garden at St. 
John’s, near Ryde, preserve the trifoliate and rounded character of 
the leaves, but have not yet bloomed. I have seen this variety in the 
Botanic Garden of Trinity College, Dublin, and in that of Mr. Borrer 
at Henfield, but never saw it wild except in the present instance. 
Var. y. Berries pale, nearly colourless. A single tree in a field-hedge 
below Mousehole, near Newchurch, Isle of Wight, November, 1845. 
Small thickets of scrubby elder and whitethorn constitute the sole 
ligneous vegetation on Longwood Warren, near Winchester, a tract 
remarkable for its desolate aspect, and the peculiarity of its floral 
productions, as I shall show hereafter. 

The elder is one of those British arboreous vegetables which, like 
the lime and beech, has by some been considered doubtfully indige- 
nous upon equally insufficient grounds, resulting from the want of 
careful observation and inquiry. Loudon says (Arbor. Brit. ii. p. 
1028), “A native of Europe and part of Asia, in hedges, coppices and 
woods ; plentiful in Britain in like situations, but probably not truly 
indigenous.” Here we have a perfectly gratuitous assumption, un- 
supported by any reasoning whatever, and directly opposed to the 
conclusion naturally derivable from the preceding clause of the sen- 
tence. Forif the elder be an acknowledged native of Europe and 
Asia in hedges, coppices and woods, and plentiful in Britain in like 
situations, the probability surely is not against, but absolutely in fa- 
vour of its indigenous origin; for the perfect parity of condition in 
which it is found here and abroad leaves no room for any other infe- 
rence, no space to insert and drive home the wedge of counter argu- 
ment. Unless, therefore, some reason be advanced to qualify or 
invalidate the prior clause, which the author has not vouchsafed his 
readers, the latter has no claim on our attention or belief. The fact 
is, that in the south of England no shrub is more evidently and indis- 
putably wild than the common elder, associated, as it is, in the most 
sequestered woods, with the wayfaring tree and the guelder-rose, and 
indeed more common and universal in its distribution than either of 
these last, the indigenous claims of which might just as reasonably 


417 


be called in question. That it is only naturalized through cultivation 
in Scotland and perhaps the northernmost parts of England, I am dis- 
posed to think probable, from the consideration of its geographical 
range on the continent of Europe, where it seems to advance a little 
beyond the limits of the wayfaring tree (Viburnum Lantana), which 
fails in Denmark and Scandinavia, whilst the elder reaches the south- 
ern part of both these countries. I question whether it is anywhere 
native beyond lat. 55° or 56° in Europe, as in all the floras I have 
consulted that relate to districts lying under and above these paral- 
lels, the elder is usually mentioned as found only about houses and 
villages, and in hedges (ad domos, pagos, sepes), and if my memory 
serves, it is in such half-wild situations alone that I have remarked it 
in Scotland, though I do not pretend to affirm this positively. Here, 
and over the south and middle of England it is a perfectly sylvestral 
tree, and as such, of the commonest occurrence. The key to Lou- 
don’s opinion may, I think, be found in a farther remark of his (same 
page) that “it is common in all parts of England in the neighbour- 
hood of houses and gardens,” situations in which that clever and la- 
borious author would probably be oftenest in the habit of seeing it 
here and in the north, of which last he was himself a native. It is no 
argument against the question of spontaneity, that a shrub so useful 
as the elder is for various domestic purposes and for fences, should as 
often be found in the vicinity of habitations as in places remote from 
human occupation; the wonder would be if it were not so; its pre- 
sence or absence in primitive woodlands is the point to be deter- 
mined. I should not have dwelt thus long upon the supposed intro- 
duction of the elder into Britain, as I believe few, if any, of our 
English botanists at least, are disposed to doubt its claim to nativity, 
but I have done so to show on what flimsy grounds the contrary 
opinion has been emitted respecting this and some other of our indi- 
genous trees and herbs, and which we know how readily it has been 
caught up and repeated from mouth to mouth, aud copied from book 
to book,* in most instances without an attempt made or a reason ad- 
vanced to prove the truth of the position. I may here remark, that 
much of the scepticism we see displayed on the subject we have just 
been considering, arises from a disposition, in some measure natural, 


* In Selby’s Work on British Forest Trees, for instance, in which much scope 
was afforded for original discussion and research into this interesting question, not a 
step has been made in advance of previous writers on the same subject, old opinions 
are repeated and acquiesced in, as if indisputable themselves, or it was too much 
trouble to controvert or refute them. 


VOES Tit. 3 7 


418 


to regard objects that are strange to ourselves as adventitious else- 
where. The lime, for example, is familiar to most persons only as a 
planted tree; many pass their whole lives without knowing or even 
suspecting that our own woods in England spontaneously produce it, 
and being ignorant of, and not caring to know about its geographical 
distribution, hastily conclude it to be a stranger to the country, and 
are with difficulty persuaded to the contrary.* 

I have been at much pains to discover a character betwixt our Ku- 
ropean elder and that of America (S. canadensis), and believe them 
to be hardly even varieties, though hitherto kept distinct by botanists 
of both continents. The latter does not usually rise so high as the 
European, and is thought to be less ligneous in texture. I have, 
however, repeatedly found it with stout trunks from four to six inches 
or more in diameter, the wood as hard as in the European tree. 
The leaflets are usually, but not always, longer and narrower than in 
our elder, and more frequently seven or nine than five, but I have 


* Mr. H. C. Watson, speaking of Tilia parvifolia, says, “ we must explain its pre- 
sent scarcity on the supposition that human operations have tended more towards ex- 
tinguishing, than towards encouraging and diffusing the species in England.’—Cybele 
Britannica, i. p. 243. This is no doubt a just remark so far as the treatment of the 
species is concerned, for being worthless as timber, it is usually cut for brushwood, 
and consequently seldom permitted to propagate itself in the natural way by seed. I 
think, however, that the epithet of “‘ scarce” is not strictly applicable to the small- 
leaved lime; it is rather, like the hornbean, a local than a scarce species, occurring 
in great abundance in certain parts of Essex, Suffolk, Lincoln and Beds, and not un- 
commonly in other counties of the south and east, though Mr. Watson would seem to 
credit it as chiefly native to the west of England. ‘To me it appears to form a broad 
belt, variously interrupted, across the whole island, but with a tendency rather to an 
eastern than a western distribution, yet belonging, doubtless, to the English and not 
to the Germanic type. Being of little value, always kept low, and growing amongst 
other and better known, because more esteemed trees, it is often overlooked or disre- 
garded even by the woodmen themselves, and hence appears rarer than it really is. 
I regret to see the dubious term of “ denizen” applied to this truly British tree in the 
excellent and most original work I have just quoted, seeing that the weight of its au- 
thority will be used to countenance, if not perpetuate, what I am persuaded is a phy- 
to-geographical error. Mr. Watson is doubtless right in his conjecture that the 
typical form of the Linnean T. europea is our T. parvifolia. This is clear from the 
‘Flora Suecica, because in Sweden the small-leaved is the only native form of the 
lime, unless, perhaps, in Scania, where, according to Fries, our T. europea (T. vul- 
garis, Hayne) is spontaneous, though Fries does not consider the two distinct (Corp. 
Fl. Prov. Suec. i. Scan. p. 80), and both these and T. grandifolia were all included in 
the ‘ Species Plantarum’ under T. europea, a name which Fries retains as a common 
designation for the two former alone. For notices of the wild lime in England, see 
‘Correspondence of Ray, published by the Ray Society, 8vo., 1848, pp. 43 and 237. 


419 


seen S. nigra in our English hedges assume the form and number of 
leaflets of the Canadian variety, and in all that regards the cymes 
and their flowers, berries and seeds, I can find no difference whatever 
on the most minute and oft-repeated comparison. 8. canadensis 
abounds throughout America from Canada to Carolina and Georgia. 
I have carefully examined the living plant from Quebec to Savannah, 
and westward to Louisiana and Missisippi, and remarked no change 
of character or habit throughout this vast area, except that in the 
central and southern states it was mostly confined to swamps, whilst 
in New England and Canada it grew more in drier places, fences, 
&c., like the European tree, a difference attributable to the great di- 
versity of climate under which it is found on that continent, requiring 
a cooler or warmer locality according to the latitude. I have seen 
this or our European elder thriving and flowering luxuriantly in the 
sultry gardens of Barbados and Trinidad, where it is cultivated for 
medicinal purposes. Loudon (Arboretum Brit. Art. Sambucus) ob- 
serves of S. canadensis, that from the suffruticose character of the 
branches, and the comparative tenderness of the plant, it is only fit 
for dry shrubberies in favourable situations; a strange thing, if true, 
since this species must be exposed, over a great part of its native 
country, to a degree of cold far surpassing any to which it can be 
submitted in our own temperate land. Such a semi-herbaceous plant 
I have never fallen in with wild, and suppose some half-shrubby, fo- 
reign species of Sambucus may go under the name of canadensis in 
our gardens and nurseries. I have the true S. canadensis now copi- 
ously under cultivation from seed I collected in Upper Canada, and 
soon hope to establish its identity with our European elder by actual 
experiment. 

Viburnum Lantana. In dry, elevated, or rocky woods and 
thickets, on bushy hills, banks and in hedges, sometimes on old walls ; 
extremely common throughout the county and island, wherever the 
soil is at all calcareous. Less frequent on the clay or eocene forma- 
tions, yet not uncommon about Ryde, in Quarr Copse, and most 
woods about that town. Abundant amongst the rocks at Eastend, 
and from thence all along the Undercliff a prevailing shrub. ‘In up- 
land woods betwixt Shanklin and Bonchurch, also about Newport, 
Carisbrook, Gatcomb, Shorwell, Calbourne, Yarmouth, &c., in plenty. 
About Winchester, Petersfield, Selborne, Andover, and most other 
parts of the county on the chalk, abundantly. Rare on the green 
sand. A conspicuous ornament of our woods and hedges at all sea- 
sons, in early summer enlivening them with its dense, hemispherical 


420 


cymes of rather ill-scented flowers, and later with the glowing scarlet 
of its half-ripe, polished, coral-like berries, that at length assume a 
deep purple black, with a somewhat glaucous bloom, finely contrast- 
ing with the softly-blended shades of red, brown and yellow displayed 
in the broad, plaited or wrinkled leaves previous to their decay. A 
variety with the leaves dark green, shining and glabrous above, is not 
unfrequent here, and the shrub is very commonly cultivated in the 
Ryde gardens. The fruit is sweetish, and rather pleasantly tasted, 
fully as much so as that of V. Lentago or V. prunifolium, which I 
have seen sold in the markets at Philadelphia and Montreal, and it is 
eagerly sought after by our feathered songsters in autumn, that eat 
out the soft pulp, leaving the skins of the berries attached to the fruit- 
stalks. This shrub is called whip-crop in the Isle of Wight (some- 
times applied to Pyrus Aria), from the occasional use made of its long, 
tough shoots by carters and ploughmen for whip handles, whilst in 
southern Russia, besides serving a precisely similar purpose, the 
bored stems were exported even to Germany, for the tubes of tobacco 
pipes (Pallas Fl. Ross. i. part 2, p. 31). The North American way- 
faring tree, or hobble-bush (V. lantanoides), is a perfectly distinct 
species, though strangely enough thought by the author of the ‘ Arbo- 
retum Britannicum’ a variety of the European. 

Viburnum Opulus. In low and moist (rarely in dry upland) 
copses, thickets and hedges, and by stream sides; extremely frequent 
over the whole county and island. Very common in damp woods 
around Ryde, as in Quarr Copse, at Apley, &c. Plentiful in copses 
about E. Cowes, Newport, Yarmouth and Calbourne. Very common 
in woods at Selborne, at Sheat and elsewhere about Petersfield, 
Bishopstoke, Fareham, Boldre, &c. Var. 8. Lobes of the leaves very 
long and acuminate.* In acopse near Hardhill Farm, near Cowes, 
Isle of Wight. Var. y. Radiant flowers of the cyme herbaceous, 
greenish, or variegated green and white. In Whitefield Wood, be- 
twixt Ryde and Brading, 1842, a single tree. In Elm Copse, near 
Calbourne, several bushes, June, 1845. A no less conspicuous orna- 
ment of our damp, than the foregoing of our dry, woods and hedges, 
decorating them with its broad flat cymes, bordered with a coronet of 


* Do not the lobed leaves in this species and a few more of the genus Viburnum 
point at an occult, pinnated arrangement, the gland-like appendages near the summit 
of the petioles being, in fact, rudimentary leaflets? The near relation of Viburnum 
to Sambucus favours this supposition, which, if correct, the lobes of the leaves exhibit 
the uppermost pair of leaflets with the terminal one united. 


421 


purest white, in May and June, and its large clusters of fruit, of bright 
translucent scarlet, in September and October, whilst the vivid purple 
of the fading leaves combines with the varied tints of the wayfaring 
tree, the maple and dogwood, to the gorgeous hues of the autumnal 
landscape. This shrub often rises with us in the wild state to 10 or 
12 feet, and with cymes 4 inches in diameter; a variety with very 
small leaves is likewise frequent. The fruit, which is intensely acid 
and bitter, finally becomes disgusting from its odour, and hence the 
plant is sometimes called stink-tree in this island. The tall cranberry 
of the Americans (V. Oxycoccus and V. edule) is now considered 
identical with the European V. Opulus, of which it seems to me to 
be scarcely even a variety, my specimens gathered in Canada differ- 
ing in no respects from Hampshire ones, and the berries I found to 
be equally bitter, sharp and unpalatable, yet are they eaten, as Dr. 
Asa Gray observes, as a (poor) substitute for cranberries in the north- 
ern parts of the United States. Gmelin (FI. Sibirica, iii., p. 146) re- 
lates a strange and rather long story from Steller, of the property these 
berries are said to possess of depriving corn brandy of both taste and 
smell, and reducing it apparently to so much water, yet retaining its 
power of intoxicating rather increased than diminished by the addi- 
tion. When planted in a dry garden, the interior flowers of the cyme 
quickly evince a tendency to become radiant and abortive like the 
outer, or to assume the conditions they present in the well-known 
snowball tree of our shrubberies. 

t?Lonicera Caprifolium. Woods and thickets; very rare. In 
two places in the middle of a wood at Appleshaw, apparently quite 
wild; Rev. G. F. Dawson in litt. I have twice carefully searched for 
this rare honeysuckle in Mr. Dawson’s station, which is a steep wood 
at the north end of the village, and in part nearly facing the church, 
but failed in finding the spot, as did also Mr. Whale, of Andover. 
The wood, which is large and thick, has been partially cleared of 
brush, so that it is very possible the Lonicera may have been removed 
with the underwood, or have escaped observation in the part left 
standing, and which is not everywhere easily explored from its den- 
sity. In the former case the plant will no doubt spring again from 
the root and attach itself to the new undergrowth, in the latter a per- 
severing search will bring it again to light. I have seen specimens 
from the station in the herbarium of Miss O. Haddfield, of Ventnor, 
Isle of Wight, communicated by the discoverer. The locality is a 
good one, but geographical considerations are opposed to the idea of 
the species being truly indigenous to this country, though decidedly 


422 


a well naturalized plant in several parts of the kingdom. The wood 
in question abounds with Colchicum autumnale, and produces Aqui- 
legia vulgaris, Vicia sylvatica and other good plants, whilst the 
picturesque village of Appleshaw, with its long lines of stately walnut 
trees, is well worthy of a visit from the lovers of rural beauty and re- 
tirement. 

Lonicera Periclymenum. In woods, hedges, thickets, on rocks 
and old walls throughout the county and island most abundantly, 
filling the air along our green lanes and bye roads with the grateful 
perfume from its flowering coronals of white, crimson, or golden yel- 
low. The variety with sinuate leaves (oak-leaved honeysuckle) is not 
very uncommon in our woods, and I think with the authors of the 
‘Flora Hertfordiensis,’ is probably a mere accidental variation in the 
straight succulent shoots, either natural or produced by the bill of the 
woodman in clearing the brush, as I do not remember ever to have 
remarked such leaves on the older flowering shoots. The leaves of 
this plant are sometimes with us perfectly glabrous on both sides, and 
a little shining, but more commonly finely pubescent underneath. 

N.B.—L. Xylosteum should be looked for in dry, hilly copses on 
the chalk in the east and north of the county. I have gathered it 
truly wild and most abundant in upland woods at Amberley, in Sus- 
sex, where it was first discovered by Mr. Borrer.* Though a shrub 
of a decidedly eastern and continental tendency, it has been found in 
several parts of England, and even in Forfarshire according to Mr. 
Gardiner. It ranges over Europe, especially the northern parts, to 
lat. 60°—63°, but is rare in the western and maritime countries of 
the continent. 

Sherardia arvensis. Extremely common in waste and cultivated 
places, corn-fields, fallows, woods, &c. all over the county and Isle 
of Wight, on dry, light soils. 

Asperula cynanchica. On dry, open, hilly pastures, heaths and 
banks; abundantly in the chalk districts, on the high downs and at 
the sea level. Very fine on banks at Ventnor, profusely about Caris- 


* In one of these high, hill-side copses, which Mr. Borrer does not seem to have 
known of, I found many very stout stems of the fly honeysuckle, evidently of great 
age, the brushwood in some parts mainly consisting of this shrub. An old farmer 
who was watching my proceedings from a gate a great distance below, as I afterwards 
found, to induce me to buy or rent the land of him a bargain as an eligible building 
investment, told me he had long intended grubbing up the copse, but refrained from 
so doing at the instance of his son, who wished it preserved for the amusement of 


rabbit shooting. 


423 


brook Castle and most other parts of the island, and I believe equally 
common throughout the county. Wheely Down; Rev. E. M. Slea- 
den. Maindell chalk-pit, Down-lane, Portsdown; Mr. W. L. Not- 
cutt. A charming little plant, of exquisite grace and delicacy when 
closely contemplated. 

Asperula odorata. In woods, groves, and on shady hedge-banks 
in various parts of the Isle of Wight and county; abundantly. Com- 
mon about Ryde, Cowes, &c. Woods at Selborne, abundantly. 
Wickham. Mitcheldever Woods; Rev. D. Cockelton of Bullington. 
Andover; Mr. Wm. Whale. 

Galium cruciatum. In dry woods and thickets, borders of fields, 
on sunny banks and under walls, very frequent in the Isle of Wight, 
and I believe as much so in mainland Hants. 
palustre. In pools, ditches and other wet places, abun- 
dantly ; the var. 6. Witheringii (G. Witheringii, Sm.) not unfrequent 
also. 


Mollugo. In hedges, bushy places and borders of woods 
almost everywhere. Abundant all over the Isle of Wight, where our 
hedge-rows are conspicuously adorned with the copious milk-white 
flowers in the latter months of summer. Var. £3. ochroleuca; flowers 
yellowish or cream-coloured. Field-hedge near Plumbley’s (new) 
Hotel, at Freshwater Gate, in considerable plenty, though confined 
to one spot, growing with the ordinary white sort and strikingly con- 
trasting with it, July 7, 1844. I found it with flowers more of a yel- 
lowish green betwixt Shanklin and Cook’s Castle, July 23, 1845, and 
which my friend Mr. Wm. W. Saunders has remarked betwixt Vent- 
nor and Bonchurch not nncommonly. In our hedge-rows this plant 
clambers over the shrubs to the height of many feet, and then isa 
great bushy branched plant, but in dry, open places and chalky pas- 
tures, it is much smaller, less ramified and decumbent, when it may 
be often mistaken for G. erectum, if indeed that species has any se- 
parate existence as undeniably distinct from G. Mollugo. 

verum. In dry fields, pastures, by road-sides and in loose 
sand of the sea-shore; abundantly. Plentiful amongst the sandy 
hillocks on St. Helen’s Spit, Isle of Wight, &c. The light airy 
panicles, with their myriads of tiny golden stars, show doubly beauti- 
ful by contrast, rising tall and taper amongst the countless snowy 
blossoms of G. Mollugo on the summit of some grassy bank. 
saxatile. On dry, barren, sandy heaths, commons and 
banks; abundantly. Profusely on Royal Heath, Sandown, and on 
the earthen fences along the road over Bleak Down from Newport, 


424 


&c. Common, I believe, throughout the county. Titchfield Com- 
mon; Mr. W. L. Notcutt. 

Galium uliginosum. In moist, boggy or marshy places, thickets, 
&c. Plentiful in several localities in the Isle of Wight, but by no 
means a general species here. Bog at Cockleton, near W. Cowes. 
Marsh at Freshwater Gate. Willow thickets by Langbridge and 
Budbridge, and a few other spots. The plant does not turn black in 
drying like G. palustre. I have no mainland station to record for 
this species, but cannot suppose it to be wanting or even uncommon 
in Hants. 
tricorne. Incorn-fields and other cultivated land, and in 
dry waste places, common in various parts of the Isle of Wight, and 
most so in West Medina, where the chalk is more predominant than 
in East Medina, and the proportion of arable to pasture and woodland 
much more considerable. About Thorley and Wellow the corn-fields 
are often quite overrun with it. About Cowes not unfrequent, corn- 
fields above St. Lawrence and Sandown Bay, at Carisbrook, Bon- 
church, &c. Very rare about Ryde (on the eocene or tertiary deposit), 
and not common on the green-sand. Andover, towards Weyhill, 1848. 
Liphook, Bot. Guide, and doubtless not uncommon in mainland 
Hants, though I have not received it from my county correspondents. 
Often, I dare say, passed by for G. Aparine, but easily recognized by 
the large tuberculate globose fruit, which, suspended from the triple 
downward-curved pedicels, pretty exactly imitates the three balls as 
they are seen hanging out over a pawnbroker’s shop. Flowers oc- 
casionally 5-cleft and pentandrous, or trifid and triandrous; styles 
often two, distinct. 

Aparine. About hedges and fences, in woods, thickets, 
corn-fields and waste ground, abundant everywhere. A very widely- 
diffused plant over the earth, I have found it apparently indigenous 
in woods at New Orleans, though thought to have been introduced to 
America (where it is very common) from the Old World. The herb, 
chopped small, is given to goslins in this island. G. anglicum, G. 
Vaillantii, and G. erectum may all be reasonably expected in this is- 
land and county, the last I more than once imagined I had found 
here, as did my friend Dr. T. Bell Salter, but I believe it was only a 
small erect form of G. Mollugo, which is not uncommon in dry, 
chalky pastures and bushy places. I do not, I confess, understand 
that plant, which appears to me, both in description, plate (in E. B.) 
and specimens, to approach much too near to G. Mollugo to be satis- 
factory. A specimen of G. boreale was shown to me last summer, at 


425 


Andover, by Mr. Wm. Whale, labelled Magdalen Hill, near Winton, 
1838; but although the genuine plant, I cannot venture to include in 
a Hampshire list a species so foreign as this to the south-east of 
England, particularly as Mr. W. did not gather it himself at the sta- 
tion, and cannot now remember the exact history of the specimen. 
The hill itself, too, is as unlikely looking a place for G. boreale as 
can well be imagined; some mistake has unquestionably been com- 
mitted. 

Rubia peregrina. Climbing over bushes, rocks and stony banks, 
in woods, thickets and hedges in numberless places in the Isle of 
Wight, and usually very abundantly. In various places about Ryde, 
as in Quarr Copse and Church Lane Binstead, and most profusely at 
the Priory, where (as well as about Steephill and thence onward to- 
wards St. Lawrence) it forms a dense mat on the underwood all over 
the grounds, and from off which it may be pulled by handfuls. Plen- 
tiful about Yarmouth, Freshwater, Cowes, &c., &c. From the persis- 
tent nature of its leaves it is here called evergreen cliver (cleaver 1s 
the name for Galium Aparine in most parts of England), and the pe- 
rennial stem often ascends trees to a considerable height.* This is 
usually described as square, but it is only the branches which are 
quadrangular, the stem itself is quite terete, woody, and covered with 
a fine ash-coloured epidermis, which, when old, peels off in paper-like 
flakes, and though not in general thicker than a quill, I have reason 
to believe lasts for several years; even the flowering shoots are more 
than annual, perhaps biennial or even perennial, but certainly less 
enduring than the main stem, which is truly suffruticose in this species, 
and unlike the square and very brittle branches, extremely tough and 
flexile. The leaves are exceedingly inconstant in number and form, 
varying from 4 to 6 in each whorl (commonly 4 or 5), mostly reduced 
to 2 or 3 beneath and amongst the flowering ends of the branches, 
and of all shapes, from lanceolate or elliptic-lanceolate to broadly el- 
liptical, ovato-elliptical, ovate, obovate or even suborbicular, the 
smaller usually the broadest. Corolla truly rotate, without any tube, 
granulated above, the innate anthers of an oblong rectangular figure, 
plano convex and somewhat arcuate or decurved at each end. The 
small, black, juicy, berry-like fruit is often abortive, wholly or partially, 


* T measured a stem from the Priory woods, near Ryde, which had ascended a 
tree to the extent of ten feet, hanging detached or at some distance from the trunk 
like a cord, and though the intermediate part appeared quite dead and withered, the 
summit had shot out into a bundle of green and vigorous leafy branches, high over 
head amongst the boughs of its supporter. 


VOL. It. 3K 


426 


on the same plant, at other times matured in abundance. The slen- 
der bright red root abounds in colouring principle, and would pro- 
bably, if cultivated, yield as good madder as those of R. tinctorum. 
I suspect the R. lucida of southern Europe is not distinct from ours, 
whose variable habit, Bertoloni remarks (Flor. Ital. ii., p. 148), has 
given rise to several false species, which he has traced into one ano- 
ther. R. peregrina is given by Ledebour as a native of the south of 
Russia; may not his plant be different from ours, which is quite a 
species of southern and western Europe, confined to the Atlantic and 
Mediterranean climates of the continent, and wholly unknown to all 
the interior countries? It is hardly credible, therefore, that so tender 
a plant should be able to withstand the rigorous winters which dis- 
tinguish the climate of Russia proper, even as low as the Black Sea 
provinces. I am at present unable to assign any station for R. pere- 
grina on the mainland of Hants, where, if not wanting, it must be 
very uncommon, yet I cannot help thinking it must grow along the 
coast at least, though I have not myself remarked it or heard of it 
from others. The wild madder is assuredly one of our most beauti- 
ful native plants, and its light panicles of greenish yellow flowers are 
not devoid of elegance, relieved by the deep verdure of its thick, 
shining, persistent leaves, which, when young, have a fine reddish 
brown tinge, and contribute, by the exuberant profusion with which 
they clothe rocky bank and bushy brae in many parts of this island, 
to enliven the monotony of the winter landscape, as much as they 
add lustre to the gayer garniture of summer scenery. 

{Centranthus ruber. Subspontaneous; on old walls and build- 
ings; not uncommon. Plentiful on Yarmouth Castle and on the gar- 
den wall of Morton House, Brading. Carisbrook Castle walls. On 
the rocks behind the houses at Ventnor, &c., but in all cases evi- 
dently originating from gardens, and retaining the variety of colour 
imparted to the flowers by cultivation. Said to be abundant in old 
chalk-pits in Kent, and, as Smith thought, perfectly wild, and on the 
rocks at Dawlish it looks more like a native than in any place I have 
seen it in elsewhere. The French Floras, even of the south, give it 
as mostly naturalized, nor do the Italian stations seem less excep- 
tionable than our own. Gerarde says it was not common in England 
in his time, but being a plant of western and maritime Europe it may 
possibly be aboriginal on calcareous rocks in the south of England, 
though as far as regards the Isle of Wight and Hampshire generally, 
a certainly introduced and semi-naturalized species. 

Valeriana officinalis. In wet thickets, on the banks of ditches 


427 


and rivers; frequent in the Isle of Wight, and I believe throughout 
the county. Common along the course of the Medina above New- 
port, at Blackwater, &c. In several parts of Sandown Level, at 
Yarbridge, Alverstone, and several other. places, often very abun- 
dantly. Winnal-water meadows. Bridge at Carns and side of 
Titchfield River; Mr. W. L. Notcutt. W.Meon, Warnford; Rev. 
E. M. Sladen. Itchen Stoke; Miss L. Legge. V.sambucifolia may 
possibly be found in the county, but of this I know nothing, and 
judging from the characters assigned it in the Manual, it seems to 
have little else than the larger number of leaflets to distinguish it 
from the common V. officinalis, a mark on which it would be unsafe 
to rely, as we have lately seen that in the elder, which this species is 
thought to resemble, the leaflets vary from three to five, and some- 
times to as many as seven or nine, whilst in form they are no less in- 
constant. 

Valeriana dioica. In low, wet meadows; very rare in the Isle of 
Wight. In deep, boggy ground, apparently composed of commi- 
nuted shells, at Easton Fresh-water Gate, pretty plentifully. By a 
small stream at the west end of Briddlesford Heath. In some wet 
meadows near Thorley; Rev. James Penfold!!!) In Winnal-water 
meadows Winton, abundant. Warnford; Rev. E. M. Sladen. 

Valerianella olitoria. In cultivated ground, corn-fields, and on 
hedge-banks ; extremely common. Var. 8. Flowers white ; in a field 
near Shanklin. 

—dentata. In cultivated fields, chiefly amongst corn ; 
very common. Abundant in corn-fields about Ryde, Sandown, 
Cowes, and most other parts of the Isle of Wight. Frequent, I be- 
lieve, over the whole county, though I have omitted to note its 
occurrence in mainland Hants. Nore Hill; Dr. T. B. Salter. By 
Hill Copse, Fareham; Mr. W. L. Notcutt. Var. 8. Fruit clothed 
with incurved, rigid hairs, cup of the calyx small (Fedia mixta, 
Vahl). Ina corn-field with the next species, by a creek of the Me- 
dina, adjoining Medham brickfield, in great plenty, July 13th, 1839. 
In these specimens the hairs are but sparingly found, and not easily 
seen without a glass. 

— Auricula. In cultivated fields amongst corn, &c., 
plentiful in various parts of the Isle of Wight, but rather less frequent 
than the last, of which I more than suspect it to be a variety merely. 
About Ryde, Cowes, Freshwater, Yarmouth, Haven Street, &c., often 
very abundantly, and probably equally frequent on the mainland. 

Oss.—Var. carinata, which abounds in Normandy and the Chan- 


428 


nel Islands, will probably be found in this, as it has already been in 
other counties of England; butits great resemblance to V. olitoria, 
from which it is scarcely distinguishable but by its fruit, renders its 
detection less easy. M. de St. Amans (Flore d’Agen, p. 14) makes 
them varieties, and says he has found the fruit of both on the same 
plant. Without pretending to decide the point, I incline to the be- 
lief that V. carinata holds the same relation to V. olitoria as V. Auri- 
cula does to V. dentata, and that the value of each as distinct species 
is, to say the least, very problematical. We have only to conceive 
the two anterior barren cells of V. dentata to become inflated, and 
consequently gibbous, and then I do not see in what it would differ 
from V. Auricula. The latter, though till lately overlooked or disre- 
garded even as a variety, was early noticed by Morison, who de- 
scribed and figured it in his ‘ Historia Plantarum,’ vol. iii. p. 104, 
tab. 17, sect. 7, No. 37. 

Dipsacus sylvestris. In moist hedges, wet woods, thickets, and on 
ditch-banks, extremely common over the whole county and Isle of 
Wight. In the wet woods about Ryde I have seen this species 
nearly seven feet high. The flowers expand in successive rings or 
zones (of a close or compressed spiral) on the large, conical heads, 
commencing about the middle of each cone, and ending at the base 
and apex, or by a centripetal progression of development. 
pilosus. In wet hedges and lanes; an apparently un- 
common species in mainland Hants, and not found in the Isle of 
Wight. Selborne as noticed by White, and where I find it plentiful 
along moist hedge-banks and borders of wet thickets in the valley to- 
wards Priory. In watery lanes between Hambledon and Wickham ; 
Rev. Messrs. Garnier and Poulter in Hamp. Repos. * _ By the road- 


* IT must here correct a mistake which has been continued through all the preced- 
ing numbers of these Notes, in attributing, as I was led to do through wrong infor- 
mation, the list of county plants in the ‘ Hampshire Repository’ to Dr, Pulteney, 
whereas the real authors of that list were the present Dean of Winchester (Dr. Gar- 
nier) and the Rev. Mr. Poulter, late of Warnford, near West Meon, the similarity of 
whose name to the Dorsetshire botanist and physician’s most likely occasioned the 
latter to be reputed the compiler of the Catalogue by the author of the ‘ Botanist’s 
Guide” This information I had from the Dean himself, a short time back, and who 
kindly corrected another mistake, for which I am wholly responsible. Under the 
head of Corydalis solida, at p. 336, I mentioned my belief that the Dean (its dis- 
coverer at Wickham) had formerly told me the station was the site of an old garden, 
but such was not the case. The plant grew in considerable abundance in the heart 
of a wood now destroyed, to all appearance perfectly wild. Such being the fact, and 
this species native to every country of central and northern Europe, France, Germany, 


429 


side going from Bishopstoke station towards Swatheling (one quarter 
of the distance from Bishopstoke); Dr. A. D. White. Hurstborne ; 
Rey. G. F. Dawson in Miss Hadfield’s herbarium! North Fare- 
ham; Mrs. Robinson in Mr. W. L. Notcutt’s list of Fareham plants 
in ‘ Phytologist’ ii. p. 207. 

This plant inclines strongly to the eastern or “Germanic type” of 
distribution, is very rare in the west of England, and unknown in 
Scotland and Ireland, doubtless from their ultra insular or oceanic 
climate being unsuited to its nature. From its close proximity to the 
mainland, the influence of the maritime or island climate is greatly 
modified in the Isle of Wight, and assimilated to that of the opposite 
mainland coast; still the insularity of our position is shown by the 
absence from the Vectian flora of certain plants common to the inte- 
rior of the county, as Phyteuma orbiculare, Convallaria majalis and 
multiflora, Dipsacus pilosus, Daphne Mezereon, Paris quadrifolia, 
Campanula patula, Herminium Monorchis, &c., and the comparative 
rarity of others, as Verbascum nigrum, Rhamuus catharticus, Cepha- 
lanthera grandiflora, Bryonia dioica, and some more; all species, be 
it observed, either very rare or quite wanting on the extreme western 
side of Britain, in Wales and Ireland. That the above is the true 
cause of their absence or unfrequency in this island will, I think, ap- 
pear sufficiently obvious from my remarks on the distribution of the 
bryony at p. 369, and not for lack of congenial soils and situations 
perfectly adapted to all and each of the species just enumerated, on 
its infinitely varied surface, which is a complete epitome of the entire 
county. But to compensate for the want or scarcity of these interior 
or continental species, the Isle of Wight produces many plants wholly 
or mainly restricted to itself and the opposite line of coast, as Rubia 
peregrina, Iris foetidissima, Briza minor, Scirpus Savii, Cyperus lon- 
gus, Senebiera didyma, Euphorbia portlandica, Linaria repens, and 
some others, not to mention the host of purely maritime plants which 
could not of course exist but on the sea-shore. 

Knautia arvensis. In meadows, pastures, cornfields and by way- 
sides; common everywhere in the county and Isle of Wight. With 


Belgium, Holland, Denmark and Sweden, I can see no objection to its admission 
into the Hampshire flora, and suspect that it has been rather too hastily placed on the 
alien list, and that whilst many of its habitats may be dubious, or even inadmissible, 
others will be found on renewed inquiry and examination to be truly natural ones. 
The figure in ‘English Botany’ was drawn from a Hampshire specimen sent by its 
discoverer from the Wickham station to Sir James Smith. 


430 


white flowers in a clover-field near Wellow, 1840. Var. 8. Smooth, 
all the leaves undivided, Isle of Wight, E. K., Loudon’s Mag. of Nat. 
Hist. i. p. 83. Var. y. All the florets of the centre equal to those of 
the circumference. Banks at Ventnor and corn-fields near St. Law- 
rence; Mr. Wm. W. Saunders, 1841!!! Called gipsy or Egyptian — 
rose in this island, a name applied also, I believe, to the common gar- 
den scabious (Scabiosa atropurpurea). 

Scabiosa succisa. In rather moist woods, meadows, and heathy 
pastures, most abundantly. These are often empurpled with its 
azure flowerets, unwelcome in their beauty as the earliest but surest 
token, that whilst nature wears yet an aspect green and fair, the noon- 
tide prime of the year has departed, and that ere long the “sere and 
yellow leaf” will give true but timely warning of the “ dim declining 
days” that must succeed its fall. Faithful to the advent of this silent 
monitor, the great green locust (Acrida viridissima) begins to herald 
the approach of autumn with his shrill note of preparation, feebly at 
first, and solitary, till later, every hedge is resonant the live long 
night with the ceaseless, responsive chirp of the invisible choristers. 

columbaria. On dry, and especially chalky banks and 
pastures; scarcely a common species in the Isle of Wight, though 
abundant enough in many places both here and on the mainland. 
About Carisbrook, frequent on the chalk about Appuldercombe, at 
Ventnor, Bonchurch, &c. Sloping banks above the Culver Cliff, 
Sandown Bay. Everywhere on dry slopes about Swainston, Row- 
ledge, Westover, &c., often with lilac flowers. Maindell chalk-pit, 
near Fareham; Mr. W. L. Notcutt. Wheely Down, near West 
Meon; Rev. E. M. Sladen. Andover; Mr. Wm. Whale. 

Eupatorium cannabinum. By rivers and ditches, in moist woods, 
hedges and other damp or marshy situations, extremely common 
everywhere. Remarkable as the only representative of the genus in 
Europe out of so many species inhabiting America, to few or none of 
which is it inferior in size or appearance. Sometimes (from the co- 
lour of its flowers ?) called raspberries and cream in this island. 

Petasites vulgaris. Pobably a frequent, if not a common plant on 
the mainland of Hampshire, although not found in the Isle of Wight. 
Plentiful at Bishopstoke, by the river side near the church.  Chrys- 
tal Abbey, about a mile from St. Mary Bourne, on the Hurstbourne 
road, in great profusion; Miss Hadfield! Abundant about Winches- 
ter; Dr. A. D. White. Andover; Mr. Wm. Whale. 

N. B.— Nardosmia fragrans (Tusstlago fragrans) is naturalized in 
various parts of the county and island by streams and on moist 


431] 


banks; but species that, like this, maintain their ground solely by 
their creeping roots and not by seed, can hardly, I think, be admitted 
with propriety even into the ranks of denizens. 

Tussilago Farfara. In moist fields, pastures, waste and arable 
ground, extremely troublesome and abundant on our stiff clay soils, 
on the north side of the Isle of Wight, and covering the wet banks of 
slipped clay along the entire line of coast where those formations pre- 
vail. Common in all parts of the mainland. 

Aster Tripolium. On muddy sea-shores and in salt-marshes; not 
uncommon in the Isle of Wight. Ditches on Ryde Dover and about 
Springfield. Salt-marshes at Newtown, Yarmouth, and muddy shores 
at Brading, Wootton Bridge and elsewhere, frequent, and occasionally 
with the rays partially or eutirely wanting. Common on most parts 
of the Hampshire coast at Havant, Emsworth, Fareham, in Hayling 
Island, &c., &c. 

Erigeron acris. On dry, barren fields, banks and pastures ; not at 
all unfrequent in the Isle of Wight, though scarcely to be called a 
common plant. In various places near Ryde, Newport, Cowes, Yar- 
mouth, &c., very widely dispersed, and occasionally in profuse abun- 
dance. I have seen a dry, hilly pasture, which in summer is resonant 
with the shrill chirping of the field-cricket (Acheta campestris) be- 
tween Apse and Ninham farms, near Shanklin, quite covered with it. 
Probably not uncommon over the county. Maindell chalk-pit, the 
Salterns, near Fareham; Mr. W. L. Notcutt. 

Bellis perennis. Enamels our meadows, pastures and banks in la- 
vish profusion. 

Solidago Virgaurea. Plentiful in woods, groves, on hedge-banks, 
heaths and commons in most parts of the Isle of Wight, and I believe 
of the county generally. In Quarr Copse, Binstead, &c. Like Eupa- 
torium cannabinum, the sole representative of its genus in Britain, if 
not in Europe, and as variable in its character as any of the species, 
which, with those of Aster, its close ally, are the opprobrium of Ame- 
rican botanists, just as the brambles, willows and roses are stumbling- 
blocks to our botanists at home. 

Inula Helenium. Truly wild in moist meadows, pastures, woods, 
about the borders of fields, by stream-sides, and amongst bushes, in 
very many parts of the Isle of Wight. Rare about Ryde, at Quarr 
and Binstead, and by a stream in a wood at Haven Street. Rather 
plentiful at the Bonchurch extremity of the Luccombe landslip (East 
end); Mr. Wm. W. Saunders!!! More common in West than in 
Kast Medina. Plentiful in a field by the Medina a little above West 


432 


Cowes, as noticed by my late lamented friend Samuel Hailstone, Esq. 
By the brook at the head of the marsh between Gurnet Bay and 
Hardhill farm. Frequent in pastures and thickets in various parts of 
the parishes of Thorley and Freshwater. Weston, Calbourne, Wel- 
low, Ningwood and elsewhere. I have no data at present for showing 
its distribution over mainland Hants, but from its frequency in the 
Isle of Wight suppose it may not be uncommon in the county. By 
the road-side not far from Preston Candover, between Old Alresford 
and Basingstoke; Mr. Wm. Pamplin in litt. Called wild sunflower 
in the Isle of Wight. 

Inula Conyza. In dry hedges, thickets and on grassy slopes, 
mostly, but not exclusively, in the chalk districts of the Isle of Wight, 
where it abounds. In the lane leading from Quarr Abbey to the 
Newport road in plenty, otherwise rare about Ryde.  Plentiful at 
Bonchurch, Ventnor, St. Lawrence, and along the Undercliff gene- 
rally. Frequent about Arreton, Brading, Carisbrook, at Yaresland, 
Northcourt, Adgeton Rowledge, &c. Frequent, I believe, in the 
county on the chalk. Maindell chalk-pit, Fareham, and Porchester 
road; Mr. W. L. Notcutt. Warnford; Rev. E. M. Sladen. Week- 
hill-hanger, Selborne; Dr. T. Bell Salter. Sometimes grows to five 
feet in height: the odour is very aromatic and agreeable. 

Inula crithmoides. In muddy salt-marshes; very local in the Isle 
of Wight; more general along the shores of mainland Hants. Ina 
creek of the Medina, about half a mile above East Cowes, but very 
sparingly ; the late Mr. S. Hailstone!!! Fringes the margins of the 
brine-pans in the Newtown marshes in great abundance. Marsh near 
Hurst Castle; Ray, Bot. Guide. Wicor Hard; Mr. W. L. Notcutt! 
In several parts of Hayling Island, and shore betwixt Emsworth and 
Langston. Frequent, I believe, all along the coast of Hants, where 
mud-flats occur. The golden samphire has an aromatic, not ungrate- 
ful smell, and a warm, pungent, saline taste, approaching in both re- 
spects to the true samphire (Crithmum maritimum), for which the 
fleshy leaves would perhaps be a good and much more accessible 
substitute. 

Pulicaria vulgaris. In moist spots and pits where water has 
stood during winter, on village greens, and about farm-houses, in 
places trodden by cattle, but not commonly in the Isle of Wight. 
About Trouble-fields farm, Ryde, in some quantity. Abundant on 
St. Helen’s Green. About Sandown, where it was plentiful some 
years ago in a deep pit or depression abounding in chamomile (An- 
themis nobilis), just where the Ryde and Brading road branches off 


433 


along the bay to Shanklin and Yaverland. Near Lake, Apse, Wal- 
pen and Hardingshoot farms. I have gathered this species some 
years ago at Marchwood, near Southampton, but have never received 
specimens or seen it in any of the local lists of the county plants with 
which I have been favoured by correspondents, except from Mr. 
Whale, of Andover, with whom I have seen examples, collected near 
that town. Its plain, inconspicuous aspect, rather perhaps than any 
great degree of rarity, causes it to be overlooked or disregarded by 
collectors. Inner pappus much shorter than the florets; achenes te- 
rete. A good example of the eastern or “Germanic” type, which, 
in the Hants Flora, predominates over the “ Atlantic” or western type 
of vegetation, the latter beginning to develop itself sensibly beyond 
the meridian of Newport and Winchester, and especially visible in the 
south-west portion of the county, between the Southampton estuary 
and the Dorsetshire boundary (New Forest district), becoming very 
decidedly marked in the last-named county. 

Pulicaria dysenterica. In moist places by road-sides, in lanes, 
woods and on ditch-banks, abundant almost everywhere. The green 
margins of our lanes and bridle roads are commonly lined with this 
plant, which, in the autumnal months, displays its handsome, bril- 
liant yellow heads of flowers, in a broad belt on either side of the 
traveller’s path. Inner pappus as long as the florets; achenes 
strongly ribbed and angular. 

Bidens tripartita. In ditches, ponds, and other watery places ; 
much less frequent in the Isle of Wight than the next, and indeed 
may be called rare on this side of the Solent. In various parts of 
Sandown Level. Ina ditch by Merry Garden. Margin of the pond 
at Hardingshoot farm in considerable plenty. 

Bidens cernua. In similar places with the last, but far more com- 
monly. In the foregoing stations for B. tripartita. Frequent along 
the Medina in several parts of its course, as about Cridmore, Rookley, 
&c. Near Gatcombe, Newchurch, Budbridge, Alverston and various 
other places. Common on mainland Hants. Short Heath, near Sel- 
borne, &c., &c. Var. 6. Much smaller, stem slender, simple. B. 
minima, Z., F. Dan. ii. t. 312. Dillen. in Ray’s Syn. i. p. 188, t. 7, 
right-hand fig. In a bog on the wet moors a little N.E. of Godshill, 
and nearly opposite Moor farm, Sept., 1843. In my specimens the 
heads of flowers are both erect and slightly nodding. The variety 
of these two species with radiant marginal florets has not occurred 
to my knowledge in the county. 

Anthemis arvensis. In sandy, gravelly, or chalky fields, amongst 

Von nair. 3 L 


434 


grass, Clover, turnips, &c. (I have never seen it here in corn), more 
rarely on dry hedge-banks and waste ground; by no means uncom- 
mon in the Isle of Wight, but perhaps in most cases introduced with 
grass seeds from the mainland. On hedge-banks near Arreton. 
Plentiful amongst vetches in a field at the south end of Newchurch, 
June Ist, 1845, and in a grass field at Vinnicombe Barn, near that 
village, where the proprietor of the land complained of it to me as a 
most troublesome weed. In several places about Sandown, Shanklin, 
Newchurch, Godshill, Swainston, Bonchurch, &c., most frequently 
amongst clover, and hence scarcely persistent in its stations for any 
time. Near Andover, and seen in plenty by the side of the Andover 
road, going up the hill from the railway (Andover road) station. 
Winchester. The fine, large, white flowers are sweet-scented, with 
an odour, when bruised, like chamomile, but weaker, of which the 
herbage is nearly destitute, and it is the earliest species of its tribe to 
come into blossom, which it does here in May, if not sooner. I re- 
marked in June, 1845, that in a field of vetches at Newchurch, upon 
which sheep were penned to eat them off, the Anthemis arvensis was 
cropped clean down to the roots by those animals, and though ex- 
cessively abundant, not a plant was spared by them. This species 
ought perhaps rather to be encouraged than otherwise in clover and 
grass fields, as its sweet, aromatic qualities are probably salutary to 
stock of most kinds. 

Anthemis Cotula. In waste and cultivated land, especially 
amongst corn, by way-sides, on dunghills, &c.; far too abundant 
over the entire island, if not equally prevalent throughout the county, 
as I believe it to be. Plentiful in Hayling Island, &c. Mr. Noitcutt 
could not find it about Fareham (Phytol. ii. p. 491). Var. 8. Leaves 
fleshy, dotted, stem procumbent. In loose sand on the beach at 
Norton Freshwater. In this variety, which I at first took for Pyre- 
thrum maritimum, besides the above characters, the pales of the 
receptacle appeared to be broader or less setaceous than in the usual 
inland state of the species. This plant is a grievous nuisance to the 
diligent and thrifty, as it is obnoxious to the negligent or slothful 
farmer, speedily overrunning the land when not kept clean, and often 
nearly obliterating the corn crops in this island.* Here it is but too 


* About Cowes, and in many other parts of the island, I have seen the standing 
wheat so full of morgan as nearly to hide the ground from sight. Amongst the men 
of the island “ whose talk is of oxen,” but few comparatively of the smaller occupiers 
of the soil are actuated with the zeal of Triptolemus Yellowley for the advancement 
of agricultural science, and the contention between Ceres and Flora for the possession 


435 


well and familiarly known as Morgan or Morgin (pronounced by the 
customary Vectian change of the o into a, Margin), in Sussex Mavin, 
a word, of whose etymology and proper orthography, if it have any 
written existence, I am ignorant. A unanimous accusation lies 
against this pernicious weed of blistering the feet, hands and open 
bosoms of the harvest men employed in binding up the sheaves and 
piling the shocks of wheat. That the imputation is well founded, 
the concurrent testimony of every labourer in the harvest-field leaves 
no room to doubt. The general opinion, gleaned from numerous and 
minute inquiries, I find to be, that the irritating effects of the plant 
are caused by the seeds when ripe, and are mostly manifested in the 
lower extremities, from the close adhesion of the achenes to the part 
by their rough surface, aided by the friction of the shoe, inducing, 
first abrasion, afterwards active inflammation, and even ulceration. 
I have been repeatedly assured by the country people that they have 


of the land which of right ought wholly to belong to the grain-giving goddess, would 
as much astonish and grieve the heart of a farmer from the Lothians, as it might 
charm a botanist from that rich and thriftful corner of North Britain, were they to 
behold the fields that should be white to harvest with the unmingled fruits of skill 
and industry, overrun by a particoloured array of usurping weeds which ignorance, 
sloth, or want of capital permit to spring up unchecked. The subjoined spicilegium 
botanicum is merely a sample of what may be gleaned withont labour from the too 
teeming lap of our Vectic Cybele in the way of agricultural nuisances. *Anthemis 
Cotula, *Convolvulus arvensis, Adonis autumnalis, *Ranunculus arvensis, * Lychnis 
Githago, Papaver *Rheeas, *dubium, Argemone and hybridum, *Alopecurus agrestis, 
Gastridium lendigerum, Briza minor, Euphorbia *exigua, *Peplus, *helioscopia and 
platyphylla, Torilis *infesta and nodosa, Pastinaca sativa, *Scandix Pecten, *Galium 
tricorne, *Melampyrum arvense, Silene anglica and inflata, Vicia *hirsuta, *tetra- 
sperma and *gracilis, Bupleurum rotundifolium, *Lithospermum arvense, Galeopsis 
Ladanum, Valerianella dentata and Auricula, Linaria minor, *Elatine and *spuria, 
Chrysanthemum *segetum and *Leucanthemum, *Orobanche minor, Specularia hy- 
brida, Myosurus minimus, with a host of others still commoner, homelier, or at best 
more pretty than profitable. Those with the asterisk are the most obnoxious to the 
farmer from their bulk or abundance, the remainder, if less injurious, are sufficently 
plentiful to aid in exhausting the land, and appropriating that nourishment which 
ought to go to the nascent crop, and therefore are never seen in any quantity where 
good husbandry prevails and the ground is kept clean and in fair condition. To this 
censure on the general state of agriculture in the island, many honourable exceptions 
must be made amongst the class of practical farmers, upon whose land scarcely a 
weed is to be seen, whilst several of the great owners of estates, in devoting their 
time, energies and capital to agricultural improvement, are silently effecting a change 
in the deep-rooted prejudices and slovenly habits of the little farmers of the old 
school, that are still a numerous race amongst the more enlightened of their brethren. 


436 


known men incapacitated for work, and laid up for days together in 
harvest time, through the injurious operation of this noxious weed, 
not one whom I have talked with on the subject but spoke feelingly 
of the annoyance, often from his own painful experience. To myself 
the odour of the bruised flower-heads is not unpleasant, nor, although 
when chewed these last have a biting acrimony of brief duration, am 
I sensible of any vesicating property on protracted handling of the 
fresh plant or its seed, whilst others have experienced the usual bad 
effects in a short time. I apprehend that long continued contact with 
a moist and heated surface is required to produce such a result with 
the generality of persons. A common and introduced weed in most 
parts of North America to which colonization has extended, where, 
however, it is by no means so troublesome and hurtful an intruder as 
with us. I have picked it on the Misissippi as far south as Natchez 
and New Orleans. 

Anthemis nobilis. On heaths, commons, and dry pastures, in very 
many parts of the Isle of Wight, and often in great plenty. At 
Springfield, near Ryde, and on St. Helen’s Green. In a deep hol- 
low by the road-side near the north end of Sandown village, very fine 
and plentiful. On Lake and Blackpan Commons abundantly. Very 
luxuriant on sandy banks at the foot of Bleak Down, and on earthen 
fences near the pond by the road to Chale and Niton. Abundant on 
the open, heathy parts of Bordwood. On Rookley Moors, and in pas- 
tures by the Wilderness in plenty. Very exuberant on Kennerley 
Heath, between Rookley and Bohemia. On Colwell, Apse and 
Royal Heaths, &c. Quite a frequent species in most quarters of the 
island, and perhaps not less so in the county generally. Near Ly- 
mington; Dr. Maton in Bot. Guide. Fareham Common, Peel Com- 
mon in profusion; Mr. W. L. Notcutt. Droxford Forest; Rev. E. 
M. Sladen. On Southampton Common, if I mistake not, but the 
chamomile is so generally dispersed over the Channel district, that I 
have neglected taking notes of its special localities. On our short, 
open pastures the plant is quite depressed, and might escape observa- 
tion, did not the heedless passer-by force its fragrance from the sod 
at every step, but on heaths and banks it is very luxuriant, growing 
in large, decumbent tufts, and even at times quite erect. _[ found it 
July 31st, 1844, sparingly on the moors near Rookley Wilderness as 
very small plants, each bearing a solitary, globose head of perfectly 
full or double flowers, as we see it in gardens, in which the aroma is 
weaker than in the single and wild state of this valuable and popular 
tonic. 


437 


Achillea Ptarmica. In woods, meadows, pastures, on heaths and 
by road-sides; a decidedly rare plant in the Isle of Wight. In and 
about Parkhurst Forest, by the road-side from Newport to Yarmouth, 
&e., very plentifully. Between Yarmouth and Ningwood, nearly op- 
posite Cranmore farm. Road-side between Wootton and Newport, 
a little beyond the bridge across the road, but not plentiful. Alving- 
ton Manor land and Smallgains Heath; Mr. G. Kirkpatrick !! 
About the Depot Hospital (Parkhurst Barracks); Mr. W. D. Snooke, 
and in a few other places. Probably less unfrequent in mainland 
Hants. In plenty by the side of the London and Portsmouth road, 
between the 8th and 10th milestones, on this side of Petersfield, Au- 
gust, 1848. Millis’s Bottom and Titchfield River; Mr. W. L. Not- 
cutt. Serjeant’s Meadow, Warnford, and Droxford Forest; Rev. E. 
M. Sladen. The bruised flower-heads have a pungent, aromatic 
scént, though the rest of the herb is nearly inodorous. The ray is 
deflexed at night, or when the plant is gathered, as in Anthemis. 

Achillea Millefolium. In meadows, pastures, on hedge-banks, by 
road-sides and borders of fields, everywhere very common. Var. 8. 
Heads of flowers rose-colour, or deep red; occasionally. Shore 
near E. Cowes Castle. N.B.—Diotis maritima (Santolina maritima) 
is stated by Mr. W. D. Snooke* to grow on the shore at Sconce 
Tower, a little west of Yarmouth. There is certainly no trace of it 
there now, and from the unlikelihood of the station (on wet, slipped 
clay) to produce a plant of the loose, sandy, or pebbly beach, I may 
safely assume an error on the part of the recorder, unless the consti- 
tuents of the beach at that time (1823) were very different from what 
they are at this, when the sea is making daily inroads on the soft 
banks, and reducing them to a magma of slime and mud along the 
line of high water. 

Chrysanthemum Leucanthemum. An abundant and often very 
troublesome weed in dry fields and pastures, which are sometimes 
rendered quite white with it in the earlier part of summer. Called 
Bozzum in this island. Naturalized from Europe to an equally 


* Author of a little anonymous work of 35 pages, entitled ‘ Flora Vectiana,’ Lond. 
1823, sm. 8vo., being a Catalogue of about 300 of the (mostly) less common plants 
of the Isle of Wight, arranged according to the Linnean system, the stations partly 
original and partly selected from Withering’s Flora and Turner and Dillwyn’s ‘ Bota- 
nist’s Guide” ‘To this list, originally drawn up for Sheridan’s ‘Guide to the Isle of 
Wight, I am indebted, so far as it goes, for the compiler’s own observed localities, 
which, with a few exceptions, I have verified, and when of sufficient interest have 
quoted under the author's name in these Notes. 


438 


injurious extent in the United States, where I have traced it from 
Boston as far south as Savannah (lat. 32°). 

Chrysanthemum segetum. In cultivated fields, amongst corn, tur- 
nips and other crops, not uncommon, and sometimes in great profusion 
in the Isle of Wight, but chiefly confined to the sandy districts, and 
hence more frequent in West than in East Medina. About Sandown, 
Shanklin, Godshill, Chale, Rookley, Niton and many other places. 
Probably not rare in the county, although I find no notes made of 
its occurrence excepting at Short Heath, near Selborne, where it is 
plentiful in the loose sandy soil. Sometimes called here Yellow Boz- 
zum, more commonly by its general name of Corn Marigold. A 
showy nuisance, more particularly infesting barley and turnips with 
us than other crops. Winter wheat at least (and this is the only kind 
grown here) seems in general free from its contamination. 

+? Pyrethrum Parthenium. In waste or rubbishy places, on banks, 
wall tops, along hedges and road-sides, chiefly in the vicinity of habi- 
tations; not uncommon in the county and island, but scarcely I think 
truly indigenous. About Ryde, Cowes, &c. Plentiful on sandy banks 
at Oakhanger, near Selborne, about Petersfield, &c., frequent. Called 
Whitewort in this island, and an inmate of almost every cottager’s 
garden. 
inodorum. In fields, pastures, waste places, by way- 
sides, &c., plentiful everywhere ; a rather troublesome weed in tillage 
lands that are somewhat moist in the latter part of summer, amongst 
turnips, potatoes and other root crops. Var. 8. maritimum (P. mari- 
timum, Smm.). Common on banks and rocks along the shores of the 
Isle of Wight. At Sandown, Luccombe, Ventnor. Shore at Egypt, 
West Cowes, &c., in abundance. Not distinguishable by any mark 
that I can perceive from the last, except in such trifling deviations of 
structure as may reasonably. be attributed to the influence of the sea 


air. 

Matricaria Chamomilla. \n waste places, corn-fields and by way- 
sides; apparently a local, if not a rare plant in Hants, and which, 
though common along the coast immediately opposite, I have never 
succeeded in finding in the Isle of Wight. In several parts of Hay- 
ling Island, at South Hayling, &c., but not abundantly. Portsea 
Island. Pretty plentiful along the road from Cosham to Havant, about 
Drayton and onward to Farlington, where it is very common around 
the water-works and in the lane leading to them, also on the line of 
the Southern Counties Railway from Havant to the Fareham Junction. 
At Wymmering, along the road-side near the tumpike, and at Por- 


439 


chester. Border of a field at Norton, near Selborne, September, 1848. 
Southampton, in a corn-field; Mr. Borrer!!| Wicor Hard, near 
Fareham; Mr. W. L. Notcutt!!!| Droxford Forest; Rev. E. M. Sla- 
deri. Probably often overlooked from its strong general resemblance 
to Anthemis Cotula and Pyrethrum inodorum, but the mostly smaller 
flowers than those of either of these species, with the pleasant smell 
of apple or quince, which is very characteristic of the Matricaria, and 
from whence it got its specific name, will serve to distinguish it, espe- 
cially from the nearly scentless Pyrethrum. The very conical disk is 
a character which attracts attention readily to the Matricaria, but in 
an early stage of inflorescence this is not always obvious, or at least 
not more so than in Anthemis Cotula, the disk in which is sometimes 
considerably prominent, though never perhaps so acutely conical as 
in the other. The leaves of the Matricaria are in general more finely 
divided or with the segments capillary, but these are liable to vary 
much in breadth in all the three species; so that the peculiar sweet 
smell of the heads of flowers, and the absence of pales on the recep- 
tacle, are the only sure marks by which the wild chamomile can, un- 
der all circumstances, be distinguished from its two allies. The total 
absence of this plant in the Isle of Wight, whilst so frequent in those 
of Portsea and Hayling and along the eastern coast of mainland Hants, 
is one of those curious problems in the geographical distribution of 
vegetables, which baffle explanation in our present utter ignorance of 
the laws by which that distribution is governed. 


Wm. A. BRoMFIELp. 
Eastmount House, Ryde, Isle of Wight, 


January, 1842. 


[To be continued]. 


Note on the flowering time of Mentha sylvestris. 
By W. A. BromrieE.p, M.D., F.L.S. 


Your correspondent, Mr. Lawson, wishing to be informed of the 
flowering time of Mentha sylvestris, and to know if the plant remains 
barren for a season, I am happy to answer his inquiry as far as I am 
able, from personal observation of the species at Selborne, in Septem- 
ber last. At that sweet secluded spot, amongst the loveliest of Eng- 
land’s lovely villages, and hallowed above them all in the hearts of 
British naturalists, such as read nature, not in books and closets, but 
in her own fair pages, the fresh and fragrant fields, Mentha sylvestris 


440 


grows in very great abundance in a damp meadow below the church, 
on the north side, and in a wet thicket to the eastward, at the opening 
of the valley leading to the Priory, in which third and last station it 
occurs in plenty in marshy soil adjoining the stream. When I saw it 
on or about the 16th of September, the greater portion of the plants 
in the second and last localities had flowered freely, but scarcely any 
specimens were left in that state, the flowers being for the most part 
quite over, so that I did not think it worth while collecting examples 
for the herbarium. In the first station below the church, but a com- 
paratively small part of the entire number of plants appeared to have 
flowered that year, the few that had done so being likewise out or all 
but out of flower, and of these the leaves were in all three habitats 
rusty and eroded as if about to perish, their functions being no longer 
required, whilst those of the more numerous barren stems were uni- 
formly fresh, entire and vigorous, and evidently destined to survive 
the winter, green as then. This species being perennial, the young 
plants, whether seedlings, or offsets from the creeping rhizoma of old 
ones, would of course not flower the first season, but whether these 
numerous barren stems were not of an age to flower, or were fated to 
remain unfruitful from other causes, I am not prepared to say. The 
great preponderance of barren over flowering specimens in the mea- 
dow beneath the church, inclines me to suppose that many of the 
plants never flower at all; but that the whole of the apparently bar- 
ren stems should remain permanently in that condition, seems to me 
improbable. I apprehend that Mentha sylvestris, like many other 
plants of its order, has a great tendency to exhaust itself in root, and 
that whilst in some of its stations it may be induced to flower freely, 
in others, circumstances rather favour its propagation by the creeping 
rhizoma. M. sylvestris is given as a native of the Isle of Wight in 
the old ‘ Botanist’s Guide,’ on the authority of Mr. S. Woods, but I 
have never met with it here myself during nearly twelve years botani- 
cal acquaintance with all parts of the island, nor is it by any means 
a common species in England. M. rotundifolia, on the contrary, 
abounds in some of the districts of this island, and exhibits the same 
variable and capricious tendencies to barrenness and fertility as M. 
sylvestris, to which it is so intimately allied as almost to induce a 
suspicion, when the polymorphous nature of the genus is considered, 
that they may be states of one and the same species. I should say, 
for the same reason as that advanced in a late number of this journal, 
that the non-production of flowers and seed does not militate very 
conclusively against the claim of M. sylvestris to be held native to 


44] 


Forfarshire ; the circumstance of its being confined to the road-side, 
and not found on the undisturbed virgin soil around, would tend 
more to shake my confidence as to its indigenous origin than the 


mere*fact of its sterility. 
W. A. BROMFIELD. 
Eastmount House, Ryde, Isle of Wight, 
January 2, 1849. 


A few days in Canlochen Glen, &c. By JaMes BAackHousE, Junr., Esq. 


81h Month, 1848.— Leaving our conveyance near the head of the 
pass between Braemar and the Spital of Glen Shee, my father and I 
followed the course of a streamlet that gurgled down from the hills 
amongst loose fragments of serpentine rock, interspersed here and 
there with glittering atoms of mica. 

The rugged mountains that cluster round the head of the pass, 
were alternately enlivened and cast into deep shadow by incessant 
fluctuations of cloud and sunshine, and large patches of snow still re- 
mained on the southern slopes of Cairngorum and Ben-na-mac-dhui, 
which overhung the distant valley of the Dee. 

Knowing that we were on the border of the richest botanical dis- 
trict in Britain, many parts of which had never been explored, we felt 
sure that rarities new to ws at least, in their native localities, would 
quickly greet us, and the yellow cushions of Saxifraga aizoides, with 
Alchemilla alpina and many other old acquaintances, foretold treasures 
beyond, in store for the diligent and careful searcher. 

Patches of Sibbaldia procumbens, and solitary plants of Epilobium 
alpinum, soon studded the margin of the streamlet, and a little higher 
Veronica alpina, Carex rupestris, and Juncus trifidus mingled with 
them. A few steps more gave Juncus biglumis, Luzula arcuata, 
Gnaphalium supinnm, Epilobium alsinifolium, Carex capillaris, C. 
rigida, Spergula saginoides, Juncus triglumis, and Luzula spicata. 
Soon we reached some low rocks, the crevices of which were filled 
with Polystichum Lonchitis, in every stage of growth. Bogs on the 
table land beneath the Glass-Mhiel mountain produced Carex rari- 
flora in abundance, with Juncus biglumis and the newly described 
Carex Personii sparingly. 

On the summit of the Glass Mhiel, at an elevation of nearly 4000 
feet, Salix herbacea, Luzula spicata and Carex rigida formed the en- 
tire herbage. 

VOL. i1I. 3M 


442 


From the north-eastern side we descended into the alpine glen of 
Canlochen, which runs into the head of Glen Isla, one of the highest 
valleys of the Clova district. 

Canlochen Glen is hemmed in on each side by dark precipices, 
while larch forests clothe its lower slopes, affording shelter for hun- 
dreds of red deer that roam at large over the vale and surrounding 
heights. The bogs and streamlets above the glen produced Phleum 
commutatum, Alopecurus alpinus, Carex aquatilis, and in one place 
(far above where snow usually lies unmelted from year to year) a spe- 
cies of Eriophorum, apparently different from E. vaginatum, having 
short, thick, and highly polished stems, round below and bluntly tri- 
angular above, with very large spherical or almost flattened heads : 
it differs from the E, Scheuchzeri of continental authors in having a 
differently formed nut, and leaves rough towards the point, but is 
probably the plant found by Don on Ben Lawers, which he called 
capitatum. 

We returned to the Spital of Glen Shee over a high precipitous 
mountain, covered with acres of tumbled quartzose rocks, which forms 
the southern abutment of the Glass Mhiel. 

The next morning saw us toiling once more up the steep western 
ridge of this mountain, buried in clouds and enduring all the pleasures 
of a highland shower. From the top we steered by compass into 
the head of Canlochen Glen, and commenced a careful search of the 
great precipice at the south-western head. 

In many places the rocks were covered with Dryas octopetala, Vac- 
cinium uliginosum, Salix reticulata, and Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, ac- 
companied by a profusion of Saxifraga oppositifolia, which trailed 
upon the ledges in all directions, sometimes intermixed with large 
tufts of Silene acaulis. It was a delightful place for a botanist; and 
as we crept cautiously along the ledges under the towering cliffs, 
fresh rarities delighted our eyes at every few yards. Potentilla alpes- 
tris, Saxifraga nivalis, Cerastium alpinum, Hieracium diaphanum, H. 
Halleri (in curious and varying forms), with the distinct H. nigrescens 
and H. alpinum, conspicuously adorned the sombre rock, contrasting 
their blossoms with the purple Erigeron alpinus and Saussurea al- 
pina. Here and there fine tufts of Carex atrata waved in the wind, 
and Poa alpina, montana, and cesia grew under the shelter of wet 
rocks. The exquisite little Veronica saxatilis occasionally showed 
its brilliant flowers, and Gentiana nivalis, sometimes almost micro- 
scopic, and sometimes 6 or 7 inches high, was sufficiently abundant to 
make us believe that we were the first botanical visitors at its lonely 


443 


dwelling-place in 1848. Veronica alpina and a variety of V. offici- 
nalis margined some of the rills, and enormous tufts of Polystichum 
Lonchitis with fronds 18 inches long added to the interesting assem- 
blage. In climbing from ledge to ledge on the face of the crag, near 
a basaltic gorge we found a Gnaphalium of very unusual appearance, 
differing from G. sylvaticum (to the mountain form of which it ap- 
proaches nearest) in having few long-stalked obovate-lanceolate leaves 
scattered on the stem, and spreading off at right angles, and a short, 
closely aggregated, abrupt spike, with linear spreading bracteas. The 
plants were from 6 to 8 inches high, and seemed luxuriant and un- 
like the starved form of G. sylvaticum which is not uncommon ata 
lower elevation, and has ascending linear or linear-lanceolate leaves 
clothing the stem from the base. The heads of sylvaticum moreover 
are more elongated and spiked, and the florets are rather shorter in 
proportion to the involucral scales. Our plant is probably G. nor- 
vegicum, which is considered specifically distinct from G. sylvaticum. 

Juncus castaneus was abundant in the streamlet that falls into this 
gorge close to the edge of the precipice, and a few scattered plants 
grew in a bog many hundred feet below. 

In returning we re-ascended the shoulder of the Glass Mhiel, and 
had again to steer our way amid the cloud, safely reaching the head 
of the pass just as the shades of evening closed around us. 

Refreshed by a night’s rest we crossed the moors to the head of 
Glen Callater, finding Salix lanata, Cornus suecica, and Trientalis 
europea. 

The comfortable inn at Braemar was our lodging-place that night, 
and on the following morning we started at an early hour for Loch- 
nagar, passing through the forests on the south side of the Dee. It 
was a lovely day, and the three tranquil tarns under the west cliffs of 
the mountain brilliantly reflected the blue sky above them, while the 
clearness of the distant landscape and general serenity foretold no- 
thing of coming storms. On the ascent we gathered Lycopodium 
annotinum, Pinus sylvestris from its native woods, Betula nana, and 
Azalea procumbens. Our tract was up a steep, narrow ravine partially 
filled with snow, which (though condensed so as to resemble ice) still 
measured 4 feet in thickness. We cut niches for our feet, and so 
scrambled up its steep edge, careful to avoid a slip into the cavernous 
recesses underneath, which were quite large enough to hold us! On 
the top of the mountain we saw many of the plants noticed in the 
preceding excursions, and after surveying the 1200-feet precipice on 
the north-eastern side, followed a stream which (in four miles) led us 


444 


down to the edge of Loch Muick, near a fine waterfall. After 
scrambling along the side of the lake, dark threatening clouds gather- 
ing around the mountain tops, and obliterating them from the view, 
one by one, in rapid succession, gave us warning to ascend without 
loss of time, and recalled to mind an unusual atmospheric appearance 
in the horizon, that had claimed our notice from the top of Lochnagar. 

We were soon enveloped, and had to steer our way amid the cloud 
along the mountain, almost exhausted by the violence of the wind 
and cold. Less than two hours were left to reach the foot of Loch 
Callater before nightfall, and our route was over mountains prestanely 
untrodden by us. 

This point was gained just as daylight vanished, the glimmering 
reflection of the water barely sufficing to point out the rough foot- 
track leading to the gamekeeper’s cottage at the foot of the lake. 
After 143 hours of almost incessant walking we arrived there in time 
to learn that the conveyance appointed to meet us had left about 10 
minutes, its driver considering the case hopeless. 

The storm had now increased in fury, and rain began to pour 
down in torrents, making the idea of another turn out anything but 
delectable. Knowing, however, that our companion who had gone 
before us to Braemar would be anxious, we ventured forth after re- 
galing on oat cake and milk, having more than 5 miles to go, besides 
the necessity of wading through a rapid river in the dark. 

The storm continued unabated all the way, and when safely lodged 
at Braemar we could still hear its raging, and feel thankful for our 
shelter. More than 100 seamen were lost that night on the east coast 


of Scotland. 
JAMES BACKHOUSE, JUNR. 


THE DUNDEE NATURALISTS’ ASSOCIATION. 


December 5, 1848.—The President in the chair. 

A paper was read from Mr. Geo. Lawson (Edinburgh), being an 
account of a visit to Arniston Woods, near Edinburgh, in which 
some interesting plants were noticed as having been gathered, such 
as Hookeria lucens, Bryum ligulatum, B. punctatum, Dicranum bry- 
oides, Peziza coccinea, &c. 

A note from Mr. Wm. Anderson was read, recording a new station 
for Saponaria officinalis in Forfarshire; viz., “North side of the 


445 


South Esk, about a quarter of a mile above the service bridge at Bre- 
chin Castle, on the top of a sunk fence, abundantly, and where it has 
been known to grow for the last 10 years. Probably introduced.” 

A note was also read from Mr. Geo. Lawson on the occurrence of 
Specularia hybrida in Fifeshire. 

Mr. James Wyllie read a paper on the common barn-door hen as- 
suming the plumage of the male. 

A specimen, with fertile flower, of the Udora canadensis was ex- 
hibited from Mr. Geo. Lawson, who had received it from Miss Kirby, 
of Leicester. _ 

A donation to the Library was announced from Mr. Geo. Lawson. 

Plants had been received from Mr. Wm. Anderson, Mr. James 
Wyllie, D. E. Smith, Esq., and Geo. Lawson, Esq. 

Charles Roger, Esq., of Dundee, and D. E. Smith, Esq., of Edin- 
burgh, were elected members.—_W. M. O. 


Naturalization of Petasites albus near Huddersfield. 
By Peter INcuHBaLp, Esq. 


A LARGE patch of this early-flowering plant occurs in an oak wood 
north of the hall. It is growing in a damp stony hollow, and covers 
many yards with its strong penetrating roots, which creep above 
ground among the stones in every direction. Reichenbach states, in 
his ‘Flora Germanica, that this species occurs on the continent in 
woody mountainous tracts, and gives April and May as its time of 
flowering. With us it flowers in February and March, and is nearly 
over by the middle of April. 

PETER INCHBALD. 


Storthes Hall, near Huddersfield, 
December, 1848. 


Record of the rarer Plants occurring in the Neighbourhood of Ad- 
wick, four miles north of Doncaster. By Peter IncuBAtp, Esq. 


DoncasTER is pleasantly situated in the south of Yorkshire, not 
many miles from the borders of Nottinghamshire. It is in the very 
midst of the magnesian limestone, which thence trends northwards in 
a direct line to the banks of the Tees. The Flora of Adwick, a vil- 


446 


lage about four miles north of Doncaster, may be taken as generally 
characteristic of the vegetation of the limestone formation; and as I 
have devoted some years to a diligent canvas of that neighbourhood, 
I have pleasure in submitting the more interesting of my floral dis- 
coveries to the notice of the readers of the ‘ Phytologist.’ 

Ranunculacee. The alluvial meadows near Askern offer plants of 
Thalictrum minus. Ranunculus Lingua occurs in plenty in the 
boggy parts of Sutton Common. It flowers very shyly. Helleborus 
viridis abounds within the moat at Hangthwaite, covering a large 
space, and flowering very early in the year. Aquilegia vulgaris raises 
its clusters of beautiful blue flowers in the woods. 

Crucifere. Cardamine amara grows beside the beck at Adwick. 
The pink anthers of its flowers contrast pleasingly with the pale deli- 
cate hue of the petals. 

Violacee. Viola hirta, which occurs solely in chalk districts, 
usually flowers a few days earlier or later than the sweet violet, with 
which it grows interspersed. 

Caryophyllee. Cerastium arvense, a true limestone plant, is 
widely scattered throughout the neighbourhood.  Stellaria glauca, 
whose foliage accords well with the specific appellation, occurs oc- 
casionally in ditches choked up with herbage. 

Saxifragee. The boggy pastures at Askern are rendered gay in 
the late autumn months by the white blossoms of Parnassia palustris. 
Saxifraga tridactylites is widely dispersed, covering old walls and mis- 
shapen masses of stone. 

Leguminose. The Roman Ridge, a remnant of the old northern 
road to Eboracum, offers many good plants. Among them I may 
notice in this tribe Astragalus hypoglottis and A. glycyphyllos, both 
occuring in considerable plenty. Trifolium fragiferum, so remarkable 
when in fruit for its curiously inflated calyces, is met with in wet 
pastures, on black boggy soil. 

Rosacee. Potentilla verna grows on the old limestone crags at 
Smeaton. Those certain indicators of a limestone soil, Sanguisorba 
officinalis and Poterium Sanguisorba, are everywhere abundant. The 
leaves of the latter, when steeped in vinegar, give to it the flavour of 
cucumber. Rosa villosa I have occasionally noticed. Geum rivale 
I once gathered at Owston, a village far famed for its excellent cream- 
cheeses. 

Umbellifere. The limestone soil is well adapted to this tribe: 
among others I may notice Pastinaca sativa, Bupleurum rotundifolium, 
Pimpinella magna and P. Saxifraga, and Sison Amomum. 


447 


Stellate. Dry limestone banks yield in profusion the Asperula 
cynanchica. The flowers vary from white to lilac, the segments of 
the corolla being veined longitudinally with deep pink. 

Campanulacee. Campanula glomerata is abundant at the Roman 
Ridge, white varieties occasionally growing interspersed with plants 
of the ordinary colour. C. patula is said to grow near Doncaster, but 
I have never yet been fortunate enough to meet with it. 

Composite. Noble plants of Inula Conyza are plentiful at the 
Ridge. I. Heleninm once grew near Adwick: I have seen plants of 
this rare British flower in cultivation at Doncaster, that were originally 
growing wild in the neighbourhood. Erigeron acre and Carlina vul- 
garis occur likewise at the Ridge. Filago apiculata deserves especial 
notice, as being but recently added to our Flora. — It was first dis- 
covered, I believe, by the Rev. G. E. Smith, at Cantley; and it 
really appears to have very good claims to specific distinction, loath 
though some of our best botanists may be to allow it. I would re- 
commend all those who feel interested in the genus Filago to read 
Mr. Watson’s admirable paper on the subject in the October number 
of the ‘ Phytologist’ (Phytol. iii. 313). 

Gentianee. Gentiana amarella, as variable in size as in the num- 
ber of its flowers, is everywhere abundant on dry uplands. Chlora 
perfoliata is far less frequent, usually preferring more hilly localities 
than the autumnal gentian. 

Solanee. Several habitats are recorded near Doncaster for Atropa 
belladonna. Both this plant and its poisonous ally, Hyoscyamus ni- 
ger, are singularly frequent in church-yards, the latter not unfrequently 
making its appearance on mould that has been thrown up in forming 
vaults. 

Primulacee. Many beautiful plants of this tribe are met with in 
the district. Hottonia palustris, that ornament to stagnant waters, 
covers the ditches with its leaves and whorls of pretty pink flowers. 
Anagallis cerulea and A. tenella are not unfrequent. Lysimachia 
vulgaris I have gathered from one or two localities. The curious Sa- 
molus Valerandi may occasionally be observed in damp watery places. 
Primula elatior occurs in the woods near Doncaster, with some scapes 
bearing umbellate, and others solitary flowers; thus showing its close 
affinity to the P. vulgaris. 

Scrophularinee. Veronica triphyllos is found in sandy places at 
Cantley. It grows near York in similar situations. 

Orobanchee. Lathrea squamaria, one of our few epiphytes, may 
be found in Hampole Wood towards the close of April. It is usually 
parasitical on the roots of the hazel and ash. 


448 


Labiate. Mentha piperita and M. rotundifolia. Leonurus cardiaca, 
arare plant, is not unfrequent near Doncaster. The same may be 
said of Ballota nigra, which, though generally diffused throughout the 
vale of York, is rare in the higher parts of the county. It occurs with 
white flowers near Doncaster. Nepeta Cataria and Origanum vul- 
gare may occasionally be noticed on bushy hedge-banks. 

Thymelee. Daphne Laureola occurs in the wildest profusion in the 
hedges near Brodsworth, far from any trace of garden cultivation. Its 
early flowering and delightful fragrance render it a general favourite. 
Exotic species of Daphne thrive well when grafted on our wild stocks. 

Euphorbiacee. Euphorbia platyphyllos I have met with on arable 
land, where it has no doubt been introduced with seed-corn. 

Aroidee. In the ditches at Askern, Sparganium simplex is as com- 
mon as 8. ramosum. 

Alismacee. Alisma ranunculoides and Sagittaria sagittifolia. The 
bulb which grows at the lower part of the root of the latter plant is 
said to constitute a part of the food of the Chinese. 

Hydrocharidee.  Stratiotes aloides, which occurs chiefly in the 
east of England, is common in the fens near Doncaster. The struc- 
ture and economy of this plant are exceedingly curious. 

Orchidee. The Roman Ridge is richly productive of our repre- 
sentatives of this singular tribe of plants. Orchis ustulata, O. pyra- 
midalis, Gymnadenia conopsea, Habenaria bifolia, Ophrys apifera, 
O. muscifera, Spiranthes autumnalis, Neottia Nidus-avis all occur 
within a very limited range. 

Amaryllidee. Narcissus biflorus, a doubtful native, grows and 
flowers abundantly in a grass-field not far from the village of Adwick. 
Its ally, N. pseudo-narcissus, known in Devonshire by the name of 
the Lent lily, is exceedingly plentiful in Hampole Wood, covering 
hundreds of yards with its simple yellow bells. 

Asparagee. The woods around Doncaster abound with Conval- 
laria majalis, which flowers much more freely its wild state than when 
in cultivation. Paris quadrifolia, not unfrequently belying its specific 
name by presenting whorls of 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, and 8 leaves, is very com- 
mon throughout the greatest part of the county. 

Liliacee. Ornithogalum umbellatum grows in several patches in a 
pasture between Adwick and Pigburn, and flowers well. The locality 
in which it occurs does not exhibit the slightest trace of garden culti- 
vation. 

Cyperacee. Noble plants of the rare Cladium Mariscus grow in 
the fens at Askern. Babington says of this interesting plant “ rare 


449 


except in Cambridgeshire.” It flourishes here in some plenty, inter- 
spersed with Scirpus Tabernzmontani, and that most beautiful of the 
Carices, C. pseudo-Cyperus. The other less common Carices that 
this small watering-place affords to the botanist are C. pulicaris, C. 
teretiuscula, and C. intermedia. The rare C. digitata was noticed at 
Roche Abbey by the Rev. G. E. Smith. 

Graminee. Among the Graminez I may record Glyceria aquatica, 
with stems full six feet high, Poa rigida, and Brachypodium pinnatum, 
on dry limestone soil. 

Filices. The local Lastraa Thelypteris occurs in the fens at As- 
kern with fronds above two feet long. The soil is exactly such as 
Mr. Newman observes to be suited to the growth of this species, 
“moist and soft, so that the rhizoma can extend itself with rapidity 
and freedom.”* lL. Oreopteris, a fern, as its name would imply, of 
mountain heaths, occurs in Melton Wood, and fruits in this situation 
abundantly, the frond rising to the height of above two feet, and 
emitting, when bruised, a fine aromatic odour from the resinous 
globules which dot its under surface. Polystichum angulare grows 


in plenty on Edlington Crags. 
PETER INCHBALD. 
Storthes Hall, near Huddersfield, 
January, 1849. 


Adiantum Capillus-Veneris not found in Derbyshire. 
By JAMEs Backnouss, Junr., Esq. 


I HAVE seen Henry Ecroyd Smith’s specimens of [so called] Adian- 
tum Capillus-Veneris, recorded (Phytol. iii. 11) as growing on the 
Peak of Derbyshire, and I can certainly say that they have no claim 
whatever to be classed under the genus Adiantum, being evidently 
seedling forms of Asplenium Trichomanes, with the leaflets more at- 
tenuated and rather more incised than usual; probably from having 
grown in a moist, shady place, or amongst thick vegetation. H. E. 
Smith is, I believe, quite satisfied on this point now. In this state 


there is a strong resemblance in the leaflets to those of A. Capillus- 
Veneris. 


JAMES BacCKHOUSE, JUNR. 
York, February 1, 1849. 


* ‘British Ferns, 183. 


Vou. t- 3.N 


450 


Notice of the ‘London Journal of Botany, Nos. 83 and 84, for 
December, 1848. 


WE had brought up our customary notices of this periodical to No. 
82, published in October. None was published in the succeeding 
month, but a double Number, or two in one, came out some time in 
December; and with this double issue the work becomes extinct in 
name, though not in reality. In order to complete our notices of the 
extinguished periodical, a list of the contents of these two final Nos. 
is subjoined : 

Nos. 83, 84. Original Papers: Ficuum Species Nigritiane ; by 
F. A. W. Miquel. Note on Anemia Seemanni; on Ranunculus Ja- 
vanicus ; of anew species of Pentagonia; all three by the Editor. 
Note on the genus Benjaminia; by G. Bentham. Account of a new 
British Saxifrage; by W. H. Harvey. Decades of Fungi; by M. J. 
Berkeley. Enumeration of Leguminose; by G. Bentham. Descrip- 
tion of a new Sonerilla; by the Editor. Botanical Information: Dr. 
Thomson’s Botanical Mission to Thibet. 

In this list of ‘Contents’ the title most likely to attract the atten- 
tion of British phytologicals, is the account of a new British Saxifrage. 
In conformity with a custom so inconvenient for readers of a periodi- 
cal, the plate which represented the new Saxifrage was given in the 
Number of the Journal for October, while the descriptive letterpress 
was reserved for December. ‘The new species belongs to the group 
of S. umbrosa and Geum by general habit, but differs remarkably 
enough in the character of its flowers; so much so, indeed, that by 
botanists fond of minute generic distinctions it might be referred to a 
different genus from S. umbrosa, although it may eventually prove to 
be only a monstrous or abnormal form of that same polymorphous 
species. “In the wmbrosa group,” observes Dr. Harvey, “the calyx 
is parted to the base, the sepals are perfectly free from the ovary, and 
are strongly reflexed soon after the expansion of the flower. In our 
new species the calyx is gamosepalous, cleft two-thirds of its length, 
the tubercular [tubular?] portion adheres to the base of the ovary, 
and the limb, instead of being reflexed, is simply spreading. Add to 
this, that the petals are much broader and more elliptical than in any 
of the group, and are elegantly dotted over the whole surface, and we 
have characters sufficient, I should hope, to mark a species even 
among a set so proverbially undefinable.” 

Unfortunately, this new species of Saxifrage has been seen in 


451 


flower only in a garden, to which the wild root, in its flowerless state, 
had been removed by Mr. Andrews, whose name it appropriately 
bears, not only as that of the discoverer of this particular species or 
variety, but as that of a botanist who has devoted more attention to 
the Saxifrages of Ireland, and acquired a more exact and familiar ac- 
quaintance with their proteiform characters, than can be claimed by 
any other of Her Majesty’s subjects. The discovery of this remark- 
able example was curious, and merits quotation in the words of Mr. 
Andrews, as a good illustration of the advantage which may result 
from exact observation of varieties, or what appear to be such. 

“* With regard to my Saxifrage,” writes Mr. Andrews, “I have but 
little to say beyond the following. Professor Allman, on the 25th of 
June, 1845, read a paper at one of the sectional meetings of the Bri- 
tish Association, held at Cambridge, conveying my views of the 
Robertsonian Saxifrages. In the views (which were altogether in 
opposition to those advanced by Mr. Babington, and published by 
him in the ‘Annals of Natural History’ for June, 1844) I stated, as 
my opinion, that all the forms of Geum and umbrosa of Ireland, were 
identical with those of the Pyrenees, and that forms of leaves of Geum, 
equally as obtusely crenate as those of the Pyrenees, were met with 
in Kerry. Further, that all these forms passed so completely into 
each other, that neither hirsuta, elegans, nor serratifolia had any 
pretension to specific difference. This view of the subject has since 
been confirmed by Mr. Spruce, as noted in the ‘ London Journal of 
Botany’ for July, 1846; but Mr. Babington has not yet found time 
to correct any of the statements in the journal where they have been 
SO positively asserted by him. To strengthen still further my points, 
I assiduously, in September, 1845, collected in my rambles in Kerry, 
every form of leaf of Gewm and umbrosa that I could meet with, and 
among them found the very remarkable form of leaf of the plant that 
you have so kindly undertaken to draw and describe. ‘The specimens 
of this last were collected, growing on moist cliffs of a mountain at 
the extreme termination of Glen Caragh, either Cluan or Claraby, I 
am not certain which. They were not in flower at the time of 
gathering. I removed roots to my garden, where they did not pro- 
duce flowers till this season (June, 1848), when the more remarkable 
characters were apparent.” 

The individual writer of this notice can fully confirm the statements 
of Mr. Andrews, in respect to the very variable forms and serratures 
of the leaves of the Robertsonian Saxifrages of Ireland; as well as 
their general identity, in these respects, with examples of the same 


452 


species from the Pyrenees; having examined a numerous series of 
specimens from the latter habitat, and also a large number collected 
in Ireland by Mr. Andrews; besides raising some hundreds of them 
in his own garden, from seeds kindly sent to him by that gentleman. 
Mr. Babington’s acuteness and accuracy of observation, as a botanist, 
are thoroughly established ; and he could well afford to acknowledge 
a mistake which arose only from trusting to the characters of an in- 
sufficient series of specimens ; but which really assumes a much more 
unfavourable aspect, through being allowed to remain uncorrected, 
while there is assuredly a scientific, if not a moral, obligation upon 
him to make the correction of an error which he has been the means 
of widely diffusing, however unintentionally and accidentally. 

We mentioned above, that the ‘London Journal of Botany’ be- 
comes extinct with the double Number now under notice. It is, 
however, continued in a smaller and lower-priced form, under title of 
‘Hooker’s Journal of Botany and Kew GarvEN MisceLiany. The 
first division of this new title has been long in use orally, though not 
adopted in print, for the periodical conducted during many years by 
that distinguished botanist, under several successive names. The se- 
cond portion of the title now adopted, being printed in larger type on 
the cover, is probably intended to be the name for current use. If so, 
we think it at once the selection and the mistake of the publisher, 
and that he would have found it a most unremunerative designation 
without the prefixed ‘Journal of Botany.’ 

We refrain at present from making any list of contents, or ex- 
pressing any opinion of the Journal in its changed form. It is de- 
cidedly an experiment in periodical literature, to bring out a journal 
so low in price, written by and for scientific botanists, who must be 
few in number, but we hope that all those few will give their support 
to the publishers, as subscribers at least. C. 


Errata in Mr. Steven’s Notes on the Flora of Dumfriesshire, 
Phytol. ii. 390. 


Page 390, and wherever it occurs, for Loch Skew read Loch Skene. 
» 9391, for Penpout read Penpont. 
», 9391, and wherever it occurs, for Mare’s-tail read Mare’s Tail. 
», 992, for Darrisdere read Durrisdere. 
» 393, for Nynron read Tynron. 


453 


Discovery of Simethis bicolor in Ireland. (Communicated by 
Hewett C. Watson, Esq.) 


PeruaPs the Editor of the ‘ Phytologist’ will allow me to give ad- 
ditional circulation to an interesting fact, lately announced in the 
‘London Journal of Botany,’ but likely to be overlooked by many 
botanists ; since it is mentioned only incidentally in a paper on 
another subject, and has not found place in the Index of the volume 
in which it was announced. [ allude to the discovery of Simethis 
bicolor in Ireland. According to Dr. Harvey, this plant, so lately 
first discovered in England, “has been found by Mr. Thaddeus 
O’Mahony, growing in a perfectly wild situation on hills near Derry- 
nane Abbey, the seat of the O’Connells. The hills where this plant 
grows have probably never been turned up, and the plant has certainly 
never been cultivated in a neighbouring garden. A specimen agreeing 
in all respects with a Portuguese one in the University Herbarium, 
was sent to me in June last.” (‘London Journal of Botany,’ vol. vii., 


p- 571). Hewett C. Watson. 
Thames Ditton, February 4, 1849. 


Occurrence of Doronicum plantagineum at Shooter's Hill. 
By GerorGE Luxrorp, Esq. 


AxoutT the middle of May, 1848, while out on an excursion with 
my botanical class, [ had the pleasure of finding Doronicum planta- 
gineum, in considerable plenty and in full flower, in a wood at the 
back of Shooter’s Hill, Kent. 

From the high road to Dartford, at the top of the hill, and almost 
directly opposite the Bull Inn, a lane leads off to the right, through a 
wood, I believe West Wood; the plant was growing to the left of 
this lane among the trees, and in situations where intruders will pro- 
bably be civilly informed by a keeper that they are trespassing on the 
private property of the Crown. 

About a week afterwards a friend found the Doronicum growing 
plentifully in a wood nearer Chiselhurst. I do not know the exact 


locality. Gro. Luxrorp. 
East Temple Chambers, Fleet St., 
February 11, 1849. 


454 


BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 


Friday, February 2, 1849.— John Reynolds, Esq., Treasurer, in 
the chair. 

The following donations were announced :— 

British plants from Mr. Hewett Watson, Mr. A. Henfrey, Mr. G. 
Reece, Dr. Bidwell, Mr. F. J. A. Hort, the Rev. John Bigge, Mr. G. 
Francis, Mr. G. Maw, the Rev. W. R. Crotch, Mr. A. H. Balfour, 
Mr. G. Lawson, and Miss M. Beevor. Foreign plants from Mr. G. 
Francis. 

Jussieu’s ‘Elements of Botany,’ translated by Mr. J. H. Wilson, 
F.L.S., presented by the translator. ‘ Journal of the Royal Agricultu- 
ral Society of England,’ presented by the Society. ‘Journal of the 
Pharmaceutical Society,’ presented by the Society. Nos. 1 and 2 of 
the ‘ Botanical Gazette,’ edited by Mr. A. Henfrey, F.L.S., presented 
by the Editor. ‘ Materials for a Fauna and Flora of Swansea and the 
Neighbourhood,’ by L. W. Dilwyn, Esq., F.R.S., presented by James 
Motley, Esq. ‘Report of the Dublin University Museum’ for 1848, 
presented by the University. ‘The Agricultural Magazine,’ presented 
by the Editor. 

The Rev. Francis Dyson, of Tentworth, Marlborough, Mr. T. Clark, 
Junr., of Halesleigh, Bridgewater, Mr. W. B. Booth, A.L.S., of Car- 
clew, Cornwall, Mr. W. J. Burke, of Kilbride, Wicklow, Mr. T. Kirk, 
of Coventry, Mr. J. T. Duthoit, and Mr. Hedger, of London, were 
elected members. 

Several specimens from Mr. Hewett Watson, Mr. F. Barham, Mr. 
W. H. Purchas, and Mr. S. P. Woodward, in illustration of recently 
distinguished species, curious varieties, &c., were exhibited. Among 
them were examples of Hieracium alpinum with the scapes branched 
and leafy, showing a transition to the section of stem-producing spe- 
cies. Also a curious example of Carex atrata, in which the character 
and position of the flower-spikes were widely different from their or- 
dinary condition, giving to the specimen a first-sight appearance si- 
milar to that of a very luxuriant C. rigida, the terminal spike being 
almost entirely male, and cylindrical; four inferior spikes of female 
flowers, with a few males interspersed, cylindrical or oblong, erect, 
and placed rather distantly one below another, the lowest about three 
inches beneath the terminal male spike. The specimen had grown 
in Mr. Watson’s garden, on a root of Carex atrata brought from the 
Grampians a few years ago.—G. E. D. 


455 


Nephrodium foenisectt of Lowe identical with Lastrea recurva. 
By Epwarp NEWMAN. 


Mr. Watson has obligingly forwarded me a suite of specimens of 
Lowe’s Nephrodium fcenisecii, collected in Madeira, and has accom- 
panied the specimens with a series of questions relating thereto, and 
drawn up with the view of fixing the prior specific name of foenisecii 
on both the Madeiran and British plants. 

I am now fully convinced that Mr. Lowe intended to describe the 
species subsequently characterized by Mr. Bree under the name re- 
curva, and also that Mr. Lowe’s feenisecii, 8. productum, is not a se- 
cond species, but a very trivial variety in form only: under these 
circumstances it seems to me that we have no choice but to adopt the 
prior name. 


EpWARD NEWMAN. 
9, Devonshire Street, Bishopsgate, 
February, 1849. 


Notice of a Paper on three supposed Species of Polystichum, by 
Professor Kunze. 


WHATEVER is done by a botanist bearing so high a reputation for 
knowledge of Europzan ferns as Professor Kunze must deserve the 
serious consideration of all lovers of truth. But more than this we 
are not prepared to admit: we are not prepared to say that any amount 
of reputation should insure the adoption of proposed species. 

In the paper to which we allude* Professor Kunze describes at 
great length those forms of Polystichum which are usually known in 
this country as the “aculeatum set:” he makes three species under 
the names of lobatum, aculeatum and Braunii. Lobatum, he informs 
us, = the Aspidium lobatum of Smith, ‘FI. Brit.’ iii. 1123, and of 
‘English Botany, 1563: aculeatum = the Aspidium aculeatum of 
Smith, ‘ Fl. Brit.’ 11. 1120: and Braunii = the Aspidium angulare of 
Kitaibel (first described by Willdenow in the ‘ Species Plantarum,’ v. 
257) only in part. There is no point more preeminently a guestio 
vexata among British botanists than the value of those differences 
which distinguish certain individual plants of the “aculeatum set” 


* Flora, June, 1848. 


456 


from each other. The most extreme opinions are entertained: some 
asserting that these are specific differences; others saying they are 
indicative only of varzety; others again maintaining that the discre- 
pancies are those only of individuals. Again, we find some botanists 
contending that we have three species in this country: others that 
we have two; others that we have but one. Amid this conflict of 
opinion it is quite a privelege to find a pteridologist of Kunze’s emi- 
nence devoting his talents to the subject. Would we could accept 
his solution as final, and thus terminate a discussion which has hitherto 
so little advantaged the study of the tribe. Itis impossible to charge 
him with want of care, want of exactitude, want of terms wherewith 
to express his meaning, or want of knowledge of the labours of others. 
He describes with admirable precision three fronds, or perhaps plants, 
which he has before him: he trusts to his own observation alone, and 
each description bears indubitable evidence of fidelity and originality : 
with the fronds or plants before us, and we have seen many such, we 
could at once distinguish for which each description was intended ; 
but when we carefully consider the differences pointed out; when we 
weigh them against the differences existing between ascertained spe- 
cies; we cannot avoid pausing before we assign them the importance 
of diagnostics for the separation of species. Let us examine the 
leading characters in the extreme species, lobatum and Braunii. 

Lobatum has the frond linear-lanceolate, shortly acuminate, very 
much attenuated at the base, coriaceous, rigid, sub-bipinnate. 

Braunii has the frond lanceolate, shortly acuminate, very much but 
gradually attenuated at the base, membranaceous, rather flaccid, bi- 
pinnato-subpinnated or bipinnate. 

Tt will be observed that in lobatum the frond is ‘ linear-lanceolate’ 
instead of ‘lanceolate,’ ‘ coriaceous and rigid’ instead of ‘ membrana- 
ceous and somewhat flaccid.’ 

Passing over the pinne, the descriptions of which might be trans- 
posed without its being detected, we have the pinnules described 

Tn lobatum as swbsesszle and decurrent 

In Braunii as subsessile and adnate-decurrent. 

The sori are 

In lobatum small, flattish, ferruginous, brown, at length confluent. 

In Braunii they are of the middle magnitude, convex, brown, at 
length contiguous, sub-confluent. 

The scales of the stipes 

In lobatum are large and brown, and intermixed with smaller pi- 
liform. ones 


457 


In Braunii some are large, pale, and lanceolate, intermixed with 
others smaller, hair-like, and of the same colour. 

We have purposely made the differences described by the author 
as salient as possible, omitting the detail which offers little or nothing 
of a decided character. Before quitting the subject we would, how- 
ever, remark, that both lobatum and Braunii have subsessile and de- 
current pinnules, while aculeatum, intervening between them, has the 
pinnules petiolate; thus the character on which we had most relied 
in this country for separating the extremes, appears to be held by 
our author as of no importance. 


K. 


Abstract of a Paper by Professor Edward Forbes on some Peloria 
Varieties of Viola canina. Extracted from the ‘ Proceedings 
of the Linnean Society, xxxvi. 382. 


THESE monstrosities were collected by Prof. Forbes in the Isle of 
Portland in the month of April. The plants in which they occurred 
were infested by the parasitic fungus figured in Sowerby’s ‘ English 
Fungi’ under the name of Granularia Viole, and afforded not only 
many distortions of the foliaceous organs evidently due to the pre- 
sence of the fungus, but also various monstrosities of the flower, of 
which the author gives a particular description illustrated by drawings. 

These were found chiefly in the small variety of Viola canina, 
figured in the ‘Supplement to English Botany’ as Viola flavicornis. 
One of these plants had two two-spurred flowers exactly similar and 
deviating from the ordinary structure in the following particulars :-— 
There were four sepals, all enlarged and diseased, the superior being 
smaller than the others, the two lateral equal but abnormally large, 
and the anterior largest and not quite regular. The petals were also 
four in number, the two uppermost being regular and the two lower- 
most spurred. Each of the former had the little tufts of hairs seen 
on the lateral petals in the normal flower, and were similarly pale at 
the base and lineated with purple, while the two spurred petals were 
smooth and lineated. Of the four stamens the three uppermost were 
normal, the fourth much enlarged; there were no antherine appen- 
dages, but at the bottom of each petal-spur there was a strong ridge 
not usually present and as if representing these appendages. From 
these appearances the author infers that in these instances the two 
superior petals were abortive, the tufts of hairs on the two remaining 

VOL. I11. 30 


458 


superior petals showing that they correspond with the two lateral pe- 
tals of the ordinary flower; and that the two spurred petals were de- 
veloped in the place of the ordinary single anterior petal. He regards 
the enlarged anterior stamen as consisting of two, each making an 
unsuccessful effort to develope an appendage ; and the enlarged an- 
terior sepal also as made up of the union of the two ordinary lower 
sepals. 

In the former case the floral envelopes were regulated by the num- 
ber 4: Prof. Forbes proceeds to describe a still more remarkable case 
of Peloria, in which they were regulated by the number 3. The three 
sepals are of normal and equal dimensions and the three petals all 
spurred, and nearly but not quite equal, the odd one, which is inferior, 
having a larger spur than either of the other two. There is no tuft 
of hairs on any of the petals, but they are all lineated. The stamina 
are five, all furnished with appendages, the two lowermost of which, 
fully developed, penetrate the spur of the anterior petal, while the 
spur of the left upper petal receives the fully-developed appendage of 
one of the stamina, and that of the right also one fully-developed ap- 
pendage, the appendage of the fifth stamen (small and only partially 
developed) bending back after proceeding only a little way. A little 
below the flower, between it and the true bractez, which present their 
usual appearance, there is a whorl of five bract-like sepals, between 
two of which, and directly beneath the largest-spurred petal of the 
monstrous flower, is a single petal partially developed and exhibiting 
an abortive spur. “In this case,” the author proceeds, “‘ we have the 
outer whorl of floral envelopes developed, and an effort made towards 
the development of the second in the aborted basal petal; then the 
axis elongating and terminating in a flower in which two of the sepals 
are aborted and four of the petals, viz., the two lateral and two supe- 
rior ones, for the absence of tufts of hairs prevents our regarding two 
of the three as the former, and the presence of lineated bases shows 
that they are not the latter. They are repetitions of the basal petal, 
which in this instance is multiplied by three, as in the cases before 
described it was multiplied by two.” In this plant no traces of the 
fungus were observed. 

Prof. Forbes cites the instances of Peloria among Violets recorded 
by Leers and DeCandolle, and refers to the view adopted by the lat- 
ter and by M. Moquin-Tandon, viz., that the Peloria is caused by the 
tendency of all the petals to assume a spurred condition in conse- 
quence of a general effort as it were on the part of an irregular flower 
to become regular. He states that DeCandolle’s figures are not suf- 


459 


ficient to enable him to judge if such was the case in the instances 
depicted by him, but maintains that the Peloria violets which form 
the subject of the present communication “ owe their monstrous regu- 
larity to a very different phenomenon, viz., the effort of an irregular 
flower to become regular by the multiplication and symmetricaliza- 
tion of its irregular parts.” 


Dates of the Flowering of British Plants. 
By IsaraH W. N. Keys, Esq. 


August 19,1848. Atriplex rosea luxuriant on the embankment of 
the Laira, the embouchure of the river Plym, near Plymouth. Many 
plants in ripe fruit. Hooker, “Fl. Sept.” The surface of the em- 
bankment just named is formed of slates vertically placed, between 
which the roots of the Atriplex descended to the depth in some in- 
stances of a foot or more. Remarked here the leaves of Tussilago 
Farfara. This is an additional instance (Phytol. iii. 807) of the va- 
riety of soil on which this plant grows. On the borders of the salt- 
water ditch adjoining this embankment, the Sonchus arvensis (mark, 
arvensis !) is colonized in a very rank condition. I have examined 
this plant repeatedly, and can make nothing else of it. Mr. Babing- 
ton, to whom I have shown it, calls it by thisname. I should be 
glad to learn whether any of your correspondents have elsewhere no- 
ticed a similar eccentricity in this plant. It certainly has gone far 
from its wonted abode in roving from the corn-field to the brink of a 
salt ditch. Within a few yards of it grow Juncus lamprocarpus and 
J. conglomeratus, Carex divulsa, “et hoc genus omne.” 

August 21. No flowering-period for Melissa officinalis being 
mentioned in the ‘ Manual of Botany,’ I may record having gathered 
it this day, near Alphington. As this plant is considered merely 
“naturalized,” it may be interesting to mention that it grows near 
some cottages at Rame, Cornwall (about six miles from Plymouth) ; 
and that one of its habitats in this neighbourhood has been recently 
destroyed by the South Devon railway. Lycopsis arvensis in flower 
on the road-side, near Exminster. Hooker, “Fl. June, July.’ Ba- 
bington, “6,7.” Also, Chelidonium majus in fl. Hooker, “Fl. May, 
June.” Babington is right: he says “5—8.” Epilobium hirsutum 
in fl. Hooker, “Fl. July.” Babington is right here also: “7, 8.” 
Myosotis cespitosa in fl. Hooker, “Fl. May, June.” Babington, 


460 


“6 to 8” (right). Lycopus europzus in fl. Hooker, “Fl. June, 
July.” © Babington, “7,8” (right). It will be observed that all the 
plants mentioned under this day were in bloom beyond the periods 
prescribed in the ‘ British Flora,’ 5th edition. 

September 20. A friend gave me specimens of the following 
plants, gathered the day before: Radiola Millegrana. Hooker, “ F). 
July, Aug.” Babington, the same. Sedum Telephium. Hooker, 
“Fl. July.” Babington, “7,8.” Pinguicula lusitanica. Hooker, 
“Fl. June, J uly.” Babington, “7.” Drosera rotundifolia. Hooker, 
“Fi. July.” Babington, “7,8.” All these were thus in flower con- 
siderably later than described. They grow near Shaugh, some six 
miles or more from Plymouth; and had I been in want of them, I 
should have thought it hopeless to search for them at this advanced 
period of the month. “ Nil desperandum,” must, however, I think 
be my future motto, when engaged in botanizing. 

September 22. Stimulated by my friend’s success, adverted to in 
the last paragraph, I this day made a trip to the locality which he 
had so recently visited. Not finding the boggy spot where the plants 
grew, the enthymeme that I did not find the plants, will be readily 
admitted. But, though disappointed in this respect, I did not regret 
my excursion; for it brought me within view of the romantic crags 
that abound on the confines of Dartmoor. Here rises in majesty the 
Dewer-Stone, ever hallowed by the sweet strains of Devonia’s great- 
est poet, Carrington; and here commingle the flashing, leaping, 
roaring rivers Cad and Meavy, and become the parents of the Plym. 
Nor did I return with an entirely empty vasculum, having availed 
myself of the opportunity to replenish my stock of Wahlenbergia 
hederacea, which is plentiful in the neighbourhood. Remark that it 
was now late in September, and the plant in full bloom, particularly 
on the borders of a piece of heathy ground, where it grew among 
furze. Hooker says “Fl. July, August.” Babington, the same. Sa- 
rothamnus scoparius was in fl. Restricted by Hooker to “June ;” 
and by Babington to the “5th and 6th” months. Galium palustre in 
fl. Like the rest unwilling to depart. Hooker names “ July” as its 
flowering-season, and Babington the “7th and 8th” months. 

September 24.  Verbascum Blattaria in fl. near Devonport. 
Hooker, “Fl. July.” Babington, “8.” I know but of one station 
for this plant; and its colour is not yellow, but whitish or cream-co- 
loured, tinged more or less with purple. Alsine marina in fl. Hooker, 
“F]. June, July.” Babington gives greater latitude, “ 6—8.” 

October 15. Took a country walk. Leaves of the trees falling 


461 


around, bespeaking the approach of winter. A few composite plants 
remain in bloom, especially Senecio Jacobzea (Hooker, “July, Aug.” 
Babington, “7 to 9”) and Chrysanthemum leucanthemum (Hooker, 
“June, July.” Babington, “6 to 8”). Ona piece of elevated, stony 
ground near a plantation, saw four plants of Viola canina in fl., with 
one capsule nearly ripe. How untimely, I thought, was their appear- 
ance. What was the cause? Were they lingerers in the train of 
Summer — mourners over its faded splendours? Or were they to be 
regarded as pioneers in advance of the distant spring—as harbingers 
of brighter days to come? 

November 26. . Weather mild. Found in fl. in comparatively shel- 
tered lanes, but near the sea-coast, Jasione montana, Achillea Mille- 
folium, Senecio Jacobea, Crepis virens, Ranunculus acris, Geranium 
Robertianum, Betonica officinalis, Linaria Cymbalaria (this on garden 
walls), and Erythrza Centaurium. [| will not unnecessarily encumber 
your pages by quoting the range of flowering-season given in books 
to the plants just named. Such of your readers as may feel interested 
in the subject will refer for themselves. Suffice it to say, that they 
should (according to the writers) have long since fallen asleep. 

Christmas Day. Weather moist and mild. Geranium Robertia- 
num and Lychnis dioica, as well as Crepis virens, still in bloom, at 
Maker, Cornwall. Iris fceetidissima had not yet discharged all its 
bright red seeds. They were showing conspicuously in the large 
spreading seed-vessels. Furze in fl. In the garden of a friend at 
this place, primroses, “that come before their time,” were daring to 
unfold their petals; and the large periwinkle was fully open. In the 
fields, daisies, richly crimson-tipped, were boldly parading themselves. 
I have remarked that the crimson tinge of the outer florets of the 
daisy is more deep and exquisite in winter than in summer. 

The season mild and wet to the end of the year. Vale, Vale, 


1848 ! Isaran W. N. Keys. 
Plymouth, February 16, 1849. 


Notice of ‘ Flora Hertfordiensis: or a Catalogue of Plants found 
in the County of Hertford, with the Stations of the rarer 
Species. Part IV. By the Rev. R. H. Wess, M.A., and the 
Rev. W. H. Coteman, M.A. 


WE gave a notice of the above-named work, on publication of Part 
First, last summer (Phytol. ili. 184). Its appearance was then greeted 
with much satisfaction, as that of a really valuable addition to our lo- 


462 


cal Floras; and certainly with no diminished satisfaction do we now 
see it brought to completion by the publication of Part IV. The at- 
tention of our readers is again drawn towards the work, because we 
desire earnestly that it should become generally known to all who 
may be likely to write on local botany for the press. We have called 
it a valuable addition to the local Floras previously published; but it 
is more than this: it is a new starting-point, behind which its succes- 
sors cannot lag, without being rendered amenable to unfavourable 
comparisons. Hitherto, a local Flora has usually come before the 
public under false pretences; professing to be what it was not. The 
Flora of a county, for example, has commonly included a pretty 
complete list of species and localities for a small part of its county, 
namely, that immediately surrounding the dwelling-place of the au- 
thor; interspersed with an imperfect list of species and localities for 
all the rest of the much wider area which it professed to embrace ; 
the indications of frequency or infrequency, in like manner, being 
founded upon equally limited and imperfect research, although ap- 
plied to the whole county. Nor have these defects been characteris- 
tic only of Floras ostensibly embracing whole counties or other 
equally wide spaces ; for some of the most imperfect and hastily got 
up Floras have related to small circuits around provincial towns, 
most superficially and partially examined by the authors. 

We must admit that such defects, arising from incomplete or un- 
equal examination of the area embraced in a publication on local 
botany, cannot be wholly avoided. Nor is the ‘ Flora Hertfordiensis’ 
itself altogether free from them; certain portions of the county | 
having evidently and confessedly been much less thoroughly investi- 
gated than others. ‘Two obvious correctives present themselves, in 
the way of remedies or guards to prevent misinformation being thus 
given; and both of these appear in the ‘ Flora Hertfordiensis. The 
one, is that of limiting a Flora to the space which has been actually 
and thoroughly examined ; the other, that of distinguishing the well- 
investigated from the ill-investigated portions of the whole space. 
In the Flora now under view, the county is divided into three princi- 
pal divisions, and these again into twelve subordinate sections. And 
as the species are severally traced through each division and section, 
so far as ascertained to occur in them, with a tabular summary of the 
numerical results, we gain an amount of positive information, and a 
probable test of negative information, such as we should vainly en- 
deavour to extract from any other local Flora, written in the ordinary 
method. The ‘Flora Hertfordiensis, in truth, is far more than a 


463 


‘Catalogue of Plants found in the County of Hertford.’ Over and 
above this one general list of species for the county, it comprehends 
twelve several Floras, which are more or less complete catalogues of 
species, for as many different sections of the county; also three dis- 
tinct Floras for larger tracts, formed from the union of minor sections. 
The list of species for one of these sections, comprising an area of 
eighty square miles around the county town, is probably more com- 
plete than any local Flora hitherto published; since we find it in- 
cluding the large number of eight hundred and two species; while 
the smallest sectional list rises to the respectable number of four hun- 
dred and ninety-three species, for an area of sixty square miles. 

The full value of the ‘Flora Hertfordiensis, as a contribution to 
geographical, as well as to strictly local botany, will not be properly 
understood and appreciated until we can obtain other similar publi- 
cations, on which to found statistical estimates and comparisons. 
Some quarter of a century hence, this improved conception of a local 
Flora may have become familiar and normal with the botanists of 
that future period; and possibly enough it may have been again im- 
proved upon in some of its details. But the genuine idea is now be- 
fore us; namely, that of rendering a local Flora truly an exposition of 
local botany, instead of being simply a list of English plants, adapted 
to a local space: the difference between these two things is very 
great. But we will abstain from further remarks ourselves, and pro- 
ceed to cull a few extracts, which may interest readers of the ‘ Phy- 
tologist,’ and convey a sort of sample of its contents. The plan or 
method of the work must be studied in its own pages. 

Authorship of the Work. “The writer could wish here to state 
that, from the period of the first announcement of the Flora, made 
in the spring of 1840, up to the summer of 1847, his friend Mr. Cole- 
man and himself were intimately connected in collecting information 
for the work; and though from the latter date until after the publi- 
cation of Part I., his friend’s co-operation was suspended, still, since 
that stage of the work, Mr. C. has so zealously assisted him in revis- 
ing and conducting the remainder through the press, that he cannot 
but consider that Mr. Coleman justly holds with him the position of 
joint-author, and would feel his disappointment very great were their 
names not to be associated in the title page.”—(R. H. W.). 

Motto suggested. ‘My friend Mr. Babington has just sent me the 
following motto from Linneus, which is so appropriate and happy, 
that I cannot conclude these remarks better than by commending it 
to the consideration of my readers, hoping it may help to excite their 


464 


botanical ardour. ‘Turpe est in patria vivere et patriam ignorare.’— 
Linn. Fauna Suecica, Ed. 2 (1761), p. 544.”>—(R. H. W.). . 

Bromus tectorum, Linn. “Near the new mill at Hoddesdon. 
This is the first notice of the plant which has appeared in England. 
Our zealous correspondent, Mr. Henry Williams, observed it in the 
above given locality in the summer of 1847, and again in 1848. He 
sent it to us, named B. diandrus, but not feeling satisfied about its 
identity, we referred it to Mr. Babington, who has determined it to 
be the true B. tectorum, and has kindly undertaken to describe it.” 
IGE “Since the above paper was written, we have learnt that the 
station is nearer the ‘New Mill’ than we had supposed, and that the 
plant was found in company with Setarta glauca, which circumstances 
render it not improbable that it may have been introduced with im- 
ported seed like other plants before-mentioned which have been found 
in a similar situation.” 

Digitaria sanguinalis, Oplismenus Crus-galli, Setaria viridis, Se- 
taria glauca, Panicum (Setaria) verticillatum. ‘“ With the excep- 
tion of Digitaria sanguinalis, which has probably been imported 
with soil from the continent, all the preceding grasses have doubt- 
less been brought with flax and cole-seed to the Oil Mills.” 

Gastridium lendigerum. “A piece of heavy land on the east side 
of Bayford-wood, formerly ploughed, but long fallow and worthless as 
pasture, was ploughed up and sown with acorns and ash-keys, in the 
spring of 1841. In the following autumn appeared a plentiful crop 
of the present grass, which we have never noticed elsewhere in the 
neighbourhood. It had nearly disappeared in the autumn of 1842, 
and we have not seen it since.” 

Epipactis purpurata. “In Box-wood, Stevenage; apparently 
parasitical on the stump of a tree. Mrs. Harding, of Walkern! 1840. 
By the kindness of Mrs. Harding we possess the only specimen which 
was found in this station, as well as a coloured sketch of the recent 
plant. The specimen is too young to afford any character, none of 
the flowers being expanded; but Mrs. Harding’s sketch represents 
the plant as wholly of a pale lilac colour, except that the flowers are 
yellowish. We have little doubt that our plant is that described by 
Smith in E. F., from a specimen received from Abbott; and quite 
distinct from the plant of Forbes, figured in ‘ English Botany,’ t. 2775, 
_ under the name of E. purpurata. This latter appears to be a mere 
form of E. latifolia; indeed, the figure is a better representation of 
the ordinary Herts form, than the E. Jatifolia, figured at t. 269 of the 
same work.” 


465 


Fagus sylvatica. “'This forms the principal part of the timber in 
all woods in the western portion of the county, which might hence be 
denominated the ‘ Regio Fagi, or region of the beech; as the eastern 
might, in like manner, take the name of ‘ Regio Carpini,’ or region of 
the hornbeam; while the northern or Ouse district, from its want of 
timber, must be called ‘Regio Nuda.’ Some authors strangely mark 
the beeeh as an introduced species, on the authority of Caesar, who 
states that Britain produced ‘timber of all sorts the same as Gaul, 
except the Fagus and Abies.’ ...... The Abies is now confessed to 
be the Pinus Abies, or silver fir, and not P. sylvestris, the Scotch 
fir, which was formerly, on the»same grounds, considered as an in- 
troduced species. And it is plain that either the Fagus of Caesar was 
not the beech, or that Cesar did not happen to encounter any of our 
native beech-forests during his short stay in Britain: for it is im- 
possible to doubt the genuine wildness of this species in the west of 
our county, and still more in the adjacent county of Bucks, which is 


supposed to take its name from this tree.” 
Ce} 


Notice of ‘A Hand-Book of British Ferns, intended as a Guide and 
Companion to Fern Culture. By Tuomas Moore, Curator of 
the Botanic Garden of the Society of Apothecaries.’ 


THE matter contained in this nice little book had previously appear- 
ed, as the author informs us, in the columns of a weekly newspaper, in- 
tituled ‘The Gardener’s and Farmer’s Journal, and we have sub- 
sequently seen it, with some omissions, in another horticultural 
periodical. The work is very unpretending, adopting, in almost all 
instances, the modern improvements of Presl, Smith and Newman: 
the last-named author is used somewhat too freely in the details of 
structure: wherever figures or descriptions are borrowed the obliga- 
tion should be scrupulously acknowledged. In instances where the 
author aims at originality he does not appear to be particularly 
happy: but of this the reader may judge from the list which follows. 

Allosorus crispus. Of this fern two named varieties are thus de- 
scribed :— 

“8. dentatus ; barren fronds—ultimate divisions oblong-oval, the 
margin sinuate-dentate, feather-veined ; fertile fronds—ulti- 
mate divisions roundish oblong. 

VoL. UI. 3 P 


466 


“y. linearis ; barren fronds—- ultimate divisions narrow-linear 
cleft at the apex ; fertile fronds— ultimate divisions oblong.” 

Our objection to this may be stated in very few words: such forms 
of frond as those now for the first time named commonly grow on the 
same plant with fronds of the normal form: on this principle of 
naming forms of leaves, how many named varieties might we not 
make of a mulberry tree ! 

Lastrea Filix-mas. The curious form of this species figured in 
Newman’s ‘ British Ferns,’ 197, 6, is named 8. incisa. 

Lastrea spinulosa. The synonyms, as well as the involucre and 
scale (copied from Newman), are those of one species, while the 
frond with the densely chaffy stipes is that of another. 

Lastrea dilatata. In this species the stipes is represented as spa- 
ringly clothed with minute scales, yet the involucre and scale (again 
copied from Newman) are those of the densely chaffy species, which 
Roth has called multiflora, and the description favours the idea that 
Roth’s plant is intended. In the synonymy this species is given 
without doubt as the Aspidium dumetorum of Smith, ‘English Flora,’ 
iv. 281. But although thus restricted, it is made to contain four 
named varieties, as under :— 

“a. multiflora ; fronds ovate-lanceolate, semi-erect; scales of 
the stem with a dark centre and diaphanous margin. 

“8. dilatata ; fronds almost triangular, drooping, dark green ; 
scales of the stem as in a. 

“y, maculata; fronds oblong-ovate; scales of the stem of an 
uniform reddish brown colour. 

“9. collina ; fronds narrow elongate-lanceolate ; pinnz very dis- 
tinct; scales of the stem as in @.” 

We must leave this “dilatata question” in the hands of our 
readers: it appears to us rendered more obscure than ever. Can 
Smith’s dumetorum be so comprehensive ? 

Polystichum angulare has two named varieties. 

“8. subtripinnatum ; lower pinnules deeply pinnatifid the basal 
lobe almost stalked. 
“y. angustatum ; pinnules small, narrow, acute.” 

Cystopteris fragilis has three named varieties, of which the first 
and last only are new. 

“a. Dickieana ; fronds ovate-lanceolate; pinne crowded, over- 
lapping ; pinnules crowded, broad obtuse, very slightly 
toothed ; sori marginal distinct. 


467 


“8, dentala ; fronds oblong-lanceolate ; pinnules ovate-obtuse 
bluntly toothed or rarely pinnatifid ; sori marginal often 
crowded sometimes confluent. 

“y. vulgaris ; fronds lanceolate ; pinnules ovate-acute pinnatifid, 
cut or serrated ; sori becoming confluent more central than 
in! 6” 

In Asplenium marinum we have two named varieties, but the name 
is the only addition made, the forms of frond being figured by New- 
man. 

“8. acutum; fronds elongate; pinne elongated acute. 

“yy. lobatum ; fronds elongate ; pinne auricled and deeply lobed.” 

In Pteris Aquilina we have two named varieties. 

“‘a. vera; pinnules inferior pinnatifid (sometimes only sinuate) 
the segments oblong obtuse ; superior undivided. 

“6. entegerrima ; pinnules throughout entire, except occasion- 
ally one or two of the lowest on the basal secondary pinne 
slightly lobed.” 

Our readers will see how easy it would be to multiply names ad 
infinitum on this plan; but to what good purpose does it tend ?—is 
our knowledge advanced one iota by such name-giving ?—is the study 
of ferns rendered more easy? Is not this nomenclature of fronds 
carrying varieties to an extreme never intended? Can a variety be a 
portion of an individual? Can it be less than an entire individual ? 
We leave our readers to frame their own replies. Still we like the 
little book: it is well calculated to coax the idler into an agreeable 
improving occupation, the study of Nature in one of her most agree- 
able moods. And whatever does this has our cordial approbation. 
No one can stop with this “hand-book.” No one can rest satisfied 
with the information it conveys. It must create a thirst for more sa- 
tisfactory, more perfect knowledge. 

After these gentle criticisms (we would not break a fly upon the 
wheel), we have great pleasure in turning to that portion of his sub- 
ject which the author evidently understands, and in citing the results 
of his practical experience. 

Polypodium vulgare. This fern we have always considered a tick- 
lish one under cultivation, but our author says it “is exceedingly 
well adapted for planting on artificial rock-work, and among rustic 
work formed of the stumps of old trees. A compost of turfy peat, 
decayed wood, porous broken bricks and rough charcoal, will be a 
proper medium for its roots under pot-culture. It is readily increased 
by dividing the creeping caudex.”—p. 21. 


468 


“ Polypodium Phegopteris requires a very abundant supply of 
moisture both about its roots and fronds: the soil, however, should 
be well drained. * * * * As a pot-plant it is a very 
delicate object, and should be planted in well-drained pots of turfy 
peat soil, mixed with decayed tree leaves, charcoal and sand. In 
the summer season it grows best in a cold frame, shaded from bright 
sunshine ; and it may be induced to grow in winter by the applica- 
tion of heat, which it stands well.”—p. 24. 

Polypodium Dryopteris may be treated like the preceding: it 
grows much more freely than Phegopteris in pots. 

Polypodium calcareum. Of this species Mr. Moore’s experience 
is diametrically at variance with our own: we should describe it as 
the hardiest of ferns, requiring no peculiarity of soil or situation, re- 
gardless alike of scorching sun and London soot, it braves heat 
and cold, drought and moisture: it is the only species that thorough- 
ly thrives in the adulterated atmosphere of towns. Mr. Moore says 
it is “somewhat more shy under cultivation than the last. To the 
turfy peat, which forms a good basis to the compost for ferns, a por- 
tion of chalk, limestone, old mortar, or broken freestone, should be 
added, as well as the broken charcoal and the sand; the pots, too, 
must be especially well drained, or the plant soon dies.”—p. 28. 

Allosorus crispus. “ This little fern is a free-growing species un- 
der cultivation, and a very elegant ornament to rockwork. * * * 
It also succeeds remarkably well under pot-culture. When growing 
in pots it should have a well-drained soil, and there is no better com- 
post for it than a compound of turfy peat, good free loam, broken 
potsherds, and small lumps of charcoal intimately blended in the 
proportion of two parts of each of the two former to one part of each 
of the latter. When planted on rock-work it should be fixed in situa- 
tions where, while freely supplied with water at the root, all super- 
fluity may soon drain away. It does not especially require shade, 
although it grows best when shaded, and indeed under artificial cul- 
ture, the delicate texture for which the ferns are generally so much 
admired, is favoured by a moderate degree of shade. The potted 
plants must be kept drier in winter than in summer; in the latter 
season they ought to be pretty freely supplied; the moisture, however, 
should never become stagnant about them.”—p. 32. 

Woodsia Ilvensis and W. alpina “are best cultivated in moderate- 
sized pots, potted high amongst turfy peat, charcoal, freestone and 
sand; and kept in a cold frame, which should face the north in the 
summer season, and should at no time be kept constantly closed up. 


469 


Under cultivation they are very impatient of sunshine and stagnant 
moisture. The plants may be advantageously elevated a little be- 
tween three small pieces of freestone, the soil being carefully placed 
about their roots. They must not be kept too damp, especially on 
the approach of and during the continuance of winter. A shady 
shelf in a cool greenhouse where there is a free circulation of air, is a 
good situation in which to preserve them during the dormant season. 
The tufts should be occasionally divided, the plants being more liable 
to perish from damping off when they form large masses than when 
of smaller size.”—p. 37. 

Happy the man who has large masses of Woodsia to divide ! 

The species of Lastrza are so easily cultivated that no kind of care 
is required, unless it be with Oreopteris, which has a great partiality 
for the fresh air of woods and mountains, and cannot bear a clinker 
rockery, and utterly abhors the imprisonment of a Wardian case. 

Polystichum Lonchitis “may be kept in good health if potted 
firmly in a soil of sandy loam, which should be tolerably well drained. 
The best situation in which to keep it is a cool, moist frame, in which 
it will grow with tolerable vigour. Fully exposed on rockwork, it 
will rarely be found to have a prolonged existence, unless the cir- 
cumstances of its natural localities can be tolerably similated.”—p. 71. 

The fern thrives remarkably in cultivation in the Botanic Gardens 
of Ireland, no care seems required to bring it to a degree of perfec- 
tion that it rarely reaches in a state of nature. Passing over a num- 
ber of species, concerning which we find nothing that we can quote 
with advantage, we arrive at 

Asplenium marinum. “No one, as far as | am aware, has been 
successful in cultivating this plant in the open air; exposed unshel- 
tered to our climate it perishes. Whether this be the consequence 
of its requiring warmth and shelter, as indicated by its foreign habi- 
tats, or the peculiar saline influences of the sea, as its almost univer- 
sal position in a wild state may point out, I am unable to say; but 
probably it is constitutionally tender, since it is found to grow freely 
enough, in fact, to attain great luxuriance, in a shady position in the 
ordinary warm, moist atmosphere of a plant-stove. I find it, however, 
to grow very readily in a common frame kept closed. It is very dif- 
ficult to establish when newly moved from its native rocks, the roots 
being of necessity much injured in the process of removal; but when 
once established and placed in a sheltered position, it will grow freely 
and may be increased without difficulty by the ordinary process of 
division. It delights in shade, and when grown in pots should have 


470 


a compost of turfy peat, silver sand, and broken sandstone and char- 
coal. Planted in shady rock-work, in a greenhouse, or plant-stove, it 
soon becomes vigorous, and from its evergreen habit is at all times or- 
namental. When cultivated in a common frame it should have some 
protection against cold in winter; and is in fact best placed with 
other tender kinds beneath a hand-glass kept closed in the green- 
house.”—p. 109. 

Trichomanes speciosum. “This fern requires a damp, calm atmo- 
sphere, without which it will not thrive; hence all attempts to culti- 
vate it artificially other than under close confinement have failed. It 
likes warmth, and thrives admirably under a glass in a shady part of 
a plant-stove or greenhouse. Mr. Smith, who has grown it very suc- 
cessfully, thus explains how it and the Hymenophyllums should be 
planted: ‘Procure some porous freestone (if in one mass so much 
the better) large enough to fit the mouth of the pot in which the plant 
is to be grown; this should be a good sized one, as the plants 
should be seldom disturbed. Fill the pot so far full of broken crocks 
. for drainage as to admit of the sandstone lying firmly on the mouth 
of the pot, and on a level with or rather above the rim. Then strew 
a little silver sand over the stone, and arrange the caudex of the plant 
neatly on the surface, strew a little more sand over this and follow by 
a good watering. If necessary the plant must be supported in a 
firm position by means of some small stakes, judiciously placed. All 
this must be done with great care, for neither the plant nor the sand 
must be disturbed. Next place a hand or bell-glass tightly over the 
plant, and remove it to a shady place, either in the stove or green- 
house or sitting-room, but away from sunshine. After this all that 
is required is careful and rather abundant watering, sufficient, at 
least, to maintain a constant dampness about the plant.’”—p. 142. 

The same treatment is recommended for both species of Hymeno- 
phyllum. 

And here we must close our extracts, finding nothing in the treat- 
ment of the remaining species to which we can invite the reader’s 
attention. From the specimens we have given our readers will con- 
clude that the author is a greater adept in horticulture than in botany, 
and that he would have acted more wisely in adopting the botanical 
portion of his work from other authors, say the fifth edition of the 
‘British Flora,’ the second of Babington’s *‘ Manual,’ or the second of 
‘British Ferns; in either case the confusion always incidental to an 
altered nomenclature would have been avoided. O0.i¢P 2A Qe 


A71 


Notice of ‘The Elements of Botany. By M. ADRIEN DE JUSSIEU, 
translated by James HEwETson WILSON, F.L.S., F.R.B.S., &c., 
&e. London: Van Voorst, Paternoster Row, 1849. 


A very good book very well translated. 

At a period when elementary works on Zoology and Botany are 
more abundant than students, and are for the most part the handi- 
work of those who have never advanced beyond the elements of the 
respective sciences, it is very refreshing to be presented with an in- 
troductory work by one who, like his great namesakes, has climbed 
the tree of botanical knowledge to its topmost bough. It is some- 
what remarkable that France should have produced three such dis- 
tinguished botanists of one name, and we believe of one family. 
The eldest, Bernard de Jussieu, was one of those whose pleasure lies 
in acquiring rather than in diffusing knowledge. His comprehensive 
views of system, shared, we must recollect, by the great Linnzus, 
were rather depicted than described. In the gardens of the Trianon 
he drew a map of that method which has since received his name 
and the approbation of the scientific world. It remained for Antoine 
Laurent de Jussieu to make the world acquainted with the views of 
his predecessor. This gifted man began his labours by editing the 
manuscript catalogue of the plants as arranged by Bernard at the 
Trianon, so that the exact state of botanical knowledge at that period 
is registered in a manner that can never be obliterated. Antoine’s 
own labours followed, and by a comparison of these with the cata- 
logue in question, we see at a glance the exact share of each in that 
system which has almost universally received the title of natural. 
On this, as on all questions worked out by a plurality of minds, the 
disciples have contended for differences which the teachers never en- 
forced, have introduced antagonism where all might have been har- 
moniously blended. The numerical system of Linneus has its 
foundation in nature equally with the more comprehensive system of 
Jussieu: witness the ternary flowers of the endogens: the error was 
in making number too exclusively the guide. | Number is an invalu- 
able assistant, but a most arbitrary master. 

The following extract from the work before us will be read with 
interest. 

“A. L. de Jussieu admits, like Adanson, that the examination of 
all the parts of a plant is necessary for its classification, but, whilst 
he was pursuing this complete examination, he did not endeavour to 


472 


deduce the order of the genera theoretically, in order to group them 
into families, he imitated the manner in which the genera themselves 
were formed. Botanists, struck with the complete and constant re- 
semblance of certain individuals, had collected them into species ; 
then, according to an equally constant resemblance, but much less 
complete, had collected the species into genera. The characteristics, 
which may vary in the same species, will depend on causes not innate 
in the plant, such as its height, the hardness or softness of its wood, 
certain modifications of shape and colour, &c., which change with 
the soil, the climate, and other purely accidental influences. The 
specific characteristics, on the contrary (those which ought to be 
presented by every individual, that is connected with others in form- 
ing a certain species, whatever may be the circumstances in which it 
is placed), will be inherent in the very nature of the plant. Amongst 
these characteristics there are some more important than others, less 
subject to vary in the different individuals; these, being always 
found in a certain number of species, impress upon them a resem- 
blance sufficiently striking to allow us to constitute a genus, 
These will therefore have more value on account of their gene- 
rality than the specific, and the specific than the individual. But 
how can we appreciate these different values? Nature herself has 
indicated to the observer the species and several of the genera by the 
points of resemblance with which she marks certain vegetables; be- 
yond these genera this conducting thread was wanting, since all 
botanists, agreeing in almost everything up to this point, differed af- 
ter they reached it, and followed each a separate route. ‘There are, 
however, several large groups of vegetables connected with one ano- 
ther by characteristics of resemblance so evident, that they cannot 
escape the notice of the most casual observer, much less of a botanist. 
Besides these points of resemblance, common to every species of one 
of these groups, there are some which are only common to a certain 
number among them; so that it may be subdivided into a large num- 
ber of secondary groups. These had been recognized as genera by 
botanists. There were, therefore, already a few collections of genera 
evidently more similar to one another than they were to those of any 
other group, or, in other terms, some families undeniably natural. 
Jussieu thought that this was the key of the natural method, since, 
by comparing the characteristics of one of these families with those 
of the genera which compose it, he would obtain the relation of one 
to the other; since, by comparing several of them with one another 
he would see what characteristics, common to all the plants of the 


~ 


— 


473 


family, varied in such a one and such another; since he would thus 
arrive at the value of each characteristic, and this value, once deter- 
mined by means of these groups so clearly arranged by Nature herself, 
could in its turn be applied to the determination of those on which 
she has not so clearly imprinted this family likeness, and which were 
the unknown quantities in the great problem. He chose, therefore, 
seven families universally admitted; those, which are known under 
the names of Graminee (Graminées), Liliacew (Liliacées), Labiatz 
(Labiées), Composite (Composées), Umbelliferee (Umbelliféres), Cru- 
ciferee (Cruciféres), and Leguminose (Légumineuses). He discovered 
that the structure of the embryo is identical in all the plants of one of 
these families; that it is Monocotyledonous in the Gramineze and 
in the Liliacez, Dicotyledonous in the five others; that the structure 
of the seed is also identical; the Monocotyledonous embryo is placed 
in the axis of a fleshy perisperm in the Liliacez, on the side of a fari- 
naceous perisperm in the Graminee; the Dicotyledonous embryo, 
at the summit of a hard and horny perisperm in the Umbellifere, 
without a perisperm in the three others ; that the stamens, which may 
vary in their number in the same family, the Graminez, for instance, 
do not generally vary in the method of their insertion, Hypogynous 
in the Graminez and in the Cruciferee; on the corolla in the La- 
biate and the Composite; on an epigynous disk in the Umbellifere. 
He thus obtained the value of certain characteristics which would not 
vary in the same natural family. But, less in importance than these, 
there were others more variable, which he tried to appreciate in the 
same way, either by the study of other families formed by Nature her- 
self, or in those which he formed by applying these first rules and 
several others, also founded on his observations. We cannot here 
enter into the details of this long and arduous undertaking, from 
which resulted a hundred families containing all the plants known at 
that time.”—p. 580. K. 


Reply to the Editorial Observations on the Robertsonian Saxifrages, 
at page 451, Sc. By Cuartes CarpaLte Baxineron, Esq., 
MPA ELS... .&c. 


In reply to the remarks of “C.” in the ‘ Phytologist’ (Phytol. iii. 
451, 452), I wish to state that there has never been any desire on my 
part to avoid the acknowledgment of a “mistake” of mine, which 
indeed was not a mistake at the time of its publication. As the new 

VoL. 111. 3a 


ATA 


facts observed by Mr. Andrews had been published in the report of 
the meeting of the London Botanical Society, of April 4, 1846 (Phy- 
tol. 11. 537; Gard. Chron. 1846, p. 254), at which he proved, by the 
exhibition of a series of specimens, that “the fact of the Hibernian 
forms including those of the Pyrenees is placed beyond all doubt or 
cavil,” I never suspected that I was bound to write a paper upon the 
subject, nor that any charge could be brought against me, even by 
your correspondent “C.”, for not going out of my way to publish 
those facts which Mr. Andrews was so well qualified to publish him- 
self, and indeed had published. I supposed that all the interest of 
the subject was at an end after Mr. Andrews’ discovery of the Pyre- 
nean forms of the Robertsonian Saxifrages in Ireland, as that interest 
consisted in their supposed absence. 

In answer to a letter from mej I am informed by Dr. Harvey that 
Mr. Andrews thinks that I prevented the publication of part of his 
remarks in the Reports of the British Association, and also of a paper 
sent to the ‘ Annals of Natural History’ by him. 

With the publication of the former I had nothing to do, as the lo- 
cal officers of the Association are not consulted upon such matters, 
and have no hand even in transmitting the papers, communicated to 
the sections, to head quarters. The report was probably drawn up 
by one of the Secretaries of the section, to whom abstracts of papers 
ought to be given by their authors. Had that been done in this case, 
the report would have been such as Mr. Andrews wished. 

Concerning the paper sent to be inserted in the Annals I know 
nothing, as it is not usual for the Editors of that Journal to submit 
papers, reflecting upon, or contradicting the statements of, one of 
their own body, to the person upon whom the reflections are made. 
IT therefore did not see it, and know nothing about it. I feel certain 
that a short statement would have been printed. fi 

After what had appeared in the ‘Phytologist’ (Phytol. ii. 537), I 
thought that I had done all that was requisite by adding, in the 2nd 
edition of my Manual (p. 126), which was published in 1847, to the 
account of Saxifraga umbrosa the words “ All the forms are found in 
the west of Ireland,” thus including amongst those found in Ireland 
the a. crenata, which was stated in the 1st edition to be the Pyrenean 
plant. 

What I stated “so positively” in the Annals was, that having had 
occasion to re-examine the Irish Saxifrages, I had been “ greatly 
struck by the uniform difference which exists between each of them 
and the corresponding plant of the Pyrenees.” In this, all that 


475 


requires alteration even now, is the substitution of the word “ usual” 
for “uniform ;” for I still think that the wsual Irish forms differ from 
the wswal Pyrenean forms of the plants. 

I am truly sorry that any omission on my part should have ap- 
peared like a neglect of Mr. Andrews’ observations, and am not sur- 
prised at his feeling sore when he supposed that it was intentional. 

The existence of the Pyrenean forms in Ireland has now, at any 
rate, been made sufficiently public by appearing in two of the Bota- 
nical Journals, in addition to the report referred to above. 

Cuar_es C. BaBINGTON. 


St. John’s College, Cambridge, 
March, 1849. 


A few Remarks on the “Proof” of C. C. Babington’s “ Error” 
respecting the Specific Distinctness of Saxtfraga Geum, ele- 
gans, hirsuta, §c., $c. By JAMes BackuousE, JuN., Esq. 


Wuitst the information given by “C.” in the last No. of the 
‘Phytologist, upon the Saxifrages of the umbrosa group in Ireland, 
cannot be regarded as otherwise than interesting and important, inas- 
much as specimens have been gathered, seeds collected, and plants 
cultivated from both Ireland and the Pyrenees in abundance; yet the 
decision which “C.” seems to have arrived at, that there is (or has 
been) an amount of evidence given sufficient to overthrow the specific 
distinction between umbrosa, elegans, hirsuta, and Geum which many 
persons believe to exist; and even to require from a careful and ac- 
curate observer, like C. C. Babington, as a “scientific, if not a moral, 
obligation,” that he should retract his statements and declare his er- 
ror, seems in my opinion entirely devoid of sufficient foundation and 
authority. I cannot say that the probabilites do not appear to be on 
the side of those who think these Saxifrages varying forms of one 
species; but before any certain conclusion is arrived at, we must be 
in possession of far more evidence than has yet been brought forward 
in the public journals. 

The information respecting them actually ascertained, seems to be, 
that every shade of difference between the extreme forms (which may 
be considered as represented in S. umbrosa, var. serratifolia, and S. 
Geum, setting aside the “new one?”) is found in a wild state, not 
only in Ireland, but also in the Pyrenees; and that seeds have been 


476 


collected, the plants raised from which have likewise passed com- 
pletely one into the other; also that under cultivation the same va- 
riable characters are exhibited. 

These are important points; but now the question presents itself, 
WHENCE ARISES THIS INFINITE VARIETY ? 

It may be that there is one species only, which, when far removed 
from others and every possibility of hybridization, has a natural ten- 
dency “to sport” in the seedlings, giving rise to an endless variety. 

On the other hand it may be that there are three or four species, 
or more, forming a group, which are readily affected by hybridization, 
the seedlings from any one of which may, under such influence, show 
every imaginable intermediate state.* 

Or it may be that there are many species, the individuals of which 
have a tendency, without hybridization, to vary and “sport” from 
seed; the seedling from one species so closely approximating the 
seedling from another species, as scarcely to be distinguishable. It 
is only necessary to refer those who have examined extreme forms of 
Polystichum lobatum, var. (?) lonchitidioides, to its close resemblance 
to P. Lonchitis; and yet it is known that the former under cultiva- 
tion assumes the common form of P. lobatum, while on the other 
hand P. Lonchitis retains its character, or quickly regains it, where 
the original plant has taken the form of P. lobatum “ lonchitidioides,” 
by having grown in a shaded place. 

Till these intricate questions are settled, who can be justified in 
saying that such are species or such are only varieties, or much more 
in saying that there is a “ moral,” or even “scientific, obligation” for a 
person holding one view to declare his error? 

Because seeds procured from wild plants in Ireland or the Pyrenees 
produce infinite variety, we have no proof against the existence of 
several species: and because intermediate forms are found abun- 
dantly in the Pyrenees as well as in Ireland, it may be answered by 
way of argument, that like causes under like circumstances produce 
like effects. 

Until extreme forms have been cultivated, singly and far apart 
from others of the group, for a season or two, and seedlings have been 
raised from these, which not only vary, but actually produce the op- 
posite extreme, it appears to me that no one can say with certainty 
that there are not several species which have a tendency “to sport,” 


* As in the case of Pyrus Aria and P. Aucuparia, where by hybridization every 
intermediate form has been produced. 


AT7 


and whose seedlings closely approximate. If they all be variations 
from one species, there is every probability that in two or three gene- 
rations {successively cultivated on the solitary system) a general ten- 
dency will be manifested to return to one form. When we have 
satisfied our minds as to their specific distinctness or the contrary, 
we may try what freaks Nature will play under a regular process of 
hybridization. 

The investigation must necessarily be tedious, and the examiner 
liable to many failures; but this must not discourage us. 


J. Backuouse, Jun. 
York, March 10, 1849, 


List of Plants naturalized near Brechin, Forfarshire, observed in 
1848. By Wittiam AnpeErson, Esq. 


Tue following is a list of naturalized plants that flowered, last sea- 
son, in woods near Brechin Castle, Forfarshire. 

Meconopsis Cambrica 

Chelidonium majus 

Geranium pheum 

Valeriana pyrenaica 

Doronicum pardalianches 

Polygonum Bistorta 

Rumex alpina 

The above are either escapes or outcasts from the garden. 

Saponaria officinalis, var. with double flowers, grows by the side of 
a field a little above the service bridge to Brechin Castle. A cottage 
stood near the spot upwards of thirty years ago; hence the origin of 
the plant in this station. Flowered last October. 

I cannot leave the subject of Brechin-Castle Botany without no- 
ticing further on the Tulipa sylvestris. In following up the remark 
made by me in the ‘ Flora of Forfarshire,’ I may now add my firm 
belief that this plant is not indigenous in the station near Brechin 
Castle, from the circumstance of its being found only near the site of 
the old garden (and to all appearance where part of the mould has 
been deposited), and along with it the Tulipa. 

I am surprised at the silence that has hitherto prevailed regarding 
this plant (at least in this station), while others perhaps less interest- 


478 


ing (in point of beauty at least) have received much attention. Don 
and others visited the above station at a time when the circumstance 
was as evident as it is now. 


W. ANDERSON. 
Temstall, Sittingbourne, Kent, 
Februrary 23, 1849. 


Notes on certain British Plants for distribution by the Botanical 
Society of London, in 1849. By Hewett C. Watson, Esq. 


AGAIN, as in several past years, I have to request that the Editor 
of the ‘ Phytologist’ will grant the use of his widely-circulated journal, 
as the best medium for conveying to Members of the Botanical So- 
ciety of London, some explanations about certain of the specimens 
which have been lately contributed to the Society, for distribution 
during the present year. 

While conveying these explanatory notes on the specimens, I wish 
to avail myself of the opportunity thus afforded, for mentioning that 
the present will probably be the last year in which I shall myself in 
any way intermeddle with the distribution of British specimens from 
Bedford Street ; and even this year I do so to a less extent than usual. 
I have come to the determination of withdrawing from active interfer- 
ence in future, mainly in consequence of not having found a suffici- 
ently systematic cooperation with my own efforts, fully to ensure the 
beneficial results which had been anticipated as the fruits of much 
time and exertion bestowed by myself on the management of the dis- 
tributions during the past five or six years; partly, also, from finding 
practical differences of opinion between myself and others, as to the 
course which is requisite for efficiently continuing the distributions 
on the large scale to which they have gradually attained by the in- 
crease of members, &c. 

I am desirous of making this statement here, where it may be likely 
to catch the eyes of members, with the object of thus publicly releasing 
myself from all individual and personal responsibility in regard to the 
future management of the Botanical Society of London. This could 
not be the case while it was known to many of the members, and even 
publicly avowed [by myself (see ‘ Phytologist,’ ii. 1007), that I was 
really taking an active and extensive participation in most of the 
matters connected with the Society’s distributions of specimens, 


479 


although nominally not holding any official position in the Society, as 
a Member of Council or otherwise. So long as that was the case, the 
contributors would still very justly hold me one among the persons 
who were responsible to them for the good and efficient management 
of the Society, in the principal department of its operations. But 
that responsibilty now ceases. 

The Botanical Society of London has been gradually brought to a 
state of great practical efficiency, as a centre and medium for ex- 
changes of specimens among its members. It will require far less 
exertion of hand and head to keep it on the high level which it has 
attained, than was required to raise the Society to its present state, 
from the very low place which it held in public estimation and use- 
fulness some six or eight years ago. Almost all the needful prelimi- 
nary work of planning and preparing, in both the intellectual and the 
manual sense, has been completed, and has become converted almost 
into a matter of routine. So that it would be a very poor compliment, 
indeed, to the numerous other members, on and off the staff of office- 
bearers in London, were it now to be supposed that the operations of 
the Society cannot still be carried on steadily, usefully, and success- 
fully, without the watchful intermeddling of a single individual who 
resolves to withdraw therefrom. At the same time that such a view 
is expressed, I am very far from confessing a low self-estimate of the 
consequences of my own past interference. On the contrary, I be- 
lieve that the Botanical Society of London, in all likelihood, would 
have been utterly extinct before this date, if that interference had not 
taken place. ‘True, my own efforts would probably have proved un- 
availing without the unwearied exertions of my very estimable friend, 
the Secretary of the Society. But equally so, I think, the latter 
might have failed without the former. And the cooperation of many 
competent botanists, as contributors, was quite as necessary to 
SUCCESS. 

My individual responsibility in the distributions of British speci- 
mens for the current year, is limited. I have very rapidly looked over 
the chief part of those sent in by contributors; and in so doing I 
have removed two lots or portions of them from the rest; namely, 
first, those which I believed to be mis-labelled though errors of no- 
menclature; secondly, those which it seemed desirable to send out to 
the members, although they might not be specially applied for as de- 
siderata. One large parcel, that of Dr. Mateer, I refused to look at, 
on account of the bad condition of the specimens, in regard to their 
pressing and drying, although otherwise well selected. Asa general 


480 


rule, the large parcels are found to contain the worst specimens; and 
yet there is a brilliant exception to this rule, in the parcels from Mr. 
French, which are both very good and very numerous in their contents. 

The number of specimens which it is necessary to place in the ca- 
tegory of mis-labelled plants, I am happy to say, is yearly decreasing; 
and the errors are chiefly found in the parcels of recently-admitted 
members, or of those botanists who contribute without being mem- 
bers of the Society. Moreover, the false labels now usually belong 
to allied species which have been confused together by authors, or to 
forms not always recognized as species. For example, it will excite 
no surprise that specimens of Prunus avium should have been label- 
led with the name of Prunus Cerasus, and by a good botanist, or that 
the specific names of the Lastrzas should have been crossed and mis- 
applied. 

In the latter of my two categories, I included such varieties and 
recently-discovered species as are not yet included in the ‘ London 
Catalogue of British Plants,’ in or by which the members mark their 
desiderata; as also, any other plants of doubtful name, or requiring 
some special explanation. It is for the purpose of giving an expla- 
natory notice respecting some of the specimens belonging to this se- 
cond lot or selection, that I now seek to address the members of the 
Botanical Society, through the pages of the ‘ Phytologist.’ I shall 
myself put up these specimens into packets, as far as their numbers 
will extend, and mark the several packets 1, 2, 3, &c., in a series up 
to 50 or 60, according to the fullness of their contents. The distri- 
butors in London will determine with whom, of the many contributors 
in 1848-9, the greater and earlier claims for them may rest. The 
Anacharis Alsinastrum and recently-distinguished species of Filago 
will be the only novelties, of which some duplicates will still remain 
over and above the fifty or sixty packets. 

Filago canescens (Jord.), F. apiculata (G. E. Sm.), and F. spatulata 
(Presl.). All three of these having been heretofore included together, 
under the collective or general name of Filago germanica, I gathered 
a copious supply of each, in my own neighbourhood, in Surrey, in 
order that their distinctions should be rendered more clear and satis- 
factory, through all three being presented to the eye at once, with 
correct labels. Mr. E. G. Varenne also sent many examples of F. 
apiculata, collected at Kelvedon, in Essex; and Mr. J. W. Salter 
added a few others, labelled from Redneck Heath, Thetford, on the 
authority of Mr. C. C. Babington. To Mr. G. 8. Gibson the Society 
was indebted for a large supply of F. Jussiei (Coss.), which is syno- 


48 1 


nymous with the F. spatulata. Among the specimens of F. apiculata 
(F. lutescens, Jord.) from the various localities, there is a close simi- 
larity of general habit. This is less the case with those of F. spatu- 
lata. The few of the latter species which I collected in a field of 
oats near Chessington Church, Surrey, are remarkable for their more 
upright and more regularly dichotomous growth, with narrower leaves. 
Others from a wheat-field, near Walton-on-Thames, in the same county, 
have a very spreading ramification, the branches being often horizon- 
tal or even deflexed, and the leaves are in general much broader. 
The specimens from Mr. Gibson are intermediate between these two 
forms, and approximate more to F. canescens (the ordinary F’. germa- 
nica of authors) in their mode of branching. The distinguishing 
characters of the three apparent species may be found in the ‘ Phyto- 
logist,’ ii. 314. 

Anacharis Alsinastrum (Bab.). Only few specimens of this inte- 
resting plant could be distributed in the spring of last year. It was, 
however, mentioned in my notes (Phytol. ii. 41) under name of Udora 
verticillata. Since that time it has become familiar to English bo- 
tanists by name of Anacharis, although many of them may be still in 
want of specimens; which can now be sent to all members of the So- 
ciety, from the liberal supply furnished by the Rev. A. Bloxam, col- 
lected in the Reservoirs, Foxton Locks, near Market Harborough, 
Leicestershire. The long and very slender stalk which raises the 
flower above the surface, while the rest of the plant is wholly in the 
water, appears so weak or fragile that many of the specimens will be 
likely to reach their destination with the flowers broken off. Of 
course the Anacharis could not be introduced into the second edition 
of the * London Catalogue,’ which had been just printed when its dis- 
covery was announced; and it may therefore be worth while to men- 
tion that it will form a third genus under the order of Hydrocharidacee. 
It is probable that few young botanists would unite the Anacharis, 
Stratiotes, and Hydrocharis into one order, if they undertook to group 
plants according to general resemblance; yet the exigencies of the 
so-called Natural System require this; the system being, in fact, ar- 
bitrary and conventional in many of its details, although truly founded 
upon natural similitudes. Thus, even in the hands of that clever sys- 
tematist, Dr. Lindley, it is more forced and arbitrary in its details, 
than with most other technical classifiers. 

Melilotus arvensis (Wallr.). The first announcement of this species, 
as British, in the ‘ Phytologist,’ iii. 344, was made on the authority of 
specimens communicated to the Botanical Society of London, by Mr. 

VoL. It. 3R 


482 


G. S. Gibson; and to the same observant and liberal botanist the So- 
ciety is now indebted for some duplicate specimens. By another sea- 
son, we may hope, Mr. Gibson will be able to supply the species in 
larger quantity, and that it will be discovered by other of our lynx- 
eyed botanists of the present age. There seems much probability 
that M. arvensis has hitherto been passed by, as M. officinalis; from 
which latter it is distinguishable by the upper suture of the pod being 
glabrous, not pubescent as in M. officinalis. The flowers of Mr. Gib- 
son’s specimens are yellow, which is not always the case, according 
to continental authors. The relative length of the petals is relied 
upon for a diagnostic character between M. arvensis and M. alba or 
vulgaris; the wings being longer than the keel, in the former, and 
about equal to the standard; while, in the latter, the wings are stated 
to be nearly equal to the keel, and shorter than the standard. This 
is a small character, but apparently a correct one. It may be recom- 
mended to botanists that they should not pass by any locality of a 
Melilotus, this year, without examining specimens; three apparent 
species being now recognized in England, all of which may have for- 
merly been considered as M. officinalis. 

Agrostis (Apera) interrupta (Linn.). Specimens of this recent 
addition to the list of English plants, have been sent from the neigh- 
bourhood of Thetford, in Norfolk, by Mr. G. S. Gibson, and the Rev. 
W. W. Newbould; as likewise by Mr. J. W. Salter, who received 
them from Mr. C.C. Babington. Those communicated by Mr. New- 
bould, not having been severally labelled by the donor, have only the 
Society’s general printed form without special locality, which is that 
of “Redneck Heath, near Thetford.” As with two of the preceding 
novelties, this likewise should probably be deemed a newly dis- 
tinguished, rather than a newly discovered, species with us; for there 
can be little doubt that it has been seen before, and regarded as. 
Agrostis Spica-venti, a species which it resembles very closely, and 
with which it has been united by some botanists of the continent. It 
is to be distinguished from the Spica-venti by a closer or narrower 
panicle, and broad sub-oval anthers; the better known species having 
linear-oblong anthers, and a wider panicle. 

Arenaria rubra 8. media (Bab.). Under this name, Mr. F. J. A. 
Hort sends a few examples of a sea-side plant, which the same 
gentleman recorded in the ‘ Phytologist’ for November last (iii. 321). 
It is the Arenaria marina of various English botanists; but differs 
from the plant figured as such in Eng. Bot., by the absence of a 
membranous margin or wing to the seeds. Its thick and perennial 


483 


root brings it near to Arenaria macrorhiza (eq.), from which, per- 
haps, it may prove not to be specifically distinct; while the same 
character will separate it from A. rubra. 

Geranium striatum (Linn.). The name of this species was inad- 
vertently omitted from the “ Excluded Species” of the ‘ London Ca- 
talogue,’ where it might have been placed on the ground of the plant 
having become in some measure naturalized in Cornwall. Mr. James 
Ward sends some specimens from Aske Wood, near Richmond, in 
Yorkshire, and labels them as “naturalized” in that locality, a cir- 
cumstance which may be held to increase its claims to be recorded in 
our lists of established aliens. 

Trifolium elegans (Sav.). This clover was mentioned in my notes 
on the Botanical Society’s distributions of last year (Phytol. ii. 47), 
as having occurred in two parishes in Surrey. Last autumn it was 
found again, in a third locality,—a field of purple clover, in the parish 
of Chessington, Surrey, very near the Church. Only two specimens 
were found there, and consequently I could not obtain any for distri- 
bution. But having removed a root from the Claygate locality into 
my garden, in 1847, I was thus enabled to dry a good supply last 
summer, with a view of making the species generally known to bota- 
nists, and thus enabling them to detect it in other places, if curious 
to do so. As it appears to be imported and sown with foreign seeds 
of the common meadow clover, and is soon again destroyed by the 
ploughing of the ground for succession crops of grain, it can be re- 
garded only as an alien of uncertain occurrence and duration. And it 
will seldom be detected even in fields where it grows, unless sought 
by pathways, or after the first mowing of the crop, when it is less 
concealed by the taller meadow clover. 

Alchemilla conjuncta (Bab.). The specimens of this, also, are 
from my garden; dried and distributed for the same purpose of ren- 
dering it familiar to botanists, in order that they may look for it in 
the localities of A. alpina, and may thus prove it to be (if it be) truly 
a British species ; the evidence for which, as yet, appears to me to be 
extremely unsatisfactory, although four different localities have been 
stated for the plant. I think Mr. Babington correct in describing it 
as a true species, distinct from A. alpina; as it possesses well-marked 
characters, which are continued by seeds, without any gradual transi- 
tion to A. alpina; though the latter does occasionally exhibit a dis- 
tant approach to A. conjuncta, by the adhesion of its leaflets at their 
base, which is always the case in young seedlings, though disappear- 
ing with age. 


484 


Cerastium nigrescens (Edmondst.). Here, again, I distribute gar- 
den-grown specimens, raised from seeds of the Shetland plant. In 
this case I do so, because the chance of obtaining wild examples from 
the single and remote locality on record, is very slight. These gar- 
den specimens still closely resemble the wild plant of Shetland, in 
their almost orbicular leaves and their dark tint; but I have seen a 
plant which goes far to connect the C. nigrescens of Shetland with 
the C. latifolium of the Scottish Highlands; and which had sprung 
up in my garden, in a situation where it might have been the offspring 
of either, and 1 cannot even guess of which of them satisfactorily. 

Viola flavicornis (Sm. Herb.). Mr. Sansom has again sent a sup- 
ply of this Viola from New Brighton, on the coast of Cheshire; and 
I would refer to the remarks of last year, in regard to the specimens 
from that locality, in Phytol. iii. 47. Mr. Varenne also sends the 
same species (as it appears to me) labelled “ Viola lactea, Sm.,” from 
Tiptree Heath, Essex. And other examples from myself, well cor- 
responding with those from Essex, will be found accompanying those 
from Mr. Sansom and Mr. Varenne, for sake of comparison. My 
own labels bear a reference to the ‘ Phytologist’ of 1849, instead of 
locality ; the specimens being plants from my garden, which had 
sprung self-sown about wild roots transplanted into the garden. I 
have labelled them “Surrey Violet,” because that name has been 
used by me repeatedly in the ‘ Phytologist.’ The late Mr. Forster re- 
ferred the “Surrey Violet” to Smith’s V. lactea; and I quite concur 
in regarding it as identical with the species so named in Smith’s own 
herbarium. Still, it appears to be exactly the same thing with Rei- 
chenbach’s 4501 (ericetorum, lucorum, sabulosa), to which (in the 
form or variety sabulosa) Reichenbach himself referred Smith’s V 
flavicornis. The two species which we possess in England are given 
under three names in Babington’s Manual, but I think that the fol- 
lowing is the solution of their difficulty; that is, a solution from 
Nature, not from books. 

1. First species, V. sylvatica (Bab. Man.), is the ordinary hedge- 

bank and coppice plant, called V. canina by ninety-nine in 
the hundred English botanists, including Smith, Hooker, &c. 
2. Second species, V. lactea (Sm. Herb.), is the “ Surrey Violet” 
above mentioned, and the same with Mr. Varenne’s plant 
from Tiptree Heath. Nor can I see how to.distinguish it 
specifically from Mr. Sansom’s Cheshire specimens. If the 
plant figured in ‘English Botany, as V. lactea, be the same 
species with the specimens preserved in Smith’s herbarium, 


485 


it is rather an extreme form in the length and narrowness of 
its leaves. 

3. Under “V. canina (Z.)” of his Manual Mr. Babington has united 
(confused, I should rather say) small specimens of the “ First 
species” with the broader or more cordate-leaved forms of 
the “Second species” above indicated. I am perfectly cer- 
tain, after several years’ observation and cultivation of the 
plants, that the confusion here noted does occur in the 
‘Manual of British Botany.’ But I cannot confidently assert 
that only two species of this group are to be found in Eng- 
land: it may be that three do exist with us; although, as 
natural species, they will still not correspond with the three 
book species of the Manual. 

Mentha rotundifolia (Linn.). Mr. E.G. Varenne sends some spe- 
cimens thus labelled, from a ditch, Messing, Essex. I should myself 
have labelled them, not without some degree of doubt, as M. sylves- 
tris. They show one of those intermediate forms which render abso- 
lute distinction so difficult between the two species mentioned, and 
which have induced some botanists to suspect “that they may be 
states of one and the same species,” as recently remarked (Phytol. iii. 
440) by Dr. Bromfield. As usual with the specimens from Mr. 
Varenne, they are well dried and well labelled, exactly what labels 
and specimens should be when sent to the Botanical Society for dis- 
tribution. And the same compliment might be truthfully extended to 
those of Mr. Taylor, Mr. Salmon, Mr. Barham, and, indeed, many 
other members now. 

Tormentilla reptans? 1 should be glad to have the opinion of 
botanists respecting the correctness of this name. During several 
years I have examined the wild plants of Potentilla reptans and Tor- 
mentilla officinalis, under various conditions of soil and situation, in 
the vain hope of satisfactorily identifying the Tormentilla reptans 
with one or other of them. I can still reach only the apparent con- 
clusion, that varieties of each may pass for T. reptans; being those 
intended under the names of “nemoralis” and “ pseudo-nemoralis ” 
in the ‘ London Catalogue, under the genus Potentilla. I consider 
the specimens now sent out (if not a distinct species, which seems less 
probable) to be a variety of Potentilla Tormentilla (Tormentilla offi- 
cinalis), although the flowers are sometimes five-petalled, and the 
stems somewhat creeping. I dried forty specimens, the whole of 
them from one plant, and therefore the radical leaves are wanting on 
nearly all of them. 


486 


Centaurea nigra, radiate varieties. 1 have dried a few specimens 
of two varieties of C. nigra, which grow very sparingly in my own 
neighbourhood. In the one which is labelled as “C. nigra, var. ra- 
diata,” many of the outer florets, two, or even three rows, are longer 
than the rest, giving to the flower-head a semi-double, rather than a 
truly radiate appearance. This variety occurs on the borders of 
fields, single plants here and there, intermingled with the ordinary C. 
nigra, from which it differs only in the slight peculiarity mentioned. In 
the other variety or species a few of the outer florets, usually a single 
row, are very much longer than the rest, giving quite a radiate ap- 
pearance to the flower-head. This variety occurs by road-sides and 
on hedge-banks, not by single plants only, but several in a locality, 
scattered chiefly about the borders of coppices, where the soil is very 
sandy. Ihave labelled it “C. nigrescens,” although the specimens 
have not the other character given to that alleged species, namely, 
the separation of the two or three innermost rows of involucral ap- 
pendages from the rest; while those of the other less radiate form do 
show that character in some degree. But the character is utterly 
worthless as a distinction ; for I have seen it well marked in living 
plants of the ordinary C. nigra, totally rayless; and it can be pro- 
duced by the process of pressing the specimens. I may observe 
here, while alluding to the Centaurex, that C. Jacea is a common 
continental species, to be seen in every collection of European 
plants; and that the plant of the Belfast locality was the true spe- 
cies, unless I mis-remember the specimen in Smith’s herbarium. All 
the English and Scottish specimens, which I have seen labelled as 
C. Jacea, belonged to C. nigrescens. 

Various. None of the other plants seem to require special notice 
or explanation. Mr. Bentall sends some neat little specimens of 
Lathyrus Aphaca, in an early stage of growth, in order to show the 
true leaves, which are replaced by the enlarged stipules in the more 
advanced growth. By the by, if any recommendation of ‘ Beniall’s 
drying paper’ were still required, the beautiful condition of Mr. Tho- 
mas Bentall’s specimens would well furnish this. Mr. Ward sends 
the radiate form of Bidens cernua, from Bolton-on-Swale, near Rich- 
mond, Yorkshire. Mr. Moore sends some slight varieties of ferns. 
Dr. Steele sends an Albino variety of Euphrasia Odontites, with 
white flowers and pale green stems. But the labels of these and 
some other things will sufficiently explain what they are. They are 
distributed with the new and dubious species, because they cannot be 


487 


obtained in the.ordinary routine of applying for desiderata by check- 
ing their names in a ‘ London Catalogue.’ 

Error. My. Dennes informs me that through some mischance a 
part of the labels written for Sium latifolium, in 1847-8, were attach- 
ed to specimens of Cicuta virosa. Those members who received 
specimens of the former, according to labels, should make sure that 
they have not got the rarer Cicuta instead. I think the specimens 
were from Norfolk. 

Foreign Specimens. In concluding my notes on the Society’s dis- 
tribution of British plants in the the current year, I may append a 
recommendation that any of the members who desire foreign plants, 
European or exotic, should apply to me by post letter at an early 
date. Hitherto the foreign specimens have been labelled and distri- 
buted almost solely by myself. But I fear this must be the last year 
of my doing that troublesome work. And if I judge of the future by 
the past, few members will get any foreign plants after J cease to look 
to them. I should, however, observe that a year or a year and a half 
ago, Mr. Henfrey commenced to label a numerous and beautifully 
dried collection of United States plants; but I am not aware that 
any of these have yet been distributed to members, though many of 
them have been labelled by Mr. Henfrey for that purpose. Like 
many other specimens, these Americans remained for several years in 
the Society’s rooms, unseen and unuseful. Indeed, it appears to 
have been the rule of conduct in Bedford Street to shut up foreign 
specimens in boxes and cupboards, useless to every body, until de- 
stroyed by insects. J have myself rescued and distributed a good 
number of them; but still many remain, doomed to destruction by 
vermin, without being of the smallest use to any body. A very large 
mass of foreign specimens has also been set aside, and is now stowed 
away in cupboards, ostensibly in order to constitute a general 
herbarium. But these are totally inaccessible for use and reference, 
and will probably be destroyed by insects in the lapse of time. The 
Botanical Society of London cannot command the pecuniary funds, 
or the skilled labour, which would be required to make a general 
herbarium of reference; and yet the exchanges and distributions 
have been much impeded by the unwise attempts to effect this and 
other objects, which there is neither money nor resident knowledge 
adequate to accomplish. I should recommend some five and twenty 
or fifty English botanists, really and selectly such, to form themselves 
into an exchanging club, apart from both Botanical Societies; es- 
chewing herbaria, libraries, meetings for discussion, and such like 


488 


local taxes on time and purse, which only interfere with the one use- 
ful and general object mentioned. Tempora mutantur: the object 
for which scientific societies used to be instituted are now better 
effected by periodical literature, by travelling, by correspondence, 
and by exchanges. Collective libraries are still important; but we 
have one for botany at the Linnean Society, and cannot have one at 
the Botanical Society of London. 


Hewett C. Watson. 
Thames Ditton, February, 1849. 


BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 


Friday, March 2, 1849.— John Reynolds, Esq., Treasurer, in the 
chair. 

A donation of British plants was announced from Mr. T. West- 
combe. 

Mr. E. Berry, of Barnsley, Yorkshire, was elected a corresponding 
member. 

A paper was read from Mr. Arthur Henfrey, containing some re- 
marks on the “ Discrimination of Species.” While estimating highly 
the value of minute inquiry into the conditions presented by plants, 
the author could not overlook the inconveniences that arise from 
hastily giving a specific value to peculiar forms. All the deductions 
of philosophical Botany depend upon the fixity of species, as the 
science of numbers does on the definite nature of units. If we admit 
transitions, we can only define a species as a particular abstract form, 
more or less completely realised in nature, under peculiar conditions, 
which we do not yet understand; but if, as is usually the case, we 
admit the fixity of species, we are bound to exercise sufficient care in 
our observations, to avoid raising accidental variations to this rank. 
In reference to M. Jordan’s views, it was observed that he also regards 
the species as an absolute, and not an abstract form, but on this 
ground calls every tolerably constant variety a species. Mr. Henfrey 
considered that an important point was overlooked as to the nature of 
varieties. He regarded them all as abnormal conditions, depending 
upon the morphological and physiological relations of the different 
organs. Accordingly, he would take that as the true example of a 
species in the Phanerogamia, in which the seeds (the highest pro- 
duct) were most perfectly and abundantly produced, in a generally 


489 


healthy condition of the whole plant, and from such examples alone, 
where any doubt existed, should specific characters be drawn. In 
cultivation, a most important test in doubtful cases, the plants ought 
to be exposed to many different kinds of condition, otherwise a va- 
riety or abnormal form might be continued for a time by the very 
same influences which first produced it, while the varied conditions 
would afford the best means of judging of the relative constancy of 
characters, afforded by the different organs of the plant.—G. E. D. 


On the Flowering of Plants. By Henry Boyer, Esq. 


In the ‘ Phytologist’ for this month I read an interesting article on 
the “ Dates of the Flowering of British Plants.” 

I send you a list of some of the plants I have found this year, with 
the dates, as it may tend somewhat further to illustrate the subject. 
The Corydalis claviculata is remarkably early ; June and July are the 
months stated by Hooker and Babington for its flowering. 

January 25. Mercurialis perennis and Primula vulgaris. 

January 26. Viola odorata (not found by myself). 

January 29. Ulex europzeus. 

January 31. Vinca minor and Ranunculus Ficaria. 

February 15. Tussilago Farfara. 

February 17. Draba verna. 

February 19. Viscum album. 

February 21. Corydalis claviculata. 

March 9. Veronica hederifolia in flower and seed. 


Henry Boyer. 
Farmham, March 15, 1849. 


Occurrence of Spherocarpus terrestris near Fakenham. 
By GeorceE Firt, Esq. 


BEING at Gately, five miles from hence, on Monday last, I examin- 
ed a turnip-field which looked a likely place for Spherocarpus terres- 
tris to grow in, and to my great pleasure found it in abundance, and 
producing fruit. I have since examined fields within half a mile of 
this town, and with the like success. It is this season plentiful 

Vou; 11: 3.8 


A490 


amongst turnips, particularly Swedes; and the capsules most abun- 
dant. 

Should any of your readers wish for specimens, I shall be happy to 
supply them, provided, of course, that the plant is in existence after 
the beginning of April, about which time it usually disappears. Dried 
specimens are scarcely worth examination, but I would supply them 
in default of fresh ones. 

The early spring of 1846, when I before found this plant in fruit, 
was similarly mild to the present season, but more moist. The plant 
was then unusually abundant near Yarmouth, where it had been 
found for many years by Mr. Turner, but always barren. 


GEORGE FITT. 
Fakenham, March, 1849. 


A Catalogue of the Plants growing wild in Hampshire, with occa- 
sional Notes and Observations on some of the more remarkable 
Species. By Witi1am ARNOLD BromFIELD, M.D., F.LS., &c. 


(Continued from page 439). 


Artemisia Absinthium. In pastures, waste and stony places, on 
hedge-banks, by road-sides, and about farm-yards and villages in 
many parts of the Isle of Wight; abundantly. Salt ditch by the 
Vernon Hotel at Springfield, near Ryde, else almost unknown in this 
vicinity. Chalk-pit betwixt Yaverland and Brading, and a few plants 
on the northern slope of Bembridge Down, July 8, 1848, an extremely 
sequestered station. Plentiful and truly indigenous along the whole 
length of the Undercliff, in rough pastures and dry wastes, at Bon- 
church, Ventnor, St. Lawrence, Bankend, &c. Profusely about Ni- 
ton, as between Mount Cleve and the lighthouse (St. Catherine’s), and 
in pasture ground beneath the cliff behind the Sand Rock Hotel. 
Everywhere along the road betwixt Niton and Blackgang, preferring 
rocky, arid places, the débris of the cliffs, and along the stone fences. 
In less certainly natural stations about farm-yards and villages, as at 
Yaverland, Kingston, Redway, Gottens, and many other places. I 
am not yet in a condition to state its frequency on the mainland, 
having received but few notices of it from correspondents; nor have I 
remarked it since I began to register the plants of the county gene- 


491 


rally, about a year or two back. Andover; Mr. Wm. Whale. Font- 
ley iron mills; Mr. W. L. Notcutt. 

Artemisia vulgaris. Abundant on dry hedge-banks, in waste 
ground, thickets and borders of fields in most parts of the county and 
Isle of Wight. I found the mugwort extremely common about Mon- 
treal and Quebec, September, 1846, where it was perhaps originally 
introduced from Europe for medical or economical purposes, but has 
now quite the aspect of a native production of Lower Canada. 

maritima. Vars. 3. gallica and y. salina. Both forms 
very frequent in salt-marsh ground and muddy shores, both of the 
island and main. Shore near Quarr Abbey, sparingly. Shores of 
Brading Harbour here and there, as about St. Helen’s, Carpenters, 
&c. Thomess Bay, King’s Quay, and abundant in the salt marshes 
round Newtown and by the Yar. Near Kast Cowes. Frequent in 
Hayling Island, and shore betwixt Emsworth and Langstone in many 
places. Common, probably, along the entire Hampshire coast where 
it is low and muddy. Occurs for the most part in great abundance 
on its several stations, where it recommends itself to notice by the 
fine and powerful camphorated fragrance it gives out under the hasty 
tread of the least regardful of Nature’s infinitely varied sources of de- 
light and instruction to man. For myself, I much prefer the scent of 
this species to that of the common southernwood (4. Abrotanum), as 
purer or less contaminated by a certain bitterness which pervades the 
genus, and from which that old favourite of our English gardens is 
not absolutely free. 

+———— cerulescens. Sea-shores; a very doubtful, and now 
apparently extinct native of England, if it was ever really found in 
Britain. “ At Portsmouth, by the Isle of Wight;” Gerarde. On the 
coast of Brading Harbour, near Broadstone; Mr. W. D. Snooke. 
This species has been. introduced into the British Flora on the au- 
thority of Gerarde and of Tofield; but although the old herbalist men- 
tions it as a native of the opposite coast of Hampshire (Portsmouth), 
he does not, as Sir James Smith would lead us to suppose, assign the 
Isle of Wight as its place of growth, an error which seems to have 
originated with Smith, and from his own to have been copied into our 
later British floras. Yet in Mr. Snooke’s little work (see note, p. 437) 
here referred to, a specific locality is given for A. czrulescens within 
the island, but where I have sought it without success. Mr. S. can- 
not himself now account for its insertion in his ‘ Flora Vectiana,’ and 
there can be little doubt but that to some error or inadvertence its an- 
nouncement in that catalogue was owing. Gerarde (em., p. 1104) 


492 


couples Rye and Winchelsea with Portsmouth as stations for his sea 
mugwort, or Artemisia marina, as he calls it (at fig. 3), referred by 
modern authors to A. cerulescens, and no doubt correctly; carefully 
distinguishing our common A. maritima as white sea wormwood (4é- 
sinthium marinum album, p. 1099, fig. 1), thus showing that both 
plants were familiar to him. Merrett (Pinax, p. 11) citing Gerarde’s 
figure of A. cerulescens, says it grows betwixt Deal and Dover, and 
by the asterisk prefixed to the name implies that it was seen there by 
himself; the authority of the Pinax is not, however, always the most 
trustworthy, as Merrett appears to have been no greater botanist than 
zoologist, and might easily have mistaken one species for another in 
this instance, great as is the difference between them. How (Phyto- 
graphia, p. 11) merely quotes Gerarde and Lobel, and probably takes 
the former at his word without examination. Parkinson says nothing 
of it as a native of Britain, nor does Morrison, both giving the coasts 
of the Adriatic as its true region. The Lincolnshire station at Boston 
rests solely on the testimony of Tofield as cited by Hudson; Ray and 
Petiver omit to mention or figure it, as both would certainly have 
done had it been found in their time. In the Dillenian edition of the 
Synopsis, indeed, we find reference made to a sea wormwood with a 
broader leaf (Syn. p. 188-189, Nos. 3, 4), found by Plukenet and She- 
rard, as well as of another observed by Dale near Colchester, which 
Ray is inclined to think may be one and the same species or variety 
with the former, but he is evidently ignorant of both. The very ob- 
scure and short account of these two plants does not, however, favour 
the idea that A. cerulescens was the species intended by Dale and 
Plukenet; yet it is singular that Ray should not once allude, either in 
the Synopsis or in his great work the ‘ Historia Plantarum,’ to the alleged 
occurrence, by Gerarde, of the lavender-leaved mugwort on the Sussex 
and Hampshire coasts, even in the way of doubt or contradiction. As 
Tofield is the only modern authority for A. cerulescens in England, 
and even his testimony rests on the bare mention of his name by 
Hudson, the inference may be fairly drawn, either that some variety 
of A. maritima has been in every instance mistaken for the czrules- 
cens, as we have seen to have been the case in this island, or that 
like Echinophora spinosa it may have occasionally appeared on our 
shores for a limited time, but from climatic causes have been unable 
to maintain a permanent footing. Both these plants inhabit the same 
botanical region, much to the southward of our own country, and both 
are recorded as having been found on the coasts of Brittany, but now 


493 


lost.* They are both maritime or sea-side species, and, as such, pe- 
culiarly fitted for transmarine migration, as their seeds would find a 
congenial place of growth the moment they were cast ashore; and if 
the climate of their new settlement were not too widely different from 
that of their natural soil, they might maintain their ground for some 
years under meteorological vicissitudes that must ensure their ultimate 
extinction, if not renewed by the same oceanic agency. Littoral or 
sea-coast plants are known to have in general a wider geographical 
range than inland ones, partly from the facility afforded them for mi- 
gration by the waves, and partly from the greater equability of tem- 
perature which prevails along the shores of the ocean, or any great 
body of water. The same causes which extend the permanent will 
favour the accidental and temporary range of a species much beyond 
its proper average limits, and hence I would not be thought to refuse 
credence to the accounts we have of the occurrence of these and other 
plants upon our southern coasts, however great the probability that 
such accounts may be founded on errors of observation. 

Tanacetum vulgare. On hedge-banks, by road-sides, and about 
the borders of fields, in various parts of the Isle of Wight. At St. 
John’s, Ryde, sparingly. Near Lake Farm, Sandown. Plentiful by 
the road-side from Chale to Blackgang, and abundantly on a high 
bank betwixt Mottestone and Brixton. Hedges betwixt Niton and 
Whitwell, abundant in two or three places. Hedge-banks on the 
moors near Godshill. Dry pastures at Newchurch. Especially abun- 
dant on Vinnicombe Hill. Moor Town by Brixton, at Kingston, Sand- 
ford, and many other places. By Windmill Lane, Fareham, Mr. W. 
L. Notcutt, the only mainland station I happen to have on record, 
though I cannot suppose the tansey to be rare in that part of our 
county, any more than in this. 

Filago germanica. In dry pastures, fields, waste and fallow 
eround, by road-sides, &c.; very universal and abundant over the 
county and Isle of Wight. 
apiculata. In similar places with the last, and possibly 
not uncommon, but at present 1 can only record it in the following 
locality for Hampshire. In fields about midway between Farnbo- 
rough station and Frimley; Mr. H.C. Watson! Having never seen 
this recent addition to the British Flora in a living state, and know- 
ing it only through beautiful dried specimens sent me by the Rev. G. 


* Near Nantes according to Bonamy. See Lloyd,‘ Flore de la Loire Inférieure,’ 


p. 333. 


49-4 


E. Smith, its first discoverer in this country, it would be presumptu- 
ous in me to offer an opinion on its claim to specific distinction. 
Yet I may be allowed perhaps to observe that an attentive perusal of 
the condensed descriptions of this and the three other assumed spe- 
cies its allies, F. spatulata, canescens and eriocephala, with Mr. H. 
C. Watson’s remarks thereon, at p. 313, &c., of the present volume, 
has not inclined me to adopt the cautious and diffident conclusion he 
arrives at of the existence of three apparent species in this country ; 
the characters seem too much interwoven or reciprocally applicable 
to each kind to be rendered satisfactory on paper to those who, like 
myself, have not possessed the opportunity of comparing them in a 
fresh or living state. 

Filago minima. On barren, sandy or gravelly heaths, banks and 
pastures, but not very common, at least in the Isle of Wight. On St. 
George’s and Bleak Downs. On Buck’s Heath, between Kingston 
and Shorwell, and in a sandy field at the foot of Queen Bower. By 
Sibbeck’s farm, near Niton. In Hayling Island, on the south beach, 
near the hotel, &c. Oakhanger, and most abundantly all over Short 
Heath, September, 1848. At Boldre, and doubtless in many other 
parts of the county. 

Gnaphalium uliginosum. In sandy, gravelly and muddy spots, 
where water has stood, in half dried up ditches, and bare, damp 
places by road-sides, &c.; common over the county and island. 
sylvaticum, var. rectum (G. rectum, Sm.). In dry, 
sandy woods, thickets, pastures and heathy places; rare: “ Fre- 
quent in the south-west parts of the Isle of Wight ;” Mr. J. Woods, 
‘Jun., in ‘ Botanist’s Guide.’ There is doubtless some error in the 
above statement, as, so far is this species from being “frequent” here, 
that not a single specimen has ever presented itself to observation 
during reiterated endeavours to verify Mr. Woods’s assertion in this 
and other quarters of the island more likely to afford it, the south- 
western side being for the most part open, arable land, with hardly a 
patch of copse or brushwood, or even a tree of any size to be seen. 
The plant is still a desideratum to the Vectian flora. West Wood, 
W. Meon, July 18th, 1848. Warnford; Rev. EK. M. Sladen. Lang- 
rish; Miss G. E. Kilderbee! and probably in numerous other places 
within the county. N. B.—Antennaria dioica may not unreasonably 
be looked for on the high heaths and Downs in the north of Hamp- 
shire. 

Doronicum plantagineum. In woods and pastures? At East 
Woodhay: Mr. J. E. Winterbottom in Curt. Brit. Entom. vol. xvi. 


495 


tab. et fo). 754 (sub nomine D. Pardalianches). Having been hither- 
to unable to obtain particulars respecting the leopard’s bane in this its 
only recorded Hants station, I do not venture to pronounce it indige- 
nous to, or even as certainly found within, the county; for East 
Woodhay is so close to the confines of Hants and Berks, that in the 
absence of specific information a doubt may arise whether the plant 
was gathered in the former or the latter. Both these points I shall 
hope to clear up at the proper season. Mr. Curtis’s beautiful figure 
plainly, I think, represents the D. Pardalianches of E. B. vol. ix. t. 
630, now referred to D. plantagineum. The synonyms of this last 
are much confused, and it is doubtful if ours be the Linnean species 
so denominated. The genus Doronicum inhabits alpine or subalpine 
places in southern and central Europe, and not being plants of low 
and maritime counties it is not likely that any are truly native in the 
south of England, whatever may be the case with them in the “cold 
mountains of Northumberland,” where Gerarde affirms they grow. 

Cineraria campestris. On dry chalky Downs and pastures; rare? 
Near Basingstoke and Andover, Huds. Fl. Ang. On Flower Down, 
near Winton; Rev. Messrs. Garnier and Poulter in Hamps. Repos. !!! 
Abundantly on Stockbridge race-course, where the Bibury meeting is 
held; Dr. A. D. White. Warnford; Rev. E.M. Sladen. Dr. White 
kindly conducted me in May last to the station on Littleton or Flower 
Down, as it is called indifferently, and where this rare plant still 
grows in considerable plenty on the short turf of the yet unenclosed 
part of the Down, which is used by a well-known breaker-in of race- 
horses for a training ground. The authors of the catalogue in the 
‘Hampshire Repository’ give Belhan, Isle of Wight, as a trans-so- 
leniine station for the Cineraria, the locus of which has to this day 
continued to be a profound mystery to myself and every one else in 
the island of whom I have made inquiry times without number, nor 
has the plant yet occurred with us to my knowledge in any other 
than the very apocryphal habitat just mentioned. If attention be not 
drawn to the very different root-leaves, its unassuming aspect may 
fail to attract notice from a hasty passer-by, who may set it down for 
an unhappy specimen of Senecio erucifolius with flowers reduced to 
their lowest terms as to number by uncongeniality of soil or situation. 
The affinity (perhaps too near) of its genus to Senecio might make 
such a blunder almost excusable in any person not familiar with the 
present species. 

Senecio vulgaris. In waste and cultivated ground, fields, gardens, 
&c.; abundant everywhere. 


496 


Senecio sylvaticus. On dry sandy or gravelly banks, pastures and 
heaths, also in woods and waste ground, but not very common in the 
Isle of Wight. About Sandown abundantly, as on Royal Heath, 
Lake Common; about Bordwood and Alverston. Ditch-banks on 
the moors north of Godshill in several places. Newport, along the 
road to Yarmouth. Sandy fields and banks under Bleak Downs, 
&c. Probably not rare in mainland Hants; its omission from that 
part of the field of our research is one of those accidental gaps in the 
county flora which a little more extended opportunity for observa- 
tion than [ have yet enjoyed will enable me to fill up at no distant 
date. N.B.—S. viscosus may be looked for with considerable pro- 
bability in this county. 
erucifolius, (S. tenuifolius, Jacq.) In woods, on hedge- 
banks, by road-sides and borders of fields; a prevailing species in 
the Isle of Wight, especially in the chalky districts. Plentiful be- 
twixt Ryde and Brading, about Newport and in most other parts of 
the island. The Salterns, Carns, near Fareham; Mr. W. L. Notcutt: 
and probably common in the county, although I find no special men- 
tion of this species in my notes. 

Jacobea. In moist meadows and pastures, on ditch-banks, 
waste ground, and by road-sides; common over the entire county 
and island. 

aquaticus. In wet places, meadows, ditches, &c., very 


common. 

Carlina vulgaris. In dry hilly, sandy, or heathy pastures, fields 
and rough rocky waste places; very common in the Isle of Wight 
and I believe the county generally. Abundant in Luccomb Land- 
slip, and in many parts of the Undercliff. At Blackgang, and on St. 
Catherine’s Down, &c., plentiful. Maindell chalk-pit, Fareham; Mr. 
W. L. Notcutt. 

Centaurea nigra. Everywhere abundant in woods, thickets, pas- 
tures, hedges, waste ground, and by waysides. Var. 8. radiata. As 
frequent, if not more so than the rayless form over a great part of the 
Isle of Wight, particularly on the chalk; very common in Undercliff, 
as about Ventnor; betweeri Shanklin and Bonchurch, at Carisbrook, 
&c. Mr. Babington distinguishes this in the Manual from a similar 
plant with radiate outer florets, which he refers to C. nigrescens of 
Willdenow, on the authority, apparently, of Koch. Whether we pos- 
sess this last as well as the other in the island, or if both are but 
states of C. nigra, I am still in doubt. I had always supposed our 
Hants radiated black knapweed might be Willdenow’s nigrescens, but 


AQT 


it would seem we have something in England still different, and 
which is the proper nigrescens of that author. This I have either 
not fallen in with, or am unable to distinguish by description from 
the var. 8. radiata of our common C. nigra. With regard to this 
latter form, I have been at much pains to find a constant mark apart 
from the sterile outer florets, by which to distinguish it from the more 
normal state of C. nigra, but without success; the differences as laid 
down betwixt C. nigra and nigrescens in the Manual convey no very 
clear conception to my mind of their dissimilarity ; the determination 
of the radiant plant of this island to its proper place, if a species or 
variety, must of course await a definition of C. nigra and nigrescens 
less obscurely enunciated than it is at present. I hardly know how 
far our var. 6. is common or otherwise on the mainland of Hants, not 
having attended to the point. At Clanfield; Mr. Pamplin in New 
Bot. Guide. Mansbridge, near Southton. I once picked it with 
white flowers near Niton, Isle of Wight. Nearly all the alleged 
habitats for C. Jacea in Britain have turned out on inquiry to be our 
radiate variety of C. nigra. Are the Irish stations in Fl. Hibernica 
anything else but this form? Was more than a single plant of the 
true C. Jacea found in Sussex? And lastly, what is the genuine C. 
Jacea? 

Centaurea Cyanus. Yn corn-fields and other cultivated ground ; 

very common throughout the island, and I believe the entire county. 

Scabiosa. On banks, by road-sides, ‘about hedges, bor- 
ders of fields, and amongst corn; very common, but most abundant 
on the chalk. Heads of flowers flesh-coloured, outer radiant florets 
white. In a field near Yarmouth, a single specimen, September, 
1839. Chalky fields above Sandown Bay, July, 1848. By St. Law- 
rence’s church, August, 1842; Rev. Wm. Thickens!!! A very hand- 
some variety, well worthy of cultivation. All the florets in the head 
white; near Westover, Isle of Wight, August, 1843. 

}———- solstitialis. In cultivated land amongst corn, clover, 
lucerne, &c.; also along the borders of fields and in waste ground ; 
very rare, and probably not indigenous to any part of the county of 
Hants. Found a good many years ago by my estimable friend the 
Rev. G. E. Smith, in a newly broken up field by the road-side above 
Bonchurch, growing to all appearance truly wild amongst Artemisiz 
and other Composite! Sought there unsuccessfully by me in 1837, 
and not since observed in that or any other part of the island, nor 
have I received intimation of its occurrence on the mainland of 
Hants. Usually considered, and perhaps justly, as an imported 

VoL. Ul. 3 T 


498 


species in this country, but being rarely abundant, hke many other 
annuals, seldom continues long in one spot, but shifts its station 
within certain limits, or disappears entirely. The late Lady Blake 
informed me it is to be found most years about Barton and Rougham, 
near Bury, but scarcely in the same field for many successive seasons. 

Centaurea Calcitrapa. In dry pastures, waste places, on commons 
and along road-sides, on chalk, gravel, or sand; rare. Road-side 
between Niton and St. Lawrence (with white flowers), September, 
1833; Mrs. Dixon. Not now to be found there (Mrs. D. thinks 
from the road having been zmproved), or so far as I can ascertain, in 
any other part of the Isle of Wight. Peel Common, near Fareham, 
and on Portsdown Hill, near the Nelson Monument; Mr. W. L. 
Notcutt!!!'' I looked for it in vain on Portsdown, but found it in 
plenty on Peel, and still more abundantly on Chark Common (which 
is but a continuation of the former towards Stubbington), forming 
large bushes, and still in ample flower, October 13th, 1848. It pro- 
bably grows in many other places in mainland Hants, towards the 
coast, but is rather a plant of the eastern or “ Germanic” than of the 
western or “ Atlantic” type of distribution, or perhaps should be re- 

garded as making a transition from that to the purely “English” 
type. It is apparently wanting over by far the larger portion of Eng- 
land, inclining more and more to the eastern side of the island as it 
advances northward, and only in the extreme south attaining the me- 
ridian of Devon on the west. I have gathered it in Jersey, and 
remarked it abundantly many years ago in Sussex, on this side of 
Brighton. I have likewise seen it in Suffolk, near Ipswich, and in 
June, 1847, gathered it in great abundance at Norfolk, in Virginia, 
where it is completely naturalized on waste ground about that now 
somewhat elderly American city. 

Arctium Lappa. In waste places, woods, by way-sides and mar- 
gins of fields, &c.; very common. Var. a A. majus, Schkuhr 2? 
By Shanklin farm, &c. Var. @. A. minus, Schk:? A. Bardana, 
Willd. Much the more frequent variety of the two. Ventnor Cove, 
&c.; plentiful. These are very possibly, as Mr. Babington regards 
them, distinct species, a position I am rather inclined to accede to 
than controvert; but, not having yet studied the two sufficiently to 
be convinced that such is the case, and still seeing cause for doubt 
and suspension of judgment, I prefer risking the commission of the 
minor error of undue combination to the far greater evil of unnatural 
separation. The prominence given to marked yet dubious forms by 
special record under the head of varieties, suffices for their discrimi- 


499 


nation as effectually as exalting them to species, with this advantage, 
that should their claims to the higher distinction be proved unten- 
able, no violence is done to Nature, or additions made to the vast 
heap of discarded synonyms which now burden the books ; indelible 
memorials, too often, of haste, vanity, or prepossession. 

Onopordon Acanthium. In dry waste places, by road-sides, on 
hedge-banks and amongst rubbish. Extremely rare, if not now quite 
extinct, in the Isle of Wight. Sparingly on Ryde Dover prior to 
1842, since then completely extirpated by building. A solitary 
stunted specimen in the middle of a clover lay at Thorley, September 
12th, 1842, most likely brought in with the seed. I have not met 
with it since in any part of the island. Apparently scarce in the 
county generally, as I have only the few following stations on record. 
A single specimen picked by myself by the road-side near Weyhill, 
June 26th, 1848. Near Southampton; Rev. Messrs. Garnier and 
Poulter in Hamp. Repos. Breamore Downs; Miss May. 

Carduus nutans. In dry waste ground, rough, barren fields, pas- 
tures and fallows ; plentiful in calcareous soils in most parts of the 
‘county. Abundant on the sides and summits of most of the high 
Downs in the Isle of Wight, and in old chalk-pits. The elegantly 
drooping heads of flowers of deepest crimson, from their size and 
stellately spreading involucral scales, are peculiarly handsome and 
conspicuous. ‘Their scent is agreeable, but to my perceptions not 
exactly such as to entitle this species to the name of musk thistle. 

acanthoides. In woods, thickets and on hedge-banks, 
also (but more rarely with us) in dry, open waste places, fields and 
pastures. Not very general in the Isle of Wight. Near Ashey farm, 
and about Arreton. Betwixt Shanklin and Bonchurch. Plentiful in 
woods at Swainston. About Knighton,* and near Cowes, &c.; usu- 
ally in quantity where it occurs, but certainly quite local here. I 
have no mainland station as yet to give for this species, which never- 
theless I cannot think is likely to be uncommon in that part of the 
county. Unfortunately there are certain natural orders and genera, 
such as Cyperacee, grasses, some Composite and others, which col- 
lectors and observers are too apt to pass unnoticed; hence my 
county list is partially deficient in these tribes for want of that infor- 


* An old manorial residence near Newchurch, now in ruins, sometimes called K 
Knighton, in contradistinction to Niton or Crab Niton, at the back of the island, which 
sobriquet this last has gained from the gigantic crustaceous fishes on the coast, the 
admiration of all gastronomic tourists. 


500 


mation I am compelled in a great degree to rely on others for obtain- 
ing as regards the mainland, though for the island I trust they will be 
found pretty completely worked out by personal research. The spe- 
cific name of the plant now under consideration has no doubt been 
given it from the strong resemblance of the first year’s root-leaves to 
those of Acanthus. Ours is usually the var. 8. crispus, and appa- 
rently biennial. 

Carduus tenuiflorus. On hedge and ditch-banks, in dry waste 
places, and on the high chalk Downs abundantly in various parts of 
the Isle of Wight. Profusely below the rocks near Mirables, at 
Blackgang, &c. On the chalky Downs in W. Medina in plenty ; 
Mr. W. D. Snooke !!!| Everywhere about Freshwater; Mr. Dawson 
Turner in Fl. Vect.!!! This species delights to grow along the 
earthen fence-banks which stretch across the summits of our highest 
Downs, and which it sometimes covers in dense patches for many 
yards together. Between Stubbington and Hill Head; Mr. W. L. 
Notcutt. Seldom found far inland, but probably not rare along the 
Hampshire coast. Filaments densely hairy below the anthers. 

lanceolatus. A common and troublesome species every- 
where in pastures, waste places, woods, by road-sides, on ditch- 
banks, &c. Mr. Gardiner (‘Flora of Forfarshire’) holds this to be 
the true national badge of Scotland, and to none of our thistles is the 
motto Nemo me impune lacessit more applicable than to this, from 
the extreme pungency of its long, slender, but formidably acute 
spines. 

eriophorus. In dry hilly pastures on chalk or limestone, 
but very local. Between Luccombe and Bonchurch; Mr. J. Woods 
in Bot. Guide: and where, on the rough broken ground across which 
the foot-way from Shanklin passes, it still grows in some plenty; as 
also towards the Bonchurch extremity of East End (Luccombe Land- 
slip) in several places rather abundantly. About Ventnor and Bon- 
church here and there. In considerable plenty on chalky slopes 
betwixt the woods at the head of the valley between Apes Down and 
Rowledge, 1843 and 1845. Fields near Buccombe Down on the east 
side, nearly above Idlecombe, in some quantity, July, 1845. Bere 
Forest and elsewhere in the county; Rev. Messrs. Garnier and 
Poulter in Hamp. Repos. Near Overton, Popham Lane and Basing- 
stoke; Mr. E. Forster, Jun. in Bot. Guide. The most beautiful and 
conspicuous of British, if not of European thistles; the globose in- 
volucres often the size of the largest orange, interlaced with a web 
rivalling the gossamer in delicacy, present a singularly elegant 


901 


appearance in conjunction with the bright purple of the florets and 
the exotic aspect of the large and formidably armed leaves. With us 
here, the species is always found at some elevation. I have never 
remarked it in the lower and flatter parts of the island. 

Carduus arvensis. By road-sides, in rough, waste places, fields, 
pastures, and neglected gardens, far too abundantly ; an execrable 
pest in damp corn-fields and cultivated ground, and now as well 
known and detested in the United States, where it goes universally 
by the name of Canada thistle or cursed thistle, having been sup- 
posed to have migrated to that country from Europe, and thence to 
have spread itself southward and westward with the progress of agri- 
culture and colonization. 

palustris. In moist meadows, pastures, woods and 
thickets, on ditch-banks, and in other damp or wet situations ;_ plen- 
tifully. This and C. arvensis occur here and there with the heads of 
florets white. 

Forstert. Damp or boggy places; very rare. A single 
plant was found growing some years ago by the Rev. G. E. Smith 
between the Needles (Groves’s) Hotel and Alum Bay, with a dried 
portion of which he kindly presented me. Mr. Smith’s opinion, now 
become the general one with botanists, is, that C. Forsteri is a casual 
hybrid betwixt C. palustris and arvensis. I have never seen the 
plant living, and therefore keep it apart in deference to those who 
still hesitate to consider it a mule production, although pretty well 
convinced in my own mind that it is merely such. 

pratensis. In low, damp or boggy meadows, on moist 
heaths, pastures, and in wet marshy woods and thickets, in various 
parts of the Isle of Wight and county, but not very common ; usually, 
if not invariably, at or near the sea level; never in elevated or hilly 
spots, however humid, so far as I have remarked. Near Ryde, by 
Quarr Abbey and Fishbourne. Easton Marsh, Freshwater Gate. 
Near Cowes, Northwood, Newport, Freshwater and other parts of the 
island, in some places very abundantly. I do not know how far it is 
common or rare on mainland Hants. _ I have found it frequent about 
Southampton in dry ground on the common, as also in a wet meadow 
at Netley. Titchfield Common; Mr. W. L. Notcutt. If less showy 
than some others, this species excels all our native thistles in the 
graceful simplicity of its elegant tassel-shaped flowers; innocuous 
and unobtrusive it repels not approach with the keener weapons of 
its tribe; nor, forsaking its native unproductive bogs for the fertile 


502 


and well-drained meadow, does it often incur the ban of the neat and 
diligent husbandman. 

Carduus acaulis. An abundant and rather troublesome plant in 
dry upland meadows and pastures, throughout the county and Isle of 
Wight. Extremely common on all our high chalk downs, to their 
very summits. The state producing a stem several inches high I have 
found near Swainston, in this island. The heads of handsome flowers, 
sprinkled over and closely sitting on the short elastic turf, show like 
tufts of crimson silk on a ground of green velvet. The very rare C. 
tuberosum, found in the adjoining county of Wilts, may reward a di- 
ligent search in the thickets that partially clothe the sides of our 
Hampshire downs. 

Silybum marianum. On dry hedge and ditch-banks, by road-sides, 
and in waste ground at the outskirts of towns; more truly wild in 
woods, thickets, and on our elevated downs, here and there abun- 
dantly, but not general. On Ryde Dover, and in St. John’s Street, 
Ryde, in small quantity, but now, J believe, extinct in both places. 
Truly wild in various spots along the Undercliff, in rough wooded 
ground, as between Ventnor and Bonchurch, not far from the Pulpit 
Rock, where it used to be very frequent and luxuriant some years ago, 
when that part was in a state of nature, and unencroached upon by 
buildings as at present. Under the cliffs above the road near Mi- 
rables, and on the edge of the down at the top of the cliff above 
Woolverton, near St. Lawrence, in considerable plenty in both sta- 
tions. Rough pasture ground at Niton, and by the road-side near 
the Sandrock Dispensatory, as also occasionally in many other parts of 
the island. In some of its stations it may have resulted from long 
antecedent cultivation, but the milk thistle is rarely to be seen in our 
modern gardens, at least here, although it is said to have been once 
grown for the table, and eaten in the manner of artichokes. 

Serratula tinctoria. In woods, thickets, .and dry, heathy, bushy 
places; common. In Quarr Copse, Shore Copse, Stroud Wood, 
Firestone Copse, and elsewhere about Ryde in plenty. Woods at 
Wootton, Cowes, Yarmouth, Newtown and other parts of the island 
very frequent, and I believe equally so over the entire county. I 
have several times known the saw-wort mistaken for a Centaurea by 
young or inexperienced botanists, to which genus it bears certainly a 
deceptive resemblance in habit and inflorescence. A variety with 
white flowers and uncoloured involucral scales I picked on a bank 
close to Whitwell, Isle of Wight, September 6th, 1845. 

Lapsana communis. In waste and cultivated ground, hedges, 


503 


woods, &c., everywhere very common. Dr. Salter found a specimen 
of this plant betwixt Morton and Adgeton, near Brading, with a very 
close, erect, corymbose panicle, and the rays of the very numerous 
heads of flowers imperfectly developed. Var. 8. Leaves deeply and 
coarsely dentate and angular. On a bank by the road-side from 
Aldermoor to Haven Street. Near Stroud Wood, Isle of Wight, 
July, 1841. A remarkable, but possibly not very uncommon form, 
with the terminal lobe of the leaves large, angular, cordate, acute, ap- 
proaching to Lactuca muralis or Chenopodium hybridum in outline. 

N. B.—Arnoseris pusilla (Lap. pusilla, Willd.) will, it can hardly 
be doubted, be found to inhabit the county, though hitherto unre- 
corded. Mr. H. C. Watson observed it profusely in some sandy 
fields between Frimley and Chobham ridges, in Surrey, very near the 
boundary line betwixt that county and this. The extensive sandy 
tracts north of Petersfield, towards Farnham, may be expected to 
yield this and other sand plants, as Apera Spica-venti, and perhaps 
A. interrupta, the latter a recent and highly interesting addition to 
the English Flora. 

Cichorium Intybus. In corn-fields, by road-sides, and on chalky 
or gravelly banks and pastures; decidedly uncommon in the Isle of 
Wight, and apparently not less so in the county generally. About 
the ascent of the hill leading up to Hampstead farm (Mrs. Nash’s), 
near Yarmouth; Rev. James Penfold and Rev. Wm. Darwin Fox !!! 
By the road-side between Idlecombe and Roughborough farms for 
nearly 100 yards; Mr. G. Kirkpatrick!!! Chalky hollow ina field 
behind, and nearly between Plash and Buccombe; W. A. B. Fields 
near St. Lawrence; Mr. G. 8. Gibson (Phytol. Nov. 1843). Stray 
specimens occur amongst corn and by road-sides occasionally in most 
parts of the island. Observed, but very sparingly, about Porchester 
and at Wymmering, 1848. Droxford, Wheely ; Rev. E. M. Sladen. 
Road-side near Bishop’s Waltham ; Miss L. Sibley. Andover; Mr. 
Wm. Whale. Fontley; Mr. W. L. Notcutt. I have seen this plant 
grown on a small scale for feeding cows, at Niton, and as an adjunct 
to or a substitute for coffee, the roasted roots are extensively em- 
ployed on the continent, where the species is cultivated in quantity 
as chicory, for that single object. 

Hypocheris glabra. On dry sandy or gravelly heaths and pas- 
tures, also in cultivated fields, amongst turnips &c., in a similar soil ; 
rare? Ina sandy turnip-field near Cliff farm, by Shanklin, along the 
footway to Apse and America, in considerable plenty, October 14, 
1847. On Short Heath, Oakhanger, near Selborne, September, 1848. 


504 


With Filago apiculata in a field on the left of the road from Farn- 
borough Station to Frimley (Surrey), on the Hants side of the stream 
(Blackwater River) that divides the two counties; Mr. H. C. Watson 
(in litt.). Perhaps not so uncommon a plant with us in Hants as it 
appears to be, since the eye is not readily attracted by it, excepting 
when specially on the look-out for its occurrence, owing to its small 
size and resemblance to other and commoner species of the order, 
and above all, because its minute yellow heads of flowers only open, 
as Curtis observes, at 9 A.M., and close about 2 P.M.; whereas those 
of H. radicata do not observe the same brief vigils, but continue ex- 
panded throughout the day. 

Hypocheris radicata. Very common almost everywhere in mea- 
dows, pastures and waste places, on banks and along hedges, &c. ; 
often a troublesome weed on lawns and grass-plats. Var. 8. Leaves 
glabrous and shining, somewhat fleshy. Common on the banks of 
débris in Sandown Bay, between that village and Shankiin, August, 
1842. Involucres sometimes quite smooth, but most usually hispid, 
with erect whitish hairs or bristles. N.B. Achyrophorus (Hypoche- 
ris, L.} maculatus should be looked for on chalky pastures and 
downs in this county, with the greatest likelihood, perhaps, of suc- 
cess towards its northern boundary. 

Wo. A. BROMFIELD. 


Eastmount House, Ryde, Isle of Wight, 
January 30, 1849. 


(To be continued). 


Botanical and Conchological Specimens. 


Tue North of England Agricultural School is situated at Great Ay- 
ton, near the market town of Stokesley, in the beautiful district of 
Yorkshire called Cleveland, which extends along the extremity of the 
vale of the Tees and the shore of the German Ocean to Whitby. It 
was established by the Society of Friends, in 1841, for the education 
of boys and girls not members of that Society, but who had some 
claim on their care, from their ancestors having been members, or 
their parents attending the meetings of Friends. The agricultural 
pursuits of the scholars occasioning their being a considerable por- 
tion of time each day in the fields and gardens, the friends of the 
School thought it desirable that the study of Botany should be intro- 


505 


duced among them, being well aware that the neighbouring moun- 
tains and valleys, and the shores of the ocean, abounded in the 
indigenous plants of our island. They commenced in the spring of 
1844; and such was the earnestness with which they took up the 
pursuit, that in the summer and autumn of 1845 their dried speci- 
mens of flowering plants were so much admired, that many friends ex- 
pressed a desire to purchase them. Since that time many sets have 
been sent out, and the proceeds expended in purchasing botanical 
books and periodicals, in printing catalogues, and excursions to the 
shores of the North Sea and the vale of the Tees. 


GEORGE DIxon. 
Ayton School, February, 1849. 


[For further particulars see advertisement on wrapper of April 
‘Phytologist. —H. Newman. | 


The Case of the Robertsonian Saxifrages, between Mr. Andrews and 
Mr. Babington. By Hewett C. Watson, Esq. 


THE matter at issue between Mr. Babington and Mr. Andrews, 
although several times alluded to in the ‘ Phytologist, has never been 
clearly or connectedly stated; and it is rendered quite obvious by the 
strangely irrelevant paper of Mr. Backhouse, in the last No., that the 
case is totally misunderstood by that gentleman at least. The strictly 
scientific point of the case may now be considered as settled; Mr. 
Babington having himself at length admitted the correction of his too 
hasty statements, as made by Mr. Andrews. But the former bota- 
nist’s attempt to defend his own proceedings in the matter, has such an 
important bearing on what may be aptly called the ethics of science, 
that I feel strongly induced to offer a more explanatory version of the 
case than has hitherto appeared in one connected statement. _In at- 
tempting to epitomize the circumstances, I may fail to give them with 
that literal exactness and fulness which would be secured by quota- 
tions and documentary evidences, but I trust that the following will 
be found a substantially correct representation of the matter. — 

Some years ago, Mr. Babington published a paper in the ‘ Annals 
of Natural History,’ in order to show or state that the Irish plants of 
Saxifraga umbrosa differ in a peculiar manner from the Pyrenean 
examples of the same species. That first paper was afterwards (1844) 

VoL. TI. 3 U 


506 


followed by a second, to the same general purport, but extending the 
alleged peculiarity to the leaves of Sax. hirsuta and Sax. Geum like- 
wise. The ultimate statement of Mr. Babington amounted to this; 
namely, that on the Pyrenean examples of the three species mentioned 
the leaves are always obtusely crenate; whereas, on the Irish examples 
of the same three species the leaves are always acutely crenate, or 
dentate, or serrate;—say, for sake of brevity, crenate in the one 
country, serrate in the other. 

Taken by itself this alleged difference between the leaves of the 
Irish and Pyrenean Saxifrages was but a trifle, although a curious 
trifle, in descriptive botany. But by its direct bearings upon large 
questions in botanical geography, touching the derivation of distant 
floras and the migration of species, it assumed a character of much 
greater importance. A more extended scrutiny by other parties, so 
as to confirm or to correct the statements of Mr. Babington, which- 
ever might be found necessary, became very desirable; at any rate, 
desirable in my own view of the matter, if not in the eyes of other 
botanists. 

For Ireland, the desired scrutiny was happily undertaken, and pro- 
secuted ably and zealously by Mr. Andrews. The results of this 
botanist’s researches and experiments were in direct contradiction to 
the statements made by Mr. Babington. The most ample evidence 
was procured by Mr. Andrews, to prove that the alleged Pyrenean 
forms of leaf occurred on the wild Irish plants, and were also pro- 
duced on plants in gardens, raised from Irish seeds. Moreover, what 
is highly important in such matters, Mr. Andrews did not simply 
make assertions without visible proofs of their truth and accuracy ; 
but, on the contrary, he distributed seeds, living plants, and dried 
specimens, freely and numerously, to other botanists. 

Fortunately, also, it happened that Englishmen were collecting the 
Robertsonian Saxifrages, about the same time, on the Pyrenees. The 
collections and observations of Dr. Southby and Mr. Spruce brought 
out a considerable store of evidence to prove that the alleged Hi- 
bernian forms of leaf were to be found, if looked for, on the Py- 
renees also. Their proofs do not appear to have been sought or 
collected with a view particularly to the question agitated, and are 
therefore less ample and complete than those of Mr. Andrews; but 
they are quite sufficient to establish the fact. 

The general result is, that crenate and serrate leaves are produced 
in Ireland, and that crenate and serrate leaves are produced on the 
Pyrenees. Mr. Babington’s apparently curious discovery turns out 


507 


to be simply an instance of too hasty generalisation on the part of 
that botanist, —accurate so far as it went, no doubt; but going only 
just far enough to diffuse error, instead of establishing truth. 


While the inquiry might be considered still pending and unsettled 
(1845), Mr. Andrews made a communication on the subject, through 
Professor Allman, to the British Association, assembled at Cambridge, 
in which he stated the results of his own investigations, as views 
“altogether in opposition to those advanced by Mr. Babington, and 
published by him in the ‘Annals of Natural History.’” I am told 
that Mr. Babington was present, but made no remark at the time, 
when the paper from Mr. Andrews was laid before ‘the sectional 
meeting. And I am also informed, that a copy of Mr. Andrews’ 
paper was given by Professor Allman to Mr. Taylor, for publication 
in the Annals. But the said paper never appeared in that periodical. 

Such are the facts of the case, if I understand them rightly. And 
in forming a judgment on the matter, it is proper to keep in mind that 
Mr. Babington had circulated a grave error through the pages of the 
Annals, and had deliberately re-affirmed and extended the original 
error by a second paper on the subject. Also, be it remembered, that 
the control or management of the botanical portion of the Annals is 
undisguisedly placed in the hands of Mr. Babington, whose name ap- 
pears on the cover of the periodical, and his initials appended to many 
of the articles. 

Now, writing as an individual, and expressing an individual 
opinion, I will say, it appears perfectly clear to my judgment, that 
Mr. Babington ought to have corrected his erroneous statement in 
the pages of the same periodical through which he had given circula- 
tion thereto ;— or, failing his own inclination to do this, that Mr. An- 
drews ought to have been allowed to make his counter statement in 
the pages of that periodical. So far as the Annals went, Mr. Babing- 
ton’s error continued to stand as an unrefuted and scientific truth, 
eminently calculated to mislead any botanist who might see and rely 
upon it. The partial antidote of a counter statement having appeared 
in the ‘ Phytologist, in a Report of a meeting of the Botanical So- 
ciety of London, or incidentally in a paper on a different subject, 
could not release an individual from the obligation (if such an obliga- 
tion exist) of correcting his own published statements, ascertained to 
be untrue in reality. The antidote, moreover, was put forth by ano- 
ther party, and in another periodical, because Mr. Babington did not 
make the correction himself. 


508 


While I thus express my own individual opinion, and, in so doing, 
adopt the very words of the Phytologist’s correspondent “C.”, that 
there was “a scientific, if not a moral, obligation” on Mr. Babington 
to have corrected the untrue statement, I am of course quite ready to 
admit the right of Mr. Babington, and of any other botanist, to hold 
a dissentient opinion, to express it, and to act upon it, if he so think 
fit. But] do not covet the views of science, or the sense of truth 
and right, enjoyed by any man who feels himself not called upon to 
correct grave errors which he has thrown into circulation, where there 
is strong probability that other persons may be misled by them. I 
call the error a grave one in the case before us, because of its im- 
portant bearings upon botanical geography. 

I cannot well guess what may be the opinion of readers of the 
‘Phytologist, on the scientific obligation above alluded to. It 
has, however, been the recognized practice in the ‘ Phytologist,’ to 
allow full freedom in the refutation of any, even very trifling, errors 
which have appeared in its pages, whether editorial or otherwise. 
And this, I believe, will always be the practice and the wish of all 
sincere men, lovers of scientific truth. 

But I can guess, with a confidence approximating to positive cer- 
tainty, that if the question were laid before any body of men habitually 
devoting their thoughts to mental or ethical science, that their views 
would coincide with mine, on the point of the suggested obligation ; 
just as Mr. Babington could guess, with the utmost confidence, that a 
body of botanists would join with him in pronouncing cereals to be 
grasses, although a non-botanical farmer would rather pronounce a 
Trifolium or a Medicago to be grass. 

Mr. Babington stated in the ‘ Phytologist’ for this month (Phytol. 
iii. 474) that he knows nothing concerning the paper sent to be in- 
serted in the Annals. He and I evidently must think and feel very 
differently. I should have made it my duty and desire to know some- 
thing about a paper which refuted, by facts, any considerable error 
that had been sent into public circulation by myself. 

I intrude in the matter at issue, because Mr. Andrews kindly com- 
municated to me the results of his investigations and experiments, as 
they were obtained, and explained the circumstances of the case ; and 
“C.”’s acquaintance with the affair has been derived from mine. 


Hewett C. WATSON. 
Thames Ditton, April 3, 1849. 


509 


Reply by the Reviewer “ OC.” to certain Errors of Representation, on 
the part of Mr. James Backhouse, Junior, in ‘ Phytologist’ iii., 
pp. 475-6. 


In the ‘ Phytologist’ for April first, as above referred to, an article 
appeared from the pen of Mr. James Backhouse, which was unfortu- 
nately rendered most appropriate to the date of publication, by his 
strictures being founded upon, and adapted to, an utter misconcep- 
tion of the real question at issue. It is much to be regretted that his 
odd mistake was not pointed out to Mr. James Backhouse, so that he 
might have altered the title and first paragraph of his communication, 
in such manner as to escape the justifiable charge in retort, of bearing 
false witness against C. through sheer carelessness and inattention on 
his own part. Of wilful misrepresentation it would be absurd to ac- 
cuse Mr. Backhouse. But surely, before publishing anything like 
strictures upon another party, he was bound to know whether his re- 
presentations were true or false. 

The title given to his paper, and the representation and comments 
hazarded in the first paragraph of it, are evidently derived from an 
utterly erroneous fancy that the question between Mr. Babington and 
Mr. Andrews, as alluded to by C., had been merely a matter of 
opinion or inference respecting the specific distinctness of the Ro- 
bertsonian Saxifrages. But the real point at issue between those 
botanists, and the point to which C.’s remarks were applicable, was a 
matter of fact; namely, the similarity or difference in the serratures 
of their leaves. The words of C. were so brief and clear as scarcely 
to allow the shadow of an excuse for mistaking, and consequently 
misrepresenting them. Here they are :— 

“The individual writer of this notice can fully confirm the state- 
ments of Mr. Andrews, in respect to the very variable forms 
and serratures of the leaves of the Robertsonian Saxifrages 
of Ireland ; as well as their general identity, in these respects, 
with examples of the same species from the Pyrenees.” 

Neither in the passage here quoted, nor in any of the after com- 
ments made by C., in reference to the facts which it involves, was 
there a single word about “ specific distinctness.” Nevertheless, Mr. 
Backhouse has volunteered the publication of strictures upon the 
comments of C., under the following title given to his paper :— 

‘“* A few Remarks on the ‘ Proof’ of C. C. Babington’s ‘ Error’ 7e- 

specting the specific distinctness of Saxifraga Geum, elegans, 
hirsuta, &c. &c. By James Backhouse, Jun.,” Esq. 


510 


And in the first paragraph of the article, he represents C. as main- 
taining that there is evidence “sufficient to overthrow the specific 
distinction between umbrosa, elegans, hirsuta, and Geum,” and “ to 
require” a retractation and declaration from Mr. C. C. Babington, 
the nature of which is not clearly expressed in the rather confused 
and ungrammatical paragraph referred to, but apparently a declara- 
tion that he was in error in supposing the species distinct. C.’s reply 
to this is, first, that he said nothing whatever about specific distinc- 
tions or specific distinctness; secondly, that he never called upon Mr. 
Babington to retract any opinion or declare any error in regard 
thereto. 

In reference to the real question towards which the comments of 
C. were directed, Mr. Babington has himself admitted that his former 
statements are untenable. C. 


On the Disappearance of Plants from Localities once assigned to 
them. By Epwin Less, Esq., F.L.S. 


THE exploring botanist who delights in out-of-door rambles, is 
often perplexed by the non-appearance of plants in their recorded 
places of growth; and if his temper, like ill-dried specimens, be “none 
of the best,” he perhaps, orally or in print, vents an imprecation on — 
the unlucky person who is conceived to have misled him, and who, 
almost with a sneer, is at once adjudged to be no authority. The 
more candid observer, conscious of the almost yearly changes that 
occur in the localities of many plants, will not be so ready to decry 
the remarks of his predecessors, but be willing to credit them, unless 
in the case of actual specimens wrongly named. But observations of 
changes in the habitats of plants, and of their disappearance from old 
stations, require to be more frequently journalized than they are. I 
have been led into these remarks from a statement of Dr. Bromfield’s, 
in his interesting ‘Catalogue of the Plants growing wild in Hamp- 
shire.’ 

Dr. Bromfield (Phytol. iii. 494) mentions that he has been unable 
to find Gnaphalium sylvaticum, var. rectum, in the Isle of Wight, 
though stated to be “ frequent in the south-west parts” of the island, 
by Mr. J. Woods, jun. Now my own experience of this plant in 
Worcestershire and Gloucestershire, goes to prove that it may be 
most abundant in some seasons, and then not be visible again for a 


511 


long time. I have in my herbarium a specimen gathered at the base 
of the North Hill, Great Malvern, prior to 1830, yet for years after- 
ward I could never find any more specimens; until in 1841, in com- 
pany with Mr. Moggridge, of Swansea, several hundreds occurred 
half-way up the adjoining hill, all growing together. I have been 
often times since to the spot to see if the colony continued there, but 
they have all taken flight. Some years since this Gnaphalium used 
to grow plentifully in Shrawley Wood, near Worcester, but it is 
scarcely to be found there now, or must be very closely sought for. 
I remember an excursion I once made on the Cotswold Hills with 
Professor Buckman, of the Agricultural College, Cirencester, when, 
in a field on Cleevedown that had recently been made arable, the 
profusion of G. sylvaticum that covered the ground on the declivity 
was astonishing; but the next year the Professor informed me very 
few plants remained, and the third year every vestige of them was 
gone. I have since then been on the spot, but neither there nor any- 
where about the vicinity could the plant be met with on the most di- 
ligent search. A similar fact occurred to the view of my friend Mr. 
William Mathews, jun., of Park Hall, near Kidderminster, the Secre- 
tary of our Botanical and Naturalists’ Club, who, the year before last, 
noticed hundreds of G. sylvaticum in a field recently converted from 
pasture to arable. Probably now none could be found, nor had they 
been seen there previously. 

Such appearances doubtless occur with other species, and it is in- 
teresting to note them, for “Saturnian times return;” and J have 
known plants revisit their old stations after long absence. It does 
not appear very easy to determine whether, in the case of fresh turned 
up soil, the seeds had long lain dormant there, or whether elemental 
action had brought them from a distance; perhaps both causes may 
operate. But the migrations of plants being often very capricious, 
and even unaccountable, as daily experience shows, I think the ob- 
servations of former labourers in the field ought not to be disregarded 
as doubtful or erroneous, or dismissed at once, as they sometimes are 
by closet‘reasoners, as unlikely. 

Several plants are recorded by Dr. Stokes, in his edition of Wi- 
thering’s Botany, 1787, as growing near Worcester, which are not 
now to be found there. Among these is Lepidium ruderale, “on the 
side of the Severn above Worcester,” which | could never meet with. 
But in 1847, botanizing with my friend Mr. Baxter, of the College 
School, in this city, on the banks of the saline Droitwich canal, we 
most unexpectedly came upon a rough, pebbly piece of ground, 


512 


looking just like a sea beach, and close to a bridge, where were 
seven or eight, if not more, of the ruderale growing. I left three or 
four that were in seed as a stock, yet last year no fresh ones had 
sprung up, and probably a long time may elapse ere it appears for 
botanical inspection again in that place. 

Cardamine impatiens is in some districts a rare plant, and generally 
affects hilly spots; but three years since a new embankment of earth 
was raised on the side of the river Teme, near Powick, in this county, 
with the view of protecting the meadows from sudden floods, and the 
following year C. impatiens grew most luxuriantly and profusely on 
and about this mound. Yet last year, on visiting the spot and looking 
closely about, not a plant of the impatiens was anywhere observable. 

I have myself been called to account by several friends for the re- 
cord of some plants in my ‘ Botany of the Malvern Hills,’ which they 
could not find in the spots there designated. It is really very hard 
to be held responsible for the vagrant habits of plants; but let inves- 
tigators get upon their trail, and take them up if they can. One 
vagabondizer I at least detected before it had got very far away. 
Erodium maritimum grew for some years to my observation on a rock 
at the entrance of “the winding valley” between the North Hill and 
the Worcestershire Beacon. When I left Malvern, in 1843, the plant 
was certainly there, where I had often gathered it; but the second 
year after, it was gone from its position, and I actually detected a 
new colony two miles from the hill, on the side of the road towards 
my new residence. They were certainly on my track, and I believe 
the Erodium is now off on its travels again! But in the old station 
it is no more to be seen. 

Littoral plants may remain in an inland county as relics of a past 
state of things; and this is certainly the case as respects Worcester- 
shire, which, though now out of reach of the tidal wave, had formerly 
brackish backwaters, more connected with high tides than they are at 
present. Such are the Longdon marshes. Here Scirpus maritimus 
yet grows, and I have gathered Gastridium lendigerum in the same 
vicinity. Also Bupleurum tenuissimum and Samolus Valerandi near 
Worcester; and Alsine rubra (3. media (not distinguishable at sight 
from A. marina), Glaux maritima, in great profusion, and Sclerochloa 
distans, on the banks of the salt-water Droitwich canal. Yet a bota- 
nist unacquainted with the peculiarities of the county might consider 
the occurrence of such plants unlikely, and as originating in error. 
Indeed some of them cannot at all times be found. Qsnanthe pim- 
pinelloides appears to me to mark the boundary of a line of backwater 


513 


marshes that in past times came up nearly to Worcester, and within 
three miles of the Malvern chain. Yet this plant, generally so plen- 
tiful within its peculiar limit, in some seasons is scarcely to be met 
with, and a “ wandering botanist” happening to come at such a time, 
. might feel distrust as to the occurrence of the plant at all-in the 
vicinity. 

Flowers indeed, under particular conditions, seem to swarm like 
insects, and their assembled splendours are seldom to be seen again 
under precisely similar circumstances. I remember being in Wyre 
Forest, more than fourteen years ago, with my acutely observant friend 
the Rev. Andrew Bloxam, when the glades of the forest were most 
splendid with innumerable flowers of the elegant Cephalanthera ensi- 
folia, indeed so brilliant an exhibition I scarcely ever saw; and hun- 
dreds of plants might have been taken without being missed from the 
scene. But on my last visit to the forest, in 1847, with some friends, 
who had hoped with myself to see similar beauties, the scene was so 
deplorably changed, that, though precisely at the right time of 
flowering, our utmost efforts produced only two of the Cephalanthera, 
after a long search. No doubt the felling of portions of underwood 
on forest ground has a good deal to do with the appearance of plants, — 
which are completely choked by the growth of a dense mass of shrubs; 
and the particular spot where some rare plants grow may lie blocked 
up in this way for many years. The late Mr. Moseley sent Festuca 
sylvatica, from Shrawley Wood, to Sir J. E. Smith, reporting it as not 
rare in the wood, but only springing up and flowering when the cop- 
pice was cut down. I have a specimen of the plant from Shrawley, 
by the kindness of Miss Harriett Moseley, not now residing there ; 
and yet, strange to say, though our Worcestershire botanists have 
again and again investigated the wood, all have hitherto failed to re- 
discover the plant, which yet doubtless is still lurking there. 

Drainage changes, however, really banish plants altogether, unless 
a deep ditch or pool happens to be left where they can take shelter, 
secure only in utter obscurity. If this is not the case they perish, 
and the record of their former existence only remains; and yet per- 
haps that ought not to be forgotten, as telling of what the country 
once had. Hypericum elodes* is mentioned by Dr. Stokes, in the 
edition of Withering I have before adverted to, as growing on “ Bir- 
mingham Heath,” where enclosures and buildings have long destroyed 
it; yet still almost within the dense smoke of Birmingham, on Mosely 


* This plant is now entirely absent from Worcestershire. 
VoL. Ul. 3X 


514 


Wake Green, and within the boundary line of Worcestershire, Os- 
munda regalis, Equisetum sylvaticum, and Rubus suberectus grow ; 
as, though the green is now entirely enclosed and cultivated, a few 
plantations have been made where these bog plants have found a last 
shelter. Such is not the case at Feckenham Bog, often mentioned . 
by Purton, and where, within thirty years, peat was cut and stacked 
for fuel by the poor cottagers living there. The ‘ Midland Flora’ of 
Purton records Cyperus nigricans and Cladium Mariscus as denizens 
here, with other bog plants; but drainage has done its worst in this 
locality, and not only is the “bare-worn common” denied to the cot- 
tager, but the bog is cut off from the Worcestershire botanist. Broms- 
grove Lickey, cut up and furrowed by the “ greedy plough,” has lost 
almost all its rarer plants; and last year when the Worcestershire Na- 
turalists’ Club met there, they were taken to the spot where it was 
remembered only, that Vaccinium Oxycoccos once grew. ‘The truly 
indigenous plants of a district will, however, maintain their ground 
obstinately, and should not be easily given up as lost by the botanist. 
Campanula latifolia, almost eradicated at Malvern by the recent 
enormous extension of buildings there, still keeps possession of the 
bank of a once wild pathway ; and the elegant and mostly rare Carex 
' Pseudo-cyperus is abundant on the side of the road from Malvern to 
Worcester, about Newland, where little pools and ditches, once open 
to the great extensive Chace, yet remain under shelter of the hedges. 
A little—very little—bit of heath land at present exists only two miles 
north-west of Worcester, the relics of a former ‘‘ Broadheath,” where 
Erica Tetralix still nestles; but so rare is it now in the west of Wor- 
cestershire, that in the whole district from Worcester to Tewkesbury 
southwards, and from the former place to Ledbury, Herefordshire, 
westwards, which I took as the limits for the plants of my Malvern 
Flora, I could never find a single specimen of any Erica. 

Certain very rare species may, though truly wild, be limited to 
such narrow spaces, that without accurate designation of their precise 
position, the explorer may be easily baffled in his efforts to detect 
their retreats. Thus Braunton Burrows, Devonshire, has been given 
as the habitat of Scirpus Holoschenus. But when I was at Ilfra- 
combe, on making an excursion to these Burrows, I found an extent 
of waste sandy and marshy ground, disposed in flats, hammocks, and 
hollows, to the amount of more than two thousand acres, and bounded 
on one side by the sea. I made many traverses across it in vain; and 
some botanists, disappointed like myself, reported it as lost at the sta- 
tion, and I saw it so stated in a botanical publication. A second 


515 


visit, though fruitful in some respects, failed to reveal the Scirpus; 
until passing over the Burrows a third time, on my passage to the 
Poppleridge, I quite accidentally encountered the rarity that had so 
long eluded my search. Any reader of the ‘ Phytologist, then, who 
may wish to visit Braunton or Ilfracombe in future, may take the be- 
nefit of my experience. Let the explorer keep to the southern side 
of the Burrows, within a quarter of a mile of the twin lighthouses, 
but farther from the river than they are; here he will come upon a 
line of little pools and marshy hollows, abounding with Teucrium 
Scordium, Anagallis tenella, &c., and two of which were almost filled 
up with aquatic mosses and a profuse growth of Epipactis palustris, 
finely in flower at the time of my visit. Following the line of these 
damp hollows towards the sea, they terminate in a little marsh im- 
pinging upon the sands, and here the Scirpus Holoschcenus grows - 
luxuriantly, forming almost a close thicket when I was there, four or 
five feet high, but entirely confined to a space about twenty yards in 
length. As the village of Braunton is itself three miles off, a field 
botanist, not guided to the spot, might make many a ramble on the 
northern side of the Burrows, and about the central sand-hills, with- 
out any attendant success. 

Mr. Babington, in his ‘ Manual,’ has reported Astrantia major as 
located “ between Whitbourne and Malvern.” Whoever should take 
a ramble between Whitbourne and Malvern, would certainly find a 
very pretty country up hill and down dale for some eight or nine 
miles; but the chance of coming upon the Astrantia from the locality 
recorded, is so little, that I have in vain urged our local botanists to 
attempt its capture. Yet no doubt it was seen, and may exist still, 
though how it got there may be another question. 

Some plants will establish themselves plentifully in places where 
they appear, to an observer, to have been placed by Nature at the 
time of observation, but disappearing afterwards, a question arises as 
to the deduction from the first recorded fact. About twenty years 
ago, I landed at Swansea, from Bristol, on a lowering evening, and 
after a hasty refreshment in the town, ran down to botanize on the 
sandy beach. Gloom hung upon everything, and a rhimy fog ad- 
vancing with the sullen sounding billows, threw a murky gloom upon 
the deepening twilight. I however inaintained my ground till it was 
quite dark, and, among other things unquestionably indigenous to 
the spot, gathered various specimens of Delphinium Consolida, two 
of which are now in my herbarium. I consequently reported the 
Delphinium as “ truly wild on the sandy shore of Swansea Bay,” and 


516 


I think it is so mentioned in Mr. Watson’s ‘ Botanists’ Guide.” But 
Mr. Flower not observing the plant when he botanized at Swansea, 
has by implication suggested a doubt as to my observation. Yet the 
investigating botanist cannot be answerable for the continuation of 
what, nevertheless, has bond fide met his view. I left Swansea early 
the following morning; and when, in 1839, I was at the town again, I 
found the beach where I had botanized before covered up with bal- 
last, and a painted invitation prominent, inviting “rubbish” to be 
thrown there. So I fled from the spot in dismay! Anchusa semper- 
virens is another of those fugacious species that often appear in se- 
questered dingles, seeming as wild as anything else then apparent, 
and I have gathered it at Lancaut, near Chepstow, as well as by the 
side of the river Mawddach, some distance below Dolgelle, Merio- 
_ nethshire ; but I by no means wish to induce any one to search these 
places, as my experience convinces me the Anchusa shifts its quarters 
year after year. Onopordum Acanthium and Silybum marianum are 
known to every botanist as appearing and vanishing with singular 
uncertainty, ever moving from place to place. 

Reseda fruticulosa is another casual wanderer likely to lead a bota- 
nist a vain chase, if looked after, yet when presenting itself it must 
be noted down. I once gathered it in Britannia Square, Worcester, ' 
not long after the ground had been partially built upon and made a 
square, and I have also observed it on the sea-coast at Tenby, South 
Wales; yet Nature perhaps had as much to do with its position in 
the first locality as the last. I would not undertake to find it in 
either of the spots named at the present time. Centaurea solstitialis 
once occurred to me among the sand-hills at Barmouth, North Wales, 
and I gathered several specimens ; yet though placed there by Nature 
it might have no permanent abode on the spot. 

Saponaria officinalis is a plant that frequently abounds excessively 
in some places for a time; and thus I have- seen it on the banks of 
the Usk, at Crickhowel, and on the Severn above Worcester, and in 
various other spots, even on the rocks at Malvern; but conspicuous 
as it is, I have often lost it from its wonted haunts. 

I could easily name other wandering plants that would be familiar 
to the knowledge of botanists, and instance notices of their appearance 
and sudden vanishing. But too much on one subject at a time may 
be tiresome, and I have penned enough to convince the candid rea- 
soner, that the present defection of any plant from its old habitats 
does not invalidate former record and observation. 

Though these remarks have been evoked by the statement of Dr. 


517 


Bromfield, in his Catalogue of Hampshire Plants, yet I mean no cap- 
tious application to that gentleman in particular, of want of faith in 
other observers, and I think his labours to elucidate the Vectian Flora 
‘highly meritorious; but botanists perhaps too generally indicate 
scepticism in former observations, when not tallying with their own 
learning or experience; and thus lookers-out, though not always 
complaining, have found themselves served with an unexpected writ 
of error, which, if allowed on every pretence of doubtful authority, 
would suppress fact and nullify truth. I think, too, before a contem- 
porary botanist is publicly declared to be in error, some communica- 
tion should be made to him, when possible, on the point in hand. 
Much advantage would result from this mode of proceeding, and the 
enquirer would seldom find his trouble thrown away. I have myself 
often been applied to by personal strangers on facts open to elucida- 
tion, and mutual satisfaction has in most cases resulted from the ap- 


plication. 
EDWIN LEEs. 
Cedar Terrace, Henwick, Worcester, 
April 7, 1849. 


Notice of the ‘ Letters of Rusticus on the Natural History of 
Godalming. London: Van Voorst. 1849. 


Kwapp’s ‘ Journal of a Naturalist’ and White’s ‘ Natural History of 
Selborne’ are equally original books, although the records preserved 
by White without doubt led Knapp into a train of similar observing. 
There is great similarity about these books, the same freshness, the 
same absence of book-making, the same truthfulness of observations, 
and, we regret to say it, the same weakness in favour of hypothesis. 
White discriminating between the willow wrens, or describing the in- 
sertion of the peacock’s train, is altogether an abler and a more philo- 
sophic man than White contending for the hibernation of the swallow, 
or imagining a hedgehog attacking the tap-root of a plantain, and eating 
it to the crown as we eat aradish. As far as observations go, Rusticus 
is an author of the same kind, but he has no hypothesis—no specula- 
tion: his writings are simple narratives of what he sees; and on this 
account, and also because such kind of writing is now all but extinct, 
we think them peculiarly valuable. De Geer, Reaumur, and others of the 
good old school are vividly brought to mind while perusing his pages, 
and we prophecy a rich harvest to compilers from so rich a source. 


518 


It was a morbid fancy of Knapp’s to remain incognito: we know 
not whether he subsequently avowed the authorship of the ‘Journal.’ 
Our author has a similar fancy. His object in preserving the pseu- 
donym is not very apparent. The veil he wears is so transparent that 
no one will mistake the man. Every page of the work evinces a 
thorough knowledge of the locality; such a knowledge as can only 
be acquired by long residence: an intimate and friendly acquaintance 
with the inhabitants; a keen relish for and proficiency in field sports ; 
a complete acquaintance with the several branches of Natural His- 
tory, Zoology, Botany, and Geology; and, finally, the possession of 
a fluent and highly graphic pen. Godalming must be peculiarly rich 
in good neighbours, good sportsmen, good naturalists, and good wri- 
ters, if there is any difficulty in laying a hand on the shoulder of 
Rusticus and saying “thou art the man.” 

The volume has found such favour in the eyes of the critics, and 
the extracts have been so voluminous, that it is difficult to select a 
page that has not been already reproduced in most of our leading 
journals: we select the following as not yet hackneyed, we presume 
because not considered equally striking with the rest; but there is 
something peculiarly agreeable to us in its truthfulness and unas- 
suming simplicity. 

“In many places among our little hills, we have deep hollow 
sandy lanes, with steep banks, and great thick hedges on each side 
a-top; hedges run to seed, as it were, and here and there grown into 
trees—gnarled oak, bushy rough-coated maples, and so forth—trees, 
in fact, that, stretching their arms from both sides of the way, shake 
hands over your head, and form a kind of canopy of boughs. In some 
spots the polypody, twisting and interlacing its creeping scaly stem 
with the tough half-exposed roots of hazel, maple, oak, and hawthorn, 
grows in such luxuriance and profusion, that its gold-dotted fronds 
hang by thousands—aye, hundreds of thousands—over the stumps 
and roots, forming the most graceful of coverings. Here and there 
are great tufts of hart’s-tongue, with its bright, broad, shining, 
wavy leaves. Here and there, where water has filtered through 
chinks in the sand-stone, so as to keep up a streak of moisture down 
the bank, we have lady-fern and a host of mosses. Here and there, 
in holes—little cavernous recesses—the face of the damp sand or sand- 
stone is powdered over with a diversity of lichens. Here and there 
the lithe snake-like honeysuckle twines round the straight, upright, 
young stems of the nut-tree, cutting deeply into their substance, and 
forcing them out of their stiff propriety into strange corkscrew forms :— 


519 


up it goes, and getting above the heads of its supporters, spreads its 
own sweet laughing blossoms to the sun. Here and there is a dense 
network of the wild clematis, clothed with downy seeds —a plant so 
loved by Scott, that, with a poet’s license, he transplanted it from our 
warm hedgerows to the cold, rocky scenery of Ketturin and Venue—a 
botanical blunder which few of his readers will detect, and none criti- 
cise severely. I love these lanes, because Nature has so long had 
her own way in them; and where Nature is left to herself she always 
acts wisely, beautifully, and well. There is not a foot of surface in 
these old hollow ways but has its peculiar charms.”—p. 3. 

Mr. Salmon has given an admirable summary of the botanical fea- 
tures of Godalming and its vicinity at page 131, interspersing a vast 
number of localities for the more interesting plants, together with 
admirable observations on the geological and other natural features 
of the district where they occur. We rejoice to hear of the suc- 
cess which has attended the publication of this truly pleasant volume. 

G. 


A Catalogue of the Plants growing wild in Hampshire, with occa- 
stonal Notes and Observations on some of the more remarkable 
Species. By W1LL1AM ARNOLD BromMFIELD, M.D., F.L.S., &c. 


(Continued from page 504). 


Thrincia hirta. On pastures, heaths, gravelly banks, fallows, &c. ; 
common in the Isle of Wight and doubtless over the county also. A 
variety, the leaves of which are almost perfectly glabrous, shining, 
and firmer in texture than usual, is frequent on the short turf of 
Freshwater Down, above Alum Bay, &c. 

Leontodon hispidum (Apargia hispida). In dry meadows, pas- 
tures, and on gravelly banks, &c., frequent. 

Oporinia autumnalis (Apargia autumnalis). In meadows, pas- 
tures and on dry banks, &c.; frequent over the county and Isle of 
Wight. Var. Leaves dark green, deeply runcinate pinnatifid, very 
hispid all over, with rigid, simple hairs; scapes spreading, depressed 
or ascending. In a very elevated chalky corn-field above Sandown 
Bay, towards the Culver Cliff, in plenty, August 3rd, 1843. A re- 
markable form, almost hoary from the copious hairs which clothe 
both sides of the leaves, but are most abundant along the midribs un- 
derneath. 


520 


Tragopogon pratensis, var. minor (T. minor, Fries). In meadows, 
pastures, by way-sides, borders of fields, woods, and along hedges ; 
not uncommon in the Isle of Wight, though seldom in any quantity 
together. By the foot-way over the fields from Shanklin to Cook’s 
Castle, and in pastures betwixt Shanklin and Appuldurcombe, not 
unfrequent. In the Lenten Pit, by Carisbrook, and a troublesome 
weed on the grass plats at Thorley Vicarage, also here and there in 
various parts of the island. Boarhunt (pronounced Borrunt) Lane, 
near Fareham; Mr. W. L. Notcutt (also the var. minor). Probably 
frequent throughout the county. In all the specimens that have yet 
come under my notice in Hants the involucres have much exceeded 
the florets in length, which is the only character, so far as I can dis- 
cover, on which the T. minor of Fries is founded, an insufficient one 
surely taken alone, seeing that in the true T. pratensis, Z., the invo- 
lucres are sometimes equal to, sometimes shorter than the florets ; 
why, then, may they not occasionally exceed them, and why should 
not the variety of T. pratensis, with the shorter involucres, be also a 
species, since their abbreviation is accompanied by a difference in 
the achenes, which are “ quite smooth ?” 

+? ————  porrifolius. In similar places with the last, but rare, 
and probably not indigenous to this island and county. A solitary 
specimen picked at Sea View, near Ryde, some years since, by Miss 
Theodora Price!! Scattered here and there in fields and on hedge- 
banks about Sandown; Miss S. Lovell, 1846!. Amongst grass at 
Niton; Mr. Curtis, Icon. in Brit. Entom. ix. t. 433 (ad exemplar ex 
loco delin.). Ihave never fallen in with the purple goat’s-beard in 
this island myself, but unless one happens to be abroad betimes, the 
chances of stumbling upon it are not great, as the flower-heads open 
very early, and close again for the day before noon, after which the 
plant may pass for the commoner T. pratensis, ‘or escape notice alto- 
gether, should the larger heads and the greatly more thickened 
peduncles fail to attract attention. I found it very abundantly ten or 
twelve years ago at the back of a house at Hythe near Southton, but 
I should say doubtless escaped from some garden. Meadows near 
Odiham church, plentifully ; Mr. J. Nash, according to Mr. Pamplin, 
in New Bot. Guide (wild?). Often found growing on waste ground 
at Anglesey, but only the outcast of gardens; Miss L. Minchin. 

Picris hieracioides. On banks, by road-sides, in waste ground, 
along hedges, the borders of fields and woods; very common in va- 
rious parts of the Isle of Wight, though not generally diffused over 
its surface, being mostly confined to the calcareous districts of East 


521 


and West Medina. Plentiful along the road from Shanklin to Bon- 
church, about its greatest elevation. In Luccombe Chine and East- 
end, and thence common all along the Undercliff about Ventnor, 
Steephill, St. Lawrence, &c. Frequent at Arreton, and plentiful at 
the entrance of Shorwell from Newport. About Brading, Yaverland, 
Cowes, Freshwater, and many other places. Very rare near Ryde, 
a few plants observed on the Newport road; almost, if not entirely 
wanting on the green sand. Apparently not uncommon in mainland 
Hants. Just ott of Fareham on the way to Porchester, and in Main- 
dell chalk-pit; Mr. W. L. Notcutt!!! | Abundant a short distance 
from Bishopstoke on the road to Fair Oak. Selborne. 

Helminthia echioides. In woods, thickets, waste places, borders 
of fields, and by road-sides; a much more social and far more widely 
distributed plant than the last, occurring abundantly and often in 
great profusion over most parts of the Isle of Wight, both on the ter- 
tiary and cretaceous deposits, but unlike the Picris, evincing a prefe- 
rence for stiff clays rather than for the chalk, though accommodating 
itself with facility to the latter. Our damp clayey and chalky woods 
and thickets are sometimes quite filled with it, and the great scabrous 
root-leaves, spreading in flat circular tufts or rosettes, are very con- 
spicuous all the winter long in these, and on hedge-banks and waste 
ground, fallows, &c. Common, I think, in most parts of the county. 
Porchester Castle, Newlands, the Salterns; Mr. W. L. Notcutt. Mr. 
Rawkins, late of Hardingshoot farm, tells me that sheep are partial 
to the early radical herbage of this very rough plant, which in that 
neighbourhood at least is known by the incorrect name of borage. 

Lactuca virosa. On dry hedge and ditch-banks, chalk cliffs and 
waste ground; very rare in the Isle of Wight. On a hedge-bank 
between Wroxall and Newchurch, July, 1844; Miss Hadfield. 
Through the kindness of Miss H. I possess a part of the only speci- 
men gathered by her, given to me last year, since which I have had 
no opportunity of visiting the locality. From not being aware of its 
rarity here, Miss H. is unable to say whether other specimens were 
growing with that gathered as an example for the herbarium; the 
plant must be of extremely rare occurrence in this island, since I 
have myself never fallen in with it; and as regards the mainland I 
have great reason to fear that my notice of it in the Supplement to 
the ‘New Botanist’s Guide, Vol. ii. p. 568, as growing amongst 
bushes on the shore between Southampton and Netley, and in other 
places about Southton, was given on hasty and imperfect observation, 
and should be expunged till better authenticated. At the same time, 

VOL.) sir. a 


522 


there is every reason to expect this species in the county, as well as 
L. Scariola and L. saligna, more particularly the latter, which should 
be looked for on dry chalky banks, in lanes and salt-marsh ground, it 
being found on either side of us in the contiguous counties of Sussex 
and Dorset. 

Lactuca muralis (Prenanthes muralis). On old walls, rocks, moist, 
shady, stony banks, in woods and thickets; not very uncommon in 
the Isle of Wight, usually where the soil is calcareous. On Quarr 
Abbey walls, sparingly, and under the old garden-wall at Knighton 
House. Under the rocks in Hatchet Close and Cowpit Cliff woods 
near Shanklin, frequent. Road-side at Apes Down. In Bloodstone, 
Sluccombe and other copses here and there in considerable plenty. 
Extremely common in the deep, hollow lanes about Selborne, and no 
doubt in many parts of the county. 

Taraxacum officinale (Leontodon Taraxacum). In meadows, pas- 
tures, waste and cultivated ground, lawns, &c.; universally abun- 
dant. Several varieties of this polymorphous plant, that is found 
half over the globe, occur with us, which it is unnecessary to specify. 
The marsh form, with narrower, less runcinate, sinuately-lobed 
leaves, and the involucral scales more or less erect or appressed (Le- 
ontodon palustre, Si.), is frequent in wet places. 

{Crepis setosa. In cultivated fields amongst clover or lucerne ; 
very rare? and certainly introduced. In a clover-field near Gurnet 
farm, sparingly, July 29th, 1845, where it was first detected by Dr. 
Salter, on a botanical excursion I made with him on that day !!! 
Amongst clover in a field at Wootton, occupying the angle formed 
by the old Newport road and the new cut to Cowes, in abundance, 
1846; Id. This is quite a southern plant, scarcely indigenous to 
any part of Europe north of the Alps, but of late years has obtained 
a transient footing in several parts of England and Scotland, by im- 
portation unquestionably with foreign grass-seed. 
virens. In dry pastures, fields, waste and cultivated 
ground, on walls, roofs and banks, &c.; everywhere abundantly. A 
stouter form of this most variable plant, and with larger flowers, 
grows on the chalk along the road between Carisbrook and Swain- 
ston, which might be almost mistaken for C. biennis, but wants the 
essential characters of that species, which, with C. taraxacifolia and 
C. foetida (Barkhausia foetida, D. C.), are likely to prove inhabitants 
of this county or island. Nor, perhaps, ought the rather northern 
C. paludosa (Hieracium paludosum, LZ.) to be deemed a very impro- 
bable addition to the Hampshire Flora, since the researches of recent 


523 


observers have greatly extended the range of species before thought 
to be confined within much narrower limits; many northern plants 
have been detected in the south, and southern ones farther to the 
northward than they were ever supposed to reach till lately. 

About ten or twelve years back I found in this island a remarkable 
specimen of C. virens, in which all the root and inferior stem-leaves 
were spatulate, very obtuse, and nearly entire, being slightly repand 
and denticulate only, and on very elongated footstalks, the upper 
leaves elongate-oblong, slightly denticulate and clasping, with very 
minute auricles. The late Mr. David Don, and other botanists to 
whom I showed it, could only refer it to the present species. 

Sonchus oleraceus. In waste and cultivated places, garden ground, 
about hedges and road-sides, in woods, fields, &c. ; everywhere. 
asper. In similar situations with the last, and nearly as 
common. Well distinguished, I think, from the foregoing, by the 
character of the seed (a part less liable to variation than most others), 
and by the peculiar curled or rounded auricles of the leaves, like the 
volutes on the chapiters of Corinthian or Ionic columns, so different 
from the flat, acute and arrow-shaped bases of the leaves in S. olera- 
ceus, not to mention that the root-leaves of S. asper are winged to 
their junction with the stem. 
arvensis. In cultivated fields amongst corn, turnips, &c., 
especially on a dampish soil; frequent: also, but more rarely, on 
ditch-banks and in moist hedges. 

HMieracium Pilosella. On dry short pastures, heaths, banks, walls, 
rocks, and waste, barren places; very common over the county and 
Isle of Wight. The var. 8. Peleterianum will probably be found 
with us, but I have not yet remarked it in the county. 

vulgatum (H. sylvaticum, Sm.). In dry woods and 
thickets, on walls, banks, and sandy, gravelly, or chalky pastures, but 
not common, at least in the Isle of Wight. Plentiful in East Standen 
Copse, near Newport, mostly by the path-side through the wood. 
Sparingly in a large gravel-pit by the Ryde and Newport road, at the 
turning off to Fishbourne. In Symington Copse, near Northwood 
church. In the sandy lane betwixt Morton farm and the Grove, and 
in several other places in the island. Gathered on the road from 
Bordean to Froxfield (on Bordean or Stoner Hill), 1848. Wolmer 
Forest and rocky lanes about Selborne; Dr. T. Bell Salter!!! Fare- 
ham Common; Mr. W. L. Notcutt. 

boreale. In woods, thickets and on hedge-banks, but 
not common in the Isle of Wight. Abundant on a high, sandy bank 


524 


in Alverston Lynch, near Newchurch. By the road-side from Ryde 
to Newport, a little before coming to Staplers Heath, but rather 
sparingly. In Firestone Copse and Guildford Lane. Probably not 
unfrequent in mainland Hants. Common in woods and hedges be- 
tween Bishopstoke and Fair Oak. Fareham Common; Mr. W. L. 
Notcutt (H. Sabaud.). 

Hieracium murorum will, there can be little doubt, turn up eventu- 

ally in this island or on the mainland of Hants. 

umbellatum. On sandy or gravelly heaths and com- 
mons, hedge-banks, in groves, thickets and bushy places ; in many 
parts of the Isle of Wight abundantly. Plentiful on Lake Common 
and (before its enclosure) on Royal Heath. On heathy ground about 
Niton and Whitwell, as on Yarbury Hill, &c. Near Kingston, and 
in various other places. At Selborne, in the deep, rocky lanes. 
Fareham Common; Mr. W. L. Notcutt. Var. 8. Leaves broader, 
with large and sharp teeth pointing forward. In the hollow on the 
road between Blackwater and Rookley. On Apse Heath, frequent. 
Most likely a frequent species over the county, but the less one has 
to do with this most troublesome and unsatisfactory genus the better. 
Happily the botanists of the south are spared the task (pleasant 
enough, however, to some) of unravelling the web of synonyms only 
to become worse entangled and perplexed amid the verbosity of ever- 
shifting and changing nomenclature. 

I found, July 13th, 1837, in a wood near Yarmouth, two specimens 
of a plant which at that time appeared to me to be the H. molle of 
Jacquin and of E. B. tab. 2210, referred in the Manual to the Crepis 
succiseefolia of Tausch,* native to the north of England and south of 
Scotland in woods. Unfortunately I neglected preserving the speci- 
mens for future reference, so cannot with absolute certainty give this 
northern species a place in the Hampshire flora, though pretty well 
persuaded of the correctness of the fact of having found it. I hope 


* The C. hieracioides of Waldstein and Kitaibel. The name given by these au- 
thors is preferable to that of Tausch’s, as expressing clearly the remarkable hawkweed 
habit, more manifest than the resemblance of the leaves to those of Devil’s-bit (Sca- 
biosa succisa), but priority, that grand arbitrator in the wordy disputes of botanists, 
has doubtless pronounced judgment in favour of Tausch. The English name “ suc- 
cory-leaved” is one of those odd coincidences in sound which look like mistransla- 
tions of blundering ignorance, without being really such, of which we have two 
notable instances in Ranunculus sceleratus and Euphorbia hiberna, rendered respect- 
ively celery-leaved crowfoot and Irish spurge, for reasons, as is well known, quite 
unconnected with their Latin specific titles. 


525 


such botanists as may visit this island at the proper season will aid 
me in its rediscovery at Yarmouth. 

+Xanthium strumarium. In low, rich, waste ground, on ditch- 
banks and by road-sides. Found by Ray about three miles from 
Portsmouth on the road to London. (Syn. Stirp. Brit. i. p. 140). I 
am not aware of this plant having been found in Hants since Ray’s 
time, but as specimens occur now and then about London, in Kent, 
Surrey, and other counties of England in our own day, there is every 
chance that it will again turn up in the county if specially sought 
after. It would seem to have been somewhat less rare in former times 
than at present, as several stations are given for it by Gerarde and 
Parkinson ; it can hardly, however, be regarded but as an introduced 
foreigner, imperfectly naturalized and extremely evanescent, though a 
very cosmopolite by nature, claiming no particular country as its na- 
tive home, but, Jew-like, settling in preference where the climate is 
warm and the land rich. 

Jasione montana. In sandy or gravelly fields and pastures, on dry 
banks and heathy, hilly places; not unfrequent in the Isle of Wight 
and I believe over the entire county. Common in and about Shank- 
lin Chine and on the banks of slipped. land below the cliff to the 
northward of it. Common about Sandown, Blackgang Chine, and on 
most sandy heaths throughout the island. In the Lith, Selborne, at 
Wolmer and Shortheath ; Dr. T. Bell Salter. The plant has a hot, 
acrid taste and scent, like most of its natural order. Dr. Macreight 
(Manual of Br. Bot. p. 146) mentions a variety, the 8. maritima, 
D. C., as growing on the sea-shore near Portsmouth, having very 
hairy, prostrate stems, short, cauline leaves, hirsute calyx, and outer 
involucral bracts obtuse. 

Phyteuma orbiculare. On dry, hilly, chalky pastures, downs and 
banks, sometimes in woods; common in various parts of mainland 
Hants towards the centre and interior of the county, at a distance 
from the sea; rare near the coast, and not found in the Isle of 
Wight. On the chalk about Old Alresford; Mr. Wm. Pamplin in 
New Bot. Guide. In Bordean Hanger, thirty-three inches high ; 
Miss E. Sibley. Glebefield, and in a lane at West Meon; Ead.!!! 
Upon tumuli on Old Winchester Hill, a few miles to the S.W. of 
Petersfield; Had./! Sutton Scotney, near Andover; Mr. Wm. 
Whale! Headbourne Worthy, about two miles from Winton; Dr. 
A. D. White. | Down between Chilbolton and Crawley, about seven 
miles from Winton; 7d. Warnford; Rev. E. M. Sladen.  Cather- 
ington; Miss L. Minchin. Meonstoke and (var. with white flowers) 


526 


about Buriton; Rev. Messrs. Garnier and Poulter in Hamps. Repos. 
Chalky hills by Maple Durham; Merrett’s Pinax, p. 104. I have no 
station to record for this plant in Hampshire within many miles of 
the coast, but I have gathered it within a very short distance of the 
sea in the Earl of Burlington’s park, near Eastbourne, Sussex, and at 
a very slight elevation, if any, otherwise the species is one of the hill 
country, preferring the summits and sloping sides of our lofty chalk 
downs to the woods and banks of the low grounds. The climate of 
the Isle of Wight is doubtless somewhat too maritime, or, in respect 
to temperature, though not to longitude, too westerly for a genus so 
eminently eastern in its distribution as is Phyteuma and (with a few 
exceptions) the order to which it belongs. The range of this species 
in Britain is indeed singularly circumscribed, and its polar limit re- 
markably abrupt; for though so frequent and abundant on the chalk 
ranges of Kent, Sussex, Surrey and Hants north of 51° I am not 
aware that a single locality is on record for this plant on the continu- 
ation of the same cretaceous system beyond 51° 30’, or the latitude 
of London; some dozen of miles, or perhaps less, totally terminating 
its progress northward. To the westward it seems almost as rigidly 
limited. It has, I think, been found of late years in East Wilts 
(Devizes ?), but fails wholly in Dorsetshire, and is apparently wanting 
throughout the south-western or New Forest district of this county, 
where the vegetation commences to assume an occidental character, 
and the soil for the most part ceases to be calcareous. A beautiful 
plant in its wild state, the globose heads of curiously incurved flowers 
of the deepest and richest ultramarine are stated in E. B. to be less 
conspicuous in cultivation, which one would not have suspected, as it 
varies greatly in size and luxuriance on its native hills, and in the 
depth of blue in the flowers, which are sometimes white. The (in 
Britain) still more eastern, though on the continent more northern 
P. spicatum, should be looked for in the woods of East Hants, as 
there is a possibility its range may ultimately prove co-extensive with 
that of the present species. In June, 1835, I spent two entire days 
in seeking for this plant in the woods about Mayfield and Waldron, 
having none but general indications to the localities, when I at last 
came upon it in plenty in a copse which had been recently cut on the 
Hole farm in Waldron, growing with wild columbines (but not with 
Actza) just as Pollich describes it as commonly doing. The tall 
stems of the Aquilegia caught the eye from afar, and I hailed their 
appearance as an omen of the good success which a few moments af- 
terwards crowned a search I was on the point of giving up as hope- 


527 


less. The plant is unquestionably truly native over a considerable 
tract of woodland, and is indigenous to most parts of central, south- 
ern, and even of northern Europe (Denmark and Livonia). Its dis- 
covery in Sussex only within our own remembrance would give a 
handle to the inference of its having become naturalized merely, but 
for the fact of hundreds of parallel instances of plants far more con- 
spicuous than this escaping notice in well-explored districts in a way 
still more difficult to understand and account for, as Erica ciliaris on 
Wareham Heath, Bunium Bulbocastanum in Herts and Cambridge- 
shire, &c., &c. 

Campanula glomerata. On dry chalky hills, banks and pastures, 
sometimes in woods and hedges; more frequent on the mainland of 
Hants than in the Isle of Wight. On the downs about Freshwater 
and Alum Bay not unfrequent, as near the Needles Hotel and light- 
house, but scarcely an inch high, probably from being browsed down 
by the sheep, and mostly bearing only a single flower. On the field- 
banks above Alum Bay it grows tolerably luxuriant and tall. Very 
abundant on the summit and north-eastern slope of Bembridge Down, 
with flowers considerably aggregated. Most abundantly, but very 
dwarfish, on the down between Calbourne and Brixton, where I have 
picked a specimen or two with white, and others with pale blue 
flowers. Finer and taller in the sheltered valleys of mainland Hants. 
Bordean Hill, West Meon, &c. At Appleshaw. In Murden 
Lane, about two miles from Hursley, in great plenty on chalky banks 
on both sides of the lane; Mr. Wm. Whale. On Primrose Hill, 
Andover; Jd. Maindell chalk-pit, Fareham; Mr. W. L. Notcutt!!! 
A very variable plant, out of which at least a dozen false species of 
its own genus and one gentian have been manufactured! The latter 
marvellous transmutation (G. collina, With.) is neither more nor less 
than the above-mentioned dwarf, single-flowered state of Campanula 
glomerata, facsimiles of which, as represented in PI. xi. fig. 8, of the 
‘Arrangement of British Plants,’ 8rd edit., I have often gathered on 
our high downs, at the very zero of degeneracy from the ample de- 
velopment which through cultivation enables it to rival the most ad- 
mired of our border perennials. 

Trachelium. In dry, chalky and hilly woods, thickets, 
hedges, and on bushy declivities ; very common in mainland Hants ; 
on the Isle of Wight confined principally to the interior central parts 
of West Medina, scarcely found in the eastern hundred. Abundant 
in woods at Swainston and Rowledge. Abundant in the Tolt Wood, 
and common elsewhere about Gatcombe in fields and hedges. About 


528 


Shorwell, sparingly. In Lorden, Sluccombe, Westridge, and other 
hill-side copses on the chalk, in plenty, and in the first of these I 
have gathered it with flowers of a pure white, August 23rd, 1839. 
Extremely common around Petersfield, in woods at Bordean, about 
East and West Meon, &c. Most abundant and luxuriant in woods, 
hedges and close lanes about Clanfield, the flowers often as large, or 
nearly so, as in C. latifolia, and of as deep a blue. Frequent about 
Selborne and at Appleshaw. Andover; Mr. Wm. Whale. Maindell 
and Whitedell, near Fareham; Mr. W. L. Notcutt!!! and generally 
distributed over the county, but in this island everywhere avoiding 
the coast and flat country, even when the chalk extends to them. 
Its distribution in the island exactly accords with that of the bryony 

and buckthorn, as remarked under those plants. A stately ornament 
along our thick hedge-rows and retired green lanes in the latter half 
of summer. The true Canterbury bells of our gardens (C. Medium, L.) 
I have twice found growing spontaneously on bushy banks at Brading 
and Bonchurch, but in small quantity, and without doubt as strays 
from cultivation. 

Campanula rotundifolia. In dry sandy fields and pastures, on 
heaths, walls, banks and chalky downs; abundantly over the county 
and island, particularly in elevated situations. This common but 
graceful and delicate species is of unusual luxuriance on sandy fences 
near the foot of Bleak Down, where I have picked a few specimens | 
with white flowers. On our British heaths and hills the harebell 
varies but little from the normal type, but on the Italian Alps, as 
Bertoloni observes, it sports in endless and intricate varieties, giving 
rise to many false species. I have gathered this plant, so familiar to 
us all from childhood, on the shores of Lake Champlain, at Burling- 
ton, in Vermont. 

Rapunculus. On gravelly or sandy banks, hedges and 
borders of fields; very rare. “In the pastures and hedge-sides on 
the north-west of the Moor, not far from the great bog (Petersfield 
Heath ?) neer Petersfield;” Mr. Goodyer in Merrett’s Pinax, p. 108. 
I have never seen Hampshire specimens of this plant, and do not 
know if it be still found in Goodyer’s localities. | Miss E. Sibley in- 
forms me that she once saw or received a specimen from the same 
part of the county, and as the species occurs rather commonly in cer- 
tain parts of Surrey, it may well be a native with us also. . 
patula. In damp, gravelly pastures, hedges, borders of 
fields and thickets; rare in Hants, and not found in the Isle of 
Wight. On the right-hand side going from Bishopstoke Schools to 


529 


Fair Oak; Dr. A. D. White!!! first noticed by the present Dean of 
Winchester. I find it, though sparingly, in moist field-hedges else- 
where near Fair Oak. About Hurne, near Christchurch; Mr. J. 
Curtis in litt. (Icon Brit. Entom. viii. t. 351, from Hants specimens). 
On a gravelly bank near Bramshot, and in a lane leading thence to 
Hind Head Heath, 1829 and 1835; Mr. Wm. Pamplin in litt. 
Portsdown Hill (Mr. Robinson); Mr. W. L. Notcutt. I hear it is 
not uncommon in Wolmer Forest, and probably on those of Bere, 
Alderholt and in the New Forest district. 

Oss.—C. latifolia has been reported to me as having been found by a 
lady at Liphook, but subsequent inquiry by my obliging and zealous 
informant makes it more than doubtful whether an error arising from 
an accidental transposition of labels has not been committed in this 
instance. For the present, therefore, we must not venture to enrol 
this splendid species amongst the floral beauties of Hampshire, but 
since it has been found of late years in Surrey, and is sparingly dis- 
tributed in several of the midland counties, there seems no reason for 
not indulging a hope that it may yet be discovered within the limits 
_ to which these Notes and Observations are confined. ‘This is the 
most western of all the broad-leaved species of Campanula (a genus 
pre-eminently eastern and continental in its distribution), extending 
into Ireland and the west of Scotland, both which countries are still 
poorer than England in the plants of the order it gives name to. In 
the Channel Islands even C. rotundifolia fails, and Jasione montana 
becomes local in Scotland. In Sweden, about Stockholm and Up- 
sala, nearly in the latitude of 60°, eight species of Campanula are 
indigenous to the floras of those cities, which in Hampshire, nine de- 
grees farther south, are reduced to five, and for the whole of Ireland 
to three. In Siberia, the Italian and Austrian Alps, Russia, and 
other eastern parts of Europe and Asia, the species of Campanula are 
almost innumerable. 

Specularia hybrida (Prismatocarpus hybridus). Yn sandy or 
chalky corn-fields and other tillage land ; pretty general, and often 
very abundant in the Isle of Wight, so as sometimes to prove an in- 
jurious weed to the wheat crops from its quantity alone. Fields 
above Sandown Bay, about Shanklin, and in various parts of Under- 
cliff, extremely frequent. Sandy fields about Newchurch. Extremely 
common on the chalk and sand in West Medina, about Cowes, Yar- 
mouth, Thorley, Wellow, Westover, Rowledge, Brixton, Shorwell, 
and on the sand of the south-west of the island generally, even in 
very upland situations. Corn-fields about Alresford, &c.; Mr. Wm. 

VoL. It. . 3 Z 


530 


Pamplin in New Bot. Guide Suppl., the only mainland station I find 
recorded by others, nor have I noticed it myself, being so common on 
this side of the Solent, as scarcely likely to draw my attention when 
seen, being, moreover, a rather inconspicuous plant when not in 
flower. The deep violet blossoms, which are produced here from the 
early part of May till August, open only in clear weather, and in 
many instances, perhaps in most of the earlier flowers, the corolla is 
either wanting or does not open at all, the seed being, notwithstand- 
ing, perfected as usual. I had long since suspected this was the case, 
from constantly finding fully formed capsules on very young plants at 
the very commencement of the flowering-season, and from repeated 
disappointment in obtaining specimens on which the corollas were 
present and expanded, even during favourable weather. My idea re- 
ceived ample confirmation from observing the same want of a corolla 
in all the the earlier flowers of S. perfoliata of North America, where, 
from the much greater size of the plant and its flowers, the phenome- 
non could not fail to attract attention. This species is frequent in 
most parts of that continent, and abounds in old pastures and cotton- 
fields in the south and west. In April I could scarcely find a blos- 
som on the many hundreds of specimens I examined, though capsules 
were produced and ripening in plenty, but in May and June the 
stems were copiously adorned towards their summits with the large, 
pale purple, striated flowers; the calyx of the earlier incomplete 
ones was usually 3-cleft, of the perfect mostly 5-cleft. S. Speculum, 
D.C. (Campanula Speculum, L.), the Venus’ looking-glass of the gar- 
dens, will probably turn up some day in the chalky corn-fields of the 
south-east of England, since Parkinson mentions it as found in Hert- 
fordshire and Kent in his time, although Gerarde tells us he only ob- 
served our commoner species where Parkinson alleges the other to 
grow, namely, about Dartford and Greenhithe. It seems indeed sur- 
prising, since we have the rarer and more local, that we should want 
the commoner and more diffused of the two European Specularie ; 
and when we consider how plentiful S. Speculum is in all the adjoin- 
ing parts of the continent, even along the coasts, in Normandy, Bel- 
gium, Holland and Germany, we must regard it as another instance 
of the marked tendency in the species of Campanulacez to become 
rare or extinct in a westerly direction and in insular localities. The 
exactly oval shape, exquisite polish and brilliancy of the seeds, re- 
calling to mind an ancient mirror or speculum, originated the name 
of one species, to which that of the Paphian goddess was most appro- 
priately joined. : 


531 


Wahlenbergia hederacea. In damp turfy or heathy pastures, on 
spongy bogs, moist banks, and bare, humid spots on commons, &c. ; 
apparently very rare in the Isle of Wight. First found by Miss 
Evelegh, on damp pasture ground at Rookley Wilderness! By the 
margin of Lashmere Pond at the foot of Bleak Down, but sparingly ; 
Dr. G. A. Martin, 1841!!! Boggy tract on the southern face of 
Bleak Down. On moory ground not above 400 yards (about west) 
from Rookley farm, in great plenty, as also in other parts of the same 
pasture field, abundantly, July 28th, 1844. Near Ashurst Lodge, 
New Forest; Mr. G. 8. Mill in ‘ Phytologist, 1. p. 92. This beauti- 
ful little plant will probably be found not uncommonly in our Hamp- 
shire forests, which, from the general nature of the soil in these wood- 
land tracts, are just the places in which it delights. . When growing 
on bare, exposed spots on banks, its minuteness is often its protection 
from the clutches of the prying botanist, and doubly secure is it in its 
concealment when trailing its thread-like stems through a bed of moss 
or verdant turf on the margin of some clear and shallow streamlet. 
I have not yet succeeded in getting the capsules of this species, 
which, with the exception of one or two others, are all extra Euro- 
pean, and mostly restricted to the southern hemisphere, more particu- 
larly abounding at the Cape, and in the African islands of Madagascar, 
St. Helena, &c. 

N. B.— Lobelia urens may possibly be found hereafter on heaths 
along the western borders of the county, seeing that two plants highly 
characteristic of the occidental flora inhabit the contiguous county of 
Dorset within a very few miles of the Hants boundary. I allude to 
Erica ciliaris and Simethis bicolor. I am not, indeed, certain that 
the former has not already been gathered within our limits, having 
heard a rumour to that effect, but which needs to be confirmed by 
competent authority. 

Calluna vulgaris. On barren moors, heaths, in dry, sterile, sandy 
woods, thickets and pastures; abundantly. Var. 6. Hoary tomen- 
tose. On Bleak Down and in Youngwood’s Copse, near Newchurch, 
Isle of Wight, in plenty. The prevailing form, and in its most hairy 
state, at Wolmer; Dr. T. Beil Salter. 

Erica Tetralix. On damp heaths, wet, moory ground and spongy 
bogs; frequent in the Isle of Wight, and doubtless over the entire 
county. Var. Flowers pure white. Near Newport and at Black- 
gang; Mr. G. Kirkpatrick. Forest of Bere, New Forest and Isle of 
Wight; Rev. Messrs. Garnier and Poulter. I found this pretty va- 
riety in the island to be not uncommon on Briddlesford Heath, 1841 


532 


and 1843, and occasionally on the wettest bogs of the moors around 
Rookley Wilderness. 

Erica cinerea. On heaths, commons and moors, also in dry barren 
woods, and sterile, gravelly or sandy pastures; most abundantly. 
The white-flowered variety I found on Ningwood Common, near Yar- 
mouth, in 1841, and it is noticed in the ‘ Hampshire Repository,’ as 
growing in the same places with a similar variety of the last species 
across the water. 

N. B.— The beautiful southern and western E. ciliaris should be 
carefully searched for on the forest land along the border of Dorset- 
shire, since it occurs abundantly on the heaths around Corfe Castle, 
in Purbeck, where I gathered it in 1841, on a botanical excursion to 
Poole and its neighbourhood with my esteemed friend Dr. Salter, 
who, though a native of that town, well acquainted with the botanical 
localities in its vicinity, and gifted with eyes inferior to few in acute- 
ness at detecting new plants on a ramble, was fated to have this fine 
heath elude his penetrating glance. It was first added to the Dor- 
setshire flora by W. C. Trevelyan, Esq., a few years previous to our 
visit, and had been detected some time before in Cornwall, in various 
parts of which county it is quite plentiful, though it had escaped all 
the earlier botanists, and most of those of our own time in a way that 
is perfectly unaccountable; especially when we reflect that Corn- 
wall, from the peculiarity of its vegetable productions, has always 
been attractive ground to botanical investigators from the days of 
Ray to the present moment. The history of this heath, and the ad- 
ditions that are being made to the British flora, which seem to in- 
crease in number every year, simply because that of observers 
increases yearly, should teach us never to think any field, however 
small, has yielded up the last ear into the hand of the diligent 
egleaner, and that even in our thickly-peopled land, where field is 
joined to field and house to house till there is no room left, full many 
a flower will yet be found to have been born and to have blushed un- 
seen hard by, if not amidst, the busiest haunts of men.* 

Vaccinium Myrtillus. In dry or stony woods, thickets, and ele- 
vated heathy places, also on the highest chalk downs occasionally ; 
not very general in the Isle of Wight, but I believe frequent over 
most parts of the county. On Shanklin Down. Head Down, near 


* The detection of Cucubalus baccifer by Mr. Luxford in what may fairly be called 
the heart of London, namely, the Isle of Dogs, is the extremest case in point that can 
be cited. 


533 


Niton, and on Yarbury Hill. Abundant on the dry, heathy parts of 
Apse Castle, at America, &c., and on Blackpan Common. The black 
and rather agreeably flavoured fruit are called here hurtle or hurdle- 
berries. 

Vaccinium Oxycoccos. In spongy, turfy bogs, creeping amongst 
Sphagnum and other mosses; extremely rare in the Isle of Wight, 
and apparently nearly as much so in the county generally. Ina 
sphagnous, boggy meadow by the Medina, betwixt Cridmore and 
Appleford farms, forming part of a tract of peaty bog, known as the 
Wilderness,* in considerable abundance; August 22nd, 1841. I 
had not succeeded in finding the cranberry here in fruit, and scarcely 
even in flower, but on the 27th of September last, Dr. Salter gathered 
a handful of the ripe berries, which he observed to be in a great 
measure concealed amongst the Sphagnum, through which, like crim- 
son threads, the stems of this plant delight to trail. In the bogs of 
Bin’s Pond; Rev. G. White. Dr. Salter met a poor woman with a 
handkerchief full of cranberries for tarts, on Wolmer Forest, from 
whence he infers that they must be tolerably abundant in some parts 
of that district. Droxford Forest; Rev. E. M. Sladen. 

N. B.—Vitis Idea has been mentioned to me in a list of plants as 
found in this county, I have little doubt through error or inadver- 
tence, being an unlikely species to grow wild in this part of England 
even on our loftiest hills. Andromeda polifolia may possibly occur 
on peaty moors and bogs of the forest districts, as it is known to in- 
habit Somersetshire, near Bridgewater and Glastonbury. It has even 
been mentioned to me as growing in this island, which must certainly, 
I think, be a mistake, as I could hardly have overlooked so conspi- 
cuous a plant in the very few and limited localities fitted for its 
production. 

Pyrola minor. In mossy (and dry heathy ?) woods and thickets ; 
very rare? Found in June, last year, by J. Woods, Esq., on what 
was once a corner of Romsey Common, but now a fir plantation, in 
tolerable abundance. Mr. Woods, in a late communication, has 
kindly indicated to me the exact locality for this species, which may 
possibly not be very uncommon in the New Forest district. P. ro- 
tundifolia may be reasonably hoped for in this county, but no species’ 
of the genus has yet been discovered in the Isle of Wight. 

Monotropa Hypopitys. In woods, groves and plantations, princi- 
pally in those of beech or fir. Very rare in the Isle of Wight. By 


* Called also Rookley or Appleford Wilderness. 


534 


the foot-way through the Undercliff (Luccombe Landslip or Eastend) 
from Luccombe to Bonchurch; Mr. J. Woods, jun. in Bot Guide. 
I have repeatedly searched the place in vain. In a large plantation 
of fir and beech (New Barn Hummet) by Calbourne New Barn, but 
sparingly, July, 1842-43. In the great plantation along the slope of 
the Down above Westover, in small quantity, July, 1843. In both 
stations periodical in its appearance. More frequent in natural beech 
woods on the mainland. A single specimen in a wood at Clanfield, 
July, 1848. In Bordean Hanger; Miss G. E. Kilderbee! In the 
beech woods abundantly, as at Avington, between Winchester and 
Alresford ; Mr. Wm. Pamplin in litt. Avington Wood; Dr. A. D. 
White. Holt Wood (Alder Holt Forest?) ; Rev. Messrs. Garnier 
and Poulter in Hamps. Repos. Brookwood Coppice, near Warnford; 
Rev. E. M. Sladen. Westbury Park, West Meon; Miss E. Sibley. 
In Selborne Hanger, under the shady beeches at the north-west end ; 
Rev. G. White. In the woods at West Dean, Sussex, the residence 
of my friend the Rev. L. Vernon Harcourt, where the Monotropa 
abounds, I have gathered specimens fifteen inches high. The entire 
plant has a strong earthy smell, which has been compared to various 
and very dissimilar substances, as primroses, bees’ wax and vanilla! 
To myself the odour is most repulsive, and forcibly recalls that given 
out by moistened rhubarb. 

Ilex Aquifolium. In woods, thickets, hedges, on dry bushy or 
heathy banks and hill-sides, extremely common, and in many places 
most abundantly, throughout the county and Isle of Wight. More 
usually seen on this island as a bushy shrub or low tree, the soil ap- 
parently not suiting its development; in some parts, however, hollies 
of considerable bulk are not unfrequent, as on Hillside, by New- 
church, and in the romantic oak and beech glades of the New Forest 
they may be constantly met with of timber-like size and height.* 
Amongst the greatest ornaments of the beautiful and picturesque spot 
called Apse Castle,t are its hollies; many of the trees here bear all 


* All around Lymington, Boldre, Brockenhurst, and other parts of the ancient 
forest precincts, this tree so abounds as to be a distinguishing feature of its beautiful 
sylvan scenery. 

+ Apse Castle (so denominated perhaps antithetically as being a place in which a 
castle never existed, where one ought to have stood) is among the many secluded 
nooks with which the interior of the island abounds, but are nevertheless unknown to 
the herd of summer tourists who deviate about as much from the prescribed line of 
coast route, and get over it with nearly the same celerity, as though they were travel- 
ling by railroad on urgent business. This is simply a thickly-wooded eminence, about 


535 


their leaves flat and quite entire, and when loaded with their berries 
of vivid scarlet, have a superb effect from the greater breadth of dark 
green polished surface (reflecting back the sun’s rays) they present 


one mile N.W. by W. of Shanklin, commanding a fine view, and flanked on one side 
by a deep ravine or den, as our northern neighbours, the Scotch, would call it (we 
have the same word in many Hampshire names of places, as Bordean, Bramdean, 
&c.), along whose bottom winds a clear, but shallow brook, overhung by precipitous 
banks covered with trees and shrubs, the natural growth of the place. Under the | 
eastern side of the hill is the little rude hamlet of America, and at its western base 
the picturesque homestead of Apse farm, where grows the finest specimen of the 
Wych elm to be seen in the island. 


In medio ramos annosaque brachia pandit 
Ulmus opaca, ingens. 


The late Lord Yarborough planted the top of the hill with pines (P. Pinaster), and 
caused broad grass walks to be cut through the wood by a winding ascent to the sum- 
mit, for the convenience of the few that resort to and joy in its cool and green retreats, 
judiciously leaving all beside for Nature to embellish in her own wild way. 

A more delightful scene can hardly be imagined than is offered by this fresh and 
verdant spot, when on some glorious morning in April or May, the atmosphere radiant 
with an intensity of sun-light such as no season but spring and early summer exhi- 
bits, we tread the solitary mazes of Apse Castle, a blooming wilderness of primroses, 
wood anemonies, hyacinths, sweet violets, and a hundred other lowly and fragrant 
things, overtopped by the taller and crimson-stained wood spurge, early purple orchis, 
and the pointed hoods of the spotted-leaved wake robin, the daisy-besprinkled track 
leading us upward, skirted by mossy, fern-clad banks on one hand, and by shelving 
thicket on the other, profusely overshadowed by ivy-circled oak and ash, the graceful 
birch and varnished holly, beneath which spring the berry-bearing alder, hazel, spin- 
dle-tree, the dogwood and guelder rose, with here and there the “ bonnie broom,” and 
a mountain ash, slight and airy as a sapling, over all which the woodbine creeps pro- 
fuse, and the black bryony (Tamus communis) loves to twine, displaying its hand- 
broad, overlapping leaves of translucent green, that, bright and polished as a mirror, 
dance and glisten to the sun like a descending stream of foliage. Arrived at the sum- 
mit, what a luxury to recline on the couch of silvered green which the rabbit-grass 
(Agrostis setacea) spreads thickly over the wide pathway, the softest, driest, and most 
elastic of turf, or stretched beneath the old hollies or birches to listen to the nightin- 
gale, that even at noontide is pouring forth from twilight covert incomparable har- 
mony, till returning darkness calls her, unwearied, to take part in the nocturnal 
concert with her then numerous rivals, 


“ And all night long her amorous descant sing.’ 


Such botanists as have no objection to prick their fingers in the attempt to loosen, 
without cutting it, the Gordian knot that binds the brambles together with a tie of 
sadly disheartening complexity, will find as much of the pleasure and pain attendant 
on the business as they can desire in the many interesting species or varieties of 
Rubus that flourish in the dell (vu/go Tinker’s Hole) at Apse Castle. 


536 


over the ordinary spiny-leaved variety. The finest hollies I ever saw 
were at the Lakes of Killarney, I think on Innisfallen Island; as we 
advance westward this tree acquires greater magnitude and elevation, 
the cold of a deeply continental climate stunts its growth remarkably ; 
for though found wild in the forests of Prussia when it is sheltered by 
adjacent trees, it resists with difficulty the winter in the Botanic Gar- 
den at Berlin, and even at Vienna I have seen it treated as a green- 
house shrub. The common holly of North America, T. opaca, is so 
much like the European, as to have been thought a variety merely of 
the latter. The leaves are precisely similar, but of a yellowish green, 
and opaque, without that polish and lucidity which renders ours so 
much the handsomer tree. The berries are of a duller scarlet, and 
the growth of the branches less compact and bushy, whilst the termi- 
nal shoots are much shorter, more slender, perfectly ligneous, and 
covered with a brownish bark like the older wood; whereas in our 
holly the extreme shoots are much longer, thicker, and succulent, 
with a soft green or purplish epidermis. This last character, which I 
do not find noticed by any author, I have verified by constantly re- 
peated examinations of the wild plant over a great range of soil and 
climate, and found it to hold good without an exception: our present 
diagnostic formulas are inadequate to the perfect discrimination of 
these two species. The berries of the holly failed notably in quantity 
last year, both here and in other parts of England. 

Wo. A. BROMFIELD. 

Eastmount House, Ryde, Isle of Wight, 

April, 1849. 
(To be continued). 


BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 


Friday, April 13, 1849.—John Edward Gray, Esq., F.R.S., Presi- 
dent, in the chair. 

Dr. Mitchell, of Nottingham, and F. Dickinson, Esq., of London, 
were elected members. 

Mr. H. Taylor exhibited specimens of Anemone ranunculoides, 
which he found still growing at Abbotts Langley, Herts. 

Mr. G. Maw presented a specimen of Linaria supina, Desf., dis- 
covered by him at St. Blazey’s Bay, Cornwall, in March last. 

The continuation of Mr. Woodward’s paper ‘On the Flora of 
Gloucestershire’ was read.—G@. E. D. 


d 


537 


On the Flowering of British Plants. 
By Isaran'W. N. Keys, Esq. 


January, 1849. Season very mild. Early in the month, saw 
primroses which had been gathered by some pedestrians who had 
availed themselves of the fine weather for a country walk. Noticed 
several young dandies who are fond of carrying “ flowers in their waist- 
coats” pranked with snowdrops. In the latter part of the month, an 
old water-cress woman called at my door, having her basket of salad 
fringed with white scented violets. She had brought them into the 
town for sale. I did not inquire of the old woman where she pro- 
cured her violets; but doubtless they were pulled from some hedge. 
The white variety of Viola odorata is, however, very common here in 
the little garden plots of peasants. Query, were not many of the 
plants now considered questionably indigenous, on account of their 
being found in gardens and near dwellings, once truly wild; having 
been (for some property of use or ornament which they possess) re- 
moved, by the invading hand of man, from their native haunts to the 
spots which they now inhabit? It may be remarked that most of the 
plants against which the mark of dubiety is fixed, are either of lovely 
form or agreeable odour, or are invested with poetical interest. 

February 11. Weather very fine. Ranunculus Ficaria in bloom 
sparingly. Salix unfolding its catkins. In the garden, white violets 
perfuming the air. 

February 13. Fine day; mild. Found, during my walk, an outer 
coat an incumbrance. Noticed the following plants in bloom :— 
Draba verna: minute specimens, on an old wall near the town. 
Thlaspi Bursa-pastoris, Senecio vulgaris, Bellis perennis, and Ta- 
raxacum officinale, by the road-side and in waste places. Ranuncu- 
lus Ficaria was plentiful on the road-side of Chelson Meadow and 
elsewhere. In the usual habitats in Saltram Woods, Galanthus niva- 
lis. Lychnis dioica, in the wood; only one plant: this must have 
been a veteran of the past summer. Vinca major sparingly in flower, 
and V. minor abundantly so, all along the banks and pathways 
through Saltram. Mercurialis perennis. Narcissus Pseudo-narcis- 
sus was in full bud—=in some cases on the point of bursting into 
flower. Gathered two or three small specimens of Viola canina. 
Met with only one primrose. In the hedge on the Plympton road 
saw four plants of Potentilla fragariastrum in flower. Cardamine hir- 
suta was whitening the hedges with its tiny petals ; and in many in- 

VoL. 111. 4A 


538 


stances stalks not half an inch long were supporting pods of nearly 
an inch in length. Was surprised to see, in Plympton St. Mary 
Churchyard, Angelica sylvestris in flower. ‘The plants were very 
stunted—not more than from 12 to 18 inches high. Their precocity 
was attributable, I presume, to the moist, low, warm, and sheltered 
locale in which they grew. ‘The willows on the borders of the various 
streamlets I passed were unsheathing their blossoms. Wherever I 
cast my eyes, Arum maculatum was parading its elegant glossy foli- 
age. Lamium purpureum in flower. Also, on the old walls of the 
village, Cochlearia danica, Veronica hederifolia, and Linaria Cym- 
balaria. 

March 4. Fine warmday. Primroses freely in flower in sheltered 
woodland nooks adjoining Mount Edgcumbe. Also in flower, daisies, 
Ranunculus Ficaria (still sparingly), Veronica Buxbaumii, and Fra- 
garia vesca. 

March 6. Crepis virens in flower. Also, on the banks of an 
osier-bed, Petasites vulgaris, accompanied by splendid examples of 
Ranunculus Ficaria and Caltha palustris. Geranium robertianum. 
Tussilago Farfara (solitary specimen). Glechoma hederacea rather 
copiously scattered on the hedge of a footpath near Plympton. Chry- 
sosplenium oppositifolium in flower, in a shady, damp spot. 

March 19. Dark and rather cold. Found the following in 
flower :—Stellaria holostea, S. media, Viola odorata, Adoxa moscha- 
tellina, Oxalis acetosella, Lamium album, Anchusa sempervirens, Ve- 
ronica Chamedrys (one plant), and Luzula Forsteri. 

March 25. Took a walk this morning through a luxuriant unfre- 
quented lane, in the parish of Plymstock, about three miles from 
Plymouth, in which Viola canina was abundant and very large. 
Primroses rather scanty. Saw leaves of Aquilegia vulgaris, which I 
should consider undoubtedly wild in this locality, as it is at consider- 
able distance from both houses and gardens. Fragaria vesca frequent. 

April 5. Took a botanical stroll in the afternoon. Fine mild 
weather. Went first to Weston Mills, by way of Milehouse, passing 
Swilley. Gathered nothing particular on my way. Hedges in low 
ground thick with Stellaria holostea, Viola canina, and primroses. 
Vinca minor still in flower. Met with occasional plants of Veronica 
Chameedrys in flower. On the old bridge near the mill, Draba verna 
in flower and fruit; Saxifraga tridactylites in flower. On the top of 
a high wall enclosing a farm-house, Viola odorata (white variety), 
flowers fading. Strange habitat this! On the sides of the wall, 
miniature plants of Cochlearia danica, about an inch in height; leaves 


539 


nearly all radical, on long petioles; flowering stem leafless. The 
flowers were as large as those borne by plants of the ordinary stature. 
In this neighbourhood grows Helleborus viridis; but I was too late 
for it: it had passed flowering. Primroses abundant in an orchard, 
and excessively large ; in which place I found, in a hedge, Cardamine 
pratensis in flower. Saw more of this plant afterwards on the border 
of a rivulet in Ham Wood. Returned through the wood; at the end 
of which, on an old wall, found Sisymbrium Thalianum,—some in 
flower, others with nearly ripe fruit. Passed Burleigh, where I saw 
plenty of Anchusa sempervirens, some plants in flower. Gathered, 
in the course of my ramble, besides those already mentioned :— 
Meehringia trinervis (saw only a little of this in flower), Geranium 
lucidum (saw only two or three in flower), Heracleum Sphondylium 
(partially blown), splendid specimens of Asplenium Trichomanes in 
fruit, Cardamine hirsuta and C. sylvatica (query, are these plants 
really two species? 1 commonly find the former on the upper and 
dry parts of hedges; while the latter occupies the damp, lower parts, 
and the runlets or water-courses), Veronica serpyllifolia, Ranunculus 
bulbosus (two or three only), R. repens (only one), and Arum macu- 
latum. 

April 6. Agyraphis nutans in flower. 

April 8. Found the following in flower :— Geranium molle, Son- 
chus oleraceus, Crategus oxyacanthus, Ranunculus parviflorus (spa- 
ringly), Viola tricolor (only one or two), Myosotis collina, and two 
or three of the yellow-flowered Crucifere—Brassica or Sinapis, did 
not notice which. 

April 11. Sauntered through fields leading out of Plymouth to 
Stoke. Found, in flower, Fedia olitoria (small), Alchemilla arvensis, 
Veronica arvensis, Barbarea preecox, and Sherardia arvensis (small 
and in limited quantity). 

April 17. Extraordinary change in the weather: very cold; sleet 
and hail. On the rocks under the Hoe found in flower (but stunted 
plants), Erodium moschatum. Also, Smyrnium olusatrum (partially 
open). 

In my former communications I quoted the flowering-seasons as 
given by Sir W. Hooker and Mr. Babington. I have refrained from 
so doing on the present occasion, lest 1 should trespass upon your 
space, as well as to avoid the appearance of pitting my humble ob- 
servations against their high authority. All interested will “ compare 
notes.” 

Thave been reminded that in my former articles on the present 


540 


subject I should have stated (in order to avoid undue expectations in 
less genial localities) that this district is, from its warm and sheltered 
and undulatory character, favourable to the early appearance of 
flowers. In the list now exhibited, there are several remarkable in- 
stances of early flowering; e. g., Anchusa sempervirens, Angelica syl- 
vestris, Veronica Chamedrys, &c., &c. 


IsatAaH W. N. Keys. 
Plymouth, April 20, 1849. 


Mr. Newbould the discoverer of Melilotus arvensis. 
By G. S. Gipson, Esq. 


FeartnG lest there may be some misapprehension respecting the 
discovery of Melilotus arvensis, from the recent mention of it in the 
‘ Phytologist,’ I beg to state, that it was first found at Thetford by 
W. W. Newbould, this summer; and it was not till I afterwards 
found both species abundantly in this neighbourhood, that I was sa- 
tisfied of its being a distinct species. The credit of the discovery, 
therefore, entirely belongs to him, and not to me. It may be a point 
of little importance, but I shall feel best satisfied in having the real 
facts thus stated, as it is due to one of our most accurate yet diffident 
botanists. 


G. S. GIBSON. 
Saffron Walden, April 13, 1849. 


On the Discovery of Udora or Anacharis in Berwickshire, in 1842, 
and again in 1849. By Dr. Georce Jonnston. Extracted 
from the ‘ Proceedings of the Berwickshire Naturalists’ Club.’ 


On the 3d of August, 1842, I found, in the lake at Dunse Castle, a 
plant, which interested me from its neat and peculiar habit. It grew, 
entirely submerged, amongst the ordinary pond Potamogetons, and a 
plant in flower could nowhere be seen. A specimen was sent to Mr. 
Babington, and afterwards, at his request, two or three other speci- 
mens were forwarded to him; and I learned, from Mr. Babington, 
that he had submitted them to the inspection of Mr. Borrer. It is 
unnecessary to say more than that my quest after the name and cha- 
racter of the plant was very unsatisfactory; and the interest in it 


541 


decayed and died away under the persuasion that the plant might have 
been introduced into the lake with some other aliens from the south. 
This persuasion was confirmed by Dr. Philip W. Maclagan, at a sub- 
sequent period, who, on seeing a specimen in my possession, at once 
told me it was an Udora, and, he believed, the same as the Canadian 
species. I presumed, therefore, the more that it was foreign to our 
district ; and my interest lay dormant, until revived by the perusal of 
Mr. Babington’s description of the Anacharis alsinastrum, in the 
‘Annals of Natural History’ for February, 1848, for in this Anacha- 
ris I immediately recognised my Dunse Castle herbelet. 

On writing to Mr. Babington, he replied, that he “had totally for- 
gotten the plant” I had sent him, and the specimens were lost. I 
could not comply with his demand for other specimens, seeing that 
the habitat is sixteen miles distant from my residence; and to few 
provincial practitioners is given the leisure to ride thirty-two miles in 
order to cull a simple for the gratification of his own or of another’s 
curiosity. My good fortune, however, was on the ascendant. <A few 
weeks only had passed over, when I again found the Anacharis in a 
habitat in which it was, beyond all doubt and suspicion, most truly 
indigenous. On the 9th of August, whilst angling in the Whitadder, 
at Newmills, in the Liberties of Berwick, I was most agreeably sur- 
prised to find the plant growing with Potamogeton crispus, pusillus, 
and perfoliatus, in the bed of the river, at a depth of about fifteen 
inches. In the lake at Dunse Castle, the Anacharis had a long slen- 
der stem, but here, influenced by the stream, it grew in a roundish 
tuft or bunch, with stems not exceeding three or four inches in height. 
None of them rose to the surface, and on none of them were there 
any flowers. 

On September 4, [ again discovered the Anacharis in great abun- 
dance, in a small creek at a still and deep reach of the Whitadder, 
between Whitehall and Edington Mill. Here it had the habit of the 
plant in Dunse Castle Loch, with stems from two to three feet in 
length. None of them were in flower. 

It would be presumptuous for me to say, whether the Anacharis al- 
sinastrum is identical with the Udora canadensis or not. I have spe- 
cimens of the latter from Dr. P. W. Maclagan, gathered in Detroit 
River, July, 1848, and they resemble exactly our Whitadder plant, as 
found at the Newmills station ; but, like this, the Canadian specimens 
have also no flowers. I can see no difference of any moment in the 
shape of the leaves, for this differs in the British as in the American 
plant; and the structure and marginal serratures are exactly alike. 


542 


The spinulose’serratures begin in both about the middle of the leaf, 
and are of a brown colour, and firm texture. The apex of the leaf in 
the Canadian Udora is usually more pointed or lanceolate than of the 
Whitadder Alsinastrum, but, in an aquatic plant, such a slight cha- 
racter is of no consequence. Pursh, in fact, of the American plant, 
says:— “Michaux describes the leaves to be oblong and obtuse, 
which is only the case in the early part of the season; at flowering 
time they constantly are long linear and acute.”—Flor. Amer. Sept. 
p: 33. 

The American plant is “ frequent from Canada to Virginia.” Dr. 
P. W. Maclagan writes me, that it is extremely common in Upper 
Canada, “ but I never could make more than one species, although I 
looked at them well after I got Mr. Babington’s paper. Dr. Gray 
makes but one species in the Northern States.” Dr. Gray’s descrip- 
tion of Udora canadensis is as follows :—“ A perennial? herb, growing 
under water with elongated branching stems, thickly beset with pel- 
lucid and veinless, l-nerved, sessile, whorled or opposite leaves,” 
which, in the specific character, he says are “ oblong, ovate or lanceo- 
late, finely serrulate (} long).” All this agrees with our Berwickshire 
plant. Dr. Gray continues :—“ The staminate flowers break off as in 
Valisneria, and float on the surface, where they expand and shed their 
pollen to fertilize the stigmas, which are raised to the surface by the 
excessively prolonged calyx tube which varies in length according to 
the depth of the water.”—Bot. North. Un. States, p. 462. 


Remarks upon Mr. Watson's Case between Mr. Andrews and Mr. 
Babington. By C. C. Basinerton, Esq., M.A., F.LS., &c. 


As the discussion between “ C.”, who has now transferred the mat- 
ter to Mr. Watson, and myself, is probably of interest to a very small 
number of the readers of the ‘ Phytologist,’ it is only from necessity 
that I again intrude upon its columns; but after the remarks of Mr. 
Watson, in the number for May, I can take no other course. 

In the first place, 1 have to call attention to the following extract 
from a letter addressed to Mr. H. C. Watson, on April 8 last, as it 
totally contradicts the remark in his communication, that “a copy of 
Mr. Andrews’ paper was given by Professor Allman to Mr. Taylor, 
for publication in the Annals.” The extract is as follows: “ Perhaps 
you will also tell ‘C.’ that I have consulted Mr. Taylor, and the 


543 


gentleman who is over that part of the office in Red Lion Court which 
is more especially appropriated to the periodicals there published, 
and that neither of them has any recollection of having ever received 
the paper upon Saxifrages from Mr. Andrews, although they do re- 
member receiving a letter asking them to return such a paper, and 
also of having answered it, by denying their having the paper.” I 
am authorised, also, to add, in their words, that “the paper would 
have been inserted if it had reached their hands.” I must also direct 
attention to the fact that Mr. Watson had plenty of time to withdraw 
that incorrect charge against the Annals, between the 9th or 10th of 
April (when he doubtless received my letter) and the time of publica- 
tion of the May number of the ‘ Phytologist.’ Even supposing, as is 
most improbable, that the first sheet of that number was printed off 
before he had the means of making the correction, he was bound to 
do so on the second sheet, or on the cover. A letter giving similar 
information was addressed to the editor of the ‘ Phytologist,’ for the 
information of “C.”, on the 7th of April; and as Mr. Lees’ paper, 
which is printed upon the same sheet as Mr. Watson’s, is dated upon 
that day, it is indisputable that the refutation was in the editor’s 
hands long before the sheet containing the charge was printed off. 

I am stated to have been present when Mr. Andrews’ paper was 
read, which I fully believe was not the case. No notice, as far as I 
can find out, was given in the Journal of the Sectional Proceedings, 
of the intention to read such a paper; and as I was fully occupied 
with the important duties of the Treasurership during the whole of 
that meeting, I was unable to attend the section with any regularity. 
I was in the chair during the session of one day, and present during 
part of another day, but, I believe, absent on the other days. Even 
had I been present, I could only have congratulated Mr. Andrews. 
upon his discovery, but objected to his conclusions concerning spe- 
cies. I now learn from the ‘ Atheneum,’ that his was the last paper 
read to the section. 

I avoid all notice of the personal, or, as Mr. Watson calls them, 
ethical, matters contained in the paper, as a scientific journal is not 
the place for giving or retorting insinuations of a want of the “ sense 
of truth and right.” 

It is only necessary to add, that I do “make it my duty and desire 
to know something about” papers which “refute, by facts, any con- 
siderable error that has been sent into public circulation by myself;” 
and that if Mr. Watson did not see by my former remarks, that I 
could not know anything [of] a paper of the locality of which I and 


544 


my friends were ignorant, he certainly must have [seen] that I had no 
means of becoming acquainted with it when he received the letter 


which contains the above-quoted extract. 


C. C. BABINGTON. 
St. John’s College, Cambridge, 


May 4, 1849. 


P.S.—It may be as well to state, that I had no reason to suspect 
that my generalisation, and “ apparently curious discovery,” was “ too 
hasty,” as I had employed the intervals between July 7 and July 24, 
in the year 1841, and between August 29 and September 15, in the 
year 1843, in the county of Kerry, on both occasions making the 
study of the Robertsonian Saxifrages my primary object. Before 
generalising, I had examined thousands of living specimens, and not 
“trusted to the characters of an insufficient series.” I still believe 
that the plants with dentate leaves are by far the more common in 
Treland, and those with them crenate in the Pyrenees. 


A few Words in explanation of my “odd mistake,’ as mentioned 
by “CC.” By James Backuovss, Jun., Esq. 


WHILST entirely accepting the charge of misunderstanding “the 
subject at issue,” and not wishing in any way to prove discretion 
where there is indiscretion, I wish to inform “C.” that his remarks 
in the ‘ Phytologist, at page 451, were liable, and indeed almost cer- 
tain, to be misunderstood. 

Had I not been accused of “inattention, sheer carelessness, irrele- 
vance,” &c., in rather a hasty way, I should not have thought “ C.”’s 
last paper worth answering, or now ventured to trespass upon the 
pages of the ‘ Phytologist.’ 

In “C.”’s quotation from Andrews, éwo main points are touched 
upon; viz., the identity of the forms of S. Geum and umbrosa in 
Ireland and the Pyrenees; and “further,” the transition of these 
forms into each other being so complete, as to set aside any pretension 
to specific difference between hirsuta, elegans, and serratifolia. “ Ths 
view of the subject” (says Andrews) “has since been confirmed by 


Mr, Spruce ..<...-)... but Mr. Babington has not yet found time to cor- 
rect any of the statements where they have been so positively asserted 
by him.” 


“C.” confirms the statements of Andrews respecting the variable- 


545 


ness of the forms and serratures of the leaves of the Irish Saxifrages, 
and their general identity, in these respects, with Pyrenean specimens. 

Afterwards comes a dissertation upon the accuracy, &c. of Babing- 
ton; followed by “C.”’s opinion, that there is a scientific, if not a 
moral, obligation for the former to correct his “ error.” 

Now surely there is nothing “ odd” in a reader of the ‘ Phytologist’ 
supposing that this “error” alludes to the ¢wo points of Andrews’ 
sentence, as “C.” does not state that he means it only to apply to 
that part which he commented upon. 

The quotation from Andrews certainly refers to specific distinctness 
as part of that (error) which Babington had not found time to correct. 
Whether “C.” has mutilated the original, or selected passages which 
convey an incomplete view of Andrews’ sentiments, is not for me to 
say; but the words given in the quotation do connect (unintentionally, 
no doubt) the error with specific distinctness ; and “C.”’s “error” 
evidently alludes to that inferred by Andrews. 

Is it strange, then, and inexplicable, that I should suspect “C.” 
of coinciding with Andrews on the point of specific distinctness ? 

It must be remembered that Babington, in his ‘ Manual,’ gives 
Saxifraga umbrosa, elegans, hirsuta, and Geum as distinct species, and 
that Andrews (according to the quotation) differs with him in opinion 
on this subject. 

I make no doubt whatever of having misunderstood what “C.” in- 
forms us now that he intended to convey, but which he certainly did 
not convey clearly. 

From the last number of the ‘Phytologist’ it appears that “the 
strictly scientific point of the case may now be considered as settled ;” 
if so, may I ask “C.” and others to pass over the “objectionable” 
parts of my last paper (the title and first paragraph), and consider the 
subject of hybridization carefully, in connexion with the Irish Saxi- 
frages '—the question of their specific distinctness (or the contrary) 
assuredly is not settled satisfactorily. 

In conclusion, I would recommend, that if “C.” (or any writer) 
gives another paper on this or any other subject, he bring out his 
name openly, as my previous “ strictures,” “ false witness,” &c. would 
probably have been spared had he done so before. In a journal like 
the ‘Phytologist’ no one ought to suppress his name, to make re- 
marks in secret which he would shrink from making openly. A mere 
alphabet letter like “C.” or W. ought not to expect that politeness 
which is due to an honest name. J. BACKHOUSE, JUNR. 

York, May 5, 1849. 

Vou.) 111. 4B 


546 


[As this controversy has ceased to be instructive, and adds nothing 
to our botanical knowledge, I hope it will now cease altogether. I 
am very reluctant to refuse admission to any communication, or to 
afford a contributor the opportunity of saying he has not been fully 
and fairly heard; but I would suggest to the parties concerned in the 
present discussion whether anything can be gained by prolonging it. 
—Hdward Newman]. 


Notice of ‘The Ancient Straits of Malvern. An Essay on the 
Former Marine Conditions which separated England and 
Wales, and an Account of the Probable Physical Chanyes by 
which the Principality has become united to Great Britain’ 
By James Buckman, F'.G.S., Professor of Geology and Botany 
in the Royal Agricultural College, Fellow of the Botanical So- 
ciety of Edinburgh, Honorary Local Secretary of the Botanical 
Society of London, Honorary Member of the Cheltenham Lite- 
rary and Philosophical Society, of the Gloucester Philosophical 
and Literary Society, ete. London: Longman, Brown, Green, 
and Longmans. 


THE title is so explanatory that any attempt on our part to set forth 
the author’s object would be quite superfluous. With great modesty 
he informs us that “The discovery of the Marine Plants is, perhaps, 
the only new feature of the present paper.” This we fully admit; 
indeed, we were almost inclined to doubt the novelty of thzs feature, 
seeing that the several localities of the plants have been previously 
recorded, although their presence has been generally attributed to 
the escape of brine from the salt-works into the canal at Droitwich: 
this explanation Mr. Buckman is not inclined to receive. He admits 
that this escape of salt-water induces the conditions necessary to 
maintain, but not to originate, a littoral flora. He observes :— 

“The distance of this canal from the usual localities of these plants, 
and the fact that the boats from the canal do not in general venture 
into the broad estuary, and a consideration of the accidents the few 
seeds would be subject to that might by possibility get into a boat, 
do not appear sufficient to account for the enormous quantity of these 
plants, which at present occur in patches often a considerable dis- 
tance apart, on the banks of the canal in question.” 

We believe botanists will generally admit that plants will make 


DAT 


their appearance in localities where the conditions necessary to their 
well-being are fulfilled; thus we find Sphagnum, Drosera, Narthecium, 
and a hundred other plants in spots possessing the conditions they 
require, although no other localities occur for miles around: nay, it 
is almost impossible to cut a canal without having it half choked with 
water-plants unknown in the neighbourhood. Typha, Lythrum, 
Butomus, and Alisma luxuriate in the cavities made to supply the 
embankments of the Eastern Counties, South Eastern, and other 
Railways; they come immediately, no one knows from whence. Un- 
der these circumstances it does not seem extraordinary that salt- 
loving plants should appear at Droitwich, where earth, air, and water 
appear to be loaded with salt. 
We extract Mr. Buckman’s interesting 


“ List of Marine Plants now growing in the Valley of the Severn. 


“ Scirpus maritimus. ‘This salt-marsh plant occurs in considerable 
quantity in the ditches of Longdon Marsh, near Upton-on-Severn, 
Worcestershire, which doubtless at an earlier period constituted a 
great back-water of the Severn estuary, and at the present time its 
level is lower than the bed of the adjacent river, so that it has been 
impracticable to drain it. 

“ Gastridium lendigerum. ‘This grass is seldom found except close 
to the sea, but Mr. Lees found it in Sarnhill Wood, a lias eminence 
on the western side of the Severn, near Tewkesbury. 

“Poa distans. A grass commonly found on the sandy sea shore, 
but flourishing abundantly on the banks of the Droitwich Canal. 

“ Triticum gunceum. Also growing by the side of the Droitwich 
Canal. 

“ Tris foetidissima. Most common and luxuriant on the sea coast, 
but forming actual thickets in Sarnhill Wood. Growing also on the 
Berrow Hill, a lias eminence near Bromsberrow, as well as in the 
Vale near Cheltenham. 

“ Lepidium ruderale. Stated by Dr. Stokes as growing above 
Worcester many years ago, and found on the banks of the Droitwich 
Canal in 1847, 

“ Erodium maritimum. On various rocks and banks about Bewd- 
ley and Kidderminster, as well as around Hartlebury Common, near 
Stourport.* 

“* This is a large common, made up of marine sand, which, at the present mo- 


ment, is open and exposed, and the sand drifts about like sand on our present sea 
shores, presenting all the effects of sand hummucks or dunes. 


548 


“ Rosa spinosissima. Near Worcester and Kidderminster, on deep 
sands. Most abundant on the coast. 

“« Apium graveolens. Abundant in ditches throughout the vale of 
Severn, from Worcester to Cheltenham and Gloucester. Also fringing 
the Droitwich Canal most luxuriantly. 

“ Bupleurum tenuissimum. On Barnard’s Green, near Great Mal- 
vern, Welland Common, near Upton, and on the Nunnery Farm, near 
Worcester, on the Spetchley road. Mr. Edwin Lees. 

“ Gnanthe pimpinelloides. This umbelliferous plant well illus- 
trates the case in hand. At present it flourishes abundantly on the 
coast of Devon and near Weymouth, but appears to be confined to 
the south-western counties of England. Its abundance in meadows 
at Forthampton, near Tewkesbury, and at Powick, three miles west 
of Worcester, is truly astonishing. In fact this plant may be traced, 
as my friend Mr. Lees informs me, from Wainlode Cliffe, between 
Tewkesbury and Gloucester, all up the Severn valley to Worcester. 
At Powick the plant appears to grow on the margin of the great back- 
water, that at some former period extended in this direction. It also 
grows at Maddresiield, within three miles of the Malvern Hills. 

“ Smyrnium Olusatrum. This common sea-side plant, at the pre- 
sent time, grows plentifully at the base of the red marl cliff at the 
Mythe, near Tewkesbury. It is also mentioned by Dr. Nash, in his 
‘History of Worcestershire, as occurring in great profusion at Hill 
Croome, in that county. 

“ Glaux maritima. This pretty little littoral plant flourishes in the 
greatest profusion on the side of the Droitwich Canal, between Bever- 
eye and Salwarp, above Worcester. 

“ Samolus Valerandi. Mostly in salt-water marshes. On Defford 
Common, an extensive flat, five miles east of Upton-on-Severn, which 
was once probably a saline marsh. 

“ Plantago maritima. A decided coast-plant. Recorded in the 
‘Phytologist’ as having been found on Hartlebury Common, by Mr. 
Reece, of the Worcester Museum. 

“ Atriplex rosea. Gathered on the banks of the Droitwich Canal, 
by Mr. T. Westcombe, of Worcester. 

“ Rumex maritimus Noticed by my friend Mr. E. Lees, most 
abundantly in the Longdon Marshes, and also gathered by him at 
the chalybeate pool, Great Malvern, and on the side of the Severn 
below Worcester bridge. 

“ Arenaria marina. In some quantity in various spots close to 
the edge of the saline Droitwich Canal. ‘There appears to be a curi- 


549 


ous difficulty with respect to the exact species of this plant, as Mr. 
Babington of Cambridge, to whom Mr. Lees sent specimens, thought 
it exactly intermediate between A. rubra and A. marina. 

“The plants in this list though not all perfectly marine, are yet 
such as generally elect to grow by the sea side, hence their prevalence 
in the district under review affords good evidence that marine condi- 
tions once prevailed along the greater part of the valley of the Severn, 
and that the marine waters were far wider than the reach of even the 
floods of our day.” 


Notice of ‘ The Sea-Side Book. By W.H. Harvey, M.D. London: 
Van Voorst. 1849.’ 


A VERY pretty book with a very good title, and from beginning to 
end replete with solid and valuable information. The illustrations 
are numerous and admirable, and the getting up of the book is every- 
thing that could be desired. 

There is, however, a little drawback to this encomium. Dr. Harvey 
is known to be a profoundly philosophical writer, more especially 
profound and philosophical on the productions of the sea; and having 
justly acquired a reputation for great knowledge—we had almost 
written wisdom—he finds it difficult, or thinks it undesirable, to de- 
scend to that familiar style which attracts the student, and which is 
really required to maintain any lasting hold on the attention of the 
holiday rambler on the beach of a summer sea. We are aware how 
very rarely are united in the same individual, knowledge and the 
power of communicating it attractively; hence the unpopularity of 
correct, the high popularity of incorrect books. It seems to matter 
little to the reader what blunders may occur in transposition of names, 
or mis-statement of facts, provided such blunders and mis-statements 
are served up in agreeable and perspicuous language. How greatly 
is it to be deplored that those who possess the knowledge will not 
stoop to the mental calibre of those who read. We use this term in 
no offensive sense, but we draw a marked and permanent distinction 
between the mode of addressing scientific truths to a Robert Brown, 
or a Hewett Watson, and that mode required by our wives and chil- 
dren; and a sea-side book, with its pretty illustrations and attractive 
cover, 1s apparently designed for our wives and children, rather than 
for our Browns and Watsons. The first edition is sure to sell—Dr. 


550 


Harvey’s name, Mr. Van Voorst’s getting up, and its own intrinsic 
scientific merits will ensure that: and we earnestly intreat the amiable 
and distinguished author to write the second in a different style, and 
adapt it for those to whom it seems more especially addressed ; to 
leave out the philosophical and almost Newtonian introductory chap- 
ter, and fancying himself strolling on a sandy beach with friends of 
the gentler sex, and active, light-minded youngsters, write as he would 
talk to them of the infinite wonders of the deep. _It would be in ac- 
cordance with the usual plans of critics to prove our allegation by 
quoting the passages which more especially call forth our remarks ; 
we might aptly cite his views of “The enunciation of inductive phi- 
losophy,” of.“ scientific classification,” of the “alternations of genera- 
tion,” or any of the more abstruse portions of the little volume before 
us ; but we prefer selecting a passage in his lightest style, and ona 
subject—sea-weeds—which he has made peculiarly his own. 

“‘Sea-weeds are usually classed by botanists in three great groups, 
each of which contains several families, which are again divided into 
genera; and these, in their turn, are composed of one or many spe- 
cies. The number of species as yet detected on the British coasts is 
about 370, and they are grouped into 105 genera. _I cannot, in this 
place, enter into the niceties of classification to which botanists resort 
in working out the history of these plants, but must confine myself to 
the general features of the great groups, and their distribution. 
Taken in the order in which they present themselves to us on the 
shore, and limiting each by its most obvious character, that of colour, 
we may observe :—that the group of green sea-weeds (Chlorospermee) 
abound near high-water mark, and in shallow tide-pools within the 
tidal limit ;—that the olive-coloured (Melanospermee) cover all ex- 
posed rocks, feebly commencing at the margin of high-water, and in- 
creasing in luxuriance with increasing depth, through the whole belt 
of exposed rock ;—but that the majority of them cease to grow soon 
after they reach a depth which is never laid bare to the influence of 
the atmosphere :—and that the red sea-weeds (Rhodospermee) gradu- 
ally increase in numbers, and in purity of colour, as they recede from 
high-water mark, or grow in places where they enjoy a perfect shade, 
or nearly total absence of light, and are never exposed to the air, or 
subjected to a violent change of temperature. 

“The green sea-weeds are the simplest in structure, and the least 
varied in species, on different coasts, and consequently the least in- 
teresting to the collector of specimens. With the exception of the 
beautiful genus Cladophora, which contains about twenty species, our 


551 


British Chlorosperms are chiefly composed of Ulve and Entero- 
morphe, whose forms vary with so little order, that it becomes 
difficult, and, in some instances, hopeless, to attempt to classify the 
varieties. The Enteromorphe are the first to make their appearance 
about high-water mark, covering loose boulders or smooth rocks with 
a slippery vesture of bright green, or filling the shallow tide-pools with 
grassy fronds. These plants consist of tubular membranes, simple or 
branched, appearing to the naked eye like fine green silk, and showing 
to the microscope a surface composed of minute cells, full of granules. 
The commonest species near high-water mark is E. compressa, which 
commences of a very stunted size, and with thread-like branches, if 
exposed to the air, and gradually acquires length and breadth as it 
grows in deeper water. When fully developed, it has a frond divided 
nearly to the root into many long, subsimple branches, which bear a 
second or third series, all of them much attenuated at their insertion, 
and more or less distended at the extremity. The diameter of the 
tube varies extremely, and the broader and simpler individuals are 
only to be known from E. intestinalis, by their being branched; the 
tube in the latter species being absolutely simple. To the Entero- 
morph succeed Ulv, distinguished from Enteromorphe merely by 
being flat, instead of tubular. The beautiful lettuce-like plaited 
leaves found in tide-pools, belong to plants of this genus, the com- 
monest species of which is U. latissima. It has a very broad, more 
or less ovate, plaited leaf, of a brilliant green, and remarkably glossy, 
when in perfection reflecting glaucous tints, if seen through clear sea- 
water, and is certainly a very ornamental species. It is sometimes 
brought to table as a laver, or marine sauce, but it is much inferior in 
flavour to the purple laver (Porphyra laciniata), a plant of the same 
family, equally beautiful, equally common, and more generally col- 
lected for food. The purple laver grows on exposed rocks near low- 
water mark, and though called purple, assumes at different seasons of 
the year different shades of colour, according to its age. In form it 
resembles the green laver (Ulva latissima), but is of a still more deli- 
cate substance, consisting of a perfectly transparent and very thin 
membrane, elegantly dotted with closely set grains, to which it owes 
its colour. When these grains are in perfection, they are of a dark 
violet-purple ; and this is the case in winter and early spring, when 
the plant is collected for the table. Later in the year the fronds are of 
stunted size, and more or less olivaceous colour, and much less suit- 
able for gathering. The plant appears to be of very rapid growth and 
decay, a few weeks suflicing for its full development. Like may fugi- 


552 


tive plants, however, it is not confined to one season, but continues 
to develop throughout the year; but with this difference, that the 
plants developed in summer are very much smaller, more tenacious, 
and of a dull colour. These last are regarded by some authors as a 
different species, and called P. umbilicata. 

“There is a circumstance connected with the history of our com- 
mon Ulvz, Enteromorphe, and Porphyre, which deserves notice. 
Most of the species common to the European shores are found in all 
parts of the world to which a marine vegetation extends. In the cold 
waters of the Arctic sea, Ulva latissima, Enteromorpha compressa, 
and Porphyra laciniata vegetate in abundance ; and these same plants 
skirt the shores of tropical seas, and extend into the southern ocean 
as far as Cape Horn. Vegetation, at least with its most obvious fea- 
tures, ceases in the south at a much lower parallel than in the Arctic 
regions, and the shores of the Antarctic lands appear to be perfectly 
barren, producing not even an Ulva. But the fact of the great 
adaptability of plants of this family to different climates, is beauti- 
fully illustrated by the last land plant collected by the acute naturalist 
attached to our Antarctic expedition. The last plant that struggles 
with perpetual winter was gathered at Cockburn Island, 64° S. (a la- 
titude no greater than that of Archangel, where the vine is said to 
ripen in the open air), and this proved to be an Ulva (U. crispa*), 
identical with a small species which may often be seen in this country 
on old thatch, or on damp walls and rocks, forming extensive patches 
of small green leaves. It is not common to find marine plants with 
so wide a distribution; but a nearly equal extent of sea is charac- 
terized by another of the British Chlorosperms, of a much greater 
size and more complex structure. On most of the rocky coasts of 
Britain may be gathered, in tide-pools, or rocks near low-water mark, 
an Alga of a bright green colour and spongy texture, cylindrical, and 
much branched, the branches dividing pretty regularly by repeated 
forkings, and the whole invested, when seen under water, with a downy 
coat of colourless filaments. The name of this plant is Codium to- 
mentosum. Under the microscope it is found to be wholly composed 
of small threads, of a tenacious, membranous consistence, filled with 
a dense granular fluid, closely and intricately matted together; the 
threads in the centre of the branches having a longitudinal direction, 
while those of the circumference are horizontal, presenting their 


“* See ‘Flora Antarctica, vol. ii. p.498. In the northern hemisphere, Ulva 
crispa extends to Spitzbergen, in lat. 80°. 


¢ 


5d3 


closely set tips to the surface of the frond. This plant abounds on 
the shores of the Atlantic, from the north of Europe to the Cape of 
Good Hope: it appears to be equally common in the Pacific, extending 
along the whole western coast of the American Continent: it is found 
in the Indian sea, and on the shores of Australia and New Zealand: 
nor is there any certain character by which the specimens of one 
country may be known from those of another. 

“ Allied to the Codium in structure, and not uncommon in rock- 
pools, is a slender and extremely elegant little plant, Bryopsis plu- 
mosa, which consists of a multitude of soft green feathers gracefully 
connected together. Its substance is exceedingly flaccid, and the 
branches fall together when removed from the water, but immediately 
expand on re-immersion. Few of our marine plants are more beau- 
tiful; and the pleasure of admiring its graceful characters may be in- 
definitely prolonged, as it is one of the plants which may be most 
easily grown in bottles of sea-water. Whilst it continues to vegetate, 
it will keep the water sweet and pure, and no care is needed except 
to close the mouth of the bottle, so as to prevent evaporation. The 
Bryopsis, in all its characters, has the structure of a vegetable; nor 
does it much resemble the zoophytes in aspect. And yet it is one of 
those plants which closely link the lower members of the vegetable: 
kingdom with those of the animal. Through Bryopsis, the passage 
is very clear into Acetabularia, an elegant Mediterranean plant, which 
closely resembles a zoophyte, and which was, indeed, till lately, 
classed in that division of animals. Instances of this kind of seeming 
connexion between the two great kingdoms of the organized world, 
meet us frequently among the lower groups of either, and often, as in 
this case, where connexion is least looked for. The genus Cladophora, 
to which I have already alluded, consists of the branching species of 
the green division of the old genus Conferva. ‘These plants are 
formed of strings of cells, one cell growing from the apex of another, 
so as to form a jointed thread. The species are distinguished by dif- 
ferences in the branching, in the proportionate length of the cells, and 
in their diameter; and nearly all of them are beautiful objects. They 
mostly form scattered tufts, in rock-pools, but some occur gregariously 
in extensive patches, covering rocks or fuci with a bright green 
fringe.” K. 


VoL. At. 4c 


5d4 


DUNDEE NATURALISTS’ ASSOCIATION. 


May 1, 1849.—The President in the chair. 

A paper was read by Mr. J. Wyllie, being a visit to Glenearse, 
Perthshire. 

A note on the British species and varieties of Symphytum was read 
from Mr. Geo. Lawson, who called attention to these plants, suspecting 
that their nomenclature is somewhat confused, and that they are not 
very Clearly known, with the view of ascertaining more accurately 
their distribution and relative frequency in Forfarshire. 

Mr. Ogilvie exhibited some very fine specimens of Bryum carneum, 
from the Den of Mains, being a new locality for the plant. 

A donation to the library was announced from Mr. Lawson; also 
‘The Nomenclature of British Plants’ from Mr. Ibbotson.— W. M. O. 


Inquiry respecting the Class and Order to which certain Genera of 
Plants belong. By Grorcr M. Bart ert, Esq. 


You would confer a great favour on the readers of the ‘ Phytologist’ 
at our Devon and Cornwall Natural History Society, if you would be 
kind enough, in your next number, to inform us to what class, order, 
&c. the genera of plants mentioned in the ‘ Geography of Plants,’ by 
Meyen, &c., belong—viz., Phippsia, Parrya, Eutrema, Platypetalum, 
Colpodium, Duponia, and Pleuropogon; the above work not even 
mentioning whether they are Monocotyledonous or Dicotyledonous,— 
a strange omission, considering the importance and peculiar interest 
attached to their history, as a part of the Arctic Flora, as new 
genera, &c. G. M. BartLetr. 

Plymouth, May 10, 1849. 


[Colpodium of Trinius, Dupontia (not Duponia) of Robert Brown, 
Phippsia of Robert Brown, and Pleuropogon of Robert Brown, belong 
to the natural order Graminew and class Endogens. Eutrema, Par- 
rya, and Platypetalum, all of Robert Brown, belong to the natural 
order Brassicacee, and to the hypogynous division of the class 
Exogens.—Edward Newman. | 


559 


Occurrence of Stereocaulon tomentosum in fruit. 
By W. M. Oertvig, Esq. 


WHILE botanizing with my friend Mr. Gardiner on the South Ferry 
Links, Fifeshire, on Saturday last (5th), among other rarities collected 
was Stereocaulon tomentosum, which we found in various places, in 
considerable abundance. After reaching home and beginning to lay 
out my day’s collection, I found I had got a greater rarity than I an- 
ticipated—some of the Stereocaulon being in fruit. As this is the 
first time, so far as I am aware, in which the fruit has been found in 
Britain, 1 think it worthy of record in the pages of the ‘ Phytologist.’ 

W. M. OGILVIE. 


20, Castle Street, Dundee, 
May 11, 1849. 


A Catalogue of the Plants growing wild in Hampshire, with occa- 
sional Notes and Observations on some of the more remarkable 
Species. By WiLLIAM ARNOLD BromFieE LD, M.D., F.L.S., &c. 


(Continued from page 536). 


Ligustrum vulgare. In woods, thickets, hedges, bushy places, and 
on banks, over a great part of the Isle of Wight, most abundantly. 
Plentiful everywhere about Ryde, and throughout the tertiary or fresh- 
water formation, constituting a considerable proportion of the brush 
or undergrowth of our woods and hedgerows. Profusely in most of 
the chalk districts, rarer on the greensand, and a great ornament 
where it abounds, loading the air on a hot day in June or July with 
the sweet but somewhat cloying fragrance of its beautiful milk-white 
flower-spikes, and decking copse and tufted hedgerow no less in 
autumn with its pyramidal clusters of polished purple-black berries. 
Less universal, I think, in mainland Hants than in the Isle of Wight, 
yet very abundant in many parts of the county, particularly on the 
chalk. Everywhere about Andover and Appleshaw, in plenty. Abun- 
dant in Bordean Hanger. Maindell chalk-pit. Fareham; Mr. W. 
L. Notcutt !!! and many other places. The leaves with us are partially 
persistent, and with various species of Rubus give a welcome tint of 
green to our hedgerows in winter. The long straight shoots of the 
privet, from their toughness and pliability, are used in tying up small 


556 


bundles or faggots of fire wood by the country people; and parties of 
children may often be met, coming from the copses, with their arms 
full of these primitive ligatures, unconscious of the support they are 
giving to the sometimes mere fanciful conjectures of the classical 
etymologist.* 

Fraxinus excelsior. In woods, copses, hedgerows, and hilly pas- 
tures; everywhere common. The “ Fraxinus in sylvis pulcherrima” 
is, next to the elm, the tree which attains to the greatest magnitude, 
as timber, of any indigenous to this island, and is second to none but 
the oak in value. 

Vinca minor. In woods, copses, groves, and on hedge-banks in 
lanes, not uncommon and truly wild in various parts of the county ; 
very rare (in that state) in the Isle of Wight, less unfrequent in a na- 
turalized condition. Truly indigenous and profusely abundant in a 
hilly copse called Bottomground, about half a mile west of Idlecombe 
farm, betwixt Carisbrook and Shorwell (Phytol. i. 328). About St. 
John’s, the Priory, and at Nunwell, naturalized. In a little wood 
near the house lately occupied by Captain Deare, West Cowes; Miss 
G. E. Kilderbee. 1 found it plentifully some years since in a lane 
near Twyford, a few miles from Winton, and in a copse betwixt 
Bramdean and West Meon, 1838. Millam Copse, East Meon, in 
great plenty; Miss G. E. Kilderbee. Langrish; Ead.!!!_ Sinkhorn’s 
Copse, Otterbourne, in great profusion; Miss A. Yonge. On a high 
bank betwixt Petersfield and Nurstead, and in a chalky pasture at 
Privet, near Petersfield, 1848. Hale Down field. Lane betwixt 
Warnford ana West Meon; Miss E. Sibley. Doubtless in innume- 
rable other places, being a plant of decidedly frequent occurence in 
the woods of the south of England, particularly on calcareous soils, 
often found covering the greater part of a large copse with a carpet 
of the deepest verdure, its own lovely flowers interwoven with the 
primrose and wild hyacinth in all the freshness of vernal bloom and 
beauty. A native throughout central Europe, from England east- 
ward to Pojand and Russia. 

{ Vinea major. Half wild on hedge-banks, in garden fences, under 
walls, palings, and about shrubberies, frequent; also in woods, thickets, 
and shady lanes occasionally, always with some, though often but 
obscure, indications of having become naturalized in such stations. 
Margin of the copse wood on the shore a little west of Ryde, but 
sparingly, and only by a made road through the wood, and too near 


* Ligustrum, from ligo, to tie or bind. 


DOT 


the town. Amongst brushwood on a high bank of slipped clay at 
Watch House Point, St. Helens, in great plenty, and fructifying freely ; 
but the place appears to have been a look-out station in former times, 

though now quite wild and abandoned; and I once found a beam or 
rafter, in a state of decay, close to where the plant grows, showing it 
to have been the site of an habitation, about which the Vinca was 
probably planted. Plentiful along a hedge in the by-road from Net- 
tleston Green to Sea View, doubtless escaped from the shrubbery at 
Fairy Hill. In similar places about Norton, Yarmouth, Godshill, 
&c., as well as on the mainland of Hants; not uncommonly. Scarcely 
a native north of latitude 45°, and therefore excluded from nine-tenths 
of the floras of central Kurope; whilst in the remainder, as those of 
Paris and Switzerland, its claim to insertion is not better than with 
ourselves. 

Chlora perfoliata. In woods and pastures, on banks and cliffs by 
the sea; very common in the Isle of Wight, growing both on the 
wettest clay and the driest chalk. Frequent on the banks of slipped 
clay along the shore on both sides of Ryde, and plentiful on the steep 
face of the chalk cliffs at the upper end of Sandown Bay. About 
Luccombe Chine, Shanklin, Ventnor, and indeed along the entire line of 
coast round the island, and equally frequent in the interior, as about 
Carisbrook, Newport, and most other places. Hardly less frequent, 
I believe, on mainland Hants, but I have not paid attention myself 
to its distribution in that part of the county. On Bordean Hill. 
In Maindell chalk-pit; Mr. W. L. Notcutt (in plenty, October, 
1848). Plantation by Wheely Cottage, near Warnford; Rev. E. M. 
Sladen. Selborne; Rev. G. White: probably common over the en- 
tire county. 

The beautiful golden yellow flowers expand only in sunshine or a 
strong light, closing early in the afternoon (about two) for the rest of 
the day, and not opening again till the following morning about eight 
or nine. If a handful of the plant be gathered and placed in water, 
the flowers will continue to open and close at the accustomed hour 
for several successive days; when once shut, exposure to the sun’s 
rays proves insufficient to stimulate them to expand a second time, 
until the usual period of repose has elapsed. The ovary of this plant 
is full of a greenish yellow and very glutinous, but scarcely bitter, 
juice, only found in that particular part; the rest of the herb is very 
bitter, but juiceless. 

Erythrea pulchella. na dry sandy or gravelly fields, pastures, 
and waste places, not unfrequent, though less common than the fol- 


* 


598 


lowing, of which I am much disposed to hold it a variety. About 
Ryde and Cowes, as on Ryde Dover; Mr. Wm. Wilson Saunders !!! 
Above the shore to the west of Yarmouth. At Ryde; Mr. J. Woods 
in Bot. Guide. Freshwater Village; Rev. G. E. Smith. 

Erythrea Centaurium. In dry fields, pastures, woods, and bushy, 
heathy places; very common. About Ryde, in Quarr Copse, &c. 
Woods at Yarmouth, Cowes, Freshwater, &c., plentiful. Common 
throughout the county, in Hayling Island; &c. Occasionally with 
white flowers near Thorley and elsewhere, but not frequent. 

linarifolia (EK. littoralis, Sm.). On sandy shores and 
banks by the sea, but rarely? Alum Bay, betwixt Groves’ Hotel 
and the sea; Dr. Martin! Sea banks near Compton Bay; Mr. W. 
D.Snooke. Headon Hill, within twenty yards of Mr. Ward’s cottage; 
Miss G. E. Kilderbee! but I am dubious if belonging to this species, 
which I confess not to be well acquainted with, and to have hitherto 
neglected examining. All our four kinds of Erythraa, indeed, re- 
semble each other too closely in essential characters to be perfectly 
satisfactory species; and I think much of the differences in habit, 
branching, form of leaves, and relative length of calyx and corolla, 
may be owing to soil and situation. N.B. E. latifolia has been stated 
to me by the Rev. E. M. Sladen to grow on Southsea Common, 
Portsmouth. 

Cicendia filiformis. In damp, sandy, heathy places, by road-sides, 
and in cart ruts in the south-western parts of the county, towards the 
coast; rare. Near Christchurch; Mr. J. Hussey, 1847! In cartruts 
on sandy heaths near Avon Cottage, by Ringwood; Mr. J. Curtis and 
the Hon. C. A. Harris (Icon in Brit. Entom. vol. xiv. t. 628, from a 
Hamps. spec.). I have constantly been expecting to fall in with this 
plant in the Isle of Wight, where on geographical grounds its existence 
might almost be predicted with confidence ; for though it has hitherto 
eluded observation, I am persuaded it will eventually manifest itself, 
one of these fine days, to some lucky explorer of our island; sandy 
heaths, probably towards its north-western extremity, being the nearest 
part to that portion of the opposite coast where it is known to grow. 
A plant so small and slender, and whose flowers open only in bright 
sunshine, may easily escape detection for a long time, yet turn up 
abundantly at last. Cicendia filiformis is very common about Poole, 
in Dorsetshire, and to the eastward of us in St. Leonard’s Forest, Sus- 
sex; the chances are therefore very greatly in favour of its occurrence 
in an intermediate station, to the westward of the last, and enjoying 
an insular position, the species being amongst those most strongly 


‘* 


559 


characteristic of the maritime, southern, and occidental flora of Britain. 

Gentiana Amarella. On dry hilly and chalky pastures and banks, 
in various parts of the Isle of Wight and county, but not very com- 
mon. Plentiful in certain years all around Carisbrook Castle, on the 
hill and in the moat; (profusely on the north-east side of the castle, 
on the turf above the carriage-road, September 14, 1848). In White 
Pit, by Newport, abundantly, and at Binstead, 1839. About Bon- 
church, Swainston, Rowledge, Westover, Yarmouth, Freshwater, and 
on the high downs in most parts of the island, here and there. 
Equally common, I believe, on the mainland of Hants.  Plentiful 
along the crest or ridge of Portsdown Hill, by the road-side east of 
the Nelson monument, October, 1848. Maindell chalk-pit; Mr. W. 
L. Notcutt!!! A variety of this species having the calyx segments 
very unequal, two of them considerably larger and longer than the 
three others, but neither ovate nor concealing the latter as in G. 
campestris, I found, May 31,1841, on the dry chalk down above San- 
down Bay. Some of the lower flowers had the calyx 4-cleft,—in 
these the difference of size in each alternate segment was very con- 
spicnous, the smaller, shorter and inner being linear, the outer and 
larger ovate-lanceolate. 

?Gentiana campestris. On dry, elevated, gravelly or chalky pas- 
tures, and limestone hills. Never seen or met with by me in or from 
the subjoined stations, although a plant extremely likely to grow in 
this county and island. I fear the last species has been mistaken for 
it (possibly the variety just described), on some at least of the alleged 
localities; yet from the great probability of its occurrence, and the 
respectable authority of the reports, I am unwilling to exclude the 
field Gentian from our indigenous list merely because no examples 
have been seen by myself. 1 shall be glad to have these doubts re- 
moved by receiving specimens from some obliging correspondent. 
Heathy pasture between Colwell and Weston (Freshwater parish), 
plentiful; Mr. W. D. Snooke: I have searched for it there in vain. 
My valued and scientific friend Dr. Martin, in his recently-published 
excellent work on the natural history, &c. of the Undercliff, gives 
“Downs above Steephill” as producing this species, which as yet I 
can neither corroborate nor disprove. One or more stations have 
been given me for the mainland, but as being on dubious authority, I 
forbear to quote them here. 

Pneumonanthe. On moist turfy or boggy heaths, but 
rare; not yet found in the Isle of Wight, and apparently confined to 
the south-west or New Forest district of the county, near the borders 


* 


560 


of Dorsetshire. On both sides of the path leading to the decoy pond 
in the New Forest, sparingly, August 3, 1841; Mr. T. B. Flower! 
Near Christchurch, 1847; Mr. James Hussey ! Parley Heath; Mr. 
Curtis in litt., and in Brit. Entom. vi. tab. 281 (drawn from a Hants 
specimen). This very beautiful plant will most likely be found in 
our eastern forest tracts of Bere, Holt, Aldershot, &c. 

Menyanthes trifoliata. In boggy, marshy places, wet or peaty 
meadows, drains, &c., in various parts of the Isle of Wight, but not 
very common. Sparingly in Sandown Level. At Easton Marsh, 
Freshwater Gate, and elsewhere in that parish; on Colwell Heath, 
and near Thorley. Near Alverston Mill, and in Alverston Lynch. 
On Kingston Moors; between West Court and Sandy Way, by Shor- 
well. Boggy meadow in the valley of the Medina, near its source, 
&c. Common in mainland Hants. Very fine and abandant in Win- 
nal water meadows, by Winton. Meadows at Wonston, Bullington, 
Barton Stacey, &c.; Rev. D. Cockelton. Itchen Stoke; Miss L. 
Legge. Andover; Mr. Wm. Whale. Chilbolton, Boarhunt, Forest 
of Bere; Rev. Messrs. Garnier and Poulter in Hamp. Repos. The 
plant may be looked for with tolerable certainty, in full flower, before 
the middle of May in this part of England (see Phytol. iii. 203). 
N.B. Villarsia nympheoides is naturalized in a small pond in a field 
betwixt Ryde and Brading, where it was introduced by my friend Dr. 
Salter, and in which Hydrocharis Morsus-rane and Stratiotes aloides 
are perfectly established, though not indigenous to the island. The 
Villarsia may be reasonably expected in some of the larger rivers and 
still streams of mainland Hants. I have gathered it in Sussex, in 
ditches on Lewes Level; but it is difficult to say where this elegant 
aquatic is truly native or where introduced, so extreme is the facility 
with which it becomes naturalized from the smallest fragment thrown 
into the water, yet is the species one of considerable rarity, and of 
very local distribution in its truly wild state. 

Convolvulus arvensis. In corn-fields, gardens, waste ground, at the 
foot of walls, on hedge-banks, and by way-sides; most universal and 
abundant over the entire county and island. Varies with us in the 
colour of the flowers, which are often nearly two inches across, from 
the deepest and most vivid rose-red or peach-blossom to nearly white, 
mostly with an indented or zig-zag ring of bright crimson a little 
above the very short yellowish tube. Very profuse and richly coloured 
about the sandy cliffs of Sandown Bay, where, as in other places,* 


* Near Hastings, and at Gravesend. 


te 


561 


I have gathered ripe capsules in abundance, not, I believe, very ge- 
nerally perfected. It is certainly a pretty sight to behold the corn- 
fields and road-sides adorned with ten thousand of its beautiful and 
fragrant bells, wide opened and upturned to the midday sun of June 
and July, or festooning some green hedgerow to its topmost branch ; 
but neither its beauty nor delicate almond perfume can find it favour 
in the eyes of the farmer, who too well knows it as a grievous adver- 
sary in his moist corn-fields, twining around the stalks of the wheat, 
and if not strangling the crop, doubling the labour and difficulty of 
getting itin. The flowers wholly or partially close at night, or in 
damp, cloudy, or rainy weather, as well as in the afternoon. I have 
gathered this species at Boston, United States, where it is quite natu- 
ralized, and pretty plentiful on banks about the city; the flowers 
uniformly smaller and paler than is usual in Europe. 

Convolvulus sepium. Everywhere over the island and county, ex- 
tremely common in moist hedges, thickets, and amongst bushes, in 
osier-beds, damp gardens and shrubberies, also trailing over the sea- 
- beach occasionally, with leaves more or less fleshy. Var. 8. Flowers 
pale rose-red or blush colour. In several parts of the Isle of Wight, 
in considerable plenty. On wet slipped land, amongst bushes, above 
the shore a little to the eastward of Old Castle Point, in some abun- 
dance, September, 1840; also in a willow plot betwixt Dean farm 
and Whitwell, and near Roude. Near Newchurch; Dr. T. Bell Sal- 
ter. East bank of the Yar, along the edge of Beckett’s Copse, August 
28, 1845; and with a decidedly rose-coloured limb to the flower, in 
a large willow-bed betwixt Compton and Dunsbury farms, Fresh- 
water, September 24, 1844. Dr. Salter finds the same deeper tinted 
variety near Lymington ; in this island, however, the corolla is rarely 
more than suffused with a faint blush of red, though in some parts of 
England the flowers are found of a deep rose-colour, and I have my- 
self gathered such in Guernsey. A similarly coloured variety appears 
to be the commoner form in America of this widely-diffused species, 
which under the foregoing or following states is indigenous over a 
great part of both hemispheres.* In America the lobes of the leaves 
are often rounded or angular, but not decidedly truncate; the leaves, 
petioles and stems either wholly or partially hairy, and the bracts, I 
think, rather shorter in proportion to the tube of the corolla than in 
the European plant. In this state it is the C. repens of Linneus &c., 


* In North America, New Helland, New Zealand, Western Patagonia (Darwin), 
Java (Choisy). 


WV OG). 101. P 4D 


562 


and which I have gathered abundantly in Georgia, on the banks of 
the Savannah River, May 22, 1847, a little below the city, with both 
white and blush-coloured blossoms, as in the New England states 
and this island; but, excepting in the above particulars, themselves 
by no means constant, I find nothing to distinguish the transatlantic 
from the ordinary European form of C. sepium. My excellent friend 
Dr. Asa Gray, who so ably fills the botanical chair of Harvard Uni- 
versity, ascribes larger flowers to the American variety of C. sepium; 
but though variable in size, the flowers, I think, fully equal with us 
those of any transatlantic specimens I have seen, being often three 
inches in diameter in our damp hedgerows, which the ample, pure 
white corollas copiously adorn from the middle of June till October, 
or even later. Smith and Wahlenberg profess never to have seen the 
capsules, which indeed are not very commonly produced. I have, 
however, gathered them in plenty in many places about Ryde, and 
elsewhere in this island, as well as near Hastings and at Hampstead. 
When growing on banks along the sea-shore, or trailing over the 
pebbly beach, the leaves are commonly somewhat fleshy, and such a 
variety I find in wet inland thickets occasionally in this island, on the 
eastern skirts of Blackpan Common. The flowers of C. sepium, un- 
like those of the last, do not close at night or during rain. I have 
once or twice noticed the corolla to be deeply 5-cleft in this island. 
A similar variety of C. arvensis is recorded by Ray and Sir J. Smith. 
Convolvulus Soldanella. On sandy or shingly sea-beach, both in 
the Isle of Wight and on the mainland. At the lower end of San- 
down Bay, towards Shanklin, but sparingly. In drift sand on St. 
Helens Spit, at its upper or northern extremity, in some abundance, 
the trailing stems sometimes above two feet in length and rather shy 
of flowering. In very great abundance on the sandy spit at Norton, 
opposite Yarmouth, towards its western end, copiously bedecking the 
ground with its large showy flowers, and seeding freely. All along 
the south shore of Hayling Island for three miles, sparingly at its 
east end, becoming more frequent towards its western point. Oppo- 
site Cumberland Fort, where it almost covers the sandy hillocks near 
the Passage House, rampant on the tufts of grass and low herbage, 
and with very large leaves, but apparently not flowering freely on any 
part of this extensive line. Sandy shore at Portsea; Mr. E. Lees in 
New Bot. Guide. The remark of Smith in Engl. Bot., that the 
flowers of this species expand only in fine weather, and in the early 
part of the day, does not accord with:my own carefully repeated 
observations. I find, on the contrary, that neither wet nor the total 


563 


deprivation of light in close tin vessels have any tendency to produce 
collapse of the blossoms, which in their native soil continue expanded 
all day, and if not during the night, which they certainly do when 
taken up, at least till.long after dark. Sir Wm. Hooker has remarked 
the flowers to be fragrant in Jersey. 

Cuscuta europea. Parasitic on various herbaceous plants, in 
hedges, &c., but very rare, at least in the Isle of Wight. On wild 
hops, nettles, and thistles (Carduus arvensis), in a hedge betwixt 
Kerne and Alverston; Dr. T. Bell Salter, 1840!!! Ihave not seen 
it there for some years past. On vetches in a field at Bouldner, near 
Thorley ; Mr. Robert Gibbs, July, 1848!!! Near Lake, Isle of Wight 
(which Lake?); Mr. J. Woods, jun., in Bot. Guide. Near Alton; 
Rev. G. E. Smith! Dr. Lindley (‘ Vegetable Kingdom’) observes 
that dodders do not seem to occur much in the tropics. I found two 
or three species to be very common in Jamaica, and in the island of 
Grenada observed not only shrubs (Rivina, &c.), but trees of various 
kinds and orders (Cerbera, Bignonia, Citrus, &c), twenty or thirty 
feet high, smothered as it were under a gigantic species of Cuscuta 
(not a Cassytha), growing in vast abundance, depending from the 
branches like huge hanks of coloured yarn many feet in length, and 
hiding a great part of-its victims from view in its treacherous snare. 
Epithymum. On furze, thyme, ling, heath and other 
shrubby plants, but principally on the first of these; very common. 
On most of our larger heaths and commons in the Isle of Wight, and 
on the mainland, the low furze bushes may be seen bearing this plant 
like entangled skeins of red or yellow silk, often with a profusion that 
can hardly fail to arrest the attention of the most incurious, as on 
Ningwood Common, between Yarmouth and Shalfleet, Stapler’s 
Heath, by Newport, &c. On Galium saxatile by the road-side over 
Bleak Down, to Newport. So abundant on the furze along the south 
coast of Hayling Island, 1848, as to fill the air with its unpleasant 
odour when a damp wind blew over it. On Shidfield Heath; Miss 
Hawkins. Hursley; Miss L. Legge. 

{? Trifolii, In clover-fields, apparently of recent introduc- 
tion, and happily as yet very rare in the Isle of Wight. Abundantly 
in a clover-field by Thorley Farm, 1842; Mr. R. Gibbs!!! In ano- 
ther field on the same farm, not far from Yarmouth, but on the op- 
posite side of the river,—very sparingly, October 13, 1843; Mr. 
George Gibbs!!! Not, I believe, since remarked in either station. 
The simultaneous appearance of this dodder, a few years back, in va- 
rious parts of England, from the ravages it made amongst clover, 


564 


caused a great sensation amongst agriculturists. Assuredly very 
nearly related to the last species; but the characters have been well 
pointed out by Mr. Babington, and with these my rather poor and 
imperfect specimens, gathered when nearly out of flower and half de- 
stroyed by the sheep, agree very exactly. The evil, like many others, 
proved greater in anticipated than in real magnitude, and now the 
clover dodder is seldom heard of or talked about, having either died 
out of the country, or through the operation of natural causes been 
restrained from becoming injuriously prevalent. Mr. Borrer, I be- 
‘lieve, found this plant in Sussex more than forty years ago, by which 
we may conclude it to be no newly-arrived stranger amongst us, and 
that it would still have passed unnoticed but for the sudden inordinate 
increase, which gave it an unwelcome notoriety. The acotyledonous 
and spiral embryo, scale-like appendages to the corolla, leafless and 
parasitic habit, are surely sufficient characters on which to found the 
natural order of Cuscutacee adopted by Lindley and other eminent 
botanists. 


Ww. A. BROMFIELD. 
Eastmount House, Ryde, Isle of Wight, 
April, 1849. 


(To be continued). 


BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 


Friday, May 4, 1849.— John Reynolds, Esq., Treasurer, in the 
chair. 

The following donations were announced :— 

‘Flora Hertfordiensis, by the Rev. R. H. Webb and the Rev. W. 
H. Coleman ; presented by the authors. ‘Transactions of the Ber- 
wickshire Naturalists’ Club ;) presented by Mr. R. Embleton. ‘ Jour- 
nal and Transactions of the Pharmaceutical Society; presented by 
the Society. ‘ Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society ;’ 
presented by the Society. ‘Agricultural Magazine ;’ presented by 
the editor. 

British plants from Mr. R. Embleton and Mr. T. Kirk. 

Mr. Thomas Moore communicated some remarks on a form of the 
sweet violet (Viola odorata), with mottled pale lilac flowers, found in 
the neighbourhood of Guildford, Surrey. This form was stated to be 


565 


larger and more hairy than the common sweet violets (blue) of the 
same neighbourhood, and showed, besides, the constant difference of 
having its sepals fringed with short hairs or cilia. In respect to this 
latter character, the author stated that in all the white sweet violets 
he had had opportunities of examining, he had found similarly cili- 
ated sepals; whilst in the blue sweet violets, and in another form with 
flowers of a reddish purple hue, he had as uniformly found the sepals 
to be quite entire. From these observations, the author suggested 
that the white sweet violet, usually regarded as a mere variation of 
colour, might perhaps prove a bond fide variety, assuming the blue 
sweet violet with entire sepals to be the typical form of Viola odorata. 
In this view of the relations of the native sweet violets, the white and 
the lilac flowered, fringed-sepalled plants would be considered as 
forms of a variety to which the name ciliata would be appropriate ; 
whilst the blue, entire-sepalled plant would be regarded as the type 
of the species. It was mentioned that the white sweet violet had 
been set up by some botanists as a species distinct from V. odorata. 
Specimens of both forms were exhibited.—G. E. D. 


Notice of ‘A Paper on the Study of Natural History. By W. D. 
Kine. Read at the Mechanics’ Institution at Sudbury, March 
16, 1849. Sudbury: Wright. 1849 


WE never recollect meeting with a paper of this kind that so com- 
pletely fulfilled the conditions required in an address to the Members 
of a Mechanics’ Institution. To assume that the members of such 
an institution are stolidly ignorant of the most commonplace infor- 
mation; to address them as persons of weak intellect; to withhold 
all that is useful, and parade before them only that which is puerile, 
showy, glaring or wonderful: these are errors of every-day occur- 
rence. On the other hand, how often do we not see hired lecturers 
from London touring the provinces, after cramming themselves with 
hard names and high-sounding paragraphs, neither of which they 
comprehend, but which they think are sure to enhance their own re- 
putation, when retailed among those who understand still less! Mr. 
King’s address is perfectly free from both errors: it is extremely sim- 
ple, clear and intelligible, yet full of information. The style is that of 
a true philosopher; of one who is so familiar with knowledge that he 
feels its possession a matter of course: he communicates his infor- 


566 


mation as he would read a chapter in the Bible. The value of the 
matter induces no kind of self-esteem. 

We have often thought how much good might be done by cir- 
culating addresses like this throughout the length and breadth of the 
land. Every Mechanics’ Institution in particular should have a 
copy, to serve as a model for members about to address their neigh- 
bours and friends. 

We select for quotation a botanical passage, to show how agreeable 
and interesting the most common phenomena become when observed 
by appreciating eyes, and recorded by an unassuming and graphic 
describer. 

“In spring our woods and groves are gay with the lovely blue 
hyacinth, and with the varied shades of pink and white of the wild 
anemone; their colours contrasting finely with the pale yellow of the 
primrose, and the brilliant golden stars of the Ficaria. In few dis- 
tricts, perhaps, do the road-sides and field-hedges offer to the eye of 
the traveller a greater variety than our own. Violets, blue and white, 
and of various intermediate shades; the periwinkle, that lovely har- 
binger of spring; the wild endive, with its scraggy branches, and its 
large starry flowers of almost cerulean blue; the Canterbury bell, 
the red and white Lychnis, the everlasting pea, the liquorice vetch, 
the curious leafless yellow vetchling, the borage, that favourite of the 
honey bee, with its bright flowers, as singular in form as beautiful in 
colour; the white, and red, and yellow nettles; the delicate, pendant 
' blue flowers of the harebell, waving with the slightest breeze; and the 
clear white stars of the stitchwort. Nor must we forget a plant which 
ornaments our banks, and greatly attracts the admiration of strangers 
—the viper’s bugloss. The more minute plants are also well worth 
notice. \ In earliest spring, and frequently from amidst the snow, the 
little Draba verna studs our banks, and opens its tiny white flowers. 
It varies greatly in size in different situations ; from five or six inches 
in height to so dwarf-like a form, that its leaves, flower-stalk, and 
flowers would not together exceed perhaps one-third or one-half of 
an inch; and the whole plant, root and all, might rest upon a three- 
penny piece without overspreading its margin. There is also that 
curious ‘little plant, the Adoxa moschatellina, with its slender stalk 
and its crown of five round flowers, placed close together so as to 
form a hollow cube, reminding one of the locking of the warriors’ 
shields of old. Our hedges are garlanded with the wild vine with its 
graceful tendrils, the large white bells of the climbing Convolvulus, 
and with the wild Clematis ; also known by its pretty names of ‘ Vir- 


567 


gin’s bower’ and ‘ Traveller’s joy.’ It is the seed of the latter plant, 
with its silky bunches (so well known to children by the name of ‘Old 
man’s beard’), which so conspicuously decorates our hedges in the 
winter; together with the scarlet berries of the holly, and the bright 
pink of those of the Euonymus or spindle tree, with their curious tri- 
partite markings. Our chalky banks are richly hung with the fra- 
grant wild thyme, and studded with the frail yellow blossoms of the 
cistus, and the crimson tassels of the burnet. Our fields abound with 
the lovely scarlet pheasant’s eye, the watchful pimpernel, closing her 
flowers before rain and when the sun hides his face, the flaunting 
poppy, the cheerful blue-bottle, and the henbit (Zamium ampleai- 
caule), curious fromthe fact that the flowers it bears in spring are 
very dissimilar from its summer and autumn blossoms. The buds of 
this flower are of a beautiful carmine. The pure white blossoms and 
red stems of the Saxifraga granulata ornament our dry pastures, and 
the rarer species of golden saxifrage is found in a brook in one of the 
Cormard lanes. A plant of it is now in bloom amongst some rock- 
work in my garden. The lily of the valley also occurs in our woods. 
Its bells of rich perfume are embosomed in its broad, dark green leaf, 
which contrasts finely with their snowy whiteness. From our youth 
upwards, what pleasing associations have we connected with the name 
of this sweet flower. It seems the embodiment of retiring loveliness, 
and of gentle and modest worth. 

“This neighbourhood is rather rich in those beautiful orchises pe- 
culiar to a chalky soil. We have the bee orchis, that treasure to a 
young botanist! the butterfly orchis, and the green-veined meadow 
one. ‘The fly orchis, which bears a singularly close resemblance to 
the insect after which it is named, is also said to occur here. The 
pyramidal orchis is sometimes found on the dry banks, and the broad- 
leaved in the damp meadows near the town. We have also, I believe, 
as a rarity, the rich clove-scented orchis in pastures near Bulmer. 

“ A relation of mine, anxious for a specimen of the first-mentioned 
of these curious flowers, requested a friend of his, ot a botanist, to 
procure him a bee orchis from a spot where it was known to grow. 
This gentleman searched well and long, and at last thought that be- 
yond all question he had found one, and took out his knife to secure 
the prize; when lo! away flew the bee. Of course he was not pre- 
viously acquainted with the flower, or he would hardly have made 
such a mistake. Still, at a little distance the lower lip of the flower 
does resemble the body of a bee engaged in rifling the interior of the 
blossom, where its head may be supposed to be concealed. 


568 


“ Our meadows present us also with the rare snake-weed (Polygo- 
num Bistorta), the elegant meadow Lychnis, the yellow rattle, and 
the delicate cuckoo-flower; ‘so called,’ as worthy old Gerarde quaintly 
expresses it, ‘ because it flowres when the cuckowe doth begin to sing 
her pleasant notes without stammeringe.’ The margins of our streams 
exhibit beautiful specimens of the water-violet, the rare Cardamine 
amara, the arrow-head, the flowering rush, the yellow Iris, and that 
universal favourite, the exquisite little Forget-me-not. I well re- 
member, in my earlier days of plant-collecting, the delight I felt in 
obtaining, when from home, a specimen of the elegant flowering rush, 
which I then thought a prize indeed; little imagining at the time, 
that our streams offered an abundant supply. The yellow water-lily 
abounds, and the white is not uncommon; and who has seen the 
magnificent flowers and broad floating leaves of the white water-lily, 
and not been struck with its almost oriental splendour? Where, 
amidst the most treasured beauties of the conservatory, shall we find 
so superb a flower? 

“We have on Cornard Mere a good locality for bog plants. Here 
grow some of our greatest favourites; the elegant grass of Parnassus, 
the lovely fringed flowers of the Menyanthes or buckbean, the sweet 
little bog pimpernel, and many other plants not otherwise common in 
this district. Probably the sundew might also be found there, and I 
should be much gratified to hear of the discovery, for it is a very curi- 
ous and interesting plant. Its small, round, reddish leaves are covered 
with glandular hairs, and with globules of a honey-like fluid; and 
in the hot sun they appear to possess an irritability resembling that 
of the sensitive plant, and the Venus’s fly-trap of the tropics; for 
when flies or other small insects, attracted by the sweets, alight upon 
them, they gradually curl up and enclose them in their folds. What 
purpose in the economy of nature is thus fulfilled, it is difficult for us 
to determine ; but we may rest assured that some wise and useful end 
is answered by this curious phenomenon. It is found on Bergholt 
Heath, near Colchester. 

“We must not stay to enter much into a description of the ferns, 
though scarcely yielding in elegance and interest to any division of 
the vegetable world. The lady fern (Athyrium filia-foemina) is per- 
haps the most beautiful. The common brake (Pteris aquilina), a 
section of whose stem, near the root, has been said to represent ‘King 
Charles in the oak,’ is by no means devoid of elegance. ‘The prickly 
fern (Polystichum aculeatum), the male fern (Lastrea filix-mas), and 
the polypody (Polypodium vulgare) are abundant in our hedges; the 


569 


latter, with the underside of its fronds studded with drops of golden 
fructification, adorning the old pollard oaks and willows. The hart’s 
tongue (Scolopendrium vulgare) occurs in some spots in beautiful 
profusion, and its fructification is also exceedingly curious. The 
hard fern (Blechnum boreale) is very abundant in some localities. 
It covers acres of ground in Cornard and Assington woods. That 
beautiful fern the spleenwort (Asplentwm Trichomanes) is found in 
two or three localities near us ; and whether growing on a wall where 
perhaps the length of its fronds scarcely exceeds half an inch, or on 
a shady bank where they attain a length of eight or nine inches, it is 
one of the prettiest of our native species. The black spleenwort 
(A. Adiantum-nigrum) is much more frequent, and is plentiful near 
Bulmer. The rue-leaved spleenwort (4. Ruta-muraria) we have 
only observed in one spot—the wall of a village churchyard about 
three miles from us.* 

“Not the flowers only, but even the leaves of plants afford much 
interest to the attentive observer. They exhibit very great variety in 
form, character, and colour. Amongst our British plants no fewer 
than sixty-nine distinct forms of leaf are recognized; as round, 
oval, pear-shaped, heart-shaped, strap-shaped, spear-shaped, kidney- 
shaped, crescent-shaped, hand-shaped, arrow-shaped, wedge-shaped, 
lyre-shaped, winged, doubly winged, feathered, triply feathered, &c., 
&c. And as to character, some hang on long footstalks, others em- 
brace the stem; some are rough, others smooth, or shining, downy, 
hairy, woolly, prickly, or thorny; beset with minute hooks, or rough 
with poisonous spines: and in colour there is as wide a range, from 
the lightest shades of green and yellow, to the richest tints of the 
darkest crimson. The seed leaves of plants usually vary in shape 
from their general foliage ; and in many species, the lower leaves and 
the stem leaves are of very different form.” K. 


“* The scaly spleenwort (Ceterach officinarum) is not, I believe, a native of this 
part of England. It flourishes on some shaded rockwork in our garden, and we have 
raised young plants from the seed both of this species and of the rarer sea fern (As- 
plenium marinum). 

“There are 1400 species of ferns known to naturalists, of which about 40 species 
are found in the British Isles.” 


VoL. Il. 4 E 


570 


Reply to Mr. C. C. Babington’s Defence, in the Case of the Irish 
Saxifrages. By Hewett C. Watson, Esq. 


Lone usage has pointed out the fitting course to be taken in 
argumentative contests, whatever their object or kind; namely, that 
A, who states the case, shall have the privilege of replying to any op- 
position or defence by B, and that the matter shall then be left to the 
verdict or judgment of third parties. In accordance with this cus- 
tomary privilege, the editor of the ‘Phytologist’ properly allowed 
Mr. Backhouse (who had constituted himself a volunteer-accuser of 
the reviewer “‘C.”) to reply to the defence made by “C.” I claim 
the same customary privilege in reference to Mr. C. C. Babington’s 
defence. 

First. It is idle verbiage in Mr. Babington to contend for the sz/- 
Jiciency of his “series of specimens ;” since the series only sufficed 
to lead him into error. That which led Mr. Andrews to the truth, 
and the whole truth, was the really sufficient series. 

Secondly. I received the letter of April 8th, as mentioned by Mr. 
Babington. What then? The circumstance of Mr. Taylor having 
forgotten that he received a certain paper, stated to have been de- 
livered to him, does not disprove the delivery, and much less can it 
negative my statement of having been “ informed” that such a deli- 
very was made at Cambridge. Nobody said that the paper reached 
Red Lion Court. The most reasonable guess suggests, that it would 
be left in Cambridge, where the botanical editor of the Annals was a 
resident. 

For anything which Mr. Babington has now penned in defence or 
exculpation, the “Case” remains precisely as I stated it in the ‘ Phy- 
tologist’ for May last. Moreover, as it was there explained, the mat- 
ter was not rendered a mere quibbling on or of words. It was strictly 
one of botanical information and botanical claims ;—information con- 
cerning facts which corrected certain published errors in Botany, and 
claims for such facts to be fully and honestly placed before those 
readers of the Annals who had been misinformed. 


Hewett C. Watson. 
Thames Ditton, June 4, 1849. 


O71 


A Catalogue of the Plants growing wild in Hampshire, with ocea- 
sional Notes and Observations on some of the more remarkable 
Species. By WitttAM ARNOLD BromFiELD, M.D., F.L.S., &c. 


(Continued from page 564). 


Cynoglossum officinale. In dry waste and pasture ground, by 
road-sides, and amongst ruins, rubbish, &c., in many parts of the Isle 
of Wight, but not very common. On Ryde Dover occasionally, pro- 
bably now extirpated by building. On the shore beyond Sea View. 
Very common in some parts of the Undercliff, as at Ventnor, Bon- 
church, St. Lawrence. Near Dogkennel and elsewhere, occasionally. 
Apparently frequent over the county. Near Southampton. Abun- 
dant at Lyss, near Petersfield. Plentiful on Langwood Warren, near 
Winton. In Hackwood and Hurstbourne Priors Parks. Plentiful at 
Oakhanger, near Selborne. 

Var. 8. Leaves subglabrous, more or less shining, nearly scentless. 
C. officinale, var. C. subglabrum, Merat. Nouv. Fl. des Env. de Par. 
p. 73. C. officinale, 8. Bert. Fl. Ital. ii. p. 298? (in part at least, ex- 
cluding references to C. sylvaticum of Smith and others). On hedge- 
banks and more shady places than the last. At Bank End, by St. 
Lawrence; and at Eastend, Bonchuch. A slight variety merely of 
the common hounds’tongue, and in some specimens hardly to be dis- 
tinguished from the usual form by the characters just mentioned. 
The fcetor of the plant resides probably in the down of the leaves 
and stem; it is not surprising therefore that the smoother variety 
should be nearly scentless. The true C. sylvaticum of Smith, C. 
montanum, Lam., is a very different thing from the above variety, 
and has been indicated to me as found at Wheely Down, near West 
Meon, by the Rev. EK. M. Sladen, but farther inquiry seems advisable 
before admitting it into the flora of this county, though a plant likely 
enough to grow within our limits.. The rare Asperugo procumbens 
may possibly be found hereafter to inhabit this county, as it is alleged 
to grow in the adjoining ones of Sussex and Dorset, on the authority 
of the ‘ Botanist’s Guide.’ 

{ Borago officinalis. In dry waste places, amongst rubbish, by 
road-sides, on hedgebanks, and in dry pastures; naturalized. Not 
unfrequent in the Isle of Wight, in hedges adjacent to cottage gar- 
dens. At Sandown, Arreton, Yarmouth, &c. On rough pasture 
ground below Little Buddle farm, by Niton, 1843. In 1837 I ob- 


572 


served part of a clover-field at Bonchurch quite blue with it. In si- 
milar places on the mainland of Hants, and equally frequent. Said 
to be originally from the east, a rather indefinite term, but Bertoloni 
appears to regard it as indigenous to the countries around the Medi- 
terranean, and truly wild in Italy. 

tAnchusa sempervirens. In waste places, amongst ruins, by road- 
sides, and on shady hedgebanks in lanes: a very doubtful native of 
this county and island, nor have I ever seen it myself in any situa- 
tion within our limits where it could with propriety be held indige- 
nous. At Niton; Mr. Curtis, who thought it wild there, and has 
figured it in his superb work on British Entomology, from a speci- 
men gathered at that place. Naturalized in the garden of Montpellier 
House, Ventnor. I have gathered it truly wild on weedy banks in 
shady lanes near Plymouth, and in the Channel Islands. All the 
eastern stations I have seen, as near Norwich, &c., look to me pro- 
blematical. 

Lycopsis arvensis. On dry banks, waste ground, and amongst 
corn in light, sandy soils. Not very general in the Isle of Wight, 
and observed principally on the greensand in East Medina. Seen 
frequently about Lake, Sandown, Shanklin, and in the sandy fields 
above Sandown Bay, towards the Culvers. Very common in sandy 
fields about Newchurch and Arreton. Frequent, I presume, over this 
as most other English counties, in similar soils, though I have no 
special memoranda of a plant so generally distributed throughout the 
kingdom to quote for the mainland of Hants. 

Symphytum officinale. By weedy river and ditch-sides, and along 
moist hedges in watery lanes, &c.; frequent in the Isle of Wight and 
county generally. Abundant along the marsh ditches in Sandown 
Level, both with white and purple flowers. By Bow Bridge. At 
Shorwell and Luccombe. Frequent on the moors betwixt Bridge 
and Budbridge, and various other parts of the island. Abundant 
about Winchester, where, as well as in the Isle of Wight, the var. 8. 
S. patens of Sibthorpe is almost equally common. A lovely variety, 
with the flowers of the deepest purple rose-colour, I gathered in a 
wet place below St. Cross, near Winton, May 28; and the same has 
been found at Sandown, in this island, by Mr. Curtis, and figured by 
him in Brit. Entom. iv. tab. 155. Mr. Curtis noticed at the same 
time “specimens with flowers of the richest purple, and others entirely 
green.” ‘The scales in the tube of the corolla are curiously fringed 
with prismatic teeth or points, resembling in form and transparency 
the purest icicles. S. tuberosum may possibly be found in this 


573 


county, as it is the prevailing species in some parts of the north of 
England, and in Scotland, whilst in France their distribution is 
exactly reversed, S. officinale being the ordinary Comfrey of the 
northern departments, and S. tuberosum the more common species in 
the southern and Mediterranean provinces. About Montpellier the 
latter abounds, where I do not remember ever to have remarked the 
former. 

Echium vulgare. In dry sandy or chalky pastures, waste ground, 
the borders of fields, by road-sides, and on old walls, not uncommon, 
but less frequent in the Isle of Wight than on the mainland of Hants. 
On Carisbrook Castle walls. Sandy fields betwixt Alverston and 
Bardwood, and about Queen Bower, frequent. Sandy fields behind 
Colwell Heath, one of which, June 17, 1841, was absolutely blue 
with it, and where at the same time I gathered a variety with flowers 
of a permanent and beautiful rose-colour. About Alum Bay, and in 
numberless other parts of the island. Common about Winchester, 
Andover, &c. Ido not recollect having found this plant with white 
flowers in our county, though not an unusual variety in England, but 
I have gathered a remarkable form of it in Sussex, about Old Shore- 
ham, well known to Mr. Borrer, which, in the deep purple of its 
blossoms, diffuse growth, and broadly elliptical stem-leaves, makes an 
approach to E. violaceum, but wants the oblong root-leaves of that 
plant, not to mention other differences between them. I think I once 
found the same form near Exeter: it seems deserving of further at- 
tention. In the Isle of Wight the Viper’s bugloss is scarcely ob- 
noxious to the farmer, and seldom intrudes upon his grain crops, but 
in the corn-fields of Cambridgeshire the wheat is much infested by 
its presence, and which, with the poppy and larkspur, it often helps to 
make “unhospitably gay.” My worthy friend Dr. Darlington, him- 
self a practical farmer, in whom the utilitarian and the lover of nature 
are happily blended, denounces the Viper’s bugloss as a “ vile foreign 
weed,” and prudently warns his agricultural brethren of Pennsylvania 
against allowing it to gain a footing on their farms, since it has 
already evinced itself a troublesome intruder in certain parts of the 
United States.* When we consider what a number of European 
plants have earned the rights of citizenship in that country, by com- 
plete incorporation with the aboriginal flora, and how few America 
has given us in return for our not always welcome immigrants, the 
comparative immunity of its territory, from the host of injurious 


* Fl. Cest. p. 119, and ‘ Agricultural Botany,’ p. 123. 


574 


weeds that encumber the corn and other tillage lands of one quarter 
of the globe, and severally test the skill and vigilance of the European 
husbandman in their eradication or subjection, naturally excites sur- 
prise and inquiry into its probable cause. I was forcibly struck with 
the relative paucity of corn-field plants, both as regards species and 
even individuals, in that country, compared with their prevalence and 
variety at home; a difference certainly not attributable to better 
farming, but to the fact, I think, that the number of social plants, or 
those endowed with great power of occupancy, is much larger on this 
than on the other side of the Atlantic, which is quite in accordance 
with an observation made long since by Humboldt, that in approach- 
ing the equator, whilst the amount of species increases, the individuals 
of each kind diminish in number, grow farther apart, or in other 
words, become less social or gregarious. 

Pulmonaria angustifolia. In woods, thickets and copses, on hedge- 
banks and along the borders of fields, exclusively on the tertiary or 
freshwater formation, and particularly on damp, or even wet clay soils; 
abundantly over the greater part of the Isle of Wight north of the cen- 
tral chalk range, especially in the eastern part of East Medina, and 
that portion of the western hundred nearest to the latter, occupying 
an area of several thousand acres. Plentiful over the whole of the 
woody country south and west of Ryde, to the Medina and the foot 
of the chalk hills, on and beyond which, on the greensand, galt, &c., 
not a specimen is to be seen. In Quarr Copse, Firestone Copse, 
Whitefield and Combley Woods, Briddlesford and Chillingwood 
Copses, &c., in great plenty. Rarer in West Medina, in consequence 
of the limited area of its favourite formation in that hundred, but plen- 
tiful in and about Parkhurst Forest, and frequent in damp thickets 
and copses along the river between Newport and Cowes. Var. 8. 
Leaves very narrowly lanceolate, Ger. em. p. 808, fig. 3 (bona). Not 
uncommon. Var. y. Flowers white. Rare. In a little copse near 
the Medina, by New Fairlee, near Newport; Mr. George Kirkpatrick!!! 
(The leaves in this variety are extremely narrow). 

On the mainland of Hants the Pulmonaria appears confined to the 
hundred of the New Forest, where the geological features of the coun- 
try accord with those of the opposite shores of the Isle of Wight. 
How far it extends over this district I am at present unable to say, 
but I find it plentiful about Lymington and Boldre, and recorded as 
growing at Holbury in the New Forest, throughout which it is probably 
distributed. I have never seen it or heard of its being found in any 
other than the extreme south-western part of the county, which dif- 


575 


fers considerably in botanical character from the remaining districts, 
as before remarked. The “blue cowslip,” as it is here familiarly 
styled, is one of the earliest of our spring flowers, beginning to blos- 
som with us in March, and continuing in that state till June, but is 
in highest perfection about April or beginning of May. ‘The corolla, 
which is reddish in the bud, first becomes violet, and lastly ultrama- 
rine blue, of intense brilliancy, but fading ere long into dull blue or 
purple. Host, Reichenbach and others have unjustifiably made many 
species out of our P. angustifolia, dependent on the insertion of the 
stamens, which present two modifications of position. Ist, when the 
style is elongated so as to exceed the calyx, the filaments spring 
from the middle of the tube, and are then so shortened as to make 
the anthers appear nearly sessile; 2ndly, in such flowers as have the 
style shorter than the calyx, the filaments are more than doubled in 
length, the anthers then occupy the top of the tube, are no longer 
sessile, and have between them five small tufts of erect, pellucid hairs. 
The same two-fold arrangement of the stamens and difference in the 
length of the style, is common in Primula and other genera of its na- 
tural order, between which (Primulacez) and the present (Boragina- 
cez) there are many strong points of affinity. In one or other of 
these cases, in Primulacez, at least, the anthers are abortive, and it 
is probably so in Pulmonaria, as I find the nuts in general very spar- 
ingly matured, they usually falling away before ripening, and com- 
monly but one or two of the four are perfected in the same flower 
under any circumstances. The length of the stamens relatively to 
that of the tube has no connexion with the dimensions of the latter. 
When the stamens exceed the tube, the filaments are very apparent, 
but when the anthers are situated within and below the mouth of the 
tube, they seem, from the extreme shortness of the filaments, to be 
quite sessile ; in that case the little fascicles of white hairs occupy 
their usual place at the upper margin of the throat. These connivent 
tufts exhibit the rudiments of a valvular structure at their base, and 
doubtless serve the same purpose as the more perfect valves that 
close the mouth of the tube in other Boraginacee, the office of which ° 
can scarcely be to protect the anthers from injury, since these are as 
often above the former as below them.* 

As before remarked, many false species, and even a genus (Bes- 
sera), have been manufactured out of P. angustifolia. Such are P. 


* The plaits at the orifice of the tube in Primula, and the scales which converge 
over that of Samolus, are analogous to these organs in Boraginacee. 


576 


mollis (Curt. Bot. Mag. L. tab. 2422, certainly only a variety, and 
that a very slight one. PP. azurea, of Besser’s ‘Enumeratio Planta- 
rum Volkyniz,’ &c., and of the ‘ Primitiz Flore Galliciz’ (Bessera 
azurea, Schult.), it would be no difficult undertaking to match exactly 
from the Hampshire woods. _Bertoloni in FI. Italica has very judi- 
ciously reduced these and some other supposed species to their true 
station as varieties of P. angustifolia, which presents infinite grada- 
tions in the breadth and narrowness of the leaves, size and intensity 
of colour in the flowers, and in the pale nebulous spots on the foliage, 
which are sometimes very large, confluent, and cover nearly the entire 
disk of the leaf, at other times small, few and distinct, more rarely 
wholly absent. The shortly pedicellate flowers in a terminal leafy 
cluster of about three primary divisions, make the inflorescence in its 
early stage appear capitate, but in more advanced growth it becomes 
spreading and subpaniculate, the clusters a little recurved. The 
root-leaves increase very greatly in size after the flowers are past, and 
are conspicuous the winter through in the damp, clayey woods, but 
give place to fresh ones in the spring. 

{Pulmonaria virginica. In the ruins of an old castle near Netley 
Abbey, far from any house, and apparently wild; Rev. Norton 
Nicholls in Bot. Guide! In a wood through which the road passes, 
about two miles and a half from Newport, Isle of Wight, to Ryde, as 
common as Scilla nutans in our woods; Mr. Griffith in Bot. Guide. 
From the former of these stations I have seen specimens in the Bank- 
sian herbarium, now in the British Museum, but I feel persuaded the 
second is an error, and that it may be easily traced to the authors of 
the ‘ Botanist’s Guide’ inadvertently subjoining the then quite recent 
detection of P. angustifolia in this island by Mr. Griffith in 1804, to 
their announcement of the American species as having been found 
near Southampton. I have nevertheless carefully searched the woods 
betwixt Newport and Ryde on the chance, small as it was, of finding 
that foreign species naturalized therein, seeing it did once occur in 
the county, although in a very suspicious locality. The wood in 
question I imagine to be Combley Great Wood, as through that and 
Firestone Copse the old road between Newport and Ryde appears 
not many years since to have passed. On the present line there is 
no wood through which it can run within the alleged distance of two 
miles and a half from Newport. In the present case there seems to 
be ground for acquitting Mr. Griffith of the commission of a blunder, 
although in other instances he incurs the imputation of being a care- 
less or inaccurate observer. 


577 


?Pulmonaria officinalis. In similar places with the last species, but 
far more rare, if, indeed, it be distinct therefrom ; nor does it seem to 
have been gathered in the subjoined localities subsequently to the 
date of its first discovery in that station, and which itself rests on 
very uncertain authority. Common in Exbury Wood; Mr. Rudge 
in Bot. Guide: but there are strong grounds for suspecting that P. 
angustifolia was the plant intended both in this and the remaining 
stations quoted in that work,* and 1 believe Mr. Borrer has searched 
at Exbury in vain for specimens. The figure in E. B., t. 118, depicts 
a form of P. angustifolia very frequent in the county, with broad, 
ovate, upper stem-leaves ; that given in tab. 1628 of the same work as 
the true angustifolia, is likewise a very common form here, as are also 
figs. 2 and 3 of Gerard’s Em., the latter representing the extreme 
narrow-leaved state of the plant, such as I have often gathered in this 
island, and to which my examples with white flowers likewise belong. 
That there is a Pulmonaria found in various parts of Europe, and 
very common in English gardens, if not wild in some counties, having 
the root-leaves broadly cordate-ovate, and which is the P. officinalis 
of Linneus and others, cannot be doubted; but excepting in the 
greater breadth of the lower leaves I do not know in what it differs 
from P. angustifolia, which last, in some of its broader forms, ap- 
proaches the other pretty closely. 1 confess, however, to having 
never seen a complete amalgamation of both species by an unbroken 
series of connecting links, or such examples as there would be any 
difficulty in referring to one or the other ; and since the geographical 
distribution of the two plants is not quite the same, and the continen- 
tal botanists, who enjoy better opportunities of studying them in a 
native state than we do, are generally agreed in keeping them distinct, 
it is perhaps advisable still so to consider them in the absence of po- 
sitive evidence to the contrary. 

Lithospermum officinale. In woods, copses, on bushy banks and 
in dry stony or waste places, corn-fields, &c., but not very common, 
at least in the Isle of Wight. In Quarr Copse, by Binstead, in the 
pits or hollows (old stone workings), not unfrequent. At Nettlestone 


* That of a wood by Holbury House, in the New Forest, given as if on the au- 
thority of Ray, is in fact due to John Goodyer in Gerard Em., and from reference to 
the figure, is plainly P. angustifolia. Merrett’s station of Kinswood, or rather Kings- 
wood, by Mr. Loggins (Pinax, p. 99), though referring to Gerard’s fignre of P. offici- 
nalis (Herball, p. 808, p. maculosa), is in all likelihood our angustifolia, as these 
plants were then not properly distinguished, and Merrett, who was himself scarcely 
more than a compiler, does not appear to have seen specimens. 


Vor 18k: 4 ¥ 


578 


Point, and along the shore between it and the Priory. Frequent in 
Bloodstone and Eaglehead Copses near Ashey, and elsewhere in the 
island. Near Fontley Mill; Mr. W. L. Notcutt. Probably frequent 
throughout the county, but I have not paid attention to the point as 
yet. 

Lithospermum arvense. In corn-fields and waste ground, very com- 
mon. Often much too abundant amongst corn at Bembridge, Cowes, 
&c., and I presume of equal frequency throughout the county. 

Oss.—L. purpuro-ceruleum, distinguished by its large tubular 
flowers of the most vivid azure, and narrow, very acute leaves, should 
be looked for in chalky woods and thickets. 

Mypsotis palustris. In clear pools and ditches, on the banks of 
streams, and in marshy places; a frequent plant in mainland Hants, 
but singularly uncommon in the Isle of Wight. In a boggy meadow 
by the stream side a little above Calbourne village, or towards Cal- 
bourne Lodge. Margin of a small pool in the Brick-kiln Butt, facing 
Wackland farm house ; the late Mr. Robert Loe, Sept., 1843!!! In 
moist ditches, not uncommon; Mr. W. D. Snooke: but I fancy the 
next species to be the one which Mr. S. had in view, and which is 
often taken for the true forget-me-not. Profusely in various places 
along the stream from Selborne church to Oakhanger and Short 
Heath, enamelling the margin of the limpid brook with its lovely sky- 
blue flowers and herbage of the liveliest green; very fully in flower, 
September 17th, 1848. About Bishopstoke. Wet place by the 
road-side between Boldre Bridge and Passford farm, near Lymington. 
Wallington, Maindell, &c.; Mr. W. L. Notcutt; and in many other 
places. 


repens. In similar places with the last, as likewise in 
moist woods, and far the more common of the two, which are often 
confounded together. Frequent in the Isle of Wight, as in the marsh 
ditches about the Wilderness, abundantly, and elsewhere. A very 
common species in the county generally. 

cespitosa. In ditches and pools, but not very frequent, at 
least in the Isle of Wight. In Sandown marsh ditches, not uncom- 
monly. In a small pool in a field near Coppid Hall, by Havenstreet. 
In one of the cuts or drains at the entrance of the marsh at Easton 
(Freshwater Gate), which was quite filled with it July 18th, 1848. 
Profusely abundant in a pool formed by the stream a little above 
Mottiston Mill. Ditches in the meadows at the bottom of Brading 
marshes; Mr. Wm. Wilson Saunders. I have no mainland station 
at present to record for this species, but I can scarcely suppose it to 


579 


be less frequent there than in the island. Besides the very good 
technical characters, this most distinct species is marked by its pale 
green, watery hue, its smooth, shining, translucent aspect, and ex- 
tremely cxespitose mode of growth, its matted roots and lax inter- 
woven stems, forming tufts of great magnitude and weight in the 
water of the ditch or pond, which it sometimes fills up entirely. 

Myposotis sylvatica. In woods and shady places; very rare? At 
Lyss, near Petersfield; Rev. G. E. Smith! The only example of 
this beautiful species I have seen from the county, which I owe to 
the kindness of its discoverer, is remarkably pubescent all over. It 
will probably be found in other parts of Hants, but it is a much more 
frequent plant in the north than in the south of England. 
arvensis. Common almost everywhere in open fields, fal- 
lows, waste ground, on hedge-banks, and in shady places, groves, &c. 
collina. On wall tops, banks and waste ground in dry, 
sandy soil; very common during spring and early summer in the Isle 
of Wight, and doubtless over the entire county as well. 

versicolor. In like places with the last, as also in moist 
meadows and pastures ; very commonly. 

Solanum nigrum. In waste ground, about houses and farm yards, 
on dunghills, rubbish-heaps, in neglected gardens, and in sandy 
places near the sea; very frequent in the Isle of Wight, and I believe 
over the whole county. At Ryde, on the Dover, &c., frequent. Plen- 
tiful, and very large in some sandy or gravelly pits on the spit below 
St. Helen’s, where, as amongst the sand-hills and on the flat beach 
of the south shore of Hayling Island, it grows in its most truly natu- 
ral and wild state. Common about farm houses and in weedy gar- 
dens in most parts of the island; at Sandown, Bonchurch, Ventnor, 
Cowes, Arreton, Godshill, St. Helen’s, &c. Portchester; Fareham ; 
Mr. W. L. Notcutt. I have remarked it in various places on the 
mainland, but have neglected making notes of a plant so generally 
diffused over the south of England as this. Several varieties, some 
of them perhaps species, occur on the continent of Europe, and which 
will probably be found to inhabit Britain. Of these the most remark- 
able and distinct is that with berries of an orange red, S. miniatum of 
some authors, and a variety with the fruit of a yellowish green when 
mature, is found jn Sussex and other parts of England, and will pro- 
bably be discovered in Hants. I have only found the common black- 
berried form here as yet, which, with some insignificant differences 
in aspect, is widely dispersed over the temperate and warmer parts of 
the globe. The common American form, S. virginianum, differs in no. 


“ey 


580 


respect from the ordinary European state of the species, but I have 
gathered in the West Indies (Trinidad) a variety with a more slender 
habit and smaller flowers and berries than in the English plant, which 
is much used by the negroes as an ingredient in their vegetable soup 
called callaloo, and a similar use is made of S. nigrum by the blacks 
in Africa and in the Mauritius. In this county the garden nightshade 
passes for an active and poisonous plant, and at one time obtained 
some repute in medicine. To judge from its appearance and smell, 
it is the last thing one would choose to make soup of, though in the 
process of stewing it may become as innocent, and I dare say quite 
as palatable, as “nettle brose,” which the author of the useful and 
agreeable ‘ Flora of Forfarshire’ extols as delicious. ‘The flowers of 
S. nigrum, gathered in warm, close weather, occasionally exhale an 
odour of musk as powerfully as do the blossoms of Mimulus moscha- 
tus, as I have myself remarked, but the smell is very transient, ceasing 
in a few moments after it becomes perceptible. 


Wo. A. BROMFIELD. 
Eastmount House, Ryde, Isle of Wight, 


May, 1849. 
[To be continued. | 


On the Wiltshire locality for Lysimachia thyrsiftora. 
By T. B. Fiower, Esq., F.L.S. 


Ir is only within a very recent period that the attention of botanists 
has been more especially directed to the geographical distribution of 
British plants. And since the publication of Mr. Watson’s valuable 
‘Cybele Britannica, together with the many excellent local floras 
and interesting contributions to the pages of the ‘ Phytologist,’ much 
valuable information has been obtained, both as regards the distribu- 
tion and range of species. And although much care has been taken 
of late years to avoid the propagation of error, through the medium 
of these sources, yet occasionally it cannot be prevented; and of 
which the following will afford a striking illustration. Having had, 
for some time past, considerable doubts as to whether Lysimachia 
thyrsiflora could be considered truly indigenous in Wiltshire, there is 
now, | believe, every reason for supposing, from information I have 
been able to collect, that this rare plant has been introduced into the 
county, by the late Mr. Sole, of Bath. Mr. Babington, in his ‘ Flora 
Bathoniensis,’ gives the following station for it:—“ In a marsh to the 


381 


right of the footpath from Wraxhall to the ‘Horse and Jockey.’” 
The Jate Mr. Jelly, in his ‘Flora Bathonica,’ which, from unforeseen 
circumstances, was never published, gives the locality in these words: 
“Sides of the Avon going to Tiverton.” 

Sole, in his ‘ Flora Bathonica,’ written in the year 1782, with an in- 
tention of publishing it, but which his death prevented, writes the 
following :—“ I have not yet had the good luck to find this plant, but 
having had it given me, I have planted it in a low place by the side 
of the Avon, 100 paces below Mr. Brett’s timber-yard—where it 
flourishes very well.” This I make no doubt is the same station al- 
luded to by Jelly, his Flora having been written some years after Mr. 
Sole’s death, and therefore he could not have known of its having been 
planted by Sole in the locality mentioned. The plant has not been 
found in this station for some years. With regard to the Wraxhall 
station, | have more than once been told, by persons who were well 
acquainted with Mr. Sole, that he was frequently in the habit of 
bringing plants into this locality, with a view of introducing them 
into the neighbourhood of Bath: therefore I think we may fairly pre- 
sume that the Lysimachia was planted here also. And what is 
rather singular, it has now disappeared from this locality; not a 
single specimen, as far as I can learn, having been found since 1841. 
These statements, I think, very clearly show that the plant has been 
introduced into the neighbourhood of Bath, and can have no further 
claims to be considered indigenous; and that we should not be too 
hasty in deeming an introduced plant truly wild. 


T. B. FLower. 
Seend, near Melksham, June 14, 1849. 


Notice of ‘A Manual of Botany; being an Introduction to the 
Study of the Structure, Physiology, and Classification of 
Plants”. By Jounx Hutton Batrour, M.D., &c., Professor of 
Medicine and Botany in the University of Edinburgh. 


It would be difficult to point out any instance of more judicious 
appointment to a Botanical Chair, than was made in the choice of 
Dr. Balfour to perform the duties of that office successively in our two 
principal northern universities. In each instance a competition oc- 
curred which excited at the time a lively interest in botanical circles. 
It was a struggle between special qualifications for the responsible 


582 


office of academical instructor on the one side, and on the other side, 
established name and fame in the technical department of botany. 
Undoubtedly a very high compliment was paid to Dr. Balfour in giv- 
ing him the preference over Dr. Walker Arnott, who had acquired for 
himself a forward position among systematic botanists, and also over 
Dr. J. D. Hooker, whose paternal name there were strong grounds 
for believing he would worthily maintain. The compliment of such 
a preference, we repeat, was a high one, by the confidence thus shown 
in the sufficiency of Dr. Balfour’s qualifications; and from all we 
have since heard of Professor Balfour, as botanical instructor, the 
compliment was not more high than it was just and merited. We 
can fortunately express such an opinion now without in any degree 
disparaging the scientific merits of the unsuccessful competitors, whose 
claims to botanical distinction must rest on quite different grounds, 
and on grounds which are not contested with them by the same 
competitor. 

From his present position in‘an university of such well-established 
reputation for scientific lectures, and from the circumstances under 
which he was appointed to the chairs both of Glasgow and Edin- 
burgh, a ‘Manual of Botany’ from the pen of Professor Balfour will 
naturally be looked at with some curiosity and no little interest. The 
impression left on our mind from so much of the work as we have 
been yet enabled to examine, is certainly a favourable one. We do 
not pretend to have read through upwards of six hundred closely- 
printed pages of an elementary publication ; but we have turned over 
many of its pages, and have read portions selected here and there 
through the volume, with attention bestowed and with gratification 
received. We judge it to be a very complete and comprehensive di- 
gest of the subject; one excellently adapted for the use of students 
of medicine, for the assistance of whom, we may suppose, it was pri- 
marily designed. 

Dr. Balfour unites much medical experience, as well as chemical 
and physiological knowledge, with a lively zeal and earnestness in 
the promotion of botanical knowledge. Through this union of the 
needful qualifications in its author, the ‘Manual of Botany’ seems 
likely to prove just the kind of publication most suitable for students 
of medicine, by a judicious selection of the facts and principles, illus- 
trations and explanations, which are best calculated to interest and 
instruct that class of students, without the foolish overloading of their 
memories with matters comparatively useless and irrelevant to their 
own professional objects, sometimes rather unfairly forced on stu- 


583 


dents of medicine, by the non-medical professors of botany. In- 
deed, we should conceive that Balfour’s ‘Manual of Botany,’ with 
Babington’s ‘ Manual of British Botany,’ for the sake of a little prac- 
tice in discriminating genera and species, would together constitute 
almost a sufficient botanical library for those students of medicine, 
and these are the great majority, who seek for a general outline of the 
subject only, and who prudently avoid trespassing too largely on their 
professional time, by attempting to follow up botany as a particular 
pursuit, either during their studies, or in after life when engaged in 
the absorbing duties of professional practice. From such works as 
the Manual now before us, a pretty ample knowledge of botanical 
doctrines and principles may be acquired without much interference 
with the more strictly professional branches of medical science ; and 
perhaps, too, with advantages sufficient to compensate for that degree 
of interference which must inevitably occur from giving up any por- 
tion of time and attention to the learning of a subject which is quite 
of secondary importance in professional education, and of no impor- 
tance in professional practice. We write not in ignorance or unad- 
visedly, in saying that we should carefully avoid employing any phy- 
sician, in his professional capacity, who was very eminent as a 
botanist. And yet we do not the less believe and maintain that aca- 
demical chairs of Botany ought always to be filled by individuals who 
have been educated to medicine. It is not necessary that a teacher 
of botany should be one who is advancing the science by original re- 
search and discovery, or by adding to accumulated stores of knowledge 
on the subject; but it is quite necessary that he should know well 
what has been done and ascertained by others ; and, to our thinking, 
it is so desirable as to be almost a necessity, that he should have been 
brought up as a medical man, whether actually in practice or not so. 

It will not be understood from our preceding and very willing tes- 
timony to the value of the ‘Manual of Botany,’ in its totality asa 
new work, that we do not find some small faults of detail in its pages. 
In some instances, we observe the earlier and therefore less perfect 
views given, instead of the later and more matured views of the same 
author on the same subject. For example, in quoting from Hewett 
Watson, on the subject of types in botanical distribution, the author 
of the Manual should not have copied them from the publication of 
1835 (Remarks &c.) in preference to the later dated one of 1847 
(‘Cybele Britannica’), particularly with the use of the present tense, 
which implies that the arrangement now in use by this writer, is still 
the same as that of 1835. Some of the errors of detail are quite curious, 


584 


as instances of sheer inadvertences escaping the author’s notice both in 
writing and in correcting the press. As an example of these, we may 
refer to page 481, where the familiar Oxalis Acetosella has by some 
mischance got placed in the order of Polygonaceze. Of course these 
trifling blemishes will disappear in a second and revised edition, 
which we shall hope and expect to see shortly. But enough of opi- 
nion, we should wish to let the author explain and illustrate himself, 
by a few extracts, placed before the readers of the ‘ Phytologist.’ 

“In the compilation of this Manual of Botany,” writes the author 
in his preface, “the object has been to give a comprehensive, and, at 
the same time, a condensed view of all departments of the science. 
Attention is directed, first, to the elementary structure of plants, and 
the functions of the simplest tissues, and then to the compound or- 
gans, and the functions which they perform. In the consideration of 
these subjects, the works of Jussieu and Henfrey have served as a 
model. The application of physiology to agriculture, both as regards 
the cultivation of plants and their diseases, is brought under notice ; 
the works of Liebig, Mulder and Johnston having been consulted. 
In the important subject of classification much aid has been derived 
from the standard work of Lindley. The system adopted is that of 
De Candolle, but in the arrangement and definition of the natural 
orders Walker Arnott has been chiefly followed. Many important 
hints have been derived from Henslow’s excellent Syllabus, as well 
as from the systematic work of Endlicher. In detailing the proper- 
ties of plants, care has been taken to notice all those which are im- 
portant in a medical and economical point of view, Christison, Royle, 
Burnett and Lindley supplying valuable data. In the chapter on the 
geographical distribution of plants, a very general view is given of 
the principal facts brought forward by Meyer, Schouw, Humboldt, 
Berghaus, Watson and Forbes; and in Fossil Botany the labours of 
Brongniart, Ansted and Hooker have been made available.” 

“The relation which Botany bears to Medicine,” we are correctly 
told in the author’s ‘Introductory Remarks,’ “has often been mis- 
understood. The medical student is apt to suppose that all he is to 
acquire by his botanical pursuits, is a knowledge of the names and 
orders of medicinal plants. The object of the connexion between 
scientific and mere professional studies is here lost sight of. It ought 
ever to be borne in mind by the medical man, that the use of the col- 
lateral sciences, as they are termed, is not only to give him a great 
amount of general information, which will be of value to him in his 
after career, but to train his mind to that kind of research which is 


585 


essential to the students of medicine, and to impart to it a tone and a 
vigour which will be of the highest moment to his future investiga- 
tions”? so. 2 tw.  .) “Inthe prosecution. of his physiolo- 
gical researches, it is of the highest importance that the medical man 
should be conversant with the phenomena exhibited by plants. For 
no one can be reckoned a scientific physiologist who does not embrace 
within the range of his inquiries all classes of animated beings ; and 
the more extended his views, the more certain and comprehensive 
will be his generalizations.” 

In remarks bearing on ‘cyclosis, the Author writes thus :— “The 
elaborated sap is sometimes clear and transparent, at other times it is 
milky or variously coloured and opaque. By Schultz it has been 
called /atex, and the vessels transmitting it have been denominated 
laticiferous. The latex contains granules which exhibit certain 
movements under the microscope. These were first noticed by 
Schultz, who has written a very elaborate treatise on the subject.” 
haa “ Schultz looks upon the latex as a fluid of vital importance, 
and similar to the blood in animals. His views are opposed by 
Mohl, Tristan, and Treviranus, who consider the latex as a granular 
fluid containing oil, resin, and caoutchouc, which exhibits molecular 
movements only when injury is done to the vessels containing it.” 
sumreatets “The plants in which the movements are best observed, are 
those in which the latex is milky or coloured, such as various species 
of Ficus, Euphorbia, and Chelidonium. In fig. 223 [we cannot ex- 
tract the woodcut here] there is represented a small fragment of a 
leaf of Chelidonium majus (celandine) which shows the currents of 
orange granules in the laticiferous vessels, their direction being indi- 
cated by arrows. From observations made last summer, [ am dis- 
posed to agree with Schultz’s statements. It is true, as Mohl remarks, 
that any injury done to the part examined causes peculiar oscillatory 
movements, which speedily cease. Thus, if the young unexpanded 
sepal of the Celandine is removed from the plant and put under the 
microscope, or if the inner lining of the young stipule of Ficus elas- 
tica be treated in a similar manner, very obvious motion is seen in 
the granular contents of the vessels, and this motion is affected by 
pricking the vessels or by pressure. In order to avoid fallacy, how- 
ever, I applied the microscope to the stipules of Ficus elastica, while 
still attached to the plant and uninjured; and I remarked that, while 
pressure with any blunt object on the stipule caused a marked oscil- 
lation in the vessels showing their continuity, there could, neverthe- 
less, be observed a regular movement from the apex towards the base, 

VOL. 10% 4 G 


586 


independent of external influences, when the stipule was simply al- 
lowed to lie on the field of the microscope without any pressure or 
injury whatever. This movement continued for at least twenty 
minutes during one of the experiments, and I have no doubt might 
have been observed much longer. It is of importance to distinguish 
between those molecular movements which are caused by injury and 
pressure, and those which depend on processes going on in the in- 
terior of the living plant. My experiments are by no means com- 
plete, but they lead at present to the adoption of Schultz’s opinion 
relative to the existence of cyclosis.” 


C. 


BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 


Friday, June 1, 1849.—George Cooper, Esq., in the chair. 

The following donations were announced :— 

A parcel of specimens from the Azores; presented by Thomas Ca- 
rew Hunt, Esq., Her Majesty’s Consul at St. Michael’s. 

Foreign plants from M. Sagot. 

Robert Holland, Esq., of Cirencester; W. M’Ewen, Esq., of Arun- 
del; and T. G. P. Smith, Esq., of Liverpool, were elected members. 

The continuation of Dr. Ayre’s paper ‘On the Botany of Thame, 
Oxfordshire,’ was read.—G. FE. D. 


DUNDEE NATURALISTS’ ASSOCIATION. 


Tuesday, June 5, 1849.—The President in the chair. 

A paper was read by Mr. W. M. Ogilvie, F.B.S., being a botanical 
visit to the Den of Balthayock, Perthshire. Amongst the plants ob- 
served, were Lychnis viscaria, Paris quadrifolia, Cystopteris fragilis, 
and .Ceterach officinarum. Mr. Ogilvie remarked that he had also 
found the Ceterach about five miles further east, in the Den of 
Pitroddie, where it had been pointed out to himself and Mr. Lawson 
by Mr. David Gorrie, of Errol. Anomodon viticulosum, Hypnum 
complanatum, striatum, velutinum, populeum, curvatum, triquetrum, 
alopecurum, and ruscifolium, Pterogonum gracile, Weissia curvi- 
rostra, Trichostomum canescens 8@. ericoides, Bryum crudum and 
ligulatum, Orthotrichum coarctatum, Zygodon Mougeotii, Fissidens 


D987 


taxifolius and adiantoides. Most of these mosses were in fruit. 
Jungermannia furcata, bidentata, and curvifolia in fruit, with a 
number of commoner species. Stereocaulon nanum: Mr. Ogilvie re- 
marked, that this was the third time that this rare lichen had been 
found in Britain, and all at a short distance from Dundee; it having 
been first discovered at West Water, Fifeshire, by Mr. Wm. Gardiner, 
and also in the Den of Airlie, Forfarshire (see ‘ Flora of Forfarshire’). 
Specimens of the various plants illustrative of the paper were ex- 
hibited. 

Two papers were read from Mr. Geo. Lawson, F.B.S., Edinburgh, 
intituled respectively ‘Botanical Rambles around Edinburgh,’ and 
‘Scrambles on Samson’s Ribs and Salisbury Crags.’ The object of 
these papers was to make the members of the Association aware of 
the progress of Flora in the Edinburgh district. 

Mr. Ogilvie also read a short paper on the Oxalis crenata, as to the 
desirableness of its introduction and cultivation in Britain as an 
article of human food. 

Mr. Charles C. Maxwell, Dundee, was elected a fellow.—_W. M. O. 


Remarks on the genus Atriplex. 
By JoserpH Woops, Esgq., F.L.S., &c., &c.* 


PERHAPS it is not wise for a botanist to publish speculations which 
do not arrive at any satisfactory results; yet the sum of our know- 
ledge is made up of so many minute particles, that a person who 
adds a very little to what had previously been observed may afford 
considerable help to future investigators. It is with this view that 
I venture to offer to the Linnean Society a few remarks upon the ge- 
nus Atriplex, which, as far as the English species are concerned, had 
slept in undisturbed repose from the time of Sir J. E. Smith till Ba- 
bington, in his Manual, awoke it to new life and doubt by thei nser- 
tion of several additional species. 

The first of these is A. nitens, a common plant in the east of 
Germany, and reaching as far north as Hamburg. It belongs to a 
division having a mixture of hemaphrodite flowers, producing hori- 
zontal seeds; while the seeds of the female flowers, like those of the 
other divisions, are vertical. The division I believe is sound, but 


* Read before the Linnean Society, April 17, 1849. 


588 


in one specimen of A. littoralis I have found a few horizontal seeds, 
which were probably produced by hermaphrodite florets: such a 
case however is exceedingly rare. M. Moquin-Tandon says that 
the sepals or, as he calls them, bracts of the fertile flowers are altoge- 
ther separate. I do not find this to be the case: they still remain 
slightly united at the base.. Mr. Babington supposes A. nitens to 
have been introduced accidentally at Ryde in the Isle of Wight, the 
only British habitat. 1 do not know if it has ever been cultivated as 
aspinach. ‘This has doubtless been the case with the A. hortensis, 
another species of this division which has not been naturalized in 
England, nor perhaps in Europe. It has not the silvery scales on 
the leaves which characterize the preceding species. The third spe- 
cies of this division found in Europe is the A. vincta, said to be cul- 
tivated about Verona, but according to Willdenow is wild at Venice 
on the shores of the Adriatic; adding however that the native plant 
differs “toto clo” from the cultivated one. Willdenow distinguishes 
this from the two preceding by the toothed sepals of the fruit; Mo- 
quin-Tandon, from hortensis by the leaves glaucous beneath, and the 
lanceolate form of the upper ones, and from nitens by the even, not 
reticulate, sepals. M. Moquin-Tandon puts the Veronese plant 
among those not sufficiently known, and does not notice the Vene- 
tian one. 

The second addition is marina. Linneus in his Mant. 11, gives a 
plant under this name as found in England, and distinguished from 
littoralis by its serrated leaves and small stature. Babington makes 
no mention of the latter peculiarity, but adds that the perigone is 
closed, while in A. littoralis the sepals are spreading. I do not how- 
ever find that the sepals of A. littoralis are usually spreading, except 
that they are often a little turned out at the top. It is acknowledged 
that the serratures of the leaves form not an absolute, but only a 
comparative character, and the species must be considered as doubt- 
ful. I find only A. littoralis in the neighbourhood of Lewes; but, 
marina seems to be plentiful on the banks of the Thames. Moquin- 
Tandon doubts whether littoralis be anything but a variety of A. has- 
tata; a conjecture for which I see no grounds whatever. 

The preceding species offer no peculiar difficulties. Those with no 
hermaphrodite flowers, and a tendency to produce hastate or triangular 
leaves, are not so easily arranged. There are some particulars in the 
fructification which ought to be understood before we proceed to 
their investigation. In the first place, the size of the seeds is not 
uniform, and in some species there are distinctly two forms. Those 


589 


of the smaller calyces are round, slightly depressed, black and 
shining, while those formed in the larger calyces are much larger, 
even so much as to have occasionally three times the diameter of the 
upper seeds, considerably more depressed, of a dark chestnut, and 
though shining, wrinkled or shagreened: intermediate forms more 
rarely occur. The second thing is, that the sepals are at first small 
and smooth, but enlarge with the ripening fruit, and become tubercled 
on the back; while in some species the lower sepals occasionally be- 
come a pair of leaves including several flowers, and in those above 
them, the sepals, though they inclose a seed, still retain more or less 
of a leafy character, and rarely produce any tubercles on the back. 
This is particularly the case with angustifolia. 

The next species I have to mention is A. erecta. Smith admitted 
an A. erecta, but he says it is very rare, while Babington’s plant, in 
one form atleast, is of all Atriplices the most common, and there 
is perhaps hardly a corn-field in the kingdom without it. Smith’s 
character, “calyx of fruit all over armed with sharp tubercles,” is 
softened by Babington into “ perigone of the fruit more or less muri- 
cate on the back.” It is probable that any specimen referred by 
Smith to A. erecta would also be so named by Babington, but certain 
that a great majority of Babington’s plants would have been con- 
sidered by Smith as belonging to angustifolia. I think the two spe- 
cies different, but I should find it difficult to characterize them. 
In the tubercles on the back of the sepals there is no difference be- 
yond that already mentioned, and the lower sepals in erecta also oc- 
casionally become leaf-like. Yet the large leaf-like calyces are rarely 
if ever met with in erecta, and all the largest calyces in angustifolia 
are without tubercles. In the smaller calyces the tubercles seem very 
uncertain in both. In the normal form (but by no means the most 
common form) of A. erecta the central stem is erect, but it is some- 
times so in angustifolia; and again, in the form of erecta which is so 
common in our corn-fields, the stem is usually as prostrate as that of 
any variety of angustifolia except the maritime one. Perhaps the 
spikes are rather more branched in erecta. I have not found in’ 
either any of the large, brown, wrinkled seeds. 

The next species is A. prostrata. The name I believe must be 
changed as having been already applied to a New Holland plant. I 
have never seen a specimen. Babington professes himself but slightly 
acquainted with it. He rests upon the leaves, the calyces (cordato- 
triangular), and the flowers in separate clusters; but his description 
of the spikes is the same as in patula. The lower leaves are hastato- 


590 


iriangular, as distinguished from ovato-hastate, with two horizontally 
spreading lobes; the middle leaves have two ascending lobes from a 
wedge-shaped base, a form extremely common in Atriplex, but not 
described in A. patula: the upper leaves are lanceolate in both. Ba- 
bington suspects it may be a maritime form of patula. “Moquin-Tan- 
don refers it to a variety of his A. hastata corresponding with the A. 
triangularis of Willdenow. Koch considers Babington’s plant as a form 
of A. latifolia, which is his name for the A. patula of Smith. Koch 
quotes also A. oppositifotia of DC., but thinks the prostrata of the 
‘Flore Francaise’ a different plant. Yet Duby quotes the FI. Fr. for 
the prostrata of Bouchier, the author from whom Babington has 
adopted the species. Although Babington suspects it to be a form 
of patula, he describes the seeds as smooth and shining. 

Next comes the patula of Smith, which Babington agrees with that 
author in considering to be the patula of Linnzus also, both I believe 
relying on the herbarium. I confess however that the description of 
the leaves, ‘“ sub-deltoideo-lanceolate,” agrees better with those of 
angustifolia. The A. hastata of Linnzus has been brought back by 
Moquin-Tandon in the ‘ Prodromus’ to this plant, and he adopts the 
name calotheca to the species which has of late years been considered 
as the A. hastata of Linneus. I am disposed to think that he is 
right. The seeds here are described as rough and opaque. The 
lower seeds are indeed finely granulate, but not asper nor hardly sca- 
ber. Ihave never met with dull seeds in this or any other Atriplex, 
but this granulate surface has the effect of producing a degree of 
comparative dulness. 

We next have microsperma of W. & K. This species Koch refers 
with the preceding to his latifolia, from which it is distinguished by 
its smooth and shining seeds, and by the smaller size of the calyx of 
the fruit; according to Babington the leaves are denticulate, but he 
says this also of patula. The form of the sepals varies too much to 
enable us to depend upon a difference between triangular, rhomboid 
and ovato-triangular, and what I have already said of the seeds is 
- sufficient to show that a character drawn from them must be received 
with caution. I am willing to admit as three common species, an- 
gustifolia, with rhomboid leaves, and all the seeds black and smooth ; 
patula, with triangular leaves, and all, or nearly all of the seeds de- 
pressed and wrinkled; and deltoidea, with triangular leaves, and all, 
or neatly all the seeds thick, black and smooth. With microsperma 
I am unacquainted. . 

Next is rosea, and it is here that I am most completely at issue 


591 


with Mr. Babington, and contend that his rosea has nothing to do 
with the rosea of Koch and of Duby. The plant I have gathered for 
rosea in the south of France and east of Germany is a more self-sup- 
porting plant than most of the genus; the lower branches indeed 
spreading, but by no means horizontal and decumbent, as they are in 
patula and angustifolia, and not unfrequently in erecta. The stems 
and branches are of an uniform buff colour, instead of green with re- 
sinous stripes, as in all the preceding species. This seems to me a 
character of great importance among the Atriplices; at least within 
the range of my experience I have not observed it to vary. The ro- 
sea of Babington is generally prostrate. It is perhaps a good species, 
though nearly allied to some of the forms of A. patula. I have some 
suspicion that it is the A. crassifolia of the ‘Prodromus.’ Koch relies 
on the indurated and whitened calyx, and the union of the sepals 
above the middle, for separating rosea and laciniata from the other 
species. Babington drops these characters, and in his plant the ca- 
lyx of the fruit is often as dark as it is in patula. 

I have four forms belonging to the section with buff-coloured stem 
and calyx, which I suspect may be as many species. The first is that 
of our sea-shores, with the fructification very much among the leaves, 
the character which Koch gives as distinguishing rosea. The second 
has long spikes, the upper part of which is naked, the leaves hardly 
occurring above the branches. This, from the description, I suppose 
to be the laciniata of Koch and others. The third is the self-sup- 
porting plant already mentioned. I take it to be rosea of Koch and 
of Duby, as it certainly is Reichenbach’s notion of the alba of 
Scopoli, usually attributed to rosea. In all these the calyx is nearly 
square, and more or less tubercled on the back. In the fourth, 
which occurs with the preceding in the south of France, the calyx 
spreads from a campanulate base, and is usually without tubercles. I 
cannot with any confidence apply names to these from preceding au- 
thors. The first is certainly the English laciniata, and I think also 
identical with the one authentic specimen of the Linnean herbarium; 
but Linnzus says the stem is erect and the leaves deltoid, which can 
hardly be said of our plant. The second appears, as I have already 
said, to be the laciniata of Koch and Deby, and I believe of all mo- 
dern continental botanists. Perhaps also it may be that of Linneus. 
In both these the fruit is often stalked. The third is, I apprehend, 
the rosea of Duby and of Koch, but there is in the south of France 
an intermediate form with naked spikes, the lower leaves of which are 
hastate and deeply sinuate, while the upper are lanceolate and linear, 


992 


and nearly or quite entire. In what I have supposed to be laciniata 
the leaves are rather ovate or deltoid, and all nearly similar. The fourth 
seems to have been hitherto unnoticed; and if it should prove distinct 
from the second, I would call it campanulata. But the form of the 
sepals varies so much in these plants that I dare not place much re- 
liance on it. 

The seeds in all the plants of this set are similar, brown, com- 
pressed, and of a waxy surface. 

I will conclude with a few observations on the sepals of the fertile 
flowers, for I cannot help thinking that more extended and more 


1 2 3 4 5 6 


Sepals of Atriplex as specified below. 


exact observations will at length show some definite limits to the va- 
riations in their forms, and enable us to make more use of them in the 
specific characters. There is a continued, though not indeed a very 
regular progress from ovate to hastate or triangular, to rhombic, to a 
square placed diagonally, and thence to campanulate, a slightly waving 
line on the two sides of the square or rhomb forming an easy transition 
to campanulate with an extended termination. In the figures on the 


593 


preceding page (all of which are to a double scale), 1, 2 and 3 are 
from littoralis; 4, 5 and 6 from angustifolia; 7 and 8 from erecta; 9 
and 10 belong to patula; and 11 is from a dwarf and imperfect speci- 
men in Mr. Borrer’s collection, gathered at Sidlesham, near Chiches- 
ter (perhaps also patula); 12 and 13 are from the rosea of Babington, 
the first from Newhaven, the second brought by Mr. Lingwood from 
Havre; 14 belongs to what I consider as the rosea of Koch, but I 
must confess that the leafiness of the spike is not in it a strongly 
marked character; 15 and 16, from Toulouse, are taken from the 
plant I have mentioned as intermediate; 17 and 18 from the pros- 
trate form of the laciniata of continental botanists, with all the leaves 
nearly similar,—they were collected at Arles; 19, 20 and 21, from 
Kent, belong to our laciniata. If this name should be ultimately at- 
tached to the continental plant, perhaps the English one might be 
called arenaria, from its usual habitat. It seems to occur in the west 
of France and in Portugal. ‘The three last belong to what I have 
proposed to call campanulata: the two first from Toulouse, the last 
from Arles. JosEpH Woops. 


A Catalogue of the Plants growing wild in Hampshire, with occa- 
stonal Notes and Observations on some of the more remarkable 
Species. By WitiiaM ARNOLD BromrieEp, M.D., F.L.S., &c. 


(Continued from page 580). 


Solanum Dulcamara. In woods, thickets and hedges, especially 
such as are rather moist, by river-sides, and in watery, bushy places, 
also on the sandy or pebbly sea-beach; extremely common through- 
out the island and county. Var. 8. Stem and leaves downy. S. 
Dulcamara, 8. tomentosum, Koch, Syn. Fl. Germ. S. littorale, Raab. 
Nearly as common a form in this island as @., but variable in the de- 
gree of pubescence. On the Dover, and elsewhere about Ryde, &c. 
Var. y. Stems much branched, diffuse or prostrate, not scandent, and, 
as well as the somewhat fleshy leaves and very angular branches, 
downy and almost hispid, with spreading or partly curved hairs. S. 
lignosum seu Dulcamara marina, Ray, Syn. ed. Dillen. p. 205? S. 
Dulcamara, y. marinum, Bab. Man. p. 224. On the sea-beach. In 
loose sand of the shore at the Priory, betwixt Ryde‘and St. Helen’s. 
Southsea beach, Portsmouth. In my specimens the leaves are all 
auricled, and the plant scarcely differs from var. 8., except in not 
being climbing. Var. ¢. Flowers white. Rare. Ina street at Ryde; 

Vor: 111. AH 


594 


Mr. Dawson Turner (ex Snooke, Fl. Vect.) Sandown Bay, and be- 
twixt Calborne and Brixton; Mr. G. Kirkpatrick. I think I have 
seen it on banks of wet slipped land in Whitecliff Bay, in this island. 

Atropa Belladonna. In woods, thickets and waste shady places, 
along fences, amongst ruins, and on the sea-beach, but not common 
in the county, and extremely rare in the Isle of Wight, if not quite 
extinct there. Near Knighton House, under the palings near the 
gardener’s cottage, in considerable plenty ; Mrs. Charles (now Lady) 
Brenton. The plant which was found by Lady B. several years ago 
is now quite extinct at Knighton, but a coloured sketch made by her 
from a living specimen at the time, removes all doubt of any mistake 
as to the species.* It has never occurred to myself in the Isle of 
Wight since the above account was received, and alterations made 
on the premises, or perhaps a knowledge of its dangerous qualities, 
may have caused its extirpation in the only known station at Knigh- 
ton. In various places along the shore between Southampton and 
Netley, on the shingly beach, and under palings and banks. Near 
Warnford; Rev. E. M. Sladen. Old Park Wood (West Meon ?) and 
Warnford; Miss L. Sibley. King’s House, Winton. Road-sides at 
Otterbourne, abundant (still?); Rev. Messrs. Garnier and Poulter in 
Hamp. Repos. In very great abundance in several parts of Long- 
wood Warren, where it was first indicated to me by my very zealous 
friend Miss G. E. Kilderbee!!!_ As this place possesses peculiar fea- 
tures, and abounds with a vegetation of a character in keeping with 
its own wild and dreary aspect, a short account of it may be interest- 
ing. Longwood Warren constitutes a tract of elevated ground, the 
centre of which is about three miles south-east of Winchester in a 
direct line, and swarms with rabbits noted in the market for their su- 
perior flavour.t Part of the warren has been enclosed from time to 
time and converted into arable, but a great deal yet remains in a state 
of nature, and could never probably be brought under profitable cul- 
tivation. The soil to me appears to be diluvial, and to consist prin- 
cipally of coarse sand or gravel, and pebbles, with I think a mixture 
of comminuted chalk ; in most places parched and arid in the extreme, 


* The common woody nightshade of our hedges (S. Dulcamara) is often called 
deadly nightshade by the uninformed, and being supposed the genuine plant of that 
name, has unjustly attributed to it all the virulent properties which belong only to 
the latter. 

+ Miss L. Legge, of Hinton Ampner, informs me that these animals devour the 
leaves of the Atropa with avidity, and strip the plants of their foliage as high as they 
can reach up the stem to browze upon it. 


595 


and sinking down under the feet as if compressible, in other parts 
spongy and overgrown with moss and lichens, but nowhere wet, 
marshy or boggy. The surface is in some places bare as the sea- 
beach, but for the most part is overspread with a scanty covering of 
plants, amongst which Sedum acre is from its abundance especially 
conspicuous. Two nearly parallel curved valleys, with gently sloping 
sides formed by the undulating ridges of the down, traverse the war- 
ren in a direction about north and south for perhaps a mile in length, 
and like the rest of the tract are perfectly destitute of trees, but stud- 
ded with patches of stunted thorn and elder, like oases in the general 
wilderness around. Shade there is none but what these bushes afford, 
and the verdure when approached is anything but tempting to repose 
amidst the lurid vegetation of this valley of Hinnom. All the fetid, 
acrid, venomous and unsightly plants that Britain produces seem con- 
gregated on this blighted spot, a witch’s garden of malevolent and 
deadly herbs, ready for gathering into her cauldron, which for aught 
I know may be nightly simmering and seething in this lone spot, as 
fitting a rendezvous for the powers of darkness on Hallowmas-eve, as 
their favourite Blocksberg in the Hartz forest, for a Walpurgisnacht 
commemoration. Beneath and around the clumps of ragged moss- 
grown elder and hoary stunted whitethorn, the first in some respects 
itself a “ plant of power,” meet shelter for the noxious brood it gathers 
about it, rise thickets of tall nettles and rank hemlock, concealing the 
deadly but alluring dwale,* the fat dull henbane, the gorgeous fox- 
glove of life-depressing faculty, the rampant nightshade, gifted with 
fatal energy in popular imaginings, and one atleast of an uncertain 
and treacherous race, if free itself from the stain of bloodguiltiness ; 
whilst scattered over the thriftless soil appear the black mullein (Ver- 
bascum nigrum) with its lurid leaves, the caustic and grotesque wake- 
robin, the stinking black horehound (Ballota nigra), and the drastic 
mandrake (Bryonia dioica, sic Vecticé dicta), which trails its gray- 
green cucumber-like shoots in singular abundance over the naked and 
stony surface.t The smell on a hot summer’s day from such a mul- 
titude of ill-favoured weeds as these, and more which might be men- 
tioned, is far from refreshing, and quite overpowers the fragrant 


* Dwale I imagine to come from the Dutch dwalen, to err or go astray,—or more 
immediately perhaps from the obsolete verb to dwaule, to be delirious; the loss of 
sense and reason being the most prominent symptom induced by this poison. Mr. 
Gardiner (‘Flora of Forfarshire’) tells us that the fruit is called in Scotland “ daft- 
berries” on the like account; “ the insane root, that takes the reason prisoner.” 

+ A decoction of the roots of the Bryony is employed by our cattle leeches in 


596 


honeysuckle, the only sweet and innocent thing that lives to throw a 
charm over what is else but dead, dreary and baleful. The Atropa 
will be found in great plenty not only in these valleys, but on the bor- 
ders of the warren in various other places, rising to great bushy 
plants, and loaded in July and August with their fatal but too enti- 
cing berries. Were Longwood Warren less secluded and nearer to 
Winchester, the extirpation of this virulent plant would be a matter 
of public necessity, for the avoiding of accidents to children or igno- 
rant persons. 

The Peruvian Nicandra physaloides is occasionally met with in 
this island, partially naturalized, in and about gardens and by road- 
sides, but occurs too seldom, and is not sufficiently persistent where 
found, to entitle it even to an alien’s place in the Hampshire flora. 
The common European winter-cherry (Physalis Alkekengi), the near 
ally of this and Atropa, is more likely to be found native or naturalized 
in the south of England, since it grows truly wild in the north of 
France, Germany and Belgium, under our latitudes, although scarcely 
so far to the westward as any part of Britain, and not in the vicinity 
of the sea-coast. It is, however, recorded in the Dillenian edition of 
Ray’s Synopsis as having formerly been found at Stockport, in 
Cheshire. 

Hyoscyamus niger. On dry waste ground, pastures, village greens, 
by road-sides, especially near towns and on calcareous soils, also 
along the sea-beach and on the high downs; tolerably frequent over 
the entire county and Isle of Wight. Frequent on waste ground, in 
farm-yards, old chalk-pits, and about houses in very many places of 
the island; in more truly natural stations on the sea-shore of Thorness 
Bay, East Cowes, and other parts of its coast, as also on the top of 
the high chalk downs, not uncommonly. Shores of Stoke’s Bay. 
Frequent on Longwood Warren. Andover; Mr. Whale. Stubbing- 
ton; Mr. W. L. Notcutt. 

{Datura Stramonium. By road-sides, in waste and cultivated 
ground, about towns, on dunghills, and in newly turned-up soil of 
fields, gardens or building lots, here and there sporadically, and 
scarcely persistent long together in any one spot. In various parts 
of the Isle of Wight, but by no means common, and chiefly confined 
to garden ground, coming up amongst potatoes &c., and in most cases 


some diseases of sheep; and I was told by the Rev. C. Hardy, of South Hayling, that 
a root was dug up a year or two ago in the island of that name, which weighed 
47 tbs. 


597 


originating probably from prior cultivation of the plant as a popular 
remedy for asthma, for which purpose it is commonly preserved in 
rustic gardens. It used formerly to be found sparingly on Ryde Do- 
ver, but has not been seen there for many years, the progress of im- 
provement having effected the destruction of this and many other 
plants which flourished on that spot before it was so much built over. 
In a lane at the north-east end of Godshill; Mr. W. D. Snooke, from 
whom I learn that it was common there some years ago, but I cannot 
find it now. A weed in the garden of the Shanklin Hotel, and in 
garden ground at Niton and Godshill, spontaneous. In Northwood 
Park, near the circular reservoir, on ground formerly a garden, a good 
many plants, and more disposed to spread itself than I have remarked 
here in general, September 21, 1844. Ido not remember having no- 
ticed it in mainland Hants, nor has it been indicated to me by any 
of my county correspondents; there can, however, be little doubt that 
it occurs under similar conditions across the Solent to those in which 
it is found on this side of the water, and perhaps more frequently, as 
being a plant of decidedly eastern and continental distribution in 
central Europe. In Britain it seems to be more frequent and less 
fugacious in the eastern counties of England, and to become rare or 
extinct towards the western coast, but our summers are not warm 
enough for its free dispersion by seed, which is hardly to be regretted, 
for the thornapple is a troublesome and noxious cumberer of the 
ground in countries more congenial to its propagation. In Hungary 
I have seen it lining the road-sides for miles, and growing beneath 
the windows of the villagers in rank exuberance. In the middle and 
southern states of America, as at New York, Philadelphia and 
Charleston, the plots of ground left vacant for building upon are 
often covered by a little forest of Datura Stramonium, and its purple 
variety D. Tatula, which last I have never met with spontaneous in 
England, but have occasionally seen it in gardens. That they are 
only varieties I have convinced myself by tracing them through every 
intermediate shade betwixt blue and white. It is now, I believe, ge- 
nerally conceded that the thornapple is of Asiatic, not American ori- 
gin, as indeed its latinized generic name Datura, of Arabic derivation, 
goes very far to prove, besides that the species was known before the 
discoveries of Columbus. There seems ground, however, for believing 
that in common with some other plants it was indigenous to the 
warmer parts of both continents, and that a nearly allied species, if 
not the same with the Stramonium, has been known in Mexico from 
the time of Cortes. 


598 


Verbascum Thapsus. In woods, hedges, dry pastures, by road- 
sides, on banks, wall-tops, and amongst ruins ; common in most parts 
of the Isle of Wight and mainland Hants, most abundantly where the 
soil is calcareous, and often of gigantic growth (six or seven feet 
high). Var. 6. Leaves less downy, bracts longer than the calyx. In 
a little lane between Brading Down and the lane leading from Adge- 
ton to Morton; Dr. T. Bell Salter!! Dr. S. thought this might be 
the V. thapsiforme of Schrader (Monogr. Verb. p. 21), but that spe- 
cies is unknown to me except by description, and the only specimen 
I saw gathered by Dr. S. was not in a condition to enable me to de- 
cide on its identity with Schrader’s plant, nor was more than one ex- 
ample found in the station above given.* Very common on declivities 
of the chalk downs, at their highest elevation. From the texture of 
the leaves known here sometimes as the “ flannel plant.” In Canada 
and the more northern parts of the United States the great mullein is 
quite an agricultural nuisance, overrunning such tillage lands as are 
left in lay or not kept properly weeded. With us it keeps pretty 
much within its legitimate boundaries, and its appearance occa- 
sionally in the corn-field may be regarded as purely accidental. 

Lychnitis. By road-sides, in waste places, and on 
hedge-banks, &c.; very rare in Hants. Hambledon; Rev. Messrs. 
Garnier and Poulter in Hamp. Repos. My friend George Kirkpatrick, 
Esq., believes he once found either this or V. pulverulentum (V. floc- 
cosum, W. and K.) ona rubbish-heap by a limekiln near Carisbrook, 
most probably the former, as the more generally diffused species in 
England, but I have not seen specimens as yet from any part of this 
island or county. The latter plant (V. floccosum) has found its way 
into the catalogue of Hampshire plants, on the authority of Mr. 
Pamplin (see Watson’s ‘New Botanist’s Guide,’ Supplement), as 
growing about Old Alresford, but on inquiry of Mr. P. that gentleman 
has no recollection of having met with it there, and cannot account 
for its communication to the work referred to, nor has Mr. Forder, 
who resides at Old Alresford, ever fallen in with it in his neighbour- 
hood, although a plant too singular in its appearance to be overlooked 
even by a tyro in Botany, did it really exist there. In Britain it is 
of pre-eminently oriental distribution, and almost exclusively confined 
to the two easternmost counties of England—Norfolk and Suffolk, 
where, as about Norwich and Bury, I have seen it in great plenty by 


* This is most likely the V. bracteatum of Agardh, and of Presl; an apparently 
rare and very little known species or variety. 


599 


road-sides and in old pastures. The only recorded Scottish station 
in the Den of Cullen appears to me a most improbable one to be cor- 
rect, and 1 think has not been confirmed by any botanist since the 
time of George Don. When repeating the experiment some years.ago 
in Suffolk, of striking the plant to produce the falling away of the 
corollas through their irritable contraction, I accidentally inhaled a 
quantity of the loose flocculent tomentum, which gives the entire 
plant the appearance of being powdered with flour, and experienced 
very unpleasant sensations of heat and constriction in the throat and 
chest for several hours afterwards, accompanied by cough and de- 
fluxion from the mucous membrane of the nostrils, threatening in- 
flammation of the respiratory organs. 

Verbascum nigrum. In similar places with the two foregoing spe- 
cies, but very rare, or at least extremely local in the Isle of Wight. 
Near Arreton and Merston; Mr. W. D. Snooke!!! — I find it in seve- 
ral places about Arreton, but more especially abundant along the 
hedge-banks of two fields on either side of the road from thence to 
Merston, near the foot of St. George’s Down. Very sparingly by Al- 
verston farm, near Newchurch, at the extremity of the Lynch.* Near 
Ryde; Miss Roberts! but I have never seen it near this town myself. 
Plentiful enough in various parts of mainland Hants, particularly on 
the chalk. It abounds for miles all around Winchester, and occurs. 
profusely in some parts of Longwood Warren. Plentiful betwixt Pe- 
tersfield and West Meon, and about Bordean Hill, Oakhanger. A 
stately ornament to the road-sides and in the shady green lanes about 
Clanfield, which it adorns in great plenty with its long wand-like. 
spikes of thickly clustered flowers, varying from deep golden to palish 
yellow, relieved by the dark verdure of its broad root-leaves.  Fare- 
ham churchyard and Maindell; Mr. W. L. Notcutt. Belgrave Lane, 
Andover; Mr. Wm. Whale. It is remarkable that the only Isle of 
Wight stations for this plant are on the greensand, whilst across the 
water it evinces its usual predilection for the chalk formation above 
all others. 

Blattaria. Onchalky, gravelly or clayey banks, pas- 
tures, and by road-sides; a very uncommon plant in the Isle of 
Wight, if not over the whole county, in a truly wild state; not so un- 
frequent in a dubiously indigenous or certainly naturalized condition. 

* Lynch is a name appiied to several woods in the Isle of Wight, but I do not 
know the precise force and limitation of the term. The British word for a grove is 


said to be diwyn; perhaps that and the modern provincialism may have a common 
origin. 


600 


Found by me ten years ago in a retired lane leading from Gauson’s, 
or Gaskin’s Barn towards Carisbrook, with yellow flowers, and I 
think certaintly wild. I have also gathered the normal yellow- 
flowered variety near Southampton, but the locality has escaped my 
recollection. Var. 8. Flowers white, copper-coloured at the back. 
Not very uncommon, but usually in suspicious places near houses or 
gardens, being in fact that form of the moth mullein oftenest seen 
with us in cultivation. I have picked it occasionally on the Dover 
near Ryde Castle, and in Binstead churchyard; in both places the 
outcast of gardens. I have received it as apparently wild from 
Swainston, and from near Fern Hill, by the late Mr. J. Tayler,* but I 
fear only escaped from gardens in both localities. A plant by the road- 
side betwixt Haslar and Clay Hill, by Gosport, 1848. I have seen 
it elsewhere in the island and on the mainland of Hants, but never, I 
think, where it could be deemed truly indigenous. The species is 
pretty widely spread over England, although rarely, I believe, abun- 
dant anywhere, and in the western counties is associated with, or 
partly replaced by V. virgatum, a species not very likely to occur in 
Hampshire. Andover; Mr. Wm. Whale—(wild ?). 

_ Orobanche rapum (O. major, Sm. &c.; not it is said of Linneus). 
On heaths and in bushy places where furze and broom abound, on 
the roots of which shrubs it is partially parasitic ; rare, at least in the 
Isle of Wight. On Briddlesford Heath and parts adjacent, on the 
roots of the furze, not unfrequent ; first noticed by Mr. Borrer during 
an excursion I made with him in 1840!!! Near Lynn farm, ona bank, 
aspecimen or two, 1843. Amongst broom and furze on an extensive 
piece of heathy ground betwixt Quarr Abbey and Ninham it occurs in 
great plenty, and I believe annually so; first found there May 30, 
1845. In full flower, and very tall, with many of the lower flowers 
quite faded, May 28, 1846. In greater abundance this year than I 
ever remarked it in former seasons. ll these stations are in East 
Medina and in the neighbourhood of Ryde; I have not yet found it 
in West Medina, nor have I any certain station to record for it in 
mainland Hants, although I cannot suppose it to be wanting or even 
very rare in that part of the county. I feel pretty confident of having 
found it a few years back at Embley, the seat of Edward Nightingale, 
Esq., near Romsey, but at that time I made no register of any but 
Isle of Wight plants. Last year many specimens of a tall Orobanche 
were found in a clover-field, in their neighbourhood, by the Misses 
Sibley, of Hall Place, near West Meon, which I saw in a somewhat 


* The family of that name in Ryde spell their name as above, with an e, not with an 0. 


601 


withered condition, and ascertained not to be O. elatior, although the 
specimens had not quite the usual aspect of O. rapum, with which 
they otherwise agreed in character, as far as could be seen in that 
state. A similar tall plant of the genus I also remarked last year, 
_ from the top of the coach that runs from the Andover Road Station to 
Andover, likewise in a clover-field, but had not the means of getting 
at the only specimen seen. 

Orobanche elatior. On the roots of Centaurea Scabiosa and of red 
clover (Trifolium pratense)? very rare? Found at Anglesey, near 
Gosport, as I learn from Miss L. Minchin, who assured me she had 
it on the authority of a gentleman who knew plants well.  Alver- 
stoke: found either by Dr. Pulteney, or by the authors of the cata- 
logue of Hants plants in the ‘ Hampshire Repository,’ so often quoted 
in these notes. Some carelessness of mine in copying oyt the notice 
of this last station, which must be very near the former, prevents me 
from giving the authority with more exactness, and since I have seen 
no indigenous examples of O. elatior, its occurrence as a Hampshire 
plant needs confirmation, the more so as other species of the genus 
are liable to be mistaken for it. I have great reason to think, how- 
ever, that it was once observed by me in a clover-field south of Caris- 
brook, some years before I began collecting materials for the island 
flora, and therefore suffered to pass without due examination and re- 
cord of the fact.* 

Hedere (O. barbata, Bab. in E. B. &c.; not of Poiret). 
At the roots of ivy in damp woods, on rocks, walls and shady banks, 
chiefly, if not exclusively, confined to the back of the island, but there 
very frequent. At Eastend, Luccombe. Common at Bonchurch, 


* Since this paragraph was written, on recurring to my MSS. I find amongst my 
early notes (1837) the following entry :—‘‘ Orobanche elatior ? I found a clover-field 
at the end of Dark Lane, near Carisbrook, quite overrun with it, August 6th. Un- 
fortunately, and at this distance of time unaccountably, I neglected examining the 
species farther, which leaves it doubtful whether the plants after all might not have 
been merely tall individuals of O. minor, but that species was then quite familiar to 
me, and is noted as having been gathered abundantly by Godshill the day before. 
Since writing the above, and on examining a bundle of plants collected in the island 
five or six years back, I found a single specimen of an Orobanche having the charac- 
ters of O. elatior, namely, the stamens glabrous above, but glandular-hairy on their 
lower and dilated part, yet without any label attached recording the place or date of 
collecting. I have little doubt, however, but that the specimen was gathered in the 
above locality, and after drying laid aside and forgotten. It is certainly not O. mi- 
nor, and it possesses neither the characters nor aspect of O. major (O. rapum). 
August 22, 1843.” : 


Von. It. Af 


602 


and on banks at Ventnor.* Abundant about Steephill, in the grounds 
&c. In Pelham Woods, and generally throughout the Undercliff in 
moist shady places, and on the ledges of the rocks that shut in that 
romantic district to the northward. I think I have seen it in Quarr 
Copse, near Binstead, and in the Pricry grounds to the westward of 
Ryde, but finding no entry made of its occurrence beyond the limits 
of the Undercliff, I am probably mistaken in these habitats. Assuredly 
too near O. minor in character to be satisfactory, and as a variety of 
that species I had long deemed it. Latterly, however, I have inclined 
to a different opinion, and am now disposed to consider it with Mr. 
Babington as quite distinct. Considerations founded on geographical 
distribution have principally led to this change of opinion. O. He- 
derz is quite a southern, maritime, and western plant, and is one of 
those species that indicate with us the point of transition from the 
oriental to the occidental type of vegetation. O. minor, on the other 
hand, is as much an inland as maritime species, and its distribution 
tends rather to the eastern than to the western side of the kingdom in 
England, whilst it is apparently wanting in Ireland, where O. Hederz 
grows not unfrequently.t I am not aware of any station for this spe- 
cies in the interior of the county or Isle of Wight, where the clover- 
fields are overrun with O. minor as a pernicious agricultural weed, 
nor have I ever seen it along any part of the coast even of mainland 
Hants. The two species differ considerably in aspect, which I think 
may be fairly adduced as collateral, though not primary evidence of 
their distinctness. O. Hederz is a slenderer plant in general than 
O. minor, the stems of a deeper purple, and often two, three, four or 
more from the same swollen base, which very rarely happens in O. 
minor, in which the stems are almost always solitary, or at most two 
or three from the same caudex. The flowers in O. Heder are usually 
fewer, and always more distant than in O. minor, besides other diffe- 
rences, such as the shape of the stigma, which it is needless here to 
advance as arguments for their separation. The figure of O. Hedere 
in E. B. Supplement, tab. 2859, is admirable, as is the accompanying 
description by Mr. Babington, who gives this species as perennial 
without a sign of doubt in the Manual, which the occasional remains 
of former stems and its habit of growing in clumps seem to confirm. 


* The progress of building has gone far to diminish its frequency of late years at 
these two places. 

+ All the stations given fer O. minor in Mackay’s ‘ Flora Hibernica’ evidently 
belong to O. Hedere. 


603 


These vestiges of decayed stems must not always be supposed the 
production of the preceding year, unless found on the plant early in’ 
the season, for this species begins to flower in June, and the individual 
stems quickly spring up and perish, when they are succeeded by others 
till August, or even now and then later. The perennial nature of O. 
Hedere, if once indisputably established, would be decisive in favour 
of its distinctness from O. minor, which latter is unquestionably, I 
think, of much more ephemeral duration.* 

Orobanche minor. Parasitic on a variety of plants belonging to 
very different natural orders, but far most frequently at the roots of 
clover (Trifolium pratense) in natural and artificial grass-fields. In- 
comparably the most abundant species of the genus in this island and 
county, infesting our clover-fields so universally and extensively as to 
come under the head of an agricultural nuisance. It would, I think, 
be difficult to find a field of clover in the Isle of Wight absolutely 
without a specimen of O. minor upon it, and too often it makes its 
appearance by hundreds, nay, thousands, on a clover piece of a few 
acres in extent. Hence it is superfluous to give localities for a plant 
which is equally plentiful in every part of the island in turn, whatever 
the soil may be, whether chalk, sand or clay, but which at the same 
time is permanent in no station, and abounds more in some years than 
in others. Our farmers are not aware of the damage their clover sus- 
tains from this plant, from ignorance of its parasitic attachment, and 
because it never, I believe, destroys the crop like the clover dodder 
(Cuscuta Trifolii, Bab.), but only weakens and stunts the plants with 
which the tuberous base of the stem is in subterranean connexion.f 
The evil not being of very glaring magnitude, and the cause unknown 
and unsuspected, the Orobanche of the clover is allowed to spring up 
unchecked, and to overrun a whole field, when its eradication by hand 
might be accomplished with ease before it has had time to multiply 
inordinately by seed. The broomrapes grow with almost mushroom 
rapidity, and this one in particular shoots up in a quick succession of 
individuals the summer through, till quite into autumn, and has as 
much the look of an annual as the last has of being perennial in du- 
ration. There can be little doubt that the seeds remain dormant in 


* The Orobanche alluded to by Curtis in ‘ Flora Londinensis,’ as growing on 
walls in Pembrokeshire, is most likely the O. Hedere. 

+ I have never seen any of these singular parasites visibly connected with a large 
and healthy specimen of the species of plant to which they severally attach themselves, 
but have always found their victim a poor, stunted, flowerless thing, sometimes hardly 
discernable above ground. 


604 


the soil till the land comes again in rotation to be laid down in clo- 
ver, when they vegetate, and a crop of young broomrapes springs into 
existence, which if pulled up by hand as they come into flower, would 
have no chance of spreading about the field that season, and if thus 
carefully weeded out for a year or two might be got rid of altogether. 
O. minor sometimes makes its appearance with us in pots of green- 
house plants; Mr. G. E. Smith and myself have remarked it on Pe- 
largonium, and the former has seen it on Angelica Archangelica in a 
garden. Several plants on Apargia (Oporinia) autumnalis on a bank 
close to Morton Farm, between Brading and Sandown, July, 1843. 
On Plantago Coronopus by the cliffs above Sandown Bay; Mr. J. A. 
Hankey, June, 1843!!! Var. 8. Herb pale, yellow or amber-coloured. 
Clover-field by Lee farm, near Shanklin. Var. y. Flowers pure white 
or nearly so. Ina field near Garrett's, by Newport, in plenty, June 
16, 1846. In many of the specimens here gathered the flowers were 
milk-white, more commonly, however, somewhat tinctured with the 
ordinary purplish colour. Probably common on mainland Hants. 
West Meon; Miss E. Sibley. In a field near Appleshaw. Near 
Andover, 1848. Clover-field near Monument Lane; Mr. W. L. Not- 
cutt. In all the specimens of this plant that I have examined, and 
they are very numerous, the stamens are thickly clothed with hairs at 
the base on their inner or anterior surface, as Smith also remarks. 
Orobanche Picridis. On Picris hieracioides; very rare? Ob- 
served by myself growing abundantly on the plant just named, July 
9th, 1844, upon a ledge of the Freshwater cliffs called by the cliffs- 
men Rose Hall Green, but supposed to be only O. minor at the time. 
Since then the same plant has been found in Cambridgeshire, by the 
Rev. W. W. Newbould, and determined to be the O. Picridis of 
Schultz. A careful comparison of my Isle of Wight plant with the 
excellent figure and description in the fourth volume of the ‘ Supple- 
ment to English Botany,’ proves it to be identical with the Cam- 
bridgeshire plant in the minutest particular; close proximity of the 
sea, and consequently the saline atmosphere in which it grows, not 
having effected the smallest change in its appearance and structure. 
I visited Rose Hall Green* again this season, at the latter end of June, 


* The cliffs between Freshwater Gate westward to the Needles, which rise a stu- 
pendous rampart of chalk to somewhat above 600 feet, have the uniformity of their 
otherwise perpendicular face broken occasionally by sloping ledges or terraces, at va- 
rious elevations, and by banks of debris accumulated at their base through the falling 
every winter of vast fragments of the chalk rock, split off by the joint agency of rain 
and frost. Few of these ledges are accessible to any but the cliffsmen, but some can 


605 


and found the Orobanche in very great abundance all over its surface, 
exclusively on the Picris. Many of the plants were then quite out of 
flower, and others only coming into blow; some of the stems were 
two feet in height, many only a few inches, sometimes very stout and 
thick, at other times comparatively slender, without reference to their 
elevation. This species comes too close to O. minor not to excite 
great suspicion that they may be forms of one plant, but when closely 
examined, the characters, though of the slightest kind, and such as 
would hardly be admitted as valid in any other genus, do seem by 
their reproduction in different countries and climates of Europe, to 
stamp the Orobanche Picridis with the semblance at least of specific 
permanency. Mr. Babington justly observes it has a different look 
from O. minor and O. amethystea; the latter I know nothing of prac- 
tically, but can bear testimony to the truth of the remark as regards 


be approached from a boat, and to one or two a tolerably safe but dizzy path conduets 
the adventurous explorer from the summit of the cliff. These ledges are the fields 
from which the cliffsmen reap their annual harvest of samphire, which here flourishes 
in prodigious quantity, and they support besides a luxuriant vegetation, curiously made 
up of maritime and inland species that grow promiscuously together. The larger of 
these hanging gardens of Nature's planting, the cliffsmen designate “ greens,” and 
the smaller (I think) “ meads,”—each having its appropriate name, as Pepper’s mead, 
&e. Rose Hall Green is one of the most extensive of the greens, and can only be 
approached from the water, and in calm weather, as the surf caused by the almost 
constant swell is very heavy on the rocks when there is any wind. A scramble of a 
few minutes over the huge chalk blocks, and up the steep bank of débris by the 
Wedge Rock, brings you on the green, which is thickly clothed with a vegetation si- 
milar to that which covers all the rest, and consisting of that staple commodity, sam- 
phire, immense tufts of Beta maritima, and quantities of a sturdy- looking species or 
variety of Daucus (D. hispidus?), with prodigiously thick and hispid stems, very broad 
hairy leaves, and great hemispherical, and even perfectly globose umbels; a gigantic 
form of Hieracium Pilosella (var. peleterianum?), with short stolons and lanceolate 
leaves, densely clothed with long shaggy hairs above, snow-white and tomentose un- 
derneath ; Parietaria officinalis, which is here seen in its most truly native state, and 
in profuse luxuriance ; Picris hieracioides, with its parasite burden, Halimus portula- 
coides, Sinapis nigra, and (very lately found not far from this spot by Mr. Albert Ham- 
brogh) Raphanus maritimus—another most interesting addition to our island flora, 
already so rich in rare and curious plants. Various species or forms of Atriplex, is 
meria vulgaris, Anthyllis vulneraria (var. A. maritima, Schweig), Frankenia levis, 
Hippocrepis comosa, a maritime variety of Lotus corniculatus, &c., &c. are amongst 
the prevailing species on these magnificent bulwarks of our acuitien line of coast. 
The influence of the sea air in giving bulk and obesity to many of the plants inhabit- 
ing these shelves of the chalk cliffs is very remarkable, whilst in others it induces no 
change of structure or appearance whatever. 


606 


the former. The very pale, cream-coloured or even milk-white 
flowers are not discriminative of O. Picridis, being found, as before 
remarked, in O. minor occasionally ; but the greater curvature of the 
corolla, at its posterior extremity, in O. minor, even in the upper 
flowers, before the swelling of the ovary could possibly influence the 
degree of flexion, seems a good distinction, though a mark not very 
available in description, since one of comparison merely. I cannot 
say that I perceive the difference Mr. Babington speaks of in the form 
of the sepals, which varies extremely in both these species, but so far 
as I have yet examined the two together, the sepals of O. Picridis are 
much longer than in O. minor, fully equalling, or even a little exceed- 
ing the entire length of the perfectly expanded corolla, whereas in O. 
minor the sepals do not reach beyond the tube of the corolla, which 
is, I think, also smaller than in the O. Picridis. The want of the 
notch or sinus in the upper lip of the latter is a nice character, about 
which it is not always very easy to satisfy oneself, for this part of the 
corolla is folded anteriorly in the centre, so as to have all the appear- 
ance of being two-lobed, and a shallow emargination does appear to 
me often to exist, which emargination is itself very variable in degree 
on the flowers of O. minor. Again, I find, both on a former and re- 
cent examination, that in this island the stamens of O. minor are 
quite as hairy at their base within, as are those of our new plant— 
that is to say, very villous in each species. In O. minor the style is 
with us as it should be, very nearly glabrous, and that of O. Picridis 
hairy (mostly in front) along its whole length, and towards the sum- 
mit all around its circumference, but as if to nullify the value of this 
apparently good distinction, the careful and accurate Bertoloni, whose 
description of O. Picridis is excellent, writes, “Stylus quoque gla- 
berrimus!” Without by any means intending to affirm that O. minor 
and O. Picridis are varieties of the same plant, I cannot help believ- 
ing that the European species of this genus have been greatly over- 
multiplied, and that for want of better discriminating marks we have 
been content to adopt for characters in framing our specific formulas, 
one of the most confessedly variable conditions of vegetable organi- 
zations, the smoothness or hairiness of particular parts. A tolerable 
degree of constancy in this respect amongst the real or pretended 
species of Orobanche, affords plausible argument for the derivation of 
distinctive characters from attributes thought usually too mutable to 
be relied on in most other cases. Bertoloni himself {one not much 
addicted to “splitting’’) describes thirty Orobanches in Italy,* yet 


* Fl]. Ital., vol. vi. 


607 


merges O. Heder with O. minor, retaining O. Picridis as a species. 
To my perception the first of these has as good a claim to be held 
distinct as the last from O. minor, not so much from the excellence 
and stability of its technical characters as from its geographical dis- 
tribution and apparently perennial duration, as well as from a certain 
difference of aspect, which may, however, be produced from local pe- 
culiarities, such as shade and moisture. The capsules and seeds of 
the various Orobanches appear to have received little or no attention, 
and as far as my own observations have gone, which are restricted to 
a very few of the commoner species chiefly, they are remarkably 
uniform in size, shape and colour: still I think characters might be 
discovered in these organs, if not in all, at least in some of the spe- 
cies, which might help to settle their distinctive pretensions on a 
firmer footing than they are at present. 

Orobanche cerulea, Vill.? Parasitic on Achillwa Millefolium, in 
pastures and on banks and borders of fields, but very rare. First no- 
ticed by the authors of the catalogue of Hants plants in the ‘ Hamp- 
shire Repository,’ as growing at Steephill, in this island, but I am not 
aware that it has occurred since in that locality. , Field near the cliff 
opposite the barracks on Royal Heath, between Sandown and Lake; 
Mr. J. E. Winterbottom, July, 1841! Ina sandy field just beyond 
Royal Heath, on the foot-way to Shanklin; Miss Phillips, July, 
1845 !! On the grassy edge of the cliff at the north end of Sandown 
Bay; Mr. J. A. Hankey, June 21, 1843!!! (several times gathered 
there since, by myself). A specimen found betwixt Lake and Shank- 
lin, by Dr. T. Bell Salter, in August, 1843; and in June, 1845, the 
same acute botanist picked another example at Bordwood (a little 
more inland than the foregoing stations), the largest specimen I have 
yet seen, being upwards of sixteen inches high, with three or four 
stout branches from the bottom of the stem. In a pasture field (par- 
sonage glebe) adjoining the rectory at Yaverland, sparingly, August 3, 
1843. In particular seasons a good many plants of this species come 
up in that field, and along the grassy verge of the cliffs by the path- 
way leading upwards to the summit of Whitecliff Bay, but are ex- 
tremely capricious and uncertain in their appearance. No other part 
of the island, save this narrow strip of greensand along the coast 
line of Kast Medina, from Yaverland to Steephill, has hitherto yielded 
this curious, well-characterised and beautiful Orobanche, but it may 
fairly be expected to occur on the same formation along the south- 
west shore line of sandy cliffs betwixt Blackgang and Freshwater. I 
have never seen it but on diminutive, starveling specimens of the 


608 


common yarrow or milfoil—doubtless so depauperated through its in- 
sidious attachment. Near Alton, Hants, June 29, 1621; Goodyer in 
Gerarde em., p. 228. By the earlier English botanists this species 
was apt to be confounded with a leafless orchidaceous plant—the Li- 
modorum abortivum of Swartz (Orchis abortiva, Z.), not hitherto 
detected in England, but perhaps from its geographical range in the 
north of France and Belgium, no improbable addition at some future 
time to the British Flora. Goodyer’s description, however, leaves no 
room to doubt that our Orobanche cerulea was the plant found by 
him near Alton, and not the Limodorum. In particular he notices the 
want of a tuberous enlargement at the base of the under-ground por- 
tion of the caudex, in which this differs from all our remaining British 
species. His words are,—“ The lower part of the stalk within the 
ground is not round like Orobanche (O. rapum), but slender or long, 
and of a yellowish white colour, with many small brittle roots growing 
underneath confusedly, wrapped or folded together like those of the 
common Nidus-avis (Neottia Nidus-avis).”. He goes on to say,— 
“The whole plant as it appeareth above ground, both stalkes, leaves, 
and floures, is of agyiolet or deepe purple colour. This I found in 
the corner of a field called Marborne, neere Habridge in Haliborn, a 
mile from a towne called Alton in Hampshire, being the land of one 
William Balden. In this place also groweth wilde the thistle called 
Corona fratrum” (Carduus eriophorus). The freshly opened flowers 
are of a beautiful deep amethyst blue, but quickly become dingy, and 
the stem has somewhat of a metallic lustre, with an appearance like 
that of partially rusted iron which has been lightly rubbed over in 
places with blacklead. I do not see how our plant can be the O. 
cerulea of Villars, in which that author expressly tells us the bracts 
are solitary,* unless perhaps he overlooked the two lateral and inner 
ones, which are very narrow, and much smaller than the middle and 
outer bract. But his rather meager description is not in other re- 
spects applicable to our English O. cerulea, for although the specific 
character of “caule simplici basi bulbosa,” may be construed to signify 
the simple enlargement of the base of the stem, as it occurs with us, 
the latter cannot be said to be “ garnie d’un oignon sphérique,” since, 
as we have shown above, the absence of a decidedly tuberous ex- 
tremity to the caudex is a character of our plant, not found, so far as 
I know, in other British species,t I may here add, that the flower- 

* Hist. des Plantes de Dauph. ii. p. 406. 

+ In very many of the specimens I have examined the caudex is enlarged, not at 


the extremity, but a little above it, and wholly or partly below the surface, into a fusi- 
form shape. 


609 


ing time of our various Orobanches begins earlier than the period as- 
signed in the books; O. rapum is in Hants a May flowerer, and none 
of our other species are later than the middle of June before begin- 
ning to blossom. 

N.B.—Orobanche ramosa has found its way (in print at least) into 
the Hants flora, and if hemp was ever cultivated to any extent in the 
county, this, its peculiar parasite, may well be supposed to have oc- 
curred amongst it. But the O. ramosa, @. of the old ‘ Botanist’s Guide,’ 
is, as has been clearly shown by Sutton (Linn. Trans. iv. p. 180), the 
O. flore minore of Ray’s Synopsis (Dillenian edition) or our O. minor, 
confounded by Hudson as a variety with the true O. ramosa, in the 
second edition of the ‘ Flora Anglica,’ the genuine O. minor not hav- 
ing at that time been recognized as a distinct species, or indeed much 
known to the botanists of the day. To the possession of the true O. 
ramosa of Linneus as a species indigenous to Hampshire, we can at 
present advance no claim. 


Wm. A. BROMFIELD. 
Eastmount, Ryde, Isle of Wight, 
July 7, 1849. 


(To be continued.) 


[The reader will please make the following corrections in Dr. 
Bromfield’s last communication :— 

Page 573, line 26, for “ unhospitably,” read “ unprofitably.” 

Page 576, Pulmonaria virginica should have been printed as a foot- 
note. Line 3, for “ Volkyniz,” read “‘ Volhyniz.” 

Page 577, line 13, for “ Gerard’s Em.,” read “ Gerarde em.” 

Page 578, line 9, for “ purpuro-ceruleum,” read “ purpureo ceru- 
leum.” 

I wish distinctly to state that the above are typographical errors, 
and were corrected in Dr. Bromfield’s proof, which unfortunately ar- 
rived after the sheets were printed.—E. N.] 


VoL. Itt. 4 K 


BoTANICAL SocreTy oF Lonpon, 


Friday, July 6, 1849.— KE. Doubleday, Esq., V.P., in the chair, 
which was afterwards taken by J. Miers, Esq., V.P., F.R.S. 

Mr. Jasper W. Rogers read a paper on the Use and Properties of 
Peat Moss, and the value of Peat Charcoal as a disinfectant and ferti- 
lizer. The object of. the paper was to show the useful purposes into 
which the bogs of Ireland could be converted by the extraction of 
peat from them for its conversion into charcoal. The charcoal ex- 
tracted from the Irish peat was far preferable to wood charcoal, and 
one of its greatest advantages was the effect it had as a disinfecting 
and dedorizing agent. Wood charcoal had not that property to 
nearly such an extent. It was, therefore, singular now, when there 
was so much excitement about sanatory matters, that an agent so 
powerful should have been so much overlooked. It was also valuable 
as being a powerful absorbant, as it would absorb about 80 per cent. 
of water, and keep it for the benefit of the soil which might surround 
it; while it took up the greater portion of the obnoxious gases inherent 
in night soil and sewage matter, and thereby did away with any bad 
effect which might result from them. It, therefore, was capable of 
being converted into a manure of the greatest value,—the proportions 
being two-thirds of night soil to one-third of charcoal. It was im- 
possible to find a better manure for the food of plants; for, containing 
as it did a large quantity of carbon, it exhaled the ammonia and the 
salt which were in the night soil, did not allow them to escape, but 
treasured them up, and in due time gave them out for the sustenance 
of the plants placed under its influence. No better agent could be 
found for improving the sanatory condition of the metropolis. Were 
a proper system observed by means of this agent, the sewage matter 
of London could be converted into a source of great profit ; while the 
bad effects arising from the effluvia which emanated from such mat- 
ter would be got rid of. According to a calculation he had made, the 
matter so produced by a family of six, would, in the course of a year, 
if subjected to the influence of this agent, yield £30 per annum; and 
supposing the cost of the charcoal, and other expenses, to amount to 
£15, which they could not exceed, there would still be a clear profit 
of £15 yearly. That might be doubted, but it was a fact, which he 
had ascertained after the most careful consideration; and he had 
further ascertained, that were all the houses in London which were 
rented at upwards of £10 to adopt that system, they would earn a 


611 


profit of £15 per house, or three millions of money per annum. In 
order to do that, they would have to collect the refuse from all these 
houses into one great cesspool, and then apply the agent he alluded 
to; and were that done, it would be the best means of clearing the 
metropolis of that nuisance which now so much affected the health of 
its inhabitants; for as matters now were, who could stand for an in- 
stant in the vicinity of one of those gratings in the street without 
being sensibly affected by the effluvia which proceeded from it? Af- 
ter some illustrations in proof of his statements, Mr. Rogers concluded 
his paper by stating that he was about to give the public a proof of 
the truth of his theory, by erecting an establishment for the purpose 
of carrying it out. He did not see the smallest difficulty there could 
be in carrying it out in the metropolis. At the present time, their 
ashes were collected for the benefit of the parish in which they re- 
spectively resided ; and why should they not give up the other refuse 
matter in like manner to the parish, upon a proper understanding ? 
It was true no experiment had been as yet made on a large scale, in 
order to test the truth of his theory, but the reason was, that charcoal 
could not be obtained on a large scale. He had been requested by 
the Guardians of the Poor at Macclesfield, some weeks ago, to try 
the experiment on a nuisance there; and although the charcoal was 
of a very bad description, the peat having been obtained from a 
neighbouring moss, it had been eminently successful, and he had no 
doubt would be so in every case. 

Mr. J. Toulmin Smith said, while he did not deny the efficiency of 
the agent spoken of by Mr. Rogers, he was a strong advocate for the 
use of liquid manure, as after long practical experience he had found 
it best suited for the purposes of vegetation. | On his own premises, 
he had a tank, into which the whole of the excretions were conveyed 
from the house, and which he pumped out and applied for garden 
purposes in its liquid state, and he had always found it answer well. 

Mr. Rogers conceived that Mr. Smith resided in the country. 

Mr. T. Smith: At Highgate. 

My. Rogers: Well, your system might do well at Highgate; but 
how was a man to carry it out in the heart of London? There was 
no doubt that liquid manure was valuable, but the moment it was 
pumped out of the tank, and came in contact with the air, that mo- 
ment the ammonia passed from it, and was lost; but when mixed 
with charcoal, the moment the ammonia came in contact with the 
charcoal it was fixed, the charcoal acting as a reservoir for it, and 
giving it out to the plant when it was required. 


612 


Mr. T. Smith said, into his tank a large quantity of water was run, 
and this he conceived was the best agent for mixing the refuse mat- 
ter, and he thought it would also be the best agent for carrying away 
the refase of London. 

Mr. Rogers admitted water to be good enough in its way, but when 
a drop of it fell on one of those particles of charcoal it was retained, 
and given out as nourishment to vegetation in due time; whereas, if 
they poured water on the ground, and a bright sunshine was to follow 
it, it was all absorbed by the atmosphere, and vegetation got no be- 
nefit from it. 

Mr. Edwin Chadwick said he came there rather to gain informa- 
tion, than to make any remarks of his own. He admitted that there 
were cases where the agent referred to could be applied with propriety, 
as he had heard of sugar casks being returned to the West Indies 
filled with manure disinfected by such a process as that to which their 
attention was now drawn. He did not, however, think that as re- 
garded London the system could be brought into practical applica- 
tion. The liquid manure he considered was quite sufficient for 
agricultural purposes. It was easy of transmission, and was now 
sent a considerable way into the country at a cheap rate, so that he 
saw no reason for a change; at the same time, he did not discourage 
such investigations as the present, as the more facts they could 
bring together on so important a subject, the better. 

Several other gentlemen spoke upon the subject, alluding to its 
great interest; when Mr. Rogers sat down amidst much applause. 

Thanks were voted to Mr. Rogers for his valuable communication, 
which was deemed worthy of the most serious consideration of the 
inhabitants of London. 


DUNDEE NATURALISTS’ ASSOCIATION. 


July 3, 1849.—The President im the chair. 

A paper was read from Mr. David Gorrie, Errol, on the progress of 
vegetation during the spring and early summer of 1848 and 1849. 
Mr. Gorrie remarked, that this season had not only lost its compara- 
tive earliness, but had fallen very much behind that of last season ; 
the recent frosts, unparalleled so far in the season in this chmate, 
having retarded vegetation very much. This season lost its excess 
of earliness about the middle of April, when we had some days of 


613 


severe winter weather. A comparative table showing the time of 
flowering of different plants during the two seasons accompanied the 
communication. 

A communication was read from Mr. George Lawson, Edinburgh, 
on the occurrence of Nematelia virescens, a fungus found on the Sid- 
law Hills, and new to the Forfarshire flora. 

A mounted collection of British and foreign grasses, and other 
plants, was exhibited as a donation to the Association from D. E. 
Smith, Esq., Edinburgh. Plants were also received from Mr. Geo. 
B. Simpson and Mr. W. M. Ogilvie. 


Note on Count Suminsk’s Recent Observations on the Reproduction 
of Ferns. 


THESE observations are so valuable, and place the subject under 
discussion in so novel and so interesting a light, that we hope shortly 
to devote several pages to an analysis of the author’s remarks: at 
present this brief note must suffice. 

Prior to the publication of Suminski’s work our knowledge of the 
reproduction of ferns may be thus stated. The frond of a fern bears 
on its back, edge, or elsewhere, certain clusters of somewhat spherical 
bodies, each supported on a short stalk: these bodies burst by a fis- 
sure transverse to their axis, and scatter a quantity of minute particles. 
The particles falling on the ground, or becoming attached to any 
moist substance, vegetate and produce a flat, semitransparent, per- 
fectly cellular leaf, much resembling a Marchantia, from the upper 
surface of which a true circinate frond is subsequently developed, and 
this is rapidly followed by others until the plant has assumed its or- 
dinary appearance, and the Marchantiform leaf has decayed and dis- 
appeared. Although called by a variety of very curious and ingenious 
names, authors are agreed in considering the spherical bodies the re- 
presentatives of capsules, and the particles which they contain the 
representatives of seeds. 

Suminski, applying the microscope to the upper surface of the 
Marchantiform leaf while yet in a very young state, has detected cer- 
tain minute sessile bodies which he considers analogous to the stamens 
and pistils of flowering plants: the stamens or antheridia are some- 
what spherical, and are generally seated near the base or that part of 


614 


the Jeaf where it is attached by minute radical fibres to the soil or 
substance on which it grows: the anthor has seen these anther-like 
bodies burst and emit granules of pollen: beyond the antheridia, and 
nearer the distal extremity of the leaf, are seated the pistillidia; these 
are more elongate than the antheridia, are longitudinally quadripar- 
lite as though composed of four united styles, and have a fissure at 
the extremity through which the tube of the pollen-granule enters 
and fecundates the ovule in the usual manner: the author has 
actually observed the tube of the pollen-granule within the pistilli- 
dium. The ovule, seated in the ovary at the base of the pistillidium, 
after fecundation is speedily matured, and when ripe germinates én 
situ, the radical fibres passing through the cellular leaf in search of a 
suitable nidus, and a small circinate frond simultaneously arising from 
the upper surface. | Now supposing these observations to be correct, 
and we have every reason for believing them to be so, we must no 
longer regard the clusters on the back of a fern-frond as its fructifica- 
tion, but rather consider the supposed capsule as the analogue of a 
spathe, and its contained particles as flower-buds, which, falling to 
the ground, develope and expand into a corolla—the cellular leaf— 
having its proper stamens and pistils, and its true seed, we must re- 
gard as formed in the ovary at the base of the pistil. 

The discoveries of Suminski are somewhat corroborated by a fact 
well known to those who cultivate ferns in the Wardian cases: if the 
atmosphere be kept thoroughly damp by an abundant supply of wa- 
ter, and a careful exclusion of the arid external air without, clusters 
of the corollas or Marchantiform cellular leaves will appear on the 
backs of the fronds, and after a while young plants will be seen aris- 
ing from the centre of each; a phenomenon precisely analogous to 
the germination of grains of wheat in a wet autumn while the corn is 
yet standing. 

But the interest of these observations is not confined to their no- 
velty as physiological facts: they must hereafter have an important 
influence on definitions, methods and systems. Perhaps no hypothe- 
sis has been more generally received by scientific men than that 
which separates plants into sexual and asexual. Now if we review 
this hypothesis under the light thrown on it by Suminski’s discoveries, 
we shall find that it rests on no more solid foundation than this: that 
in plants with showy flowers we have observed the sexes, while in 
those without we have not: we have therefore been contrasting com- 
plete with incomplete observations, rather than one ascertained phe- 
nomenon with another. The researches before us obviously tend to 


615 


abolish the distinctions of sexual and asexual, for all that we can 
now safely assume with regard to the sexes of mosses, fungi, lichens, 
or seeds, is not that they are absent, but that they are undiscovered. 


K. 


Notice of ‘The Rhododendrons of Sikkim-Himalaya. By JosrPH 
Darton Hooker, M.D., &c. With Drawings and Descrip- 
tions made on the spot. Edited by Sir W. J. Hooker, K.H., 
&c. Second Edition. London: Reeve, Benham and Reeve. 
1849.’ 


ALTHOUGH our journal is for the most part confined to notices of 
subjects connected solely with British Botany, yet we feel assured 
our subscribers will peruse with imterest the following extract from 
a splendid work, the title of which we have given above. Dr. Hooker 
has in an almost incredibly short space of time reached the Himalaya 
range from Calcutta, and in the course of his explorations of some of 
the recesses of those stupendous mountains discovered a number of 
new plants. In the plates to the magnificent work before us, are de- 
picted ten new species of Rhododendron, met with in what may truly 
be termed “ the head-quarters of the genus in the Old World.” This 
locality and the plants seen in company with the Rhododendrons are 
thus described :— 

“It was on the ascent of Tonglo, a mountain on the Nepalese fron- 
tier, that I beheld the Rhododendrons in all their magnificence and 
luxuriance. At 7,000 feet, where the woods were still dense and sub- 
tropical, mingling with ferns, Pothos, peppers and figs, the ground 
was strewed with the large lily-like flowers of Rhododendron Dalhou- 
siz, dropping from the epiphytal plants on the enormous oaks over- 
head, and mixed with the egg-like flowers of a new Magnoliaceous 
tree, which fall before expanding, and diffuse a powerful aromatic 
odour, more strong, but far less sweet, than that of the Rhododendron. 
So conspicuous were these two blossoms, that my rude guide called 
out,—‘ Here are lilies and eggs, sir, growing out of the ground!’ No 
bad comparison. Passing the region of tree-ferns, walnut and ches- 
nut, yet still in that of the alder, birch, large-leaved oak (whose leaves 
are often eighteen inches long), we enter that of the broad-spathed 
Arum (which raises a crested head like that of the Cobra de Capel), 
the Kadsura, Stauntonia, Convallaria, and many Rosacee. The 
paths are here much steeper, carried along narrow ridges or over 


616 


broken masses of rock, which are scaled by the aid of interwoven 
roots of trees. On these rocks grow Hymenophylla, a few Orchidex, 
Begonia, Cyrtandracee, Aroideze of curious forms; the anomalous 
genus Streptolirion of Edgeworth, and various Cryptogamia; and the 
Rhododendron arboreum is first met with, its branches often loaded 
with pendulous mosses and lichens, especially Usnea and Borrera. 
Along the flat ridges, towards the top, the yew appears, with scattered 
trees of Rhododendron argenteum, succeeded by R. Campbelliz. At 
the very summit, the majority of the wood consists of this last species, 
amongst which, and next in abundance, occurs the R. barbatum, with 
here and there, especially on the eastern slopes, R. Falconeri. Min- 
gled with these are Pyri, Pruni, maples, barberries, and Azaleas, 
Olea, Ilex, Limonia, Hydrangea, several Caprifoliacee, Gaultheria, 
and Andromeda; the apple and the rose are most abundant. Staun- 
tonia, with its glorious racemes of purple flowers, creeps over all; so 
do Kadsura and Ochna; whilst a currant, with erect racemes, grows 
epiphytally on Rhododendron and on Pyrus. 

“The habits of the Rhododendrons differ considerably, and, con- 
fined as I was to one favourable spot by a deluge of rain, I had ample 
time to observe four of them. R.Campbelliz, the only one in full 
flower early in May, is the most prevalent, the ropes of my tent 
spanning an area between three of them. Some were a mass of scar- 
let blossom, displaying a sylvan scene of the most gorgeous descrip- 
tion. Mr. Nightingale’s Rhododendron-groves, I thought, may surpass 
these in form and luxuriance of foliage, or in outline of individual 
specimens ; but for splendour of colour those of the Himalaya can 
only be compared with the Butea frondosa of the plains. Many of 
their trunks spread from the centre thirty or forty feet every way, and 
together form a hemispherical mass, often forty yards across, and from 
twenty to fifty feet in height! The stems and branches of these 
aged trees, gnarled and rugged, the bark dark-coloured, and clothed 
with spongy moss, often bend down and touch the ground: the foli- 
age is, moreover, scanty, dark green, and far from graceful ; so that, 
notwithstanding the gorgeous colouring of the blossoms, the trees, 
when out of flower, like the Fuchsias of Cape Horn, are the gloomy 
denizens of a most gloomy region.”—p. 13. 


617 


A Catalogue of the Plants growing wild in Hampshire, with occa- 
sional Notes and Observations on some of the more remarkable 
Species. By WiLLIAM ARNOLD BromFIeLD, M.D., F.L.S., &c. 


(Continued from page 609). 


Lathrea Squamaria. In moist shady places, woods, copses, 
groves and shrubberies, at the roots of hazel and other trees, and on 
the trailing stems of ivy amongst decaying leaves. In various parts 
of the Isle of Wight, in some of its stations or in certain years, very 
plentiful, but not generally common in the island. Under the shrubs 
on the terraces at North Court, Shorwell; Rev. James Penfold !!! 
Plentiful, and I believe annually so, in this station. In the shrub- 
bery at Swainston, Miss Simeon, who pointed it out to me growing 
in great plenty at the foot of Portugal laurels (Prunus lusttanica), in 
June, 1840. In several of the woods about Swainston, 1846. In 
very great abundance in Long Copse, Apes Down; Miss Dennett!! 
Little Standen Wood, near Newport, and not uncommon in the is- 
land; Mr. George Kirkpatrick. In 1846 I found it scattered, though 
rather sparingly, over Bloodstone Copse, near Ashey, at the roots of 
hazel, and fully in flower, March 8th (an extraordinary mild and for- 
ward season); and on the 15th of the same month I detected it in 
great abundance in the adjoining Eagle Head Copse, revealed by 
the septennial clearing of the vice or brushwood; some of the flowers 
even then beginning to go off. Exposure to the sun and wind proved 
fatal to this vegetable recluse, as a week or two afterwards not a plant 
was to be seen alive. Dr. Salter and myself have fallen in with soli- 
tary specimens in other parts of the island occasionally. Longwood 
(near Winton); Rev. Messrs. Garnier and Poulter in Hamp. Repos. 
This is the only station I can at present record for mainland Hants, 
where it is probably not more rare than in the Isle of Wight, but ap- 
pearing at a time of year when few collectors of “ wild flowers” are 
on the look-out, and haunting chiefly the thickest shades and inner- 
most recesses of the woods, it escapes notice oftener than most of our 
native plants, having besides but little to attract attention from the 
mass of observers with whom beauty or fragrance are the chief claims 
to regard. L. Clandestina (Clandestina rectiflora, Zam.), which 
ranges to the north-west departments of France, may eventually prove 
to be an inhabitant of our southern and western counties. This plant 
was inadvertently omitted at the close of the Orobanchacee in the 
last portion sent to press of these Notes. 

VOL. III. AL 


618 


Digitalis purpurea. In dry hilly or heathy pastures, woods, 
hedges, and on banks, by road-sides &c.; common in many parts of 
the Isle of Wight on the greensand and freshwater formation; seldom, 
if ever, to be seen on the chalk. Frequent about Ryde in various 
places, but usually of small growth in this neighbourhood, which is 
on stiff clay. Extremely common in most of the sandy districts of 
the island, as about Shanklin, where, at Apse Castle, one part in par- 
ticular of that picturesque spot is profusely adorned with this gorgeous 
plant, which there rises to a height of six and seven feet, displaying 
one dense spike of blossoms for two-thirds of that length or upwards.* 
Most abundant and luxuriant on the light soil of Bordwood Copse, 
and on the sand and gravel about Newport. In the Undercliff, about 
Cowes, Newchurch, Godshill and numberless other places, in plenty.t 
Var. 8. Flowers white. Here and there by accident, but very rarely. 
About Steephill; Mr. Albert Hambrough. A specimen or two found 
by myself on the Wilderness, in 1842. The Foxglove is of abundant 
and universal distribution over the whole of Hants, excepting, as be- 
fore remarked, on calcareous soils, but from which I am not quite sure 
that it is wholly banished. A variety with flowers of a flesh colour, 
streaked with white, grows sparingly in a hedge betwixt Brown Down 
and the Grange farm, near Alverstoke,— one specimen of which, 
picked on the 14th of June last, presented some very singular anoma- 
lies of structure, and in a morphological point of view was as enig- 
matical as it was interesting. The specimen first arrested my attention 
by the above deviation in colour from the ordinary state of the species, 
and by the peculiarity of the lobes of the corolla, which were remark- 
ably developed and regular, the upper lobe especially, as large or 
larger than the lower one (not, as is commonly the case, much shorter 
and truncate or nearly obsolete), the mouth of the corolla scarcely at 
all oblique, and the entire flower looking very like that of some spe- 
cies of Bignonia. In place of the field of areolate spots which usually 
occupy the throat and superior part of the lower lobe of the corolla, 
there was in this specimen a large irregular blotch, of a blood-red co- 
lour, adding much to the strangeness and exotic aspect of the flower ; 
but the most singular feature of the case escaped my observation, till 
my return home in the evening, when, looking at the specimen by 


* In the highlands of Scotland I have seen the Foxglove still taller, and in De- 
vonshire I measured a stem which was nine feet high. 

+ Mr. Thomson, a writer in Loudon’s Magazine, vol. iii. (1830) p. 418, strangely 
asserts that “ of this beautiful but noxious flower the Isle of Wight scarcely boasts a 
single specimen!” 


619 


candlelight, I discovered that all the expanded flowers in the spike 
(and they were many) bore spurs as in several genera belonging to 
the natural order we are now considering. There was, however, this 
difference between them, that whereas the calcarate plants of the or- 
der are contented, with Butlers renowned knight, to wear but one 
spur, and that too, like him, on the heel,* our eccentric foxglove pre- 
ferred following the fashion of modern cavaliers in sporting a pair, 
although in a position where spurs were never worn till now. Each 
corolla carried one of these appendages on either side, about the mid- 
dle of its length, and somewhat below the medial line of its depth or 
vertical section—in other words, towards, but not actually on its un- 
der surface, the situation of these processes precisely corresponding 
in all the flowers, but in the higher unopened buds no trace of a spur 
was visible, this organ appearing to be developed during their expan- 
sion, as it might be traced faintly in some of the lower, larger and 
more forward buds, and be seen increasing in size and distinctness as 
the flowers successively acquired magnitude in proportion. to their 
distance from the termination of the spike. These spurs did not ex- 
ceed a quarter of an inch in length, were straight, hollow, rather ob- 
tuse than acute, and pointed backwards, closely resembling in size 
and structure those of Linaria repens. On what morphological prin- 
ciples can the production of these spurs in so anomalous a part of the 
corolla be explained? Dr. Lindley notices the tendency in the 
flowers of Scrophulariacez to form pouches or spurs,t but in all cases, 
so far as I am aware, these hollows are definite in their situation, the 
corolla being either gibbous and calcarate at base beneath the tube 
or annular margin of insertion on the perigynous disk, or produced at 
its anterior extremity into foveate or vaulted concavities, forming the 
ringent or personate corolla. If this curious example of spurred co- 
rollas produced on a plant which does not naturally bear such, is to 
be regarded as an evidence of the nixws alluded to by Lindley, is it 
not remarkable that the tendency should betray itself in a manner so 
abnormal as in the case before us? The Foxglove is often called, 
here and in other parts of the south, Poppy (in Devonshire, Flop 
Poppy), perhaps from the smell of the flowers, which is like that of 


* “Vor Hudibras wore but one spur, 
As wisely knowing, could he stir 
To active trot one side of ’s horse, 
The other would not hang—of course.” 
Huprpras, Canio I. (amended edition). 
t ‘The Vegetable Kingdom,’ p. 683. 


620 


the true corn-poppy, vulgarly called here redweed. A yellow fox- 
glove has been reported to me (I think by Miss Griffith of Torquay, 
though not on her own authority) as having been found at Apse Castle, 
near Shanklin. Ihave never met with anything of the kind there, 
but should not be surprised to hear that the Digitalis lutea, if that be 
the plant intended, were to be discovered in England, since it abounds 
in the north of France, and is, I believe, common in the neighbour- 
hood of Rouen and other places in Normandy. It is abundantly na- 
turalized in a thicket just outside of Mr. Borrer’s garden at Henfield, 
and our south-eastern counties of Kent, Sussex and Hants are exactly 
those in which there is the greatest probability of its occurrence. 
tAntirrhinum majus. On walls, rocks and old buildings in and 
about towns, and contiguous to, or not far remote from gardens, from 
which it has in every instance escaped, at least in this island, and 
probably in all other parts of the kingdom. On several walls at Ryde, 
Newport, Cowes, Yarmouth &c. On rocks behind the houses at 
Ventnor. Frequent on walls and ruins in most parts of the county, 
Petersfield, Winchester &c. In its truly wild state, as I have seen it 
on the stony garrigues at Castlenau, near Montpellier, the flowers 
are white, with a slight tinge of sulphur-yellow or flesh-red ; and of 
this primitive colour I have gathered them on calcareous rocks at Cat- 
down Quarry, near Plymouth, where the great Snapdragon looked 
more like an indigenous production than I have ever seen it do else- 
where in this country. 
Orontium. In waste and cultivated ground, amongst 
corn, turnips, potatoes &c., on light sandy, gravelly or chalky (rarely 
on clayey) soils; not very uncommon in the Isle of Wight, being 
pretty generally, though mostly sparingly distributed over it. Here 
and there about Ryde, but rarely. Pretty frequent in turnip-fields 
near Gurnet farm in the autumn. Near St. Helen’s. Steephill; Mr. 
Albert Hambrough! Fields between Lake and Sandown, and be- 
tween Week farm and St. Lawrence; Mr. W. D. Snooke. Garden 
ground at Shanklin and Godshill, and in various other places oc- 
casionally, but usually very sporadic. About equally frequent, I 
presume, on mainland Hants. In sandy fields and garden ground at 
Short Heath and Oakhanger, near Selborne, September, 1848. Field 
at Clay Hall, between Haslar and Alverstoke, near Gosport. Plenti- 
ful in a turnip-field near Hasted, in the parish of Hursley (near Win- 
chester); Mr. Wm. Whale! Heron Court; Mr. Curtis in litt. and 
icon in Brit. Entom. viii. t. 837. I have gathered it in this island 
with white flowers occasionally. 


621 


{Linaria Cymbalaria. Introduced, but now completely naturalized 
on old, moist or rough walls (rarely on hedgebanks) throughout the 
county and Isle of Wight; very frequent. On the ruins of Quarr 
Abbey, Binstead, but sparingly. Abundantly on old walls about 
Knighton Manor. Walls at Shorwell, Cowes, Ventnor, Newport &c. 
On stone fences at St. Lawrence, and about the Orchard (Sir Wil- 
loughby Gordon’s), plentifully. It has established itself on a stony 
declivity at Bank End, Undercliff, just beyond the farm towards St. 
Lawrence.  Profusely on old walls at Winchester. At Petersfield, 
Southampton, Botley &c. Wallington, near Fareham; Mr. W. L. 
Notcutt. Now dispersed over the greater part of central and southern 
Europe, and profusely bedecking the venerable walls of our ancient 
towns in the south of England with its mantling tresses of purple, and 
deep shining green, but apparently rare till within a comparatively 
recent period. Mr. Borrer I believe remembers when it was almost 
unknown in Sussex, and was himself instrumental in aiding its dis- 
semination in that county; and the writer of these remarks has several 
times heard it related as a family tradition, that a near relative of his 
own, long since deceased, who was much devoted to her garden and 
greenhouse, received a pot of Cymbalaria, as it was then called, from 
the late Sir Joseph Banks as a welcome botanical present. From 
Sir James Smith’s account of this plant in his ‘ English Flora’ and in 
‘English Botany, one would be led to infer that our public botanic 
gardens were the original puncta salientia from whence it had 
spread itself over the land, and few persons seem aware of its having 
been known in England long prior to the existence of these institu- 
tions amongst us. It is distinctly named and described both by 
Gerarde and Parkinson in 1636 and 1640, who give very tolerable 
figures of it, the former especially (Ger. em. p. 529, fig. 6), who says 
it “ growes wilde upon walls in Italy, but in gardens with us.” Par- 
kinson’s woodcut (‘ Theatrum Botanicum,’ p. 682,— Cymbalaria 
hederacea) is much inferior to Gerarde’s, but his account is more cir- 
cumstantial, for he tells us “It groweth naturally in divers places of 
our land, although formerly it hath not beene knowne to bee but in 
gardens, as about Hatfield in Hartfordshire, both in their gardens 
and other places that are shadie upon the ground, for there it will 
alwayes best like to grow, as also upon thatched houses in the north 
parts, as | am given to understand, and most abundantly in Lanca- 
shire and in my garden, where it runneth up from the ground on the 
wall a pretty height.” Smith, who uniformly cites the figures of both 
these authors, seems to have overlooked them in this instance, and it 


622 


is remarkable that Ray in his great work the ‘ Historia Plantarum’ 
(vol. i. p. 759), though referring to the two old herbalists, is silent on 
the subject of the Cymbalaria as native to or naturalized in Britain, 
but mentions it as abounding on damp walls and rocks in Italy, and 
on the walls of Bale in Switzerland.* In the ‘Synopsis,’ however, his 
editor, Dillenius, gives it on the faith of that accurate observer Dr. 
Richardson, as found everywhere in quarries (in fodinis) at Darford, 
in Yorkshire (Syn. p. 282). From these facts it is clear that Linaria 
Cymbalaria has been known in England from an indefinitely remote 
period, but continued of comparatively rare occurrence till the general 
diffusion amongst all ranks for a taste for gardening, which marked 
the latter part of the last and the whole of the present century. I 
have never seen this species in Italy, or elsewhere in the south of 
Europe, but on walls and buildings as with us, and in Holland on 
the brick-work along the canal banks and bridges, so that it seems as 
much at home here as in any country on the continent, and would 
probably never wholly disappear from our soil, should our cities and 
towns share the fate of those of antiquity and crumble into ruins. 
From its creeping far and wide, by root and seed, it has gained in this 
island the name of Roving Jenny or Roving Sailor, and in America is 
known, I find, partially at least, as Kenilworth Ivy, perhaps from its 


* Many plants locally abundant in our times, and most likely in theirs, escaped 
the notice of Ray and his contemporaries, but which omissions do not, I think, go far 
to prove such species to have been since imported and naturalized, because the same 
thing is continually happening in these days of Argus-eyed research, that plants are 
suddenly discovered in places where they must have pre-existed perhaps for centuries, 
as Erica ciliaris, whilst others have been lost sight of and again detected in their ori- 
ginal or new localities, as Isnardia palustris, Euphorbia pilosa, Bupleurum falcatum, 
Cyclamen hederxfolium, Bunium Bulbocastanum and many more. Our surprise at 
the large number of plants added to our flora during the last 60 or 80 years will di- 
minish when we reflect under what disadvantages the earlier botanists of this country 
laboured in their endeavours to explore its vegetable productions, from the tedious- 
ness, expence and inconveniences of travelling, the very limited diffusion amongst the 
people of scientific tastes or acquirements, and the consequent want of co-operation 
felt by the few exceptions to the general ignorance and apathy of the age. Add to 
these, the obstacles to epistolary correspondence from the slowness and uncertainty of 
the post, the high rates of postage, and the want of a clear, definite, universal 
language and nomenclature for conveying scientific truths and discoveries between the 
initiated. The perusal of the works of the old herbalists who lived in the sixteenth 
and seventeenth centuries yet show incontestably their acquaintance with many a 
plant, shrouded by uncouth names and barbarous descriptive phraseology, which it 
is supposed the reformed nomenclature of Linneus, good roads, railways and the 
penny postage have each in their time and turn enabled us moderns to discover. 


623 


prevalence on the walls of that castle which the muse of Scott has 
rendered familiar to all the world. 

Linaria Elatine. In waste and cultivated ground, gardens, tillage 
fields, on hedge and ditch-banks, sometimes in wet boggy places and 
woods; common almost everywhere throughout the county and Isle 
of Wight. Plentiful on the eocene or freshwater formation, as well 
as on the chalk; less frequent perhaps on the greensand than on the 
two preceding deposits. Our corn-stubbles and fallows are often co- 
vered with this and the next species at the close of summer. Besides 
many other points of difference betwixt the present and the following 
species, may be mentioned that the peduncles of L. Elatine are much 
more slender than in L. spuria, not hairy as in that, excepting slightly 
so near both ends, and when in flower diverge from the stem nearly 
at a right angle, being for the most part finally reflexed as the cap- 
sules approach maturity. The peloria condition with regular three, 
four or five-spurred flowers I have found both in this and L. spuria 
in chalky fields at Twyford, near Winton. 
spuria. In precisely similar stations with the last over the 
county and island, but of rather less frequent occurrence in general, 
being more, though not exclusively attached to calcareous soils, and 
seldom straying beyond the limits of cultivation. Frequent about 
Ryde, Sandown &c. Very common in Undercliff. Often as abun- 
dant as the last in stubble-fields in autumn, either taking its place or 
growing in company with it. Flower-stalks much stouter than in L. 
Elatine, hairy all over like the stem, and spreading from the latter at 
a moderate angle only, never, I think, reflexed in seed. I have often 
wondered that these two species of Linaria have not been brought 
into cultivation to ornament windows and halls, as they equal several 
of our greenhouse creepers in elegance, and the flowers, though not 
showy, are pleasing from the singularity of form and combination of 
colours (yellow and rich purple-brown) they display. The foliage 
too is not devoid of elegance, and the innumerable slender stems, 
which in the wild state not unfrequently attain to three or four feet 
in length, hang gracefully over the vase that contains them. As the 
more delicate plant, L. Elatine would be preferred by many, whilst 
L. spuria would come recommended to others by its greater robust- 
ness of growth, more conspicuous flowers, and larger size of its round 
velvety leaves. For further remarks on these two species and their 
geographical distribution see ‘ Phytologist’ 1. p. 168. It is worthy of 
notice here, that commonly as these plants are found growing together, 
and closely as they are allied in habit and character, I have never 


624 


observed any tendency in them to produce hybrids, although, as we 
shall see presently, mules occur between species of this genus less 
nearly connected botanically, and brought into less intimate contact 
with one another. 

Linaria minor. In dry gravelly, sandy or chalky corn-fields and 
other tillage lands, in waste and garden ground, chalkpits, on old 
walls, cliffs and rubbish here and there, not unfrequent, and often 
abundantly. By no means rare in the Isle of Wight, though it can- 
not be deemed a common species here or on the mainland of Hants. 
About Ryde occasionally, on the Dover &c. 1 find it most abun- 
dantly (and I have reason to believe it to be so every year) in fields 
below Gatehouse farm, and in great quantity in a field a little south 
of Beanacre, in the same vicinity. On débris of the chalk-marl 
cliffs in Whitecliff Bay. Chalkpits near Newport. Fields about 
Pallance and elsewhere near West Cowes. In the Undercliff, also 
near Calbourne, Shalfleet, Thorness Bay, and various other places in 
the island, generally dispersed, sporadically or socially, over its entire 
area. Of equal frequency on the mainland of the county. Bordean 
Hill, West Meon, Alverstoke. Plentiful amongst turnips on Ports- 
down Hill, near and below the Nelson memorial, Oct. 1848. Beden- 
ham &c.; Mr. W. L. Notcutt. Winton, Pink’s Hill, Warnford; Rev. 
E. M. Sladen. Andover; Mr. Wm. Whale. Crux, Easton, Aug. 1849. 
repens. In hedges, on banks and dry barren ground. 
Quite rare in the Isle of Wight, where it is confined to a few localities 
in West Medina. In several stations about West Cowes rather plen- 
tifully, more particularly in hedges about Broadfield farm, in various 
places pretty abundantly. Debborne Turnpike; Miss G. E. Kilder- 
bee. Near Yarmouth; Rev. W. T. Bree in litt. (very sparingly in 
that neighbourhood!!!) “ Lane between Thorley Street and Bould- 
ner, and I believe elsewhere in that parish ;” Mrs. Penfold!!! A few 
plants by the road-side betwixt Bouldner and Luckets; W. A. B. 
About a quarter of a mile beyond Staplers Heath going from New- 
port to Ryde, along the side of the road, sparingly,—the only station 
in East Medina that I know of for this plant, which seems wholly re- 
stricted to the north-western side of the island, near the coast line. 
Much more plentiful in mainland Hants, but principally towards the 
sea. Abundant on the wide flat shores of Stoke’s Bay in various parts. 
Everywhere plentiful in the hedges and borders of the corn-fields be- 
twixt Gosport and Alverstoke, along the road from Haslar Hospital 
to Clayhall and Anglesey, and beyond this latter place westward to- 
wards Brown Down. On Southampton Common abundantly; Mr. 


625 


Wm. Pamplin in New Bot. Guide. | Marchwood, Mr. Borrer, and on 
Shirley Common, both near Southton. Hursley, near Winton; Miss 
L. Legge! I understand it grows also at Beaulieu in West Hants, 
and doubtless in other parts of the county. An extremely variable 
plant in the size and colour of its flowers and their markings, as well 
as in the length and degree of obtuseness of the spur. ‘The blue or 
purple striz vary much in number and intensity, being sometimes 
very faint and almost obsolete, and wholly or partially wanting on 
the lower lip; at other times the entire corolla is strongly pencilled 
with broad deep purple or azure lines, so as to appear altogether of 
that colour. A variety with the flowers pure white and destitute of 
strie J find in a field-hedge at Clayhall, near Gosport, Sept. 1848, 
and July, 1849, but very sparingly. This form has, I think, been 
noticed at Coniston in Westmoreland, by Mr. Borrer. Another and 
more remarkable state of the plant is a hybrid production between it 
and L. vulgaris, erroneously, as I feel assured, referred to L. italica 
of Treviranus, and L. genistifolia of De Candolle, by Babington 
(Man. 2nd edit. p. 232), and previously to L. Bauhinii of Gaudin, in 
the ‘ London Journal of Botany’ (vol.i. p. 79), by Mr. H. C. Watson, 
who, I believe, is now sensible of his error in so doing.* I first no- 
ticed the plant some few years back, growing in extremely small 
quantity, in the hedge by the road-side within a mile of West Cowes, 
on the way to Newport, and again in a lane close by the same station 
(called, I believe, Love Lane) leading from the said high-road towards 
the windmill: in both places L. repens and vulgaris were growing in 
the vicinity of the mule plant. I again fell in with this hybrid Sep- 
tember 1, 1848, in some degree of comparative plenty, along the 
hedge-banks by the road from Gosport to Clayhall and Alverstoke, a 
few hundred yards from Haslar Hospital, on the right-hand side of 
the road coming from Gosport. Here, as at Cowes, the two parent 
species will be found flourishing near each other, and in quantity 
vastly exceeding their spurious offspring. What is evidently the 
same thing has been found at Shirley, near Southampton, by Mr. 
Watson, in the county of Cork, and near Penryn, Cornwall,—places 
all three well known to produce L. repens, and it may fairly be pre- 
sumed L. vulgaris also. The very aspect and characters of the plant, 


* In reply to a communication in which I expressed my conviction of this being 
a hybrid, Mr. Watson writes :—“ Your hybrid Linaria is in all likelihood the same as 
my L. Bauhinii; and if hybrid,'we should expect some differences, as in fact do exist 
in the Cornish, Hants, Cork and Swiss specimens.” 


VoL. Xt, 4 M 


without this strongly corroborative fact, stamp it unequivocally for a 
mule production, in which the features, sometimes of the one parent, 
sometimes of the other, predominate. The L. stricta of Hornemann 
I take to be our hybrid in one of its smaller-flowered phases, such as 
I occasionally meet with at Gosport, and in which L. repens is domi- 
nant over the commoner progenitor. This is referred by Koch* and 
Benthamt to L. repens as a variety of that plant, but the concise de- 
seription of the former author, given below, coincides better with our 
English mule than the figure of Reichenbach, which is more highly 
coloured in the yellow portion of the flower, and less distinctly 
striated in the upper lip than any specimens from this quarter at least, 
besides that the lobes of both lips are in that figure represented as 
acute, whilst in our plant they are remarkably rounded and obtuse as 
in the type. 

A degree of fragrance is ascribed to the flowers of L. repens, which 
has been noticed by the earlier botanists as well as by those of our 
own day, but beyond a certain herbaceous odour I could never per- 
ceive any sweetness in the blossoms, even with a large bundle of the 
plant before me for drawing up a description from, although a single 
specimen has, from another party ignorant of the fact, elicited ex- 
pressions of pleasure and surprise at the grateful smell diffused by it. 

N.B.—L. purpurea is to be seen occasionally on wall-tops and waste 
ground, escaped from gardens, in several places of the island. Ihave 
found it in such situations at Bonchurch and Yarmouth, and on the 
sandy spit at Norton, Freshwater, but too sparingly to be admitted 
with propriety to denizenship in our Flora. Being a native of cen- 
tral and southern Italy it is not likely to gain a permanent footing in 
this country, but L. supina, lately added to the British Flora, may 
not unreasonably be looked for along the southern coast, as it is truly 
indigenous on the opposite shores of France (I think at Cherbourg), 
and abounds about Rouen and elsewhere in Normandy. The Cornish 
stations lately discovered are in all likelihood really natural habitats. 

Linaria vulgaris. Fiverywhere common in hedges, borders of 
fields, waste ground and by road-sides, particularly in light sandy 


* Rohling’s ‘ Deutschlands Flora,’ iv. s. 402. Eine andere Abart (L. striate) hat 
bleichgelbliche Blithen mit einer violett gestreiften Oberlippe. Diese ist die oben 
angefuhrte Linaria stricta, Hornem. Haf. 2, p. 577 Reichenb. Ic. v. p. 14 (tab. 
423). See also Gadron, ‘ Flore de Lorraine,’ iii. p. 146, L. striata 8. grandiflora. 

+ In De Cand. Prodrom. x. Scrophular. p. 278, Bentham distinctly says that the 
L. italica of England is a hybrid between L, vulgaris and L. stricta (probably a mis- 
print for striata, that is L. repens), which has always been my own opinion. 


627 


soils. Var. 8. Peloria. Very rare in the Isle of Wight, nor have I any 
notice of its occurrence on the mainland of Hants. A single speci- 
men in the marshy meadows betwixt Newchurch and Alverston, facing 
a cottage called Burnt House, Oct. 4, 1842. Some of the flowers 
with five, others with six spurs. I found some plants between Mor- 
ton House and Alverston bearing a few flowers with cleft spurs; in 
one flower there were two spurs each so divided, but no multiplica- 
tion of any other part of the corolla. Var. y. Corolla milk-white, 
palate deep orange. Ina field-hedge betwixt Werror farm and the 
high-road from Newport to Cowes, Aug. 9, 1839. Betwixt Cockle- 
ton and Gurnet Bay. A very handsome variety from the shining, 
milky-whiteness of the corolla and the deep orange of the palate. 
The spur is a little longer and more attenuated than in the ordinary 
state of the plant. Mr. Borrer has seen the same variety in Sussex, 
but the brilliant white cannot be prevented from changing to a yel- 
low in the process of drying. Var. 0. Palate very pale-yellow, 
almost white. Not uncommon in the Isle of Wight generally, and 
perhaps hardly deserving notice asa form. Royal Heath &c. Var. «. 
latifolia. Leaves much broader, flowers larger, on glabrous pedicels. 
Under the wooded shore a little west of Ryde, towards Binstead, Aug. 
1845 (an L. speciosa, Jen.}. A very remarkable variety, if not a dis- 
tinct species, though I can find no good character to separate it from 
L. vulgaris excepting proportion of parts. Leaves much broader than 
in that, narrowly lanceolate, the floral ones often quite lanceolate, 
more rigid and spreading, and very glaucous. Flowers nearly twice 
as large as in L. vulgaris, approaching to those of L. dalmatica in size, 
and like them of a citron rather than sulphur-yellow, very handsome, 
forming a few-flowered, lax or distant raceme, not crowded and im- 
bricated as in L. vulgaris, on longer, less erect, glabrous pedicels, the 
spur longer, straighter, more attenuated and very acute, directed per- 
pendicularly downwards. Capsules not above half the size of those 
of L. vulgaris, mostly shorter than the calyx, sometimes as long or a 
very little longer.* Seeds smaller and very similar to those of L. vul- 
garis, but the tubercles in the centre larger, more prominent and 
nregular. The only species to which I can refer our plant is the L. 
speciosa of Tenore, since it corresponds pretty exactly with the short 
description of this latter by Bertoloni (FI. Ital. vi. p. 370), for Te- 
nore’s own figure I have not the means of consulting. |The plant is 


* The capsules in this genus are extremely liable to vary in size and configura- 
tion in the same species, as we see them do in Euphrasia. 


628 


limited to a spot of a few yards in extent, growing amongst brambles, 
ragweed, &c., and though in moderate quantity, may possibly not be 
truly indigenous. But if Mr. Bentham is right in referring, as he 
does without scruple, Tenore’s plant to L. vulgaris as a variety of 
the latter,* I see no reason why it may not be equally wild with us 
as in Italy. Mr. Watson justly remarks to me that L. vulgaris varies 
greatly in the breadth of the leaves and the size of the flowers, though 
he had not met with these parts so large and broad as in the speci- 
men I sent him last year. He now has it under cultivation from 
seeds I transmitted to him, whilst I failed in my attempts to raise 
plants in the garden, both from seed and roots. Our plant agrees in 
many particulars with Bertoloni’s description of L. speciosa, but not 
in all. The pedicels in my specimens are not longer than the bracts, 
nor the spur shorter than the corolla; the former are here fully 
equalling or surpassing the flower-stalks in length, and the slightly 
recurved spurs are mostly about as long as the fully expanded corolla. 
Scrophularia nodosa. In damp, shady or sometimes dry places, 
woods, thickets, hedges, moist pastures, banks of streams, &c.; very 
frequent over the whole county and Isle of Wight. The S. marilan- 
dica of Linneus, common in the United States, does not differ in any 
respect from our European nodosa, and is now very properly conjoined 
with the latter by most botanists. 
aquatica. Still more common than the preceding 
species, and to be found abundantly along almost every ditch, pond 
and stream, and in every wet hedge, thicket and marshy spot, here 
and on the mainland. Obs. S. Ehrharti will in all probability turn 
up within our floral limits, since it has been found in the neighbour- 
ing county of Sussex and other parts of the south, although apparently 
more frequent in the north of England, replacing in some degree our 
S. aquatica, which is there uncommon. This very distinct species, 
in our time first recognized as British by Mr. C. A. Stevens, and 
most faithfully delineated in the ‘ Supplement to English Botany,’ tab. 
2875, is, I think, unmistakeably pointed out in Ray’s ‘Synopsis’ (Dil- 
lenian edition, p. 283) as follows: —“ Scrophularia major, caulibus, 
foliis et floribus viridibus. D. Bobart. Figwort with green leaves 
and flowers. Found near Cumner. Common Figwort is called 
Brownwort from its remarkable brown colour. This hath nothing of 
Brownness in it.” This account, short as it is, well describes S. 
Ebrharti, even then considered by Ray as a distinct species (his No. 4). 


* De Cand. Prod. Pars. x. Scrophulariacee, auctore G. Bentham, p. 273. 


629 


S. vernalis will probably prove to be a native of Hampshire, as it oc- 
curs in Surrey, and according to an anonymous catalogue flora of the 
neighbourhood of Newbury* in my possession, is common about 
Bucklebury and Marlestone in Berkshire. Limosella aquatica though 
not hitherto detected, so far as I am aware, in Hants, cannot I con- 
ceive be really a stranger to our county, awaiting only the keen and 
practised eye of an experienced botanist to draw it from the obscu- 
rity of its native mud. 

Melampyrum cristatum. In dry woods, thickets and copses, es- 
pecially such as have been recently cut, and on chalk, sometimes 
amongst corn, rare, and, as it would seem, uncertain or periodical in 
its appearance. Not found in the Isle of Wight. By Netley Abbey; 
Rev. Messrs. Garnier and Poulter in Hamp. Repos. Discovered 
about twenty years ago most abundantly in woods between Clanfield 
and East Meon, by Mr. W. Pamplin. In consequence of an unsuc- 
cessful search for this beautiful and conspicuous plant by myself in 
1847, Mr. Pamplin most kindly met me last summer at Petersfield, 
where we explored the woods in question with no better result, the 
weather, too, being most unfavourable for a sylvan ramble. Since 
then, an observation in the excellent ‘Flora of Hertfordshire’ by 
Messrs. Webb and Coleman, has suggested to us the probable 
cause of our failure, in the fact that this, like many other annuals, 
may and does vanish for many successive seasons, till circumstances 
favourable to the germination of the dormant seeds call it again into 
existence. Mr. Pamplin’s botanical accuracy is unimpeached, and 
having been lately “smitten friendly” by Mr. Lees for a want of faith 
in the visual accuracy of others, I gladly embrace the opportunity 
now afforded me of avowing my hearty concurrence in the justice of 
his remarks, supported, as they are, by the very curious instances he 


* “A Catalogue of Plants found in the neighbourhood of Newbury, 1839, 8vo.,— 
a pamphlet of thirty-one pages, which includes several Hampshire stations for plants 
therein mentioned, as Newbury, the centre of the district examined, is only about 
two miles from the border of this county. The list on the whole appears worthy of 
credit, although such announcements as that of Polycarpon tetraphyllum “ in waste 
places at Hampstead Norris” and two other stations; of Ilecebrum verticillatum as 
“common in waste places and by road-sides at Blewbury, and throughout the Vale ;” 
of Lepidium latifolium in “ peat-pits about Newbury ;” of Cnicus heterophyllus 
(C. pratensis no doubt) on Woodhay and Cold Ash commons, and of Habenaria al- 
bida on Lid’s bank, Blewbury,” &c., coming barely within the range of possibility, 
but very wide of the bounds of probability, do not tend to strengthen our confidence 
in the correctness of the remaining stations, most of which I see no great reason to 
doubt of on the score of unlikelihood. 


630 


has brought forward in his paper (Phytol. for May last) of vegetable 
periodicity. 

t? Melampyrum arvense. Parasitical (?) Amongst corn, and on 
the grassy borders of corn-fields and banks contiguous to them in the 
Isle of Wight, but very local, being entirely confined to its extreme 
south and south-east side, and generally thought to have been intro- 
duced with seed-wheat from other parts of England or from the con- 
tinent. Most profusely in corn-fields (chiefly amongst wheat) above 
the Undercliff, from Bonchurch westward nearly to Niton, extending 
backwards or inland to Whitwell, but scarcely, 1 think, higher up the 
valley than that village. The district principally infested with this 
gaudy but most pernicious weed, is a nearly equilateral triangle, of 
which Whitwell forms the apex, and Niton and St. Lawrence the two 
basal angles; for though it has encroached on the land to the east- 
ward nearly as far as Bonchurch, the quantity there is limited, and 
the injury it occasions comparatively trifling. I find it also in the 
Pelham Woods, growing amongst grass and other herbage, and on the 
rocks and slopes that overhang them, but only in that part of these 
beautiful woods immediately underneath the beetling crags that form 
the great mural boundary of the Undercliff, and whither I suppose 
the seeds to have been conveyed by the winds or by birds from the 
corn-fields just above and behind them. Yet it is remarkable that 
the poverty-weed, as it is here called, never descends into and infests 
the corn-fields that occupy so large a part of the valley or terrace 
known as the Undercliff, to which its introduction would seem to be 
inevitable, as one can hardly conceive the belt of wood at the base of 
the cliff to be any barrier to its encroachments, but keeps entirely to 
the high grounds, and I believe never occurs off the chalk or chalk- 
marl], unless, as just mentioned, its appearance on the ledges of the 
galt or firestone be held an exception. There seems good reason to 
put faith in the tradition current here, that the purple cow-wheat was 
introduced to the island at no very distant period, although I cannot 
find any person who pretends to remember when it was even scarce 
in their neighbourhood. It was first noticed, I am told, on the Dean 
and Ash farms by Whitwell, where the wheat and barley have ever 
since been sadly overrun with it, and the crops greatly deteriorated 
thereby. In 1838 I found it plentifully in corn-fields at the west end 
of Ventnor, and creeping on at the back of that village (since risen to 
the dignity of a town) very nearly to Bonchurch. dt behoves the far- 
mers of West Medina (the greater corn-growing hundred of the two) 
to be on their guard against its introduction into their chalky soils, 


631 


already too prolific in cereal nuisances of various kinds. From Mr. 
Borrer I learn that this gaudy pest is reported to have been brought 
in with corn from Jersey, which is very improbable, seeing that the 
purple cow-wheat is not mentioned as a native of that island in Ba- 
bington’s ‘Primitiz Florz Sarnice,’ nor have I ever remarked it there 
myself. From Mr. George Kirkpatrick, of Newport, I understand it 
is rumoured to have been conveyed hither in seed-wheat from Norfolk, 
whilst according to others it was imported from Spain. As this spe- 
cies abounds in a few of the middle and eastern parts of England, 
and especially in Norfolk, I am most inclined to believe we are in- 
debted to that county for the unwelcome present, nor, except in this 
island, am I acquainted with any stations for Melampyrum arvense 
south and west of London. The name of poverty-weed, inapplicable 
as it may appear to so showy a plant, bears reference, I presume, to 
an opinion that it exhausts or impoverishes the soil, or indirectly, per- 
haps, alluding to a similar effect on the pocket of the farmer, the pro- 
duce of whose fields is rendered less marketable from the blue colour 
imparted to the wheat flour contaminated by an admixture with the 
seeds, from which it is scarcely possible to free the grain by winnow- 
ing, as the specific gravity of both is pretty nearly the same. Wither- 
ing remarks that although the seeds of M. arvense give a bitterness 
and discoloration to the bread, they do not make it unwholesome, but 
the contrary opinion prevails here amongst our country people, who 
attribute decidedly injurious effects to bread so adulterated, which a 
poor woman described to me as “ tasting sharp in the mouth.” The 
flavour of the fresh seeds I find to be hot, bitter and disagreeable. 
A respectable middle-aged man, named Rabbett, a shoemaker, who 
resided for many years at Whitwell, and now keeps the new toll-gate 
at Shanklin, tells me that when employed with others harvesting on 
Week farm, they used to pull up the poverty-weed with the greatest 
care, and carry it off the fields in bags and burn it, picking up the 
seeds from the ground wherever they were found lying. Of late years 
he thinks the bread from the Dean and Week farms is not so dark 
coloured and “hot” as it used to be, and that the plant is less plenti- 
ful than formerly. He remarks that the Melampyrum often makes its 
appearance in clover and grass, and comes up plentifully when the 
land is left in lay, at which time it might be eradicated without in- 
jury to any crop. He gives the same account as others of its intro- 
duction to the island with seed-wheat, but does not know from 
whence this “droll” weed is supposed to have come to us, which was 
before his recollection. I am quite persuaded that negligent farming 


632 


is alone to blame for the predominance of this troublesome plant at 
the back of the island, and that like the far less injurious Orobanche 
minor, it might be kept under, if not wholly eradicated with but little 
labour or expence. At present, the poverty-weed is permitted to grow 
up and ripen its seeds with the grain, which they thus contaminate ; 
much is left to flower and seed on the stubbles after harvest, and is 
ploughed in to lie dormant till the land is again sown with wheat, 
and thus a perpetuation of the evil is ensured. ‘The Melampyrum is 
up and coming into flower before the wheat is in ear, and with a little 
practice might easily be distinguished in a yet earlier state, when it 
could be weeded out by hand with facility ; women or children being 
engaged for the task, the cost would be moderate, and not worth con- 
sidering as a set off against the benefit obtained.* A specimen of 
this plant with the flowers white was found by Miss Hadfield near 
Ventnor! Many plants of this natural order (Scrophulariacee), as 
Melampyrum, Pedicularis, Bartsia, Rhinanthus and Gerardia, that 
turn black in drying, can hardly be made to grow by artificial culture, 
though from the beauty of most of these genera, it would be desirable | 
to have them common in gardens. Decaisne I think it is, who as- 
serts that these plants, like the Orobanchacee, are parasitic on the 
roots of other vegetables, and explains the difficulty experienced in 
their cultivation by a knowledge of this curious fact. 1 have several 
times sown the seeds of M. arvense, but though they come up freely 
at first, few of the seedlings attain to a flowering state, and such as 
do blossom look weakly and die off without maturing seed in their 
turn. It has once or twice appeared spontaneously in the garden 
at St. John’s, near Ryde, amongst the flower borders, but has uni- 
formly disappeared in a year or two in spite of every care taken to 
leave it undisturbed. Of its parasitism I have hitherto been unable 
to assure myself, and there is nothing in the structure of its roots dif- 
ferent from other annuals to favour Decaisne’s assertion. When the 
seeds of M. arvense begin to germinate, the radicle elongating, ele- 
vates the yet entire seed considerably above the surface of the soil, 


* T understand from my friend Capt. Love, R.N., of Yarmouth, I. W., who had 
the information from Mr. Jolliffe of the Dean farm, that sheep are partial to the 
purple cow-wheat, and as the seeds are not all matured before the crop is off the 
ground, by folding the animals on the stubbles as soon as the corn is carried, the land 
might in some degree be freed from this pernicious annual. The expedient, it is ob- 
vious, must be very partial in its operation, whilst careful weeding would ultimately 
effect a complete cure of the evil. 


633 


after which the testa bursts by the. eruption of the plumule, and the 
young plant thus appears as if vegetating in the air. 

Melampyrum pratense. In dry woods, groves and thickets, abun- 
dantly over the whole of the county and Isle of Wight. Var. @. lati- 
folium. Leaves (the uppermost especially) more or less inclined to 
ovate or ovate-lanceolate. Probably not unfrequent. Plentifully in 
New Copse, near Wootton Bridge, May 24th, 1846. Picked at Apse 
Castle, near Shanklin, in May, 1843, but only a solitary plant. 
Woods at Clanfield near Petersfield, common, July, 1848, and plen- 
tifully in a wood near Appleshaw, June 26th, 1848, but exhibiting 
here, asin most of the above-mentioned places, all gradations be- 
tween this and the ordinary narrow-leaved form of the species. Near 
Boarhunt, July, 1848. In these specimens the uppermost or floral 
leaves are very deeply pinnatisected or pectinato-dentate below, and 
cordate, ovate or rounded at base. I presume our plant to be the 
var. y. latifolium of the Manual, and identical with that found by Mr. 
Borrer in woods on the Wye. If so, it is apparently a frequent form 
in Hants, and I have gathered the same plentifully on Ross Island, 
Killarney, in 1842. It must, however, be looked upon as a casual 
deviation only from the normal state, and not as a well-defined and 
permanent race or variety. In Sweden this species is found in mea- 
dows, not as with us in woods, and hence the epithet of pratensis 
given it by Linnzus was not so inappropriate as it appears to more 
southern botanists. 

Pedicularis palustris. In spongy, turfy, or peaty bogs, wet mea- 
dows and thickets, also in ditches, pools, and field-drains. In many 
parts of the Isle of Wight, but not very general. In Sandown Level, 
and abundant in the marsh at Easton Freshwater Gate. In several 
parts of the valley of the Medina south of Newport, as on Rookley 
Moors and deep bogs about the Wilderness, &c. Near Calbourn, 
Carisbrook, Shorwell, and elsewhere, not unfrequent. On Apse 
Heath I have found it with white flowers. Common, I believe, in 
mainland Hants. Wet meadows below Winton. Boggy parts of 
Titchfield Common in plenty. Bog betwixt Lymington and Brock- 
enhurst. Warnford; Rev. E. M. Sladen. 

Pedicularis sylvatica. In exactly similar places with the last, but 
also on moist heaths, damp pastures and moors too dry for P. palus- 
tris; extremely common throughout the Isle of Wight, and I believe 
the county at large. With white or flesh-coloured flowers I find it 
under the cliffs betwixt Sandown and Shanklin, 1842. About Bridge 
by Godshill, Rookley, &c., not unfrequent, May, 1845. These are 

V Ol DM: 4 N 


634 


the only two species, | believe, of this eminently alpine genus that 
inhabit the low grounds at the sea level throughout Europe. 

Rhinanthus Crista-galli. Yn usually damp, but often in the driest 
meadows and pastures; likewise on boggy ground and wet heaths 
and commons; most universal and abundant. Plentiful, even on the 
driest and warmest chalk bills, but of small size, and with the stem 
mostly quite simple. Very large, bushy and much branched from the 
base on peat bogs on Colwell Heath, Freshwater, and which I sup- 
posed might be R. major, but it does not accord with that species. 
Another form, with very slender, perfectly simple stems, and smaller 
flowers than ordinary, I found plentifully last summer in woods near 
Clanfield, whilst searching for Melampyrum cristatum. Is this the 
R. minor of authors? Much confusion attends the discrimination of 
the different species of Rhinanthus, that have been split off I suspect 
very unnaturally from one most variable plant, the common yellow 
rattle of our fields and pastures. In this island the yellow rattle is 
called fiddle-cases, without doubt from the shape of the inflated ca- 
lyx like the case of a violin. 

Eufragia ( Bartsia) viscosa. In damp places, meadows, pastures, 
and by road-sides, as yet only in the south-western part of the coun- 
~ try (in and near the New Forest and towards the coast) ; very rare? 
At Hythe, near Southampton; Dr. G. A. Martin! Near Christ- 
church ; Mr. J. Hussey in litt. Roadside betwixt Lymington and 
Exbury; Mr. J.S. Mill. Never found by me in the Isle of Wight, 
but it seems to have occurred here in times past, from the following 
passage in Ray’s Synopsis (Dillenian edition) Indic. Plant. Dub. at 
the end of vol. i1.: “ Crateogonum cubitalis altitudinis, flore luteo.” 
In the Isle of Wight; Mr. Cole: and in the King’s meadows at 
Godstone, in Surrey. (Forte Euphrasia major lutea latifolia palustris 
R. Syn. (Eufragia viscosa). I think there can be little doubt of our 
present species being intended by the above cumbrous phrase, as 
Dillenius also supposes, though it is possible the tall bog form of 
Rhinanthus Crista-galli, lately alluded to, might have been in the 
writer’s mind, and the Godstone station seems an unlikely one for a 
plant so western and maritime as the Eufragia viscosa. No part of 
the county is theoretically more likely to produce this species than 
the Isle of Wight, and we may confidently hope to fall in with it ere 
long, most probably on the north-western side of the island, between 
Cowes and Yarmouth ; it must, nevertheless, if found at all, be very 
rare here, since it has eluded my observation for these twelve years 
past. Yet the same thing has happened with Habenaria viridis, an 


635 


unquestionable Isle-of-Wight plant, of which I have more than once 
received Vectian examples, yet could never light upon it myself; in- 
deed, it has never greeted my eyes in any part of England, although 
by no means a very uncommon Orchis in most quarters of the king- 
dom. Eufragia viscosa abounds in the adjoining county of Dorset, 
about Poole, the flora of which has a decidedly western character, and 
to the eastward it has been found in Sussex, at Bexhill, probably its 
extreme limit in that direction. In Ireland I found it on deep spongy 
bogs in the counties of Cork and Kerry. Grisebach’s name of Eu- 
fragia is objectionable, as too close in sound to Euphrasia. 

Euphrasia officinalis. In meadows, pastures, woods, and on dry 
heaths, &c., abundant everywhere. 

Odontites. Universally plentiful in pastures, woods, 
waste places, borders of fields, by way sides, amongst corn, &c., whe- 
ther dry or moist. Var. 8. Flowers white. Near Ryde; Mr. Wm. 
Wilson Saunders. A specimen with the flowers remarkably distant 
was gathered some years back by Captain Beckford, R.N., I believe 
near Cowes ! 

N. B.— Stbthorpia europea should be looked out for in damp, 
shady, boggy places along the margins of rivulets, since, though quite 
a western plant, its range extends eastward into Sussex, where I ga- 
thered fine specimens some years ago on the only known station for it 
in that county, by a boggy stream on Waldron Down, near Uckfield. 

Wm. A. BROMFIELD. 

Eastmount, Ryde, Isle of Wight, 


August 6, 1849. 
(To be continued.) 


Who knows Viola canina? By Hewerr C. Watson, Esq. 


Wuo knows VIOLA CANINA? To this question, three years ago, 
every English botanist might have answered, unhesitatingly, “ Every- 
BODY ;” meaning, thereby, himself and all other the botanophilists of 
Britain. And yet, gentle readers of the ‘ Phytologist, who are col- 
lectors of English specimens, forty-nine in fifty of you had then in 
your herbaria, and likely enough is it that nine in ten of you still have 
there, a plant so labelled which is not thus designated by the leading 
continental botanists, and which (I much fear) is destined shortly to 
lose that familiar pame in England. 


636 


Why so? Because we have in this country a small group of bota- 
nists, industrious and talented, and united in their efforts, who have 
so thoroughly habituated themselves to study English plants through 
foreign books and foreign labels, that they would now prefer adopting 
a continental error, rather than they would adhere to an English ac- 
curacy which is incompatible with the error. “ Viola canina” thus 
becomes a dog with a bad name, and will be forced to forego that 
name which it has held for two centuries and upwards, with the uni- 
versal consent and acceptance of British botanists. The fiat has gone 
forth, that the Dog’s Violet must cease to be “ canina,” and is to be- 
come “ sylvatica.” 

Whither must the discarded name go? If thus taken from the 
species to which it originally and legitimately belonged, it were bet- 
ter suppressed altogether, as the most likely course to avoid confusion 
and cross-naming in future. Instead of this safer course, it is pro- 
posed to restrict the name of “ cauina” to a different species, hitherto 
unfamiliar to British botanists; overlooked by many of them, confused 
with the Dog’s Violet by several, and otherwise labelled by the rest. 
The Viola flavicornis of Smith (or, at any rate, the species to which 
that dwarf form belongs) is henceforth to become our Viola canina, as 
it long has been the V. canina (more or less confused with the spe- 
cies originally so named) of many continental botanists. 

Every collector of botanical specimens in England is acquainted 
with the scentless violet which grows so copiously on hedge-banks, in 
and about woods, on the borders of fields and commons; producing 
cordate leaves, usually smaller than those of the sweet violet, and 
flowers of a lighter or more lilac tint. It was to this common and fa- 
miliar species that our early botanical writers applied the name of 
canina; and in this application of the name they have been followed 
by subsequent authors, up to the date of the second edition of Ba- 
bington’s ‘ Manual of British Botany; although, in this latter work, 
the change of name from “ canina” to “ sylvatica” has been partially 
made; that is to say, the larger forms of the former have been sepa- 
rated, and described under the latter name, by the author of the 
Manual. He has, however, left the smaller forms of the old V. canina 
still under that name, conglomerated with some forms of a different 
species, the V. flavicornis of Smith. 

It appears to me a fact beyond question, that the Viola “ canina 
sylvestris” of Gerarde (Em.) was a name intended to distinguish the 
scentless “wild or Dog’s Violet” from the sweet violet; the name 
being expressly applied to a common sylvan species which was found 


637 


“ad sepes et in dumetis passim.” (See Raii Syn, edition 2, p. 214, 
anno 1696). Afterwards, in the third edition of the same work, 1724, 
Dillenius mentioned and figured another plant, as “a variety of Viola 
canina, if not a different species, observed by Du Bois, and much 
smaller than the common plant in all its parts.” The small variety, 
or different species, was a Surrey violet, stated to have been found in 
pastures near Mitcham. This, the only locality recorded by Dillenius, 
is not without some value as evidence in the question of specific 
names. 

We may pass over the intermediate authors on British Botany, by 
a long leap to the ‘ English Flora’ of Smith, published just one hun- 
dred years after Dillenius had published the third edition of Ray. 
Smith’s work became, as is well known, a standard authority for sub- 
sequent writers to follow and copy from, for the last quarter of a century. 
Here we find Gerarde’s identical Viola canina sylvestris still desig- 
nated Viola canina by Smith, under the belief that Linnzeus had like- 
wise so designated it; while the Dillenian small variety or different 
species is described under the name of Viola flavicornis. Besides 
these two, Smith still kept up his own V. lactea, as a third species, 
distinct from both the others. 

Since the death of Smith, very few of the writers on British botany 
seem to have clearly understood and distinguished his three species, 
individual forms or varieties of one species having often been referred 
to another of them. Dwarf forms of V. canina (Smith) have thus been 
referred to V, flavicornis; and examples of the latter, in its turn, have 
been supposed to represent V. lactea. And, again, in changing the 
name of Gerarde’s species, from V. canina into V. sylvatica, the latter 
name has unfortunately not been applied to the common species in 
its totality, but only to its more luxuriant forms. This unfortunately 
partial change and application is proved, among other evidences, by 
the author of the Manual (the work in which the change is made) in- 
dicating Ais V. canina to be “common,” and his V. sylvatica only 
questionably “common?” But the V. canina of Gerarde and Smith 
(the V. sylvatica of various continental authors) is a hundred times 
more common in England, than is the other species (the V. canina of 
continental authors) figured by Dillenius, and described by Smith, 
from small examples, under name of V. flavicornis. 

Through the mis-references of particular forms to the wrong spe- 
cies, and the partial change of name above mentioned, the present 
application of “ Viola canina” is becoming very vague; and the use 
of the name is too likely to confuse the ideas of readers and writers, 


638 


because it will represent different species, or different combinations 
of forms, according to the individual who employs it as aname. I 
propose therefore to substitute in this paper three other names for the 
three species, such as ought not to confuse any clear-headed reader, 
and which I will apply comprehensively as designations of the re- 
spective species, not restrictedly to special forms or states of luxu- 
riance. The question, whether the second and third are truly and 
permanently distinct species, may be waived for the present. The 
three apparent species, each including subordinate varieties, are 
these :— 


1. Gerarde’s Violet = Viola canina, of Gerarde, Smith, &c. 
2. Dillenius’ Violet = Viola flavicornis, of Smith, in E. F. 
3. Smith’s Violet = Viola lactea, of Smith, in E. F. 


The authors of all our general floras of Britain, and probably those 
of all our local floras, up to the date of Babington’s Manual, in 1843, 
applied the name of “ Viola canina” to Gerarde’s Violet. If includ- 
ing either of the two other species under the same name, as varieties, 
Gerarde’s Violet was still their type of V. canina. I have myself, as 
above intimated, no doubt whatever that Mr. Babington’s typical idea 
of “ Viola canina” was still a form of the same species (Gerarde’s 
Violet) even to the publication of the second edition of the Manual, 
in 1847. This has been lately denied by Mr. F. J. A. Hort, among 
some good remarks on the violets, published in the ‘ Botanical Ga- 
zette.’ But the internal evidence afforded by the Manual, in con- 
nexion with other publications of the same author, is amply sufficient 
to bear out the opinion which I thus express. It is highly probable 
that Mr. C. C. Babington may have seen cause to alter and correct 
his views of these three violets since he printed the second edition of 
the Manual; and therefore I would be here understood to refer to his 
views as the author of 1843 and 1847, and not to any modified 
opinions of the individual botanist of 1849, which he has not yet an- 
nounced publicly, so far as I know, although they may have been 
communicated to Mr. Hort. 

If, then, all English botanists have intended Gerarde’s Violet, un- 
der name of V. canina, why ask any question, or make any difficulty 
about it? Because continental authorities are applying the same 
name to a different species, and a different name to the same species ; 
and because influential English botanists are now proposing to fol- 
low their example. The grounds for this change and transfer of 


639 


name are, that Linneus intended Dillenius’ Violet, rather than Gevr- 
arde’s Violet, under his own application of the specific name “ canina.”’ 
The fact seems to be, that Linneus included both species under the 
single name; a large form of Dillenius’ Violet, and (apparently) a 
small form of Gerarde’s Violet, being preserved as examples of V. ca- 
nina in his herbarium, three specimens of each. The Linnean Viola 
canina is thus a group of two species, or perhaps more; and in sub- 
dividing this group into its proper and particular species, it would 
surely have been the better course to restrict the old name of “ canina” 
to Gerarde’s Violet, as the species originally intended by it; instead of 
dissevering it entirely from the original species, and giving it to that 
different species which had been distinguished from Gerarde’s Violet, 
by Dillenius, so early as 1724. ‘It is reasonable to suppose that, in 
adopting the old name, Linnzus intended to continue it to the old 
species. He may have written the character of his V. canina from 
a specimen of one of the other species, “ lumped” under that name ; 
but, if so, this was simply an error on his part, in describing the wrong 
species ofthe group as the true V. canina. 

The question now before us is, are we to adhere to the nomencla- 
ture of Smith and other English botanists, who have followed the 
“better course” '—or, are we to seek future uniformity of nomencla- 
ture by adopting the new application of the names, as proposed by 
Fries and many other continental botanists? There may be no great 
objection against taking up the name of “ sylvatica,” instead of “ ca- 
nina ;” for the former would in future be applied more precisely than 
the latter to Gerarde’s Violet. But there is a strong objection to be 
urged against transferring the name of “ canina” to Dillenius’ Violet; 
because in all past English books it means a different species, and will 
continue to do so in many future books, lists, &c. For instance, 
henceforth, when we see “ Viola canina” in a list of plants, how are 
we to know whether this name intends Gerarde’s Violet or Dillenius’ 
Violet ?—the original V. canina or the substituted V. canina? 


In the course of the years 1848-9 I have been many times asked 
for specimens of Viole, and many have been sent to me, with questions 
about the species and names. And through the obliging aid of Mr. 
Borrer, this year, in giving me plants of V. lactea and V. Ruppii, 
which I had not before known in a living state, my collection of the 
British forms under cultivation is now nearly complete. Some ac- 
count of the three species may therefore not be useless or out of place 
here. 


640 


1. Gerarde’s Violet is readily distinguished from the other two, by 
its short, upright, central stem; from which the flowering branches 
are produced laterally, and extended almost horizontally, though as- 
cending towards their extremities. On luxuriant plants, in damp and 
shaded situations, these flowering branches are occasionally a foot 
and upwards in length; but they are annual only, and die back to 
the main stem in winters of ordinary severity. The leaves are thin 
and flexible, broadly cordate; the upper more or less attenuating 
into a point; the lower occasionally cordate-reniform. The flowers 
are lilac-purple, varying into very pale lilac. The green colour of the 
plant has a yellower cast than in the other species. The capsules are 
longer in proportion to their breadth, but too variable to afford a safe 
character. This is undoubtedly the V. canina of Smith, and is the 
species figured in ‘ English Botany, 620. The figure would have 
been quite characteristic, though curtailed, if the artist had not omit- 
ted the two or three leaves which should have appeared from between 
the stipules which are represented as terminating the central stem. 
A very small form of the same species, my “ dwarf violet,” is given 
in the ‘ Supplement to English Botany, 2736, as the Viola flavicornis 
of Smith, on the authority of the late Mr. E. Forster. This was an 
error, as I have already shown in the ‘ Phytologist, i1.1018. To 
Gerarde’s Violet must be referred the V. canina of Babington’s Ma- 
nual, first edition, with the first and second varieties, sylvatica and 
pusilla, but not the other varieties. In its large form, it is the Viola 
sylvatica of the second edition of the Manual; and in its ordinary 
and dwarf forms, it is inextricably confused with the V. canina and 
variety pusilla of the same work, as shown by the references to the 
figures of ‘English Botany ;’ though the description is misapplied, 
and does not belong to the same species as the figures which are re- 
ferred to. 

2. Dillenius’ Violet is known from the preceding species by the 
want of the short central and sterile stem. The flowering branches 
are produced by repeated subdvisions of the stem itself, and are not 
lateral growths from it. Though partially dying back in winter, these 
branches are perennial at their bases, and the plant thus acquires 
something of the habit of a very dwarf shrub. The leaves are thick 
and rather rigid, variable in shape, with a cordate base, mostly inclin- 
ing to ovate, if small or early, and to triangular-ovate, if large or pro- 
duced later. The flowers are blue, or bluish purple, varying through 
very pale blue into whitish. The prevailing colour of the leaves and 
whole plant is a dark grayish or bluish green. In its dwarf form, this 


641 


is the V. flavicornis of Smith’s herbarium. In its intermediate form 
it is the “ Surrey Violet,” several times mentioned in the ‘ Phytolo- 
gist.’ Ina larger form it becomes the V. Ruppii, judging by Mr. 
Borrer’s garden plant so named. And I presume it to be the two va- 
rieties, montana and Ruppil, of Babington’s Viola canina. It has 
not been figured in ‘English Botany ;’ the dwarf form of Gerarde’s 
violet having been there erroneously substituted for the dwarf form of 
the present species, as above intimated. The early flowering state, 
and the later seeding state of the “Surrey Violet,” might readily be 
mistaken for different species. 

3. Smith’s Violet closely resembles Dillenius’ violet, particularly in 
its smaller forms. It is to be distinguished by its narrower leaves, 
inclining to lanceolate, though variable in form; and they are rarely, 
if ever, cordate at the base. ‘The flowers are paler. The capsule is 
proportionally shorter and blunter. But I do not feel myself yet suf- 
ficiently acquainted with the range of variation in this species to 
speak confidently of its distinctive characters. It is figured in ‘ Eng- 
lish Botany, 445; and the living plant from Mr. Borrer’s garden cor- 
responds pretty well with that figure; but in my own garden its 
flowers have hitherto been apetalous, and the plant remains small, 
being as yet kept in a small flower-pot. I am indebted to the Rev. 
W. A. Leighton for a dried specimen from his garden, taken from a 
Sussex plant of V. lactea, given to him by Mr. Borrer, and which has 
expanded to thrice the size, and appears to form a connecting link 
from V. lactea to V. stagnina. Several of the localities recorded for 
V. lactea either produce both this and the preceding species, or else 
belong properly to Dillenius’ violet. These three species vary much 
in luxuriance, and their varieties have been described under different 
names. The following list may aid in showing their nomenclature :— 


I. GERARDE’S VIOLET = V. canina of Smith, Hooker, &c. 
1. (Luxuriant) V. sylvatica of Bab. Man. ed. 2. 
2. (Ordinary) V. canina of Eng. Bot. 620; rather large. 
3. (Dwarf) = V. flavicornis of Eng. Bot. Sup. 2736. 


i]. Diztenius’ VioLeT = V. canina of Bab. Man. (in part). 
1. (Luxuriant) = V. Ruppii of Mr. Borrer’s garden. 
2. (Ordinary) V. canina, var. montana, of Bab. Man. 
3. (Dwarf) V. flavicornis of Smith’s herbarium. 


| 


VOL. Il. 40 


642 


Il]. Smiry’s VIOLET. 
1. (Luxuriant) = “V. montana, var. stricta” (Cyb. Brit. 170) 
2. (Ordinary) |= V. lactea of Mr. Borrer’s garden. 
3. (Small) = V. lactea of Eng. Bot. 445. 


I have a very fine violet from Mr. Borrer, under name of “mon- 
tana,” which closely resembles V. elatior or V. persicifolia, and ap- 
pears to be distinct from the three above mentioned; but I do not 
know whether it was of English origin, or not so. 


Hewett C. WaArTSson. 
Thames Ditton, August 15, 1849. 


P. 8. (August 18th)—Mr. Hartman, an excellent Swedish botanist 
at present in London, son of Dr. Hartman, the author of the ‘ Scan- 
dinaviens Flora,’ has this day intimated to me his opinion that the 
small specimens of “ Viola canina” in the Linnean herbarium belong 
to V. arenaria, rather than to V. sylvatica. But whether this be the 
case or not, there can be no doubt that the plant now designated 
“V. sylvatica” formed part of the aggregate or group of species, to 
which Linnzus applied the name of “canina.” H.C. W. 


Botanical Appointments in the Queen’s Colleges, Ireland. 


Some three years ago various candidates were spoken of as offering 
themselves for the Chairs of Botany (since united with Natural His- 
tory) in the three new Queen’s Colleges, Ireland. It is now reported 
that the appointments have been at length made, and that Dr. Dickie, 
Mr. Hincks, and Dr. Melville are to be the Professors. The selec- 
tion of Dr. Dickie is highly creditable to the Board; the papers 
which he has already published on botanical subjects, being such as 
to place him in an elevated and honorable position among scientific 
naturalists ; and giving promise, we trust, of much valuable exertion 
yet to be made by him for the promotion of science. Though Mr. 
Hincks and Dr. Melville are less known as contributors to the ad- 
vancement of science, we have no reason to question the suitableness 
of the appointments in their cases. One of the candidates, Mr. G. 
H. K. Thwaites, had retired from the field of competition, by accept- 
ing an appointment to the garden at Ceylon, as successor of Mr. 


643 


Gardner, where his talents will find ample scope. And Mr. H. C. 
Watson had some time ago withdrawn his application for one of the 
Chairs in Ireland; otherwise, there is reason to suppose he would 
have been nominated by the Board of Queen’s Colleges. 


C. 


New Locality for Hypericum linariifoliwm. 
By F. H. Gou.pine, Esq. 


WILL you have the kindness to inform the members of the London 
Botanical Society through the pages of the ‘ Phytologist’ of another 
habitat for Hypericum linariifolium (Vahl) besides the one I commu- 
nicated to them some time since, which was by the side of a hedge, 
ascending a hill from Blakstone to Maristowe, near the river Tavy, 
Devon? It is now to be found plentifully about the Morwell Rocks, 
river Tamar. I collected several specimens there yesterday, together 
with Asplenium lanceolatum, and Orobanche major, and proceeded 
to search for the Physospermum Cornubiense at the habitat men- 
tioned in Hooker’s ‘ British Flora, and communicated by the Rev. 
W.S. Hore. It is now completely eradicated, the wood being meta- 


morphosed into a corn-field. 
F. H. GouLpine. 
13, Bedford Street, Plymouth. 
June 29, 1849. 


Note on a few Rare Plants occurring at Kelvedon. 
By EL. G. VarennE, Esq. 


ONE evening during the last month an agricultural acquaintance of 
mine brought a plant from Salcot (a parish on the borders of the salt 
marshes), which he said infested two or three places in one of his 
fields, as bad as twitch. He seemed pleased with the idea that he 
should succeed in grubbing it all up. The farm labourers informed 
him that the weed had been growing in the field for many years past. 
On examination the plant proved to be Lepidium Draba, Br., as de- 
scribed by Hooker and Babington. 

Salcot is an Essex locality for several other of our rarer plants. 

Lepidium latifolium covers the banks by the road-side, and grows 
in the meadow land on both sides of the creek. 


644 


Trifolium maritimum is found among the grass, in the meadows. 
Myriophyllum verticillatum grows in a ditch near the wharf. Cyno- 
glossum sylvaticum is to be met with here, as well as in other parts 
of the east of the county, but it has nearly disappeared from the sta- 
tion recorded in the ‘ Botanist’s Guide,’ between Witham and Kelve- 
don, only two or three plants remaining, and it can no longer be dis- 
covered in Braxted by the way-sides. 

A Potamogeton with large fruit is common in the salt-water ditches, 
and agrees with the description in Mr. Babington’s book of Potamo- 
geton pectinatus, Z. Sisymbrium Sophia is not an uncommon weed 
at Salcot. 

It may be as well to take the present opportunity of recording the 
habitats of two or three plants of interest in other parts of this county. 
Centaurea solstitialis was found last harvest, at Berechurch, where it 
was growing in a field amongst the wheat, in tolerable abundance. 

Juncus diffusus, Hoppe, inhabits Tiptree Heath, where I discovered 
it in company with my friend Mr. Bentall, two years ago. It also 
in the park at Rivenhall Place pretty plentifully. 

Apera Spica-venti? A grass which was at first taken for A. Spica- 
venti, but which much resembles specimens of Apera interrupta, was 
found last autumn, near the railway station at Mark’s Tey. 


EK. G. VARENNE. 
Kelvedon, Essex, July 25, 1849. 


BoTANICAL SocIETY OF LONDON. 


Friday, August 3, 1849. — John Reynolds, Esq., Treasurer, in the 
chair. 

The following donations were announced :— 

‘The Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England’ for 
July, 1849; presented by the society. ‘The Pharmaceutical Journal 
and Transactions’ for August, 1849; presented by the Pharmaceuti- 
cal Society. ‘ Twenty Lessons on British Mosses,’ by William Gar- 
diner; presented by the author. 

Dr. Joseph Dickson, of Jersey, and Miss M. Wilson, of Belfast, 
were elected corresponding members. 

Mr. Jasper W. Rogers brought under the consideration of the 
meeting the purport of his paper read at the last meeting of the So- 
ciety, on the 6th of July last, ‘‘ On the Uses and Properties of Peat 


645 


Moss, and the Value of Peat Charcoal as a Disinfector and Fertilizer.” 
It may be necessary to mention that by the aid of peat charcoal Mr. 
Rogers purposes to consolidate and deodorize the solid matter of the 
London sewers, and whilst by that means benefiting the inhabitants 
of the metropolis, there would be placed within the reach of the agri- 
culturist a manure of the most powerful description—pulverized, free 
from odour, and fit for transit by any conveyance. In 1845 he brought 
the subject under the consideration of the public, and it was then al- 
leged that charcoal could not give that quantity of carbon to the root 
of the plant, the leaf and not the root being the portion which ab- 
sorbed such sustenance. Often, however, since then he had tried the 
experiment, and the result had invariably been that the root, as well 
as the leaf, of the plant attracted the carbon, and therefore he was 
more convinced of the propriety of the system he had promulgated. 
From the experiments he had made he had found that peat charcoal 
possessed far superior advantages to wood charcoal: it had had a 
deodorizing effect which wood charcoal had not; and if they con- 
sidered how such an agent could be made to operate upon the sew- 
age matter of London, no one could be left in doubt as to the public 
benefit. Wherever it had been used it produced the most extraor- 
dinary effect. If excretia, in its natural state, was intermixed with 
charcoal, it at once absorbed and took up all those gases which, if 
exposed to the amosphere, were lost. It kept that nutriment until 
such time as the dryness of the earth surrounding a plant intimated 
its lack of sustenance, and gave forth its revivifying influence when it 
was wanted. In short, by the admixture of charcoal with excretia 
all the gases were at once taken up and retained, ridding the public of 
nuisance and disease, and giving to the land the entire benefit. Peat 
charcoal was, perhaps, the greatest absorbant known. It would take 
up and retain about 80 to 90 per cent. of water, and at least from 90 
to 100 volumes of those noxious gases arising from animal excrement 
and other putrescent matter. Hence its great value for effecting deo- 
dorization, and for retaining all the value of the liquid, as well as its 
volatile products. Equal parts of prepared peat charcoal and ex- 
cretia would, under almost every circumstance, if properly intermixed, 
produce a manure of almost incalculable value. The proportion, 
however, of charcoal might be more or less in some instances, even 
down to one-third. 

Mr. John Bishop, F.R.S., inquired of Mr. Rogers, whether he was 
not aware that the peat raised from the bogs of Ireland could be 


646 


turned into other uses besides that he had pointed out, and in answer 
to which, 

Mr. Rogers said he could not do better than quote the following 
paragraph from his original paper, read to the Society on the sub- 
ject: “In its natural state peat moss had several peculiarities. It 
contains, in different proportions, ammonia, pyro-ligneous acid, tar, 
&c., and also a very singular production, a ‘fatty matter,’ which, 
when purified, closely resembles spermaceti, and makes a very beau- 
tiful candle. Mr. Reece has recently patented a process for the ex- 
traction of these articles; and 1 am happy to say, a few energetic 
Englishmen have not feared to risk both themselves and their for- 
tunes to commence operations on an extensive tract of bog and mine- 
ral, in the county of Antrim, where they have coal as well as peat, 
and they purpose carrying out the production of iron from ore, 
which is upon the property. Possibly ‘ Price’s Patent Candle’ may 
yet be rivalled by ‘Reece’s Bog Spermaceti.’ To speak seriously, 
the production is really beautiful, and gives a pure and strong light. 
The question to be solved, however, is, can it be obtained in sufficient 
quantity to be profitable? It is found in its natural state, at times, 
in small quantities collected together, by some peculiar local filtra- 
tion or perhaps affinity, which draws it from the mass around, to one 
spot. I have seen a collection of it, a little well, 1 may say, of six to 
seven inches in diameter, containing the matter pure, and about the 
colour of butter. The superstitious tradition of the peasantry is, that 
the fairies hide it for their use, and hence it is called ‘ fairy butter.’ 
It is but rarely found in that state, and is then treated with great 
reverence.” 

Dr. Cook and Dr. Semple expressed doubts as to the possibility of 
plants receiving carbon through the root, and quoted Sir Humphrey 
Davy and Liebig to support their argument. 

Those gentlemen were replied to by Dr. Redmond, who contended 
that Mr. Rogers’s chemistry remained untouched by their arguments. 
By his proposition the plant drew up by its root carbonic acid, which 
the secretions converted into charcoal. 

The Rev. Mr. Stoddart and other members of the Society having 
expressed themselves in terms favorable to Mr. Rogers’s views of 
the subject, 

The Chairman expressed the gratification the Society had expe- 
rienced from Mr. Rogers bringing the subject before them, and the 
meeting then adjourned, after passing an unanimous vote of thanks 
to that gentleman.—G. E. D. 


647 


Occurrence of Anacharis Alsinastrum (Udora canadensis) in the 
Trent, near Burton-on-Trent. By Epwin Browy, Esq. 


I DISCOVERED a few days ago Anacharis Alsinastrum growing in 
profusion in the Trent, near this town; it also grows in the canal in 
this neighbourhood. 

Several years ago I paid considerable attention to the botany of 
this neighbourhood before entomology engrossed my leisure moments, 
and I feel convinced this plant did not then grow in our streams, 
otherwise it would have been discovered before. This fact, taken in 
connexion with the very recent discovery of the plant in Great Bri- 
tain, leads one to the conclusion that it is not indigenous. It now 
forms very large submerged masses in the Trent, of a striking appear- 
ance. I have, however, found as yet but few flowers, and those are 
all the so-called female flowers. Contrary to the experience of Mr. 
Babington, as given in the ‘ Annals of Natural History,’ every flower 
I have examined contained three stigmas and only two filaments. 

The rapid dispersion of this species throughout the country ap- 
pears to have an analogous instance in the wonderfully speedy diffu- 
sion of the mollusk Dreissena polymorpha over the beds of all our 


rivers and canals. 


Epwin Brown. 
Burton-on-Trent, August 20, 1849. 


Notice of * The Rudiments of Botany; a familiar Introduction to 
the Study of Plants. By Arruur HeEnrrey, F.L.S., Lecturer 
on Botany at St. George’s Hospital, author of ‘Outlines of 
Structural and Physiological Botany.’ With Illustrative Wood- 
cuts.’ London: Van Voorst, 1849. 


Ir there were room for a rudimentary work on botany this unpre- 
tending little volume might edge its way into notice, for it is cleverly 
written, of enticing appearance, and very prettily illustrated. We 
heartily wish it success, but at the same time we must not abandon 
the critic’s office of criticising where opportunity offers. Mr. Henfrey 
is evidently a very ardent book-botanist ; he reads a great deal, reads 
very attentively, and understands and applies what he reads: this 
was very observable in his ‘ Outlines,’ and in noticing that work we 
bore willing testimony to its excellence, especially in the points to 


648 


which we are now alluding. ‘This quality, however, occasionally 
leads Mr. Henfrey into the solecism of making too much display of 
knowledge lately acquired: thus he reads, is struck with the beauty 
of a theory or hypothesis that comes suddenly under his notice: he 
devours and digests it, and then serves it up to every one who falls 
in his way. We recollect once telling a little boy the Guy Fawkes 
legend, greatly to his astonishment ; and we heard him many, many 
times within the next day or two repeating the mystery to every one 
he talked to,—children, servants, even graybeards who had seen fifty 
fifths of November, were informed “ There was once a very wicked 
man,” &c., &c. Mr. Henfrey is the exact counterpart of this child; 
he is delighted with every new acquisition of knowledge, and sup- 
poses it as new to others as to himself. After all, this weakness, if it 
be one, is a pleasing weakness, and but that hypotheses thus im- 
plicitly received, and thus constantly intermingled with fact, occa- 
sionally obscure what would otherwise be extremely clear and simple, 
we would not hold up so much as a little finger against it. Now cer- 
tainly a proof of our allegation must be given; and although the truth 
of the allegation has forced itself on us all along, as we read from title- 
page to colophon, or rather to lion, for the book ends with the effigy 
of a lion rampant, still there is no salient point to cite as an apt illus- 
tration. However, beginning the book again, the first description— 
that of the flower—offers a sufficient, though perhaps not forcible ex- 
ample of our meaning. It would appear our author has lately found, 
devoured and digested Dr. Lindley’s striking remarks on Morpho- 
logy : it will be seen how those remarks are served up for our benefit 
in the following few lines, which we extract consecutively :— 

“ The flowers are composed of a number of different parts, and as 
these are considered to be in reality peculiar forms of leaves, like 
them they are, in the first instance, combined and folded up in buds. 
A flower-bud is to be compared with the leaf-bud, which afterwards 
unfolds into a stem bearing leaves. In the flower no internodes are 
formed between the leaves, and they thus remain grouped in circles 
oraclose spiral. The flower of the Wallflower presents us with 
four leaves in the outer circle, and these will be best examined on a 
bud, as they fall off soon after it opens. These are green, like the true 
leaves, but are smaller and much changed in their general appear- 
ance. They are called sepals, and collectively they form the calyx, 
or cup of the flower, which is always known from the other parts by 
being the outermost circle. To the calyx succeeds another circle of 
four bodies, «hich still retain in some degree the character of leaves, 


649 


although their brilliant colour here, as in most plants, affords a 
ready mode of distinction. These bodies are called petals, and the 
collective name of corolla is applied to them. All the coloured leafy 
bodies within the calyx of the flower are considered to belong to the 
corolla. The two circles just described are present in the greater 
number of flowers, but they are not actually necessary for the forma- 
tion of fertile seeds. They enclose and protect, while young, those 
bodies especially devoted to the formation of the seed. They are 
therefore called enveloping organs. Within these enveloping organs, 
which we may now remove with a penknife, we find, in the first place, 
six bodies or organs, each of which consists of a little thread-like 
stalk, bearing at its end a yellow oval mass. These organs, which 
are still to be considered as peculiar forms of leaves, are called sta- 
mens; the thread-like stalk is the filament, the mass above, the an- 
ther, which, in advanced stages of the flower, will be found to have 
burst by two splits, displaying two cavities, which previously con- 
tained a fine dust, called the pollen, now scattered around. In the 
centre of the flower appears a green body, which is found to be con- 
structed of two or four leaves, united at their edges so as to enclose 
a cavity within. This green body is called the pistil, when regarded 
as one piece; and the summit, which is somewhat swollen, is the 
stigma.”—p. 9. 

Now, if our readers will kindly take the trouble to read the entire 
extract, leaving out the italicised passages, which bear only on the 
ingenious hypothesis of Morphology, and not on the description of 
the floral envelopes, he will find it much clearer, more intelligible, 
and more instructive. 

With regard to the hypothesis itself, it has some facts very much 
in its favor; and we have observed in several instances that, the sap 
being diverted from its course by Aphides, the pistil has assumed a 
leaf-like appearance; and such abnormal appearances as this have 
been urged in support of the hypothesis: but those acquainted with 
gardens, and hedges, and woods, and orchards, and who learn from 
such things as well as from books, must have observed other pheno- 
mena. For instance, a species of Aphis infests the roots of Pyrus 
japonica just at the surface of the soil, and the effect of its diverting 
the sap from its usual course is to cause the root to throw out flower- 
buds, and brilliant scarlet flowers are frequently thus produced on 
the root: the morphological hypothesis applied in this case must 
lead to the conclusion that the root was a flower, and merely assumed 
the functions of a root for especial purposes ; and yet science denies 

VOL. II. 4 P 


650 


to the root the power of even bearing a bud. Again, another species 
of Aphis attacks what gardeners call the Midsummer shoots, and 
these shoots thus attacked, particularly in apple-trees, and very par- 
ticularly in the Ribstone-pippin, produce flowers in place of leaves, 
and spread open rosy blooms io the hot suns of July and August: 
ergo, on morphological principles the leaves are normally blossoms, 
althoagh usually assuming the form and functions of leaves. Now all 
this does not negative the assertion that the pistil is composed of four 
leaves, but we think it abundantly shows that such a conclusion is 
at present conjectural only, and does not take rank with the esta- 
blished facts which are generally supposed to be ‘ The Rudiments of 
Botany.’ 

Again, this really clever book occasionally, we may perhaps say 
frequently, wants that perspicuity which is so essential in an elemen- 
tary work. The reader will perhaps observe this sufficiently in the 
paragraph already cited, but we will take the next, in order to avoid 
repetition. 

“There are other perennial plants which have their stem under 
ground, and display above ground every summer a new stalk bearing 
flowers, which again dies down to the ground in autumn, as, for in- 
stance, the Asparagus or the Hop, or looses its flower-stalk every year, 
and produces a tuft of leaves, which live through the winter; as, for 
instance, the Daisy and the Flag.”—>p. 21. 

In both extracts the italics are our own. Now we have to remark that 
the word again seems unmeaning, because the stalk in question has not 
died before. Indeed, the student will have great difficulty in deducing 
any meaning whatever from this obscure paragraph; but the bota- 
nist, after two or three perusals, and recurring to his knowledge of 
the plants mentioned, will perceive the terms loosing and dying are 
not intended to be contrasted, but are used to express the same 
meaning: he will also perceive that Mr. Henfrey, in addition to the 
provincial, and we think inelegant, word loostng, has given a new and 
incorrect name to the stem of the Asparagus and Hop: he calls ita 
stalk bearing flowers, and then contrasts it with the true flower-stalk 
of the Daisy and Flag. Again, the leaves of the Daisy and Flag 
should be distinguished from the others as persistent. Mr. Henfrey 
knows all this: he is a good structural botanist, and his writings 
abundantly testify his knowledge ; the confusion does not exist in 
his mind, but in his mode of expression. “ Botany, like every science 
and art, requires that particular names should be applied, in an 


651 


exclusive sense, to particular things.”* Had he attended to this rule 
instead of merely reciting it, he would not have introduced a new and 
inelegant word for dying, or a new and inappropriate term for stem. 
There is one other subject on which we must say a few words in 
the way of disapprobation : we allude to the explanation of system 
being confined exclusively to the Linncan. Without entering into 
the merits of the two systems, surely the general usc of the Jussienian, 
demands that in any rudimentary work it should be carefully ex- 
plained. We grant that Mr. Henfrey has a perfect right to prefer or 
recommend either system, but he should fully instruct beginners in 
that which is now universally employed. K. 


On the Experiments of raising Primule, §c., from Seed. 
By the Rey. J. S. Henstow, M.A., F.L.S., &c. 


In running my eye over the ‘ Phytologist’ [ see the record of sun- 
dry experiments with Primule and Anagalles, recalling two old ex- 
periments of my own, in which I considered I had obtained Primula 
vulgaris from Primula veris, and Anagallis arvensis from Anagallis 
cerulea. J have not lost sight of this inquiry since, and may some 
day have an opportunity of reverting to it. Unless a thought is re- 
corded at the moment it is often not recorded at all, and I wish to 
say that although negative testimony is never entirely worthless, and 
often very valuable, it cannot be of much weight in comparison with 
a little positive testimony in deciding the question at issue. 
Thousands and millions of seedlings may and will come true, to use 
a common gardening expression, in most cases where a strong im- 
press of a particular character has been mysteriously imparted to 
some variety ; and yet a fortunate opportunity may at length arise 
for establishing the possible, or at least for pointing out the probable, 
specific identity of plants whose forms are extremely dissimilar. We 
all know the beautiful blue of the common borage (Borago officinalis). 
It must be five or six years since I observed a white variety ina 
single plant in a hedge between this village and Ipswich. I brought 
home a few seeds, and the plants that sprung up have been allowed 
to seed freely among some currant-bushes in my kitchen-garden, and 
numerous specimens have since appeared. Every one of them has 


* This axiom was first contended for by Mr. Newman (Ent. Mag. i. 395, et seq.) 


652 


borne white flowers. Here is an instance, quite as remarkable as that 
of Anagallis czrulea not changing colour in some of the experiments 
on record. I cannot at this distant period sufficiently recall all the 
precautions I took in the experiment with the cowslip, and if there 
really was any “hitch,” as a correspondent of the ‘ Phytologist’ has 
suggested, it may possibly have happened that I selected my seed 
from such a plant as that which Mr. Watson has called the Claygate 
oxlip, a variety not uncommon near Cambridge ; but I well remem- 
ber saying to myself whilst I was sowing the seed, “ Now if this does 
change, I will not be persuaded that the result has been obtained 
from any chance seed in the ground.” The Anagallis experiment 
was so perfectly satisfactory, that I cannot possibly admit there could 
have been any mistake. “ But (I have heard it said) there may be 
two species, one of which bears either red or blue flowers, and the 
other is true to blue only”! Surely this is rather hypothetical, not — 
to say somewhat trifling with positive results. I cannot at the mo- 
ment recall the circumstances of the experiment, but I am strongly 
impressed with the notion that Anagallis grandiflora has also been 
raised from Anagallis Monelli, which would be a precisely analogous 
example. But perhaps there is a “true blue” Anagallis Monell, 
and a turn-coat also! 

It was once proposed that the late Profesor Don should have been 
the medium of communication between a group of botanists who were 
to interchange seeds, and try what effect might be produced by sow- 
ing certain possible varieties of the same species in different and dis- 
tant localities. But the scheme was never carried into effect, chiefly 
owing to poor Don’s death. Considering the flourishing crop of bo- 
tanists of all varieties that has arisen since then, perhaps such of your 
zealous contributors as have sufficient leisure for reviving the at- 
tempt, may organize a Cohors Botanicorum for this special purpose. 
Much may be expected from a carefully-conducted series of experi- 
ments made with reference to specific identity ; and perhaps some ink 
and no little discussion will be saved in future if an accurate record 
of the results obtained were to be inserted, from time to time, in the 
pages of the ‘ Phytologist.’ 

J. S. HENsSLow. 

Hitcham, Suffolk, September 14, 1849. 


653 


A Catalogue of the Plants growing wild in Hampshire, with occa- 
sional Notes and Observations on some of the more remarkable 
Species. By WitLt1AM ARNOLD BromMFIELD, M.D., F.L.S., &c. 


(Continued from page 609). 


Veronica scutellata. In spongy, turfy bogs, in wet meadows, on 
damp heaths, and by the sides of pools and ditches. Quite rare in 
the Isle of Wight. On deep spongy bog with Vaccinium Oxycoccos 
in the valley of the Medina, in meadows betwixt Stroud Green and 
Cridmore, 1838. Amongst long grass in a swampy pool near Hamp- 
stead farm. Edge of a pool on a common called Goldens, in the pa- 
rish of Freshwater. Apparently not unfrequent in mainland Hants. 
On Petersfield Heath. Brockenhurst Bridge. On Wolmer Forest. 
New Forest, in the neighbourhood of Stoney Cross; Mr. J. Hussey 
in litt. Droxford Forest; Rev. E. M. Sladen. 

Anagallis. In ponds, ditches, slow streams, and muddy, 
watery spots; more frequent in the Isle of Wight than the last, though 
not very common. In marsh ditches at Easton, Freshwater Gate, 
sparingly. On Schoolhouse Green, Freshwater. In the moat at 
Wolverton, by Shorwell, in plenty. Common in watery places at 
Brixton or Brightstone. By the mill at Lower Knighton, and else- 
where about Newchurch. Near Carisbrook, St. Lawrence &c. Wet 
places near Ryde and at Brading; Mr. Wm. Wilson Saunders. Ge- 
nerally diffused, I believe, over the county, where 1 have remarked it 
in various places, but have not made memoranda of stations for a 
plant so common as this is in the south of England. Broad Mea- 
dows, Warnford; Rev. E.M. Sladen. Stubbington, Titchfield river ; 
Mr. W. L. Notcutt. 

— Beccabunga. In and on the margins of clear shallow 
brooks, ditches, pools, springheads and muddy plashes; everywhere 
throughout the county and Isle of Wight, most abundantly. A va- 
riety with white flowers I found, May 25, 1848, in a pond betwixt 
Froxfield and Privet, near Petersfield. 

— Chamedrys. In woods, groves, meadows, pastures, 
hedges, and grassy, shady situations, as orchards &c.; universally 
over the county andisland. Var. 6. Leaves all shortly stalked, upper 
ones ovate-oblong, acute. In the lane or road leading to Haven 
Street through Firestone Copse, on the hedge-bank a little beyond 
the farm at Kite Hill; Mr. Thos. Meehan, jun., Oct. 1845! — Var. y. 
Flowers very pale, almost white. In a lane betwixt Kerne and 


654 


Alverstone, growing with the ordinary blue-flowered kind, in some 
abundance, May 9, 1849. Bird’s-eyes is the familiar appellation in 
the Isle of Wight, and I think in other parts of England, for this 
common but beautiful flower. The very nearly allied V. Teucrium 
of the continent may, I conceive, be expected with considerable pro- 
bability to grow wild on this side of the channel. 

Veronica moniana. In damp shady groves, woods, copses, and 
on moist hedge-banks, in many parts of the Isle of Wight, but espe- 
cially in East Medina; abundantly. Very common about Ryde, in 
Quarr Copse, at Apley, the Priory, &c. Frequent in woods at West 
Cowes, and very general at Shanklin about the Chine ; in Appuldur- 
combe Park and woods adjacent, in plenty, besides various other 
parts of East Medina. Less frequent in West Medina, about New- 
port, at Calbourne, in Lordon Copse near Shorwell, and many other 
parts of that hundred. Probably frequent over the entire county, but 
I have myself noticed it only in the great beech-hanger in Chawton 
Park, near Alton, May, 1848. Chandler’s Ford, near Otterbourne, 
on the Southampton road, but I have forgotten my authority in this 
instance. A variety of this pretty species with flowers of a delicate 
rose colour, streaked with purple lines, is not uncommon about Ryde. 
The close resemblance of the compressed orbicular capsule to the 
pod of a Biscutella might have suggested the name of that genus, as 
more appropriate for the specific appellation of this Veronica than its 
present alpine one of montana, which is far less applicable to our 
plant than to many others of the genus, since it affects indifferently 
low as well as elevated situations, both in Britain and on the conti- 
nent, and is assuredly not a particularly mountain species. 

officinalis. In dry woods, pastures and heathy places, 
and on hedge-banks, in a sandy, arid soil; frequent throughout the 
county and Isle of Wight. N.B.—V. spicata has been indicated to 
me as found on St. George’s Down, near Newport, in this island, and 
by Miss A. M. Yonge as growing at Cranbury Park, near Winton, at 
the edge of the copse, in dry gravelly soil. I have never fallen in 
with this species in the former station, and think it probable that V. 
officinalis was mistaken for it at Cranbury; yet it is a plant not un- 
likely to prove a native of our upland districts, and should be sought 
for accordingly. 

serpyllifolia. Everywhere common in the island and 
county in open sandy fields, waste places, moist woods, pastures and 
by road-sides, &c. 
— arvensis. Frequent in dry barren or sandy pastures, on 


655 


walls, hedge-banks and amongst corn, throughout the county and Isle 
of Wight. Of extremely diminutive size, often not half an inch in 
height, on the sandy spit below St. Helens, opposite Bembridge, and 
which I was once nearly mistaking for V. verna. “ Between Kings- 
ley and the New Inn near the line of the military road (from Farnham 
to Petersfield) there is a very remarkable small annual Veronica, ap- 
proaching closely to V. verna. It is most abundant in that sandy 
district, and I wish to call attention to it, as it is, I expect, something 
out of the common way. It cannot be V. arvensis, though at first 
sight it appears nearest to it.” (Mr. Wm. Pampiin in litt.). If not 
the above dwarf form of V. arvensis, or actually V. verna, there is a 
possibility of its proving to be cither V. precox or acinifolia, both 
natives of the north of France and of Germany. Circumstances have 
for two seasons frustrated my intention of going in quest of Mr. 
Pamplin’s plant, which must be looked for early in the year, as it 
soon dries up in that arid district and disappears for the summer. I 
hope to be able to do so next spring, and to be rewarded for my 
trouble with one, if not more, of the three species above mentioned. 
The neighbourhood of Petersfield is on every side of the town a 
glorious country for plants, whether we explore its low sandy districts, 
its bogs, moors, and ancient forest ground of Bere and Wolmer, or, 
ascending the precipitous chalk range to the northward, dive into the 
dark recesses of the majestic beech-hangers of Froxfield, where the 
richly wooded scenery of Stoner Hill and the neighbouring summits, 
covered to their highest points with luxuriant timber, broken here 
and there with teeming fields of wheat and barley, stretch in long 
succession east, west and north, embracing the scarcely less elevated 
and steep slopes of Bordean Hill, and the bosky hangers of Hartley, 
Nore Hill and Selborne. So abrupt and strongly defined are the out- 
lines of these chalk hills, and so precipitous their flanks, that we may 
almost excuse the epithet of “majestic mountains” applied to them 
by Gilbert White, and repressing the smile inclining to play over our 
features at this magniloquent phrase, join with him in ascribing to 
their bold contour somewhat of alpine sublimity. The resemblance 
in the scenery of Stoner Hill to some of the lower mountain passes 
in Italy or Switzerland, I have heard remarked upon by persons who 
had seen both ; nor do I think that in this instance their imagination 
has so far got the better of their judgment as not to have much of 
truth on the side of the assertion. 

Veronica agrestis. Common everywhere in waste and cultivated 
ground, fallows, on and under walls, banks &c. A somewhat remark- 


656 


able variety of this plant has been noticed for some years past by Mr. 
Albert Hambrough, amongst long grass at Steephill, growing with an 
upright stem, and bearing a solitary terminal flower on a long peduncle, 
of a fine blue and nearly as large as the blossom of V. Chameedrys !!! 
A widely-naturalized species abroad, which I have gathered even at 
New Orleans. 

Veronica polita. With the preceding, and perhaps not much less 
frequent than it over the county and island. The var. 8. grandiflora 
of Babington’s Manual is probably an analogous form to that alluded 
to of the foregoing species, but 1 have never met with it in Hampshire. 

t Buxbaunit. Naturalized in waste ground, cultivated 
fields, and on hedge-banks in the Isle of Wight ; rare, but I believe 
now well established. First noticed by me in 1844, as a weed, in the 
garden of a person named Herbert, at the south end of Royal Heath, 
Sandown, as well as in a field adjacent, and about the former barracks. 
In 1845 and 1846 I found it in very great profusion on the waste lots 
of that unlucky speculation yclept East Cowes Park, which not even 
proximity to royalty can help to colonize. In the ground at Binstead ; 
Mr. Albert Hambrough! I have no station as yet to record for this 
handsome Veronica on the mainland of the county, but can scarcely 
doubt its occurrence there as a denizen, now pretty generally natu- 
ralized throughout Britain. 
hederifolia. In waste and cultivated ground, fields, gar- 
dens and on hedge-banks ; most abundantly. Our tillage-lands and 
lay-fields are often covered with the ivy-leaved Speedwell in the 
spring and early summer months. 

Mentha rotundifolia. Yn damp pastures, hedges, wet thickets, and 
moist places by road-sides, also on the margins of ponds, ditches and 
streams. Truly wild in several parts of the Isle of Wight, princi- 
pally in East Medina. In old native pasture-ground in the Under- 
cliff, in various places, very abundantly, as about St. Lawrence, Old 
Park, Puckaster, &c. Rare about Ryde. At Binstead, sparingly. 
Hedges near Adgeton, in a field by White House farm, and by the 
pond in the farm-yard at the Grove. Near Newchurch, and abun- 
dantly in meadows near Lower Knighton Mill. Niton Village. By 
the stream at Bridge and Budbridge. At Brixton, and near Ather- 
field and elsewhere in the island. Apparently very rare on mainland 
Hants. Pretty plentifully in a wet hedge at Meonstoke, near the lit- 
tle bridge of the stream on the Corhampton side, Aug. 21, 1849. 
Road-side near Alton; Mr. E. Forster, jun., in Bot. Guide. These 
are the only stations known to me in this part of the county, but 


657 


further observations will probably show that it is more common there 
than it appears to be. Well known in the island as Horse Mint, a 
name applied in the books to the following species. I remarked it 
abundantly naturalized in the pastures of the mountainous districts of 
Jamaica, at several of the pens or grazing farms of that island. 

Mentha sylvestris. In similar places with the last, but very rare, 
at least in the Isle of Wight, where it has never occurred to myself. 
Stated in the ‘ Botanist’s Guide’ to have been found here by Mr. S. 
Woods, but no locality is given. Abundantly at Selborne in the 
meadow below the church, and along the stream flowing through it, 
and profusely in a marshy spot at the entrance of the Lith, at the foot 
of the steep end of Dorton, as likewise at the Priory, in a meadow 
close to the stream. At Great (Bishop’s) Waltham ; Mr. E. Forster, 
jun., in Bot. Guide. 

+? viridis. Wet places; very rare in the Isle of Wight, 
and I fear not truly wild with us. Plentifully along the stream flow- 
ing by Lord Yarborough’s marine villa at St. Lawrence, all the way to 
the beach ; Rev. G. E. Smith (1839), who, like myself, thinks it may 
be only an escape from the kitchen-garden higher up, through which 
the stream runs, and by which it was carried down to the shore. It 
is, however, now completely naturalized. I have no mainland station 
for the Spear Mint as yet. The var. f. crispa, with curled leaves, I 
found a few years back growing in considerable plenty on dry banks 
in Ventnor Cove, with the commoner form—the outcast of some 
garden. 


piperita. In watery places ; very rare. Near Ryde, Isle 
of Wight ; Mr. J. Woods, jun., in Bot. Guide. The locality is un- 
known to me; nor have I ever been fortunate enough to meet with 
the Peppermint in a native state in this or any other part of the 
county. 


aquatica. In wet thickets and hedges, on the banks of 
streams, ditches, ponds, and in other low watery places ; most abun- 
dantly. The var. citrata, or what I take to be such, I think is not 
uncommon in the island and county generally. 

+? sativa. In damp or watery places; very rare, and 
scarcely indigenous. Var. 8. rubra, or perhaps y. gentilis. On a 
hedge-bank by the road-side between Calbourne and Brixton, pro- 
bably not indigenous, as I could not find it a year or two subsequently, 
and there was a kitchen-garden at no great distance from the spot, 
from whence it might have been derived. Judging from the descrip- 
tions, which coincide almost exactly, our Isle-of-Wight plant, is 
NOL. air, 4 Q 


658 


the M. gentilis of Smith and of Leighton’s Shropshire Flora. M. 
gracilis of Smith, another and apparently very slight variety of M. sa- 
tiva, and perhaps identical with the forms rubra or gentilis, is given 
on the authority of Sole (the M. pratensis of that author) as growing 
in the New Forest. 

Mentha arvensis. Very common almost everywhere in moist waste 

and cultivated places, damp corn-fields, fallows, on ditch-banks and 
by streams, ponds &c. One of the best marked of the species of this 
troublesome genus, and in all its forms readily known by its odour, 
exactly assimilated to that of mouldy cheese. 
Pulegium. On moist watery heaths and commons, village 
greens, and the shallow grassy margins of pools and plashes ; very 
rare in the Isle of Wight. On St. Helen’s Green (1838-39), very spa- 
ringly, but in certain years it occurs, I am told, more abundantly. 
By the great pond on Petersfield Heath,—the only Hampshire sta- 
tion known to myself for the Penny-royal, but many others doubtless 
exist, at least on the mainland portion of the county. Droxford Fo- 
rest; Rev. EK. M. Sladen. Stubbington; Mr. W. L. Notcutt. 

Lycopus europeus. Tn and about the margins of ponds, ditches, 
rivers and brooks, in wet meadows, pastures and woods; frequent in 
the Isle of Wight, and I believe over the entire county. Very abun- 
dant in the pond near Hardingshoot Farm, where it constitutes great 
branching, bushy plants, three feet or more in height. Ditches in 
Sandown Level and on Rookly Moors, but so generally distributed 
over the island as to render an enumeration of stations unnecessary. 
It may be found in most of our damp woods and wet places, usually 
but sparingly, but occasionally in great plenty. Found in most parts 
of the county which I have visited. In great abundance and very tall 
by the stream a few hundred yards above the mill at Sheat near Pe- 
tersfield. Corhampton. About Winchester, &c., &c. Droxford 
Forest and Exton; Rev. E. M. Sladen. Andover water-meadows ; 
Mr. Wm. Whale. Near Temple, Selborne ; Dr. 'T. B. Salter in Phytol. 
Place House, Iron Mills, Titchfield Common; Mr. W. L. Notcutt. 

Salvia verbenaca. On dry banks and pastures, waste ground and 
by road-sides; not unfrequent in the county and island, particularly 
on the chalk. Scarcely found about Ryde; sparingly at Binstead ; 
common at Bonchurch; and plentifully at Ventnor on banks facing 
the sea, in the Cove, &c., as also along the Undercliff in various 
places. By Freshwater church and elsewhere in that parish, frequent. 
Porchester Castle, and common between Porchester and Fareham, 
1848. Hinton and Hunston; Rev. EK. M. Sladen. Andover; Mr. 


659 


Wm. Whale. Hambledon; Rev. Messrs. Garnier and Poulter in 
Hamps. Repos. In various other places, very generally dispersed. 

Var. 6. Flowers larger, corolla more exserted. Close by the Old 
Church sea-mark, St. Helen’s, some years back, but it has since dis- 
appeared. 

Salvia pratensis. On dry and especially chalky pastures, banks, 
and borders of fields; very rare. In an old chalk-pit in Appuldur- 
combe Park; Miss G. E. Kilderbee! Through the kindness of that 
lady, to whose exertions in examining the flora of this island and 
parts of the county adjacent, [ have so often had occasion to refer, I 
possess a single, though indubitable specimen of this very local Bri- 
tish native, which, on inquiry, [ found had been gathered in the 
above-mentioned locality by a groom of the late Lord Yarborough, 
along with some other wild plants, in July, 1838, and forwarded in a 
fresh state to Miss Kilderbee, at that time resident at West Cowes. I 
have since sought for it at Appuldurcombe, but in vain. The park 
is of great extent, and parts of it very sequestered and hilly ; unless, 
therefore, some mistake was made as to locality, I hold the Salvia to 
have been in all probability truly indigenous there. Near Brook- 
wood, West Meon; Rev. E. M. Sladen in litt. I have seen no ex- 
ample from this station, Mr. S. not being in the habit of preserving 
the plants remarked by him during his residence at Warnford, I can 
see no reason, however, for assuming an error in this instance, as Mr. 
S. was acquainted with our commoner species of Salvia, and the pre- 
sent is too conspicuous a one to be easily confounded with that or 
any other of our Labiate. Moreover, S. pratensis has been found 
plentifully in Oxfordshire by my friend Wm. Wilson Saunders, Esq., 
and geographical reasons are not opposed to its occurrence as a ge- 
nuine native of Hampshire, which I trust observations will ere long 
confirm. I do not know the precise spot in which the Meadow Clary 
was found by Mr. S., but on a rather hurried visit to the immediate 
vicinity of the station a year or two back, I saw nothing of it.* 

Origanum vulgare. On dry banks and hilly pastures, in rough, 
stony woods and steep bushy places; in the greatest abundance over 
the chalk districts of the Isle of Wight and mainland. Profusely 
throughout the Undercliff, and very fine and abundant on the chalky 
slopes of the wooded valley near Rowledge. Plentiful, indeed, every- 
where on the cretaceous system of Hampshire, as at Selborne, Ham- 
bledon, &c., &c., flourishing best in the upland parts of the county. 


* Abundant and perfectly wild at Cobham, in Kent.—Eb. 


660 


Maindell chalk-pit; Mr. W. L. Notcutt!!! and near the monument 
(Nelson’s ?); Id. 

Thymus Serpyllum. On dry turfy banks, pastures, and heathy, 
hilly places, abundantly. On the summit of our highest downs, and 
very commonly on old mole-hills. Var. @. citriodora. Road-side 
near the Sandrock spring. This, the lemon-scented thyme, is proba- 
bly common with us in Hants. Another variety, with very hairy 
stem and leaves, is not unfrequent, as about Ryde, &c., &c. Dr. Dar- 
lington tells us, that within his recollection it was a prevalent vulgar 
notion in America that the wild thyme sprang up spontaneously in 
spots where human blood had been spilt by any casualty or violence. 
Fl. Cest. p. 347. The idea, though revolting, is not without its poe- 
try; but how widely different from the images of peace and repose 
which the thyme-covered bank suggests to the rural muse in Europe ! 
The common garden thyme (7. vulgaris) grows spontaneously and in 
plenty on a wall-top in Niton village. 

Calamintha officinalis. In dry, open, sunny situations, on banks, 
by road-sides, borders of fields, along hedges, and amongst rocks, 
chiefly on gravelly or calcareous soils in the low country, never, I 
think, in the hilly upland districts. In several parts of the Isle of 
Wight, but very local. Sparingly betwixt Quarr Abbey and Fish- 
bourne, near Quarr House, September, 1837, but I have not seen it 
there for years. It used to be plentiful in Undercliff, amongst the 
rocks behind Bonchurch, but the recent buildings have probably 
much diminished its frequency there. Frequent on hedge-banks be- 
twixt Thorley and Wellond. By the road-side above Apse Heath. 
Along the road from Carisbrook to Buccombe, and about Carisbrook 
Castle and village, near the church. A few plants in the park at 
Swainston. Ruins of Quarr Abbey, near Ryde; Mr. Thomas Mee- 
han, jun.!! In various parts of mainland Hants. Exceedingly 
abundant betwixt Cosham and Havant, lining the road on the north 
side for hundreds of yards between Drayton and Farlington, and con- 
tinuing at intervals almost to Bedhampton. Plentiful within the huge 
area of Porchester Castle. Hedges near Exton, by Meonstoke, in 
considerable plenty, August 2Ist, 1849. Exton road; Rev. E. M. 
Sladen (probably the same station as the last). Extremely common 
betwixt Winton and Hursley; Mr. Wm. Whale! Old meadows at 
Mardon Castle, and in Hursley Park; Miss A. M. Yonge. South- 
ampton road, beyond Titchfield, Mr. W. L. Notcutt; and unques- 
tionably in many other places. C. Nepeta is very likely to be found 
within the limits of the Hampshire Flora, and should be looked for 


661 


in the same places with the present. I have gathered it in plenty on 
the rocks of the Castle Hill, at Hastings. 

Calamintha sylvatica. In shady (always upland?) woods and 
thickets; very rare. Profusely in woods on the western side of a 
small valley betwixt Apes Down and Rowledge farms, about three 
miles W.S.W. of Newport, the only station at present known for this 
plant in Britain!!! For a full account of this species and its charac- 
ters see Phytol. i. p. 768, ii. p. 49, and E. B. Suppl. iv. t. 2897. The 
most beautiful of all the British Labiata, Mellitis Melissophyllum not 
excepted, but as remarked in the two works just quoted, it requires 
either the natural shelter of trees and bushes in its native habitats, or 
artificial protection from wind and other elemental vicissitudes to de- 
velope it in perfection. Some of my friends, who, contrary to my ad- 
vice, have cultivated it in the open border alone, have expressed 
themselves disappointed in the beauty they were led to expect it 
would display, and have even thought they could trace its conversion 
into the common C. officinalis, but this is quite an error. Certain it 
is, that when raised in the open flower-border, the plant, even of the 
first generation, quickly becomes stunted in all its parts, the flowers 
shrink to littke more than half their usual size, and become much 
deeper coloured and fewer in number, but in no instance does it lose 
any of the characters proper to the species, or assume those of C. of- 
ficinalis. I have had it in constant cultivation since 1843, in St. 
John’s garden, near this town, along with C. officinalis. The latter 
thrives luxuriantly in the most exposed part of the garden, as might 
be expected from its natural predilection for sunny, open exposures, 
whilst C. sylvatica as invariably languishes in proportion as it is re- 
moved from the sheltering influence of taller plants or shrubs, thriving 
at best but tolerably where such partial protection is afforded it. But 
when grown in pots and treated as an in-door or greenhouse peren- 
nial, few exotics of the order are more worthy of the care bestowed on 
it, as well for the extreme brilliancy of the large, delicately-tinted 
blossoms, as for the grateful odour of the herbage, like that of pepper- 
mint. My friend Dr. Salter has it constantly in his drawing-room 
window, and is very successful in its treatment, which indeed is very 
simple, the plant requiring only to be kept out of the wind or currents 
of air in a moderate temperature, as when thus sheltered the direct 
influence of the sun seems rather beneficial than injurious to its full 
development. In this way I have seen it form quite a bush, with 
long, leafy branches, more than two feet in length, crowded from 


662 


bottom to top with its many-flowered, unilateral cymes or clusters 
into one blooming raceme.* 

Calamintha Acinos (Thymus Acinos). In dry, open, chalky, gra- 
velly or sandy fields, fallows, and stony, hilly places. In the Isle of 
Wight, by no means uncommon. Near Ashey and Brading. Be- 
tween Thorley and Shalcombe. Near Alum Bay. On Kennerley 
Heath, and in sandy fields about Newchurch, Bordwood and Queen- 
bower. Abundant in very high, chalky fields above Sandown Bay, 
near the Culver Cliff. Fields near Bembridge Down; Mr. W. W. 
Saunders. About Carisbrook Castle and near Princeslade (Princelet) ; 
Mr. W. D. Snooke in Fl. Vect. Frequent, I believe, throughout the 
county. About Winchester, in fields towards Chilcombe abundantly, 
and picked with white flowers. I have noticed it in a variety of other 
places in the county, and believe it to be so generally diffused as to 
render a list of stations unnecessary. Warnford; Rev. E. M. Sladen. 
Andover; Mr. Wm. Whale. The white-flowered variety, which I 
have gathered in the sandy ground below Queenbower, in this island, 
in some plenty, is a very pretty one, from the purity of the white 
blossoms, unmixed with any trace of the usual purple spots. 

Clinopodium (Clinopodium vulgare). In woods, thick- 
ets, and bushy, hilly places, on banks, along hedges and borders of 
fields on a dry gravelly or calcareous soil; extremely common in 
most parts of the county and Isle of Wight. Common about Ryde, 
and abundant throughout the chalk districts both here and on the 
mainland of Hants. The structure of the corolla is exactly that of C. 
sylvatica, and the habit of the plant very similar. It may be doubted 
nevertheless, how far it is advisable to “lump” together genera so 
long recognized as Calamintha, Clinopodium and Melissa, as has been 
done by Mr. Bentham, or even to keep the two former only united, as 
we find in the Manual. When we have so extensive and truly natu- 
ral an order to deal with as the Labiatz, we must be content with 
very artificial characters in forming the genera, otherwise the latter 
become unwieldy, and the determination of the species, unless by 
very exactly drawn up sectional divisions, troublesome and difficult. 
It were much to be wished that the mania for making new species, so 
prevalent amongst botanists of the Reichenbach school, could be in- 
duced rather to signalize itself in the construction of new genera, the 
amusement would be much more harmless, and the honour to be 


* For a most interesting and faithful account of the habit of this plant and its 
cultivation by Dr. T. Bell Salter, see ‘Phytologist’ ii. p. 171. 


663 


gained not a whit less great. Mihi., Nob., Bab., or any other con- 
traction significant of individual discriminative or creative acumen, 
would look just as well after a new genus as appended to a spick and 
span new species, with quite as fair a chance of surviving the attacks of 
time and controversy as many of the latter are likely to do in the end. 
We may tamper, if we please, with genera, which Nature hardly owns 
as of her appointing, but lightly, without grave consideration and 
careful experiment, to declare forms distinct which she has not sepa- 
rated by characters of unquestionable permanency, tends only to in- 
volve the study of plants in inextricable error and confusion. 

{Melissa officinalis. Naturalized occasionally on dry banks and 
by streams in the county and Isle of Wight. It has been announced 
to me as growing in Sandy Lane, betwixt Whitecroft and Blackwater, 
near Newport, but I have failed to find it there. Ona bank under a 
garden wall at Arreton, not a hundred yards from the church. In the 
wide area of Porchester Castle, in considerable quantity, but noticed 
in one spot only, apparently avery old station, 1848. Very sparingly 
by the stream-side below Selborne church, September 17th, 1848. 
I did not observe it again this year, but was at no pains to look very 
closely for it amongst the herbage, which perhaps concealed it from 
view. 

Scutellaria galericulata. On the banks of rivers, streams and 
ditches, the shallow margins of ponds and swampy ground, and in 
wet woods and thickets. Not very frequent in the Isle of Wight. In 
various parts of Sandown Level, along the drains or ditches, and by 
the stream that flows through it towards Brading, called the East Yar; 
nowhere in any great plenty, but most abundant a little below How- 
ingford Bridge. Near Rockley farm, sparingly. With stems quite 
weak and reclining, in a wet copse near Whitefield farm, about what 
was at one time a pool, called the Swan pond, now dried up. Near 
Ninham farin, by Ryde. Near Blackwater Mill, above Newport. At 
West Mill, between Newport and Carisbrook; Miss Dennet (ex icone). 
Apparently not very common on the mainland of the county. Short 
Heath, near Selborne. I have found it here and there in other parts 
of Hants, but have omitted to record the stations, and do not like to 
quote from memory. Near the Andover Marsh Gate, and in watery 
meadows at the bottom of Primrose Hill; Mr. Wm. Whale. 

minor. In low, moist, heathy, boggy or muddy places, 
wet woods, sides of meadow-dains, ditches, and on damp tillage-land ; 
not uncommon in the Isle of Wight, and I believe over the county ge- 
nerally. In Whitfield Wood, near Ryde. Frequent on many parts 


664 


of Lake Common. Extremely abundant on Apse Heath, growing 
even amongst potatoes on newly turned-up land, Oct. 2, 1839. Com- 
mon about the foot of Bleak Down; around Lashmere Pond,* &c., 
1843. In various parts of Sandown Level, and elsewhere in the 
island. Peaty bogs on Wolmer Forest, and if I remember well on 
Petersfield Heath. Path leading from Baddesley (from Otterbourne) 
across the (Cranbury ?) common; Miss A. M. Yonge. Hinton ; 
Rey. E. M. Sladen. 

Prunella vulgaris. A common plant everywhere in meadows, pas- 
tures, fields and hedges; by road-sides, in heathy ground, woods, 
thickets and waste places. 

Nepeta Cataria. On gravelly and chalky banks, in waste places, 
along fences, hedges and road-sides, in dry situations; rare in the 
Isle of Wight, and I think unfrequent in the county generally. A 
plant or two close to the garden-gate at Truckles, near Ryde; Dr. T. 
Bell Salter: probably introduced originally !!! At Ventnor, by the 
Crab and Lobster, very sparingly (Dr. G. A. Martin !!!), and on a 
heap of stone rubbish a little to the east, below the road near Flint 
Cottage; Rev. G. E. Smith. Gravel-pit near Calbourne Bottom. 
Weston farm, Freshwater (a few plants just within the fence by the 
road-side); Mr. W. D. Snooke. Scome Tower; Jd. In 1839 I 
found it in truly natural situations amongst brushwood on the rocks 
behind Bonchurch, in several places, but I doubt if it has escaped 
destruction from the recent buildings that now cover that once se- 
cluded spot. A plant or two by the road-side between Old Park and 
Mirables, 1844. Bridle road to Hursley, from Oliver’s Battery, near 
Winton ; Dr. A. D. White. Near to Wherwell, by the road-side, ra- 
ther plentifully, and again by the side of the road to Enham, about 
half a mile from Andover; Mr. Wm. Whale! In the old London 
road, and near Walworth Gate (Andover), about half a score of plants 
in each place; Id. 
glechoma (Glech. hederacea.). Abundant on hedge and 
ditch-banks, in damp gardens, orchards, woods, groves and other 
moist shady places. I found a variety with remarkably glabrous 
shining leaves, and very deep blue flowers, in the Duke of Welling- 
ton’s park at Strathfieldsaye, in May last, — the result possibly of 
excessive shade and humidity. 


* This pond, properly Leechmere, from the number of officinal leeches it supplied 
to the surgeons and druggists of Newport, is now all but drained, and many of the 
plants that flourished there have disappeared in consequence. 


665 


Melittis Melissophyllum. Under bushes in dampish, shady woods 
and copses, chiefly, if not exclusively, in the southern part of the 
county, and not common there. Unknown in the Isle of Wight. In 
West Wood, close by Netley Abbey, where I have gathered it in 
plenty about fifteen years ago. Avington Wood; Dr. A. D. White, 
where I saw it, accompanied by the doctor for my guide, in conside- 
rable abundance last year. I believe it grows also in Armfield Wood, 
a few miles from Winchester. In the New Forest; Hudson. Pro- 
bably tolerably frequent in the woods of south Hants, but I have not 
yet ascertained its distribution. This and Calamintha sylvatica are 
the two finest of our British labiates. The flowers vary much in co- 
lour, and are sometimes nearly white, as at Avington, where they 
were extremely pale, whilst at Netley the blossoms were deeply co- 
loured, as Curtis paints them in ‘ Flora Londinensis.’ The fresh plant 
has the weedy, unpleasant smell of the tribe (Stachydez) to which it 
belongs; when dried for the herbarium it becomes, on the contrary, 
eminently fragrant, like woodruff or new hay. 

Lamium amplexicaule. In dry sandy or chalky fields, waste and 
cultivated ground, gardens, fallows, about dunghills, &c., not unfre- 
quent, but scarcely to be called very common with us, at least in the 
Isle of Wight. Ryde, at Quarr Abbey, and elsewhere, occasionally. 
More frequent on the greensand, about Sandown, Lake and Shanklin. 
Frequent in sandy fields about Newchurch. Plentiful in a field near 
Bordwood farm, 1843, and generally dispersed over the island and 
county. Wolmer Forest, &c. 
incisum. In waste and cultivated ground occasionally, 
but not common, and I am strongly disposed to believe it only a va- 
riety of L. purpureum. Amongst turnips in a field at Nettleston 
Green, December, 1838. About Shanklin in several places, 1843. 
Fields near Shanklin; Mr, Wm. Wilson Saunders !!! 

intermedium. In similar places with the last; very rare? 
Gathered May 27th, 1845, in some plenty, on sandy hedge-banks in 
a lane betwixt Marvel Wood and Whitecroft, near Newport, in this 
island, and at the time supposed to be a form of L. incisum, as ap- 
pears by the label inscribed “ L. incisum (an verum ?),” with the fol- 
lowing remark beneath: ‘he leaves are somewhat greener or less 
hoary and hirsute, and less wrinkled than in L. purpureum, and the 
ring of hairs in the tube of the corolla is nearly or quite wanting.” 
Careful comparison with figures and descriptions from various authen- 
tic sources, has convinced me that my Isle-of-Wight plant is the L. 
intermedium of Fries, a species frequent 1 in the north-western parts of 

NOL AI. 4R 


666 


the kingdom (Scotland and Ireland), but not hitherto recorded as 
found in the south of England.* | My specimens well agree with the 
beautiful figure in E. B. Supplement, iv. t. 2941, and with Reichen- 
bach’s in Iconogr. Bot. viii. t. 722, fig. 964, a vast improvement on 
his miserable former one in vol. iii. t. 224, fig. 372. As it presents it- 
self in this island the plant bears most resemblance to L. incisum, but 
my specimens are far larger than those I possess of the latter, being 
eighteen inches or more in length. It also agrees with L. incisum in 
the size of the flowers, which are less exserted than in L. amplexi- 
caule, to which, as well as to L. purpureun, it likewise has much re- 
semblance. The uppermost or floral leaves are less crowded than in 
any of the other three, and in the size, form, and depth of the serra- 
tures come much the nearest to L. amplexicaule, but differ in being 
for the most part distinctly sub-cuneate at base, or narrowed into an 
evident foot-stalk. Our plant is also greener and less hairy than any 
of its three allies, and the calyx segments, as far as can be seen in 
their rather too early flowering state, agree with the descriptions in 
being longer than the tube of the corolla. The strongly pressed and 
mostly but half-opened flowers preclude an examination of the tooth- 
ing of the lateral lobes of the lower lip. As the plant is accounted 
specifically distinct by many leading botanists in Britain and on the 
continent, I bow to their decision, but I may be permitted to observe, 
that the only tolerable characters assigned to it are rather differences 
of degree than of positive structure, and therefore of very inferior va- 
lue. I should say that L. intermedium was a variety, and but a 
slight one, of L. incisum, and this latter but doubtfully distinct itself 
from L. purpureum. Let any one compare the two first together, and 
collate Mr. Babington’s description of each in the Manual; he will 
find, I fear, very little in either to satisfy him of their specific distinc- 
tion. The only absolute character, if it can be so called, that I can 
extract from the Manual for distinguishing L. intermedium from L. 
incisum is, that the lateral lobes of the lower lip in the one are fur- 
nished with a small, in the other with a strong tooth. The wedge- 
shaped attenuation of the leaves (at most but partial), and the presence 
or absence of the “ faint ring of hairs” within the tube, are reciprocal 
and variable in both. I quite agree with Mr. Babington, when he 
says (speaking of L. intermedium in the Supplement to E. B.), “How- 
ever difficult it may be to distinguish these plants upon paper, no one 
can see L. intermedium without being struck by its very different 


* I think it has occurred to the Rev. W. A. Leighton, in Shropshire. 


667 


appearance ; and indeed each of the four plants now mentioned is 
known at a glance by all who have been accustomed to see them in 
their native places.” But I think botanists are standing on slippery 
ground when they assume a marked difference of aspect as a reason 
for adopting weak or variable specific characters. Every tolerably 
distinct variety of a plant is readily known from its type by some pe- 
culiarity of aspect, and certain differences of structure, although pro- 
bably only of degree, must be present to impart such peculiarity of 
appearance; yet as a general rule, we never dream of making “ habit” 
a reason for justifying a separation from the typical state of the spe- 
cies, unless we can establish for the variety some better claim to dis- 
junction based on permanent deviations, or what appear constantly to 
be such, in some organ or organs of importance, from the normal or 
more usual condition under which the plant presents itself. Yet I 
fear that in our zeal for establishing a new species we too often per- 
mit a difference of habit to be a warrant for our precipitancy, and to 
serve as a make-weight in the absence of more solid and tangible 
characters. I confess to an exclusive partiality for good broad cha- 
racters in species, and hold that a plant which is not readily distin- 
guishable “on paper” is not likely to be much more so in the field or 
the herbarium. 

The floral leaves of my specimens of L. intermedium are all spread- 
ing, not deflexed, as in L. purpureum and L. incisum, and are far less 
hairy than in these; the verticillasters are quite distinct, as in L. am- 
plexicaule, but not so remote, the stem very copiously branched at 
base, and in other respects well according with the description of 
Fries (Novit. p. 192), the author of the species. The leaves in my 
plant, however, are not strictly reniform-cordate, but rather cordate, 
like those of L. purpureum and L. incisum, only deeply and coarsely 
incised, as in L. amplexicaule, the calyx-teeth rigid and spreading, 
not connivent or rather erect, as in that, after flowering. 

Lamium purpureum. In cultivated and waste ground, gardens, 
fallows, on ditch and hedge-banks, walls, and in grassy places, every- 
where abundant. Var. 8. Flowers white, or nearly so. On a hedge- 
bank at Fishbourne, near Ryde. 

album. On hedge-banks and walls, in waste ground, the 
grassy borders of fields, and amongst rubbish; very frequent, and 
widely dispersed over the county and island, but often rare or even 
wanting in certain limited districts or particular localities. A de- 
cidedly unfrequent plant about Ryde, at Binstead and elsewhere, oc- 
casionally. More common on the greensand, as about Shanklin. 


668 


Extremely common about Newchurch in waste ground and hedge- 
rows. Plentiful betwixt Newport and Carisbrook, and along the road 
from thence to Shorwell, where I gathered it having the flowers faintly 
tinged with red on the back of the upper lip of the corolla. At East 
Cowes, at the top of the new plantations, and in many other parts of 
the island abundantly. 

Lamium Galeobdolon (Galeob. luteum). In moist, shady places, 
woods, groves and under hedges; plentifully in various parts of the 
Isle of Wight. Most abundantly in all the woods about Shanklin, 
Luccombe and Bonchurch. At Apse Castle, Appuldurcombe, Steep- 
hill, and in the Undercliff generally. About Cowes, Newport, Ryde, 
Gatecomb, and many other places, the tawny spotted flowers of the 
yellow archangel are seen mingling profusely with the blue bells of 
the wild hyacinth, and the white starry blossoms of the bear’s garlick, 
in our shady woods, while they are amongst the earliest of Flora’s 
gladsome train to enliven the spring. Common, I believe, over 
the entire county, but I have not noted its distribution with attention. 
In the beech-hangers at Buriton, near Petersfield, and I have re- 
marked it in other places. Andover; Mr. Wm. Whale. 

tLeonurus Cardiaca.* Yn hedges and waste places, about fences, 
and by road-sides; very rare in Hampshire, and probably not indi- 
genous. Unknown, as yet, in the Isle of Wight. Hedge on Otter- 
bourne Hill; Miss A. Yonge!!! Half a mile from Upham, on the 
road to Durley, on a high bank on the left hand going to Durley ; 


* Many wild plants once popular as articles of diet or medicine have long outlived 
their uses, and even the memory of them amongst us, as I have instanced in the Alex- 
anders (Smyrnium Olusatrum). Others still preserve their credit as “‘ yerbs ” of great 
efficacy amongst rural practitioners of the empiric class, such as centaury, bear’s-foot 
(Helleborus fetidus), five-fingered grass (Potentilla reptans), &c.; aud I was lately ap- 
plied to on behalf of a young woman to know where in this island she could obtain a 
supply of “ Arabacca” (evidently Asarabacca, Asarum europeum), which she had been 
ordered to take by an itinerant quack, I know not for what complaint, and directed 
by him to look for in the woods as “a plant with round leaves, like coltsfoot.” The 
poor girl might have looked long enough before she found the remedy she was in 
search of, a proof, too, this, of the ignorance and presumption of these “ herb-doctors,” 
who go about the country extracting from the pockets of their indigent and credulous 
patients their hard earnings, and directing them the use of remedies unsafe to tamper 
with from their potency, or even impossible to be procured, as in the case just cited. 
Dr. Salter and myself were not long since accosted by a person on Wolmer Forest, 
with a request that we would step to his house hard by, and tell him the name and 
nature of a plant that had puzzled all the wise heads in the neighbourhood, and 
transcended, he told us, the lore of a professed and experienced herbalist of Peters- 
field, who had never seen anything like it till then. The plant turned out to be the 


669 


Dr. A. D. White. Sought for there in vain, July, 1849, the plant is 
certainly extinct. In the former of these stations it grows in consi- 
derable plenty, but very near some cottages. I strongly suspect this 
plant is not an aboriginal in any part of the kingdom, or even of Eu- 
rope, but to be of more eastern origin. I have never seen it in this 
country or on the continent in any place where it was not likely to 
have been introduced, generally close to houses or buildings of some 
kind, and in no instance remote from the haunts of man. The genus 
has its metropolis in Asia, especially Siberia, and I am inclined to 
think the motherwort may have migrated westward with the nomadic 
tribes that overran eastern Europe at the downfall of the Greek em- 
pire. I have never met with this plant cultivated in rustic gardens, 
like some others of former repute in medicine, nor can I find that the 
motherwort is known by that or any other name amongst the herb- 
doctors or the good women of this part at least of the realm. 
Wm. A. BRoMFIELD. 
Eastmount, Ryde, Isle of Wight, 
September 12, 1849. 
(To be continued.) 


BoTANICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 


Friday, September 7, 1849.—John Reynolds, Esq., Treasurer, in 
the chair. ' 

The following donations were announced :— 

British plants from Dr. Mateer, Mr. John Tatham, Mr. Henry Ford- 
ham, Mr. J. B. French, Mr. Thomas Moore, Mr. Robert Withers, Miss 
A. M. Bamard, and Mr. T. C. Heysham. 

Mr. C. C. Babington presented specimens of Rubus pyramidalis 
(Bab.) and Rubus incurvatus (Bad.), collected by him at Llanberis, 
North Wales, in September, 1848. (hese specimens were sent in 
April last, but had remained at the Linnean Society, in a parcel ad- 
dressed to a Fellow, who did not happen to call there until some 
months afterwards). 


birthwort (Aristolochia Clematilis), which we were informed grows in plenty on a 
hedge-bank at Borden Lodge, on the Forest, doubtless naturalized, as it is near Win- 
chester; in both places it has probably existed beyond the memory of man, and has 
become, in the latter station at least, an unconquerable weed, but its remedial uses, 
together with its very name, have no memorials left them in the pharmacopzia of our 
rustic Galens. 


670 


Specimens of Odontites verna and Odontites verna, var. elegans, 
were exhibited from Mr. John Ball, in illustration of the plants de- 
scribed by him in the ‘ Botanical Gazette’ for September. 

A paper was read from Mr. W. H. Coleman “ On the plants indi- 
genous to the Neighbourhood of Horsham, Sussex.”—G. E. D. 


Notice of ‘ Cybele Britannica; or British Plants and their Geo- 
graphical Relations. By Hrewrtr Cotrrett Watson. Vol. 
1I. London: Longman and Co. 1849.’ 


THE second volume of ‘ Cybele Britannica’ has just issued from the 
press: it presents no new feature, being simply a continuation of the 
first, and proceeding regularly with the orders, from Loranthacee to 
Alismacee inclusive. ‘The author proposes to prepare a third volume 
for the press in 1850 or 1851; and in order to make the work as com- 
plete and useful as possible, in the light of a condensed arrangement 
of facts, Mr. Watson earnestly recommends that competent botanists 
will make public through the periodicals, or communicate to himself, 
any information which may tend to fill up deficiencies, remedy de- 
fects, or correct errors, in either of the earlier volumes. 

“ The Orders which still remain to be treated in the third volume, 
are the two heterogenous assemblages of Fluviales and Aracez, as 
these stand in the ‘ London Catalogue of British Plants,’ together 
with Restiacee, Juncacew, Cyperacee, Gramina, Filices, and Pteri- 
dioides ; the last mixed group including Lycopodium, Isoetes, Pilu- 
laria, and Equisetum. Taken together, these orders include upwards 
of three hundred species, that is, rather less than half the number 
treated in the present volume.”—p. iv. 

But with the addenda to be made to the orders previously pub- 
lished, this third volume will probably equal in size those which have 
preceded it. 

In our notice of the first volume of this important and really labo- 
rious work, we fully explained its object and plan, quoting largely 
from the author’s own pages: on the present occasion we shall do no 
more than make a few extracts from the text, in order to exhibit the 
author’s mode of treating plants differently circumstanced. 

In the first place we will select a plant distributed throughout 
Britain, from the extreme south to the extreme north, and from the 
sea level to the mountain tops. 


671 


“© 517. GALIUM SAXATILE, Linn. 

“ Area general. 

* South limit in Cornwall, Isle of Wight, Kent. 

“* North limit in Shetland, Orkney, Hebrides. 

“‘ Hstimate of provinces 18. Estimate of counties 82. 

“ Latitude 50—61. British type of distribution. 

“A. A. regions. Inferagrarian—Superarctic zones. 

** Descends to the coast level, in the Peninsula. 

“ Ascends to 1250 yards, in West Highlands. 

“ Range of mean annual temperature 52—34. 

“ Native. Ericetal. One of the most universally distributed spe- 
cies in Britain, except that it has been banished from large tracts by 
the farmer and gardener.”—p. 16. 


As an example of a species equally widely distributed with Galium 
saxatile over a horizontal area, but the upper limits of which are more 
determinate, and require to be set forth more in detail, we will cite 
the common Ling (Calluna vulgaris). 


“695. CALLUNA VULGARIS, Salish. 


“ Area general. 

“ South limit in Cornwall, Isle of Wight, Kent. 

“ North limit in Shetland, Orkney, Hebrides. 

“ Estimate of provinces 18. Estimate of counties 82. 

“ Latitude 50—61. British type of distribution. 

“ A.A. regions. Inferagrarian—Midarctic zones. 

“ Descends to the coast level, in the Peninsula. 

“ Ascends to 1100 yards, in East Highlands. 

“ Range of mean annual temperature, 52—36. 

“Native. Ericetal. I have authority for the existence of this 
well-known shrub in every county of Britain, with the exception of 
Berks, Bucks, Northampton, Radnor, Montgomery, Flint, Lincoln, 
Ayr, Haddington, and Linlithgow ; and in half of these ten counties I 
have probably seen it myself. The upper line runs from 900 to 1100 
yards, in the West of Aberdeenshire; on and near Ben Lawers, in 
Perthshire, so low as 750 to 900 yards ; about Drumochter Forest, in 
the counties of Perth and Inverness, from 900 to 950 yards; on and 
about Ben Nevis, from 750 to nearly 900 yards; about 800 yards in 
the north-west of Sutherland. Mr. A. Petermann gives me the alti- 
tudes of 2334 and 2328 feet, on Stob Choressan and Sgur Ghaoire, 
two mountains near Ben Nevis.”—p. 150. 


672 


Linnea borealis, a plant interesting to all botanists on account of 
its name,—the chosen symbol of the ‘ Phytologist,—and, moreover, a 
species so restricted in its distribution as to excite interest on that 
score also,—is thus treated. 


“511. LINN&%A BOREALIS, Gronov. 


“ Area x % * &*% ee & & & 11 y % 14.15 » 17. 

* South limit in Northumberland or Berwickshire. 

“ North limit in Ross, Moray, Banff, Aberdeen. 

“ Estimate of provinces 4. Estimate of counties 10. 

“ Latitude 55—-58. Scottish type of distribution. 

“ A. A. regions. Midagrarian—Midarctic zones. 

“ Descends to a moderate altitude, say 100 yards. 

“ Ascends to 800 or 850 yards, in East Highlands. 

** Range of mean annual temperature, 46—38. 

“ Native. Sylvestral.. This little plant, so much a favorite with 
botanists, has been found in the counties of Northumberland, Ber- 
wick, Edinburgh, Perth, Forfar, Kincardine, Aberdeen, Banff, Moray, 
and Ross, and to these ten, perhaps, it might not have been deemed 
too hasty to make an addition, by setting down the estimate at 12. 
Apparently absent from the western side of Scotland; and unknown 
in England, except for the single locality ‘in a plantation of Scotch 
Firs, at Catcherside, in the parish of Hartburm’ (Miss Emma Treve- 
lyan, in Hook. Brit. Flo.) ; on the genuine nativity of which a doubt 
has been thrown, because the trees are said to have been brought from 
Norway: was this the fact ?”—p. 11. 


Erica ciliaris, a very local species, gives occasion for the introduc- 
tion of various memoranda and notices, descriptive and historical. 
We cite the author’s remarks entire. 


“ 691. Erica CILIARIs, Linn. 
“ Area 1 2 [3]. 
“ South limit in Cornwall. 
“ North limit in Dorset. 
“ Estimate of provinces 2. Estimate of counties 2. 
“ Latitude 50—51. Atlantic type of distribution. 
“ Agrarian region. Inferagrarian zone. 
** Descends to the coast level, in the Peninsula. 
“* Ascends to 50 yards, more or less. 
““ Range of mean annual temperature 52—51. 


673 


“ Native. Ericetal. Peculiar to the two counties above mentioned, 
as far as hitherto ascertained; having been first introduced into the 
British Floras some twenty years ago, when it was sent to Sir W. J. 
Hooker instead of E. vagans, by the late Rev. J. Tozer, who had been 
applied to for the latter, and consequently looked out for some Erica 
different from Tetralix and cinerea. The localities in Cornwall are 
variously described, bnt are all of them about Penryn, Truro, and St. 
Agnes. The Dorset locality extends, according to Dr. Salter, ‘through- 
out nearly the whole space from Arne to Corfe, a distance of fully 
four miles.’ The curiously intermediate links between this and E. 
Tetralix, one of which is described by Bentham as a variety ( Wat- 
soni,’ DC. Prodr.) of E. ciliaris, are probably bybrid varieties. At 
one end of the series, they are barely distinguishable from E. Tetra- 
lix, by the slightly larger and ventricose corollas; while, at the oppo- 
site extremity, they pass into H. ciliaris almost imperceptibly. It is 
thus optional to place them as varieties, under either or both of the 
two species. I found numerous plants, and thus obtained a series of 
the forms, on a heath near Truro, which was then (1831) in process 
of enclosure ; and looking at the map, I think it must have been on 
the road towards Redruth ; but I was an utter stranger to Truro at 
the time, and was strolling along whither chance might lead. The 
Rev. C. A. Johns has recently given me a living plant, raised from 
cuttings of E. Watsoni, but not exactly the form described by Ben- 
tham, taken from a single shrub of it which was found by Mr. Borrer 
(in 1847 ?) ‘on the right hand side of the lane which leads from the 
Foundry at Perran to the plantation in which E. ciliaris grows so 
abundantly. It is highly probable that E. ciliaris had been really 
known as a native many years ago, but again lost sight of until re-dis- 
covered by Mr. Tozer. In Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, t. 484, it is 
remarked of this Heath: ‘ C. Bauhin, mistakenly, calls it anglica, 
which has given rise to the idea of its being an English plant, but it 
isnot. I have a specimen of true E. ciliaris, obtained by Mr. John 
Ellis from a garden shrub, which, he was informed, had been trans- 
planted from a common near Farnham, in Surrey. It is probable that 
there was some mistake about the individual shrub, for E. ciliaris is 
killed down by very severe winters, in my own garden, in the same 
county; and it would therefore seem to require a milder climate for 
its natural habitat.”—p. 149. 


We will next give an example of Mr. Watson’s mode of treating a 
familiar species, the distribution of which has been rendered obscure 
VOL, X11. 4s 


674 


through the mystification of modern commentators, and consequent 
misapplication or crossing of names. 


“847. MyosoTis PALUSTRIS, Linn. 


“Areal 234567891011 121314 15 » [17 18.] 

“South limit in Cornwall, Isle of Wight, Kent. 

“North limit in Forfar, Perth, ? 

“Estimate of provinces 16. Estimate of*counties 75. 

“ Latitude 50—57 (58). British type of distribution. 

“ Agrarian region. Inferagrarian—Midagrarian zones. 

“ Descends to the coast level, in the Peninsula. 

“ Ascends to 100 or 200 yards, in England. 

“Range of mean annual temperature 52—47. 

“Native. Paludal. Three species, as they are now held to be, 
were formerly included under this name by British botanists. In con- 
sequence, doubts will arise in many cases to which of those three 
species the name has been applied by individual authors. | Accord- 
ing to my own opportunities for observation, the true M. palustris, or 
that described as such in Hooker’s British Flora and Babington’s 
Manual, has the most restricted geographical range in Britain; and 
though probably the commonest of the three in the southern provinces 
and lower agrarian zone, yet it appears to become the most rare in 
the northern provinces and upper agrarian zone, if found at all in this 
latter zone, which it is not satisfactorily ascertained to be. In the 
Flora of Shetland, M. palustris and M. cespitosa are enumerated ; 
but there seems good reason to infer that the former name really in- 
tends the species M. repens. In the Catalogue of Hebridean plants, 
we find M. repens and M. cespitosa, without M. palustris. In the 
Orkney Catalogue and Moray Flora, M. palustris is the only species, 
or only name, mentioned; and likely enough it there stands for the 
two species enumerated among the plants of the Hebrides. In Mur- 
ray’s Northern Flora, M. palustris and M. secunda are the two names 
used ; but the descriptions here come in to assist us, and they show 
sufficiently well that the former name means the species M. cespitosa, 
while the latter name is a synonym for M. repens. In the Flora 
Abredonensis, M. palustris and M. cespitosa are enumerated; the 
former name probably intending the species M. repens, and the latter 
being applied correctly. In the Flora of Forfarshire, all the three 
species and names are included. I have collected the three species 
myself in Perthshire; but only M. repens and M. cespitosa to the 
north of the Grampians. Still, it cannot be deemed unlikely that the 


675 


true M. palustris will be found up to the North Highland province, 
in the low grounds. Dr. Dickie gives 1200 feet as the altitudinal li- 
mit of M. palustris in Aberdeenshire, probably intending M. repens. 
I have myself met with M. palustris in low situations only.”—p. 269. 


Convallaria bifolia affords a good example of the author’s mode of 
dealing with a species the nativity of which in Britain requires con- 
firmation, and we may add that there are many which come under 
this category. 


‘61098. CoNVALLARIA BIFOLIA, Linn. 


“TIncognit or Alien. This was lately announced to British bota- 
nists as having been discovered wild or naturalized in the woods at 
Howick, Northumberland. Subsequently, the alleged habitat was 
visited by Mr. Borrer, who reported in the Phytologist, 11. 432, that 
‘the plant has been completely extirpated at Howick. ‘The spot was 
close by Earl Grey’s garden.’ It is very much to be wished that real 
botanists would not only discountenance, but also treat with public 
reprobation, every attempt to pass off the accidental finding of stray 
garden plants as a discovery and addition to British botany. And it 
is equally to be wished that Mr. Borrer would more frequently afford 
us the benefit of his own experience and judgment, openly and boldly 
expressed, after visiting the spot of any announced discovery; which, 
it is understood, he so regularly makes a point of doing. To the store 
of practical experience that must have been thus acquired, Mr. Borrer 
adds also other important qualifications, which altogether ought to 
give to his opinion more value and weight than could be accorded to 
the opinions of any other British botanist, in reference to questions 
bearing on the nativity of newly-discovered plants, and the genuine 
character of localities for local or novel species. The announcement 
of Convallaria bifolia being found in Northumberland, for which there 
seemed no geographic improbability, resuscitated the overlooked fact 
of its occurrence in Lancashire, ‘in Dingley Wood, six miles from 
Preston, in Aulderness, and in Harwood, near Blackburn, likewise,’ 
having been recorded long since by Gerarde. And Mr, Edward Kd- 
wards afterwards stated in the Phytologist, i. 579, that the same spe- 
cies had been reported indigenous in the woods at Hampstead, in 
Middlesex, in Park’s ‘ History of Hampstead ;’ and that he had him- 
self, ‘in 1835, detected several patches of the plant, apparently well 
established and really wild, under the shade of fir trees, growing near 


676 


the highest parts of Caen Wood, between Hampstead and Highgate ;’ 
likewise, that he had found it, a year or two previously, under ‘ fir 
trees in Apsley Wood, Bedfordshire. The only doubt which arises 
in respect to these two last-mentioned counties, is, that Mr. Edwards 
may possibly have mistaken some other plant for the Convallaria bi- 
folia, and more particularly as he writes on the recollection of several 
years back.” —p. 465. 


Finally, Anacharis alsinastrum, the Udora verticillata of the Phy- 
tologist, and first made known to the botanical world of this country 
through the medium of its pages; and the almost simultaneous dis- 
covery of which in different and distant localities is remarkably inte- 
resting, affords us a good opportunity of showing how Mr. Watson 
has brought down his information to the last hour of going to press : 
in this particular, and apart from all its higher merits, the ‘Cybele 
Britannica’ must ever be considered a model publication: it would 
be difficult indeed to point out a trustworthy record of the occurrence 
of a rare species in Britain that the author has overlooked or failed to 
cite. 


“1108.* ANACHARIS ALSINASTRUM, Bab. 


“Aveax 2x» 454%8 xx xe y 14. 

“ South limit in Hants, Northampton, Stafford. 

“ North limit in Edinburgh, Berwick. 

“Estimate of provinces —? Estimate of counties —? 

“ Latitude 52 (50)—56. Uncertain type of distribution. 

“ Agrarian region. Inferagrarian—Midagrarian zones. 

“ Descends to the coast level, or nearly so. 

“ Ascends to 100 yards, less or more, in East Lowlands. 

“ Range of mean annual temperature 49—47. 

“Denizen. Lacustral. First announced as a British plant about 
the close of 1847, under name of Udora verticillata. Doubts were 
soon suggested respecting its nativity in Britain, from the circum- 
stance of its being shortly afterwards observed in ponds, to which it 
might possibly, and even not improbably, have been introduced from 
America. Mr. Borrer found it in a pond in Leigh Park, near Havant, 
in the south-east of Hants, which is the most distrusted locality for it 
in England. Mr. Kirk (Phytol. iii. 389) observed it abundantly in 
the reservoirs at Watford Locks, ‘on the same line of canal as Fox- 
ton Locks,’ in Leicestershire. The reservoirs at Foxton Locks, near 


677 


Market Harborough, were the original habitat, in which it was disco- 
vered by Miss Kirby, and subsequently gathered plentifully by the 
Rev. A. Bloxam. Dr. James Mitchell has found it in the river Leen, 
and in the ditches of adjacent meadows, near Nottingham, ‘ certainly 
not introduced.’ (Bot. Gaz. i. 26). Dr. G. Johnston appears to have 
been the first botanist who gathered the plant in this country, in the 
neighbourhood of Berwick-on-Tweed. (Proceedings Berw. Nat. 
Club; and Phytol. iii. 540). Mr. C. C. Babington informs me that 
it has been also found in Duddingston Lock, near Edinburgh, by 
Professor Balfour. In Staffordshire, according to Mr. Edwin Brown, 
in Phytologist, i. 647.”—p. 474. 


Notwithstanding the pains which Mr. Watson has taken to arrange 
species under distinct heads as regards their claim to be considered 
truly indigenous ; notwithstanding, moreover, the lucid manner in 
which the various terms of Native, Denizen, Colonist and Alien are 
defined ; still it appears to us that these boundaries are rather drawn 
too closely, and that Nature herself is destined to overleap them. If 
we take, for instance, Mimulus luteus, of transatlantic origin, and ob- 
serve how in a variety of distant localities it is extending and esta- 
blishing itself; if we reflect on the extreme improbability of its ever 
being exterminated, we shall be willing to excuse the unborn author 
of a future Cybele who shall define it as Mr. Watson does the group 
of ‘denizens’ to which the sweet violet is now referred. ‘At present 
maintaining its habitats, as if a native, without the aid of man, yet 
hhable to some suspicion of having been originally introduced.” Thus 
there is not only a possibility, but a probability, that a species shall 
advance with time from the station of ‘alien’ to that of ‘denizen, 
and perhaps a ‘denizen’ such, for instance, as the sweet violet, may 
take on its honoured, but unobtrusive presence, the title of ‘native :’ 
or looking back on the past, instead of forward into the future, may 
not the daisy have once been a ‘denizen,’ or still earlier an ‘alien,’ 
although it now seems so thoroughly established as part and parcel 
of the virgin turf! 


K. 


678 


Attempt to characterize an apparently undescribed Species of 
Lastrea. By Epwarp NEwmany. 


In describing Lastrea spinosa I have said “This fern is closely 
allied to the preceding (L. cristata), and so much do they resemble 
each other that I have found it next to impossible to fix on satisfac- 
tory diagnostics whereby to distinguish them.” In fact, in the splen- 
did series of L. cristata received by the Botanical Society from Bawsey 
Heath, there were specimens which | found myself unable to refer 
with confidence to either species. About the same time I received 
from the Rev. Geo. Pinder specimens of a very singular fern, from 
Wybunbury bog, in Cheshire: these I referred, without much hesita- 
tion, to Lastrea spinosa: the Cheshire and Norfolk specimens were 
so exceedingly dissimilar in general appearance, that it never occur- 
red to me to compare them together with a view of ascertaining whe- 
ther they possessed any characters in common. 

Early in August last, Mr. Lloyd, a gardener who has paid great atten- 
tion to the British ferns, brought me a plant, well established in a pot, 
of a fern which he considered new to Britain: he had previously 
shown it to several eminent botanists, and especially those who have 
paid attention to ferns: others have seen it since it has been in my 
possession, and although I refrain from giving the names of six gentle- 
men who have expressed opinions, however confidently, yet not intend- 
ed for publication, I may perhaps be allowed to record the opinions 
without the names. I should premise that the plant is in perfect vi- 
gour, in full fructification, and without any symptom of disease or 
malformation: these six gentlemen have pronounced it— 


. A form of Filix-mas. 
. Lastrea rigida. 
. Lastrea cristata. 
Lastrea spinosa, a strong variety. 
Lastrea dilatata, a rigid variety. 
6. No way different from Lastrea spinosa, Newm., I mean, it would 
hardly pass for a var. 


rm 69 0D 


It is singular, that out of six high authorities no two entertain the 
same opinion. The plant which has elicited such conflicting opi- 
nions has fronds resembling those received both from Bawsey and 
Wybunbury, and therefore establishes the specific identity of those 
very dissimilar forms. I attempt to describe both under the name of 


679 


Lastrea uliginosa. 

Rhizoma tufted. 

Habit erect, rigid: arrangement of fronds shuttlecock-fashion, or 
spreading from a common centre. 

Normal form.— Fronds of the normal form, linear, elongato-acumi- 
nate at the apex, thirty inches long, five inches wide: their vernation 
simple, not twisted. 

Rachis deeply grooved in front, flattened at the sides, rounded be- 
hind, glabrous, bright green above, purple at base, slightly tinged 
with purple at the back: its stipes or naked portion nine inches in 
length: scales somewhat sparingly distributed, obtusely ovate, with 
a lengthened acute apex, which is generally twisted, and which ter- 
minates in a setaceous point; pale brown, transparent, concolorous : 
these larger scales are intermixed with others very slender and hair- 
like: all the scales readily fall off, leaving small black scars on the 
stipes. 

Pinne elongato-deltoid, with acuminate deflexed apices and winged 
midrib, the Ist, 2nd, and perhaps 3rd pair rather shorter and rather 
broader at base than the 4th, 5th, and 6th pairs, and hence rather 
more deltoid ; set on the rachis rather obliquely, so that their upper 
surface approaches a horizontal position, although the frond is nearly 
erect. 

Pinnules of moderate size, sessile, adnate, deeply notched, the di- 
visions serrated, the serratures aristate: Ist inferior pinnule longer 
than first superior. 

Clusters of capsules on all the pinne, but less abundant on the 
lower ones, relatively small, remaining distinct and separate except 
at the apex of the frond, at first green, then white, subsequently 
black, and finally bright brown; the green colour is due to the frond 
seen through the young and perfectly transparent involucre; the 
white colour is due to the involucre, which becomes opake and white ; 
the black colour, to the ripe and full capsules; and the brown, to the 
empty capsules and elastic rings. 

Involucre regularly reniform, its margin very entire, its disk and 
margin eglandulose. 

Abnormal form.—Fronds narrower, thirty-four inches long, four-and 
three-quarter inches wide: less rigid than the normal form. 

Pinne very distant, very narrow, acuminate, with winged midrib. 

Pinnules very small, very distant, sessile, adnate, deeply notched, 
rather obtuse at the apex. 

Fronds of this character have a very peculiar and starved appear- 


780 


ance, but exhibit the adnate attachment of the pinnules very conspi- 
cuously. 

Barren Frond. ‘The earlier fronds of the season, together with 
some of the later ones rising from the lateral crowns, are perfectly 
without fructification: they are shorter and broader, and the pinne 
are longer, broader, and more crowded than in the normal fertile 
fronds. The marked difference and permanent distinctness between 
the fertile and barren fronds is a character common to Lastrea The- 
lypteris, L. cristata and Allosorus crispus, but does not obtain in the 
generality of species, all the fronds having, in a very great majority 
of instances, a tendency to produce fructification, although adventi- 
tious circumstances of situation, temperature, soil, &c., may cause an 
increase or diminution of the quantity of seed produced. 

Affinities to Lastrea cristata and L. spinosa. It resembles cristata 
in vernation and adnate pinnules: it resembles spinosa in the figure, 
notching and aristation of the pinnules: it resembles both in its erect, 
rigid habit, and ovate, diaphanous, concolorous scales, and also in its 
entire, eglandulose involucre. 

Diagnosis. It differs from L. cristata in the more acuminate, 
more divided, more serrated, more aristate pinnules, also in the more 
direct course of the veins, a difference much more easily observed 
than described: it differs from L. spinosa in the adnate, decurrent 
pinnules, in the tufted rhizoma and consequent regular habit of 
growth, and in the simple vernation: it differs from both these species 
in the more equal distribution of the clusters of capsules over all parts 
of the frond. 

Habitat. This fern occurs only in wet, marshy situations, or on 
moist heaths. Wybunbury bogs, Cheshire : Oxton bogs, Nottingham- 
shire: Bawsey Heath, Norfolk. 

Cultivation. It grows freely in cultivation, retaining all the cha- 
racters which distinguish it as a wild plant: in the spring it is twenty 
days later than L. multiflora in expanding, ten days later than L. spi- 
nosa, and ten to fifteen days earlier than L. cristata. 

In offering these observations to the notice of British botanists, I 
am perfectly aware that I lay myself open to the charge of species- 
making. I hope, however, that the candour of my readers generally 
will appreciate the attempt more justly: they will perhaps bear in 
mind that I have not hitherto been guilty of adding a single specific 
name to our list of British ferns. 

EpwArD NEWMAN. 


London, September 27, 1849. 


681 


Notice of Leersia oryzoides in Hampshire. 
By Wm. ArnoLp BromFiELp, M.D., F.L.S., &c. 


Suc readers of the ‘ Phytologist’ as interest themselves in the geo- 
graphical distribution of our native plants, will doubtless feel pleasure 
in learning that the hitherto rare and local grass,* Leersia oryzoides, 
extends its range into the western part of this county. On the 27th 
of September, I detected it in very moderate quantity in the Boldre 
River at Brockenhurst Bridge, in the New Forest, growing amongst 
rushes, in company with Isnardia palustris, in two places; in one of 
which, immediately below the railing on the left side of the road 
going from Brockenhurst to Lyndhurst, it must have been more than 
once under my eye, as I had previously collected specimens of Is- 
nardia within a foot of the Leersia itself, which it is probable would 
again have been passed unnoticed by me, had I not a fortnight before 
gathered the grass in its third Sussex station, in the Arun at Amber- 
ley and Bury, four miles north of Arundel, and hence familiarized 
myself with the aspect of the plant in the occult form in which it 
usually presents itself to observation in this country. As I was at the 
moment of finding it awaiting the down train to Ringwood, time did 
not allow of an attempt to trace the Leersia higher or lower along the 
stream, but on the 7th of October, returning to Lymington, I detected 
it in somewhat greater quantity amongst reeds on the margin of the 
same river, nearly under the timber railway-viaduct that crosses the 
stream a short distance above Brockenhurst Mill, and about half a 
mile below the first station at Brockenhurst Bridge. Continuing the 
search, I found it in a broad ditch a little lower down than the mill, 
just where the Boldre River enters by a weir the precincts of Wat- 
comb and Brockenhurst Parks, growing in two or three scattered and 
isolated tufts of moderate size, but still not abundantly. The barren 
exserted portion of the panicle had in every instance fallen away en- 
tirely, but the sheaths were inflated by the concealed part, bearing 
plenty of ripe seed, and the specimens beneath the railway-viaduct 
were the largest and tallest I have seen of English growth. I can 
scarcely doubt that this most curious grass exists in the upper part 
of the Boldre River, and probably in greater plenty, and that it will 
be found in many of our Hampshire streams and pools between this 
station and the original Sussex habitats. 


* It has lately been ascertained to abound in several and distant localities in Sus- 
sex, since its first discovery in that county a few years back by Mr. Borrer. 


Von. 11; 4T 


682 


As Leersia oryzoides is a grass of no easy detection in this country, 
from the tendency the inflorescence has to remain concealed in the 
sheaths of the leaves, and from the general aspect and habit of the 
plant possessing but little by which to distinguish it at sight from 
other marsh grasses, both which concurred in keeping it so long un- 
known as a native production ; some notice of its habits and peculia- 
rities may be useful in facilitating its discovery in other parts of the 
kingdom,* by those whom, without such a guide, the best descrip- 
tions, plates, and even dried specimens could hardly enable, until 
habituated by practice, to recognize it in its native marshes. 

The localities affected by the Cutgrass are shallow ditches, drains 
of water-meadows, and the reedy or grassy margins of rivers, brooks 
and pools.t It seems to evince a partiality, both here and on the 
continent, for mill-dams,{ doubtless because the water is tranquil and 
the supply constant; and in most of the English stations it grows as- 
sociated with the common reed (Phragmites communis), to the first 
young and tender shoots from the suckers of which it so nearly assi- 
milates in aspect, that a close examination is requisite to distinguish 
them when intermixed, and by this resemblance even an experienced 


* It would be presumptuous to pretend assigning limits to the extension of the 
Leersia westward or northward of its present new lucality, but its continental distribu- 
tion does not warrant our indulging a hope that it will be found to spread much fur- 
ther than at present, at least in the former of these directions. The opinion put for- 
ward by me in a former note on this subject (Phytol. iii. 368), that the Leersia and 
Isnardia will be found coextensive in their distribution over England. appears to be 
receiving confirmation. To hazard a conjecture purely theoretical, the occurrence of 
both these plants may be predicted in Mr. Watson’s districts of the Channel and 
Thames, with very possibly an extension of the boundary in a north-easterly direction 
into that of Ouse—this last being nearly in the polar limits of the parallel of the two 
species on the continent of Europe. In general, however, plants of the eastern or 
Germanic type of distribution fall short, in this country, of the latitude they attain on 
the continent, and there is no ground for supposing an exception to the usual law in 
the present instances. 

+ In America it is extremely common in wet or damp places of all kinds, but in 
England it would seem to be more perfectly aquatic, and to require to have its roots 
at least immersed. The habit of the English plant is likewise more erect than the 
American, in which the culms are usually very decumbent at base, and the growth 
diffuse or straggling. 

+ Some German writers consider the Leersia as introduced and only naturalized 
in central Europe,—an idea much on a par with the innumerable fantasies of a like 
kind entertained of our own plants. Thus Meyer, in his excellent work the ‘ Chloris 
Hanoverana, says of our grass in that kingdom: “ An Gewassern selten und nur ver- 
wildert ; urspringlich aus Italien.” In England, and no doubt in Hanover too, it 
is certainly indigenous. 


683 


eye is liable to be baulked and partially disabled from discriminating 
between them at all times. The culms of the Leersia are in general 
hore slender than those of the reed, the joints further apart, and the 
sheaths clothing the internodes slightly swollen or inflated into a 
somewhat spindle-like form, particularly the uppermost sheath, which 
appears so from containing within its convolutions the embryo or ma- 
lure panicle, according to the time of year. By slitting or tearing 
the sheath open, the included florets of an oblong figure, with 
strongly ciliated margins, together with the extreme asperity of the 
leaves and lower joints of the culm (in which it differs from every 
other British grass), will at any season reveal the true nature of the 
specimen under examination. But as the species may be growing in 
situations where it cannot be tested by handling, it becomes of im- 
portance to be able to distinguish it at some distance, from the aqua- 
tic herbage by which it is liable to be veiled from any but an ex- 
perienced eye. The readiest mark in this case is the sudden or abrupt 
termination of the culm in a short, spreading leaf at the top of the 
slightly ventricose and fusiform sheath, looking as though the upper 
part of the plant had been plucked or broken off from the lower, and 
by this it may be distinguished from a distance when the panicle is 
yet undeveloped, or too slightly exserted to arrest attention. The 
tender shoots of the reed with which the Cutgrass is so apt to be con- 
founded, are terminated by an acutely-pointed and convoluted leaf, 
enclosing other leaves destined to surmount it in their turn, till the 
growth of the shoot is completed and eventuates in the production of 
the flower-stalk and panicle ; or if destined to remain barren, the shoot 
ends indeed in an expanded leaf, but that leaf is upright, not spread- 
ing, and, besides, long ere its growth ceases, the shoot has lost much 
of the resemblance it bore to the Leersia in its younger state, and is 
not likely to occasion a mistake between them. ‘True it is, that the 
Cutgrass will itself present such a convoluted terminal leaf in its ear- 
lier growing state, till the axis has ceased to elongate, and hence 
there is still a chance of its being overlooked for a nascent reed, un- 
less its identity can be put to the proof by drawing it through the 
hand, when the great asperity of the Leersia betrays it in an instant. 
Some attention is, however, necessary even here, for the plant varies 
a good deal in the degree of roughness ; certain specimens gathered 
by me at Amberley were inconsiderably scabrous, whilst the majority, 
like the Hampshire ones, were as remarkable for their extreine aspe- 
rity, which even makes some precaution requisite to avoid cutting the 
hand, an accident that is said to befal the women employed in weeding 


684 


it out of the rice-fields in Lombardy, which are greatly infested 
with this grass. There is always roughness enough in the Cutgrass 
to serve the purpose of discriminating it from the common reed and 
all other British Graminez, with common attention, but a search in 
the two or three uppermost sheaths for the concealed panicle should 
next be resorted to. The leaves of the Cutgrass are pale green, like 
those of the nascent reed shoots, but have mostly a shade of brown 
or olive in them not possessed by the latter; at other times the colour 
in both is too nearly alike to be distinguishable at any distance. At 
the close of summer, when the plant is fully matured, the leaves are 
easily recognized amongst the surrounding herbage by their obviously 
paler green, with a strong cast of yellow. 
W.s. A. BROMFIELD. 


Eastmount, Ryde, Isle of Wight, 
October 12, 1849. 


BoTANICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 


Friday, October 5, 1849.—J. E. Gray, Esq., F.R.S., President, in 
the chair. 

The following donations were announced :— 

‘Cybele Britannica, vol. ii, by Hewett Cottrell Watson, Esq. ; 
presented by the author. ‘ The Natural History of Staffordshire,’ by 
R. Garner, Esq.; presented by the author. ‘ Transactions of the 
Horticultural Society of Berlin ;’ presented by that society. ‘ Jour- 
nal of the Statistical Society of London ;’ presented by that society. 
* Pharmaceutical Journal and Transactions ;? presented by the Phar- 
maceutical Society. 

British plants from the Rev. C. Parish, Mr. J. B. French, Mr. S. 
Hailstone, Mr. E. Brown, and Mr. D. Oliver. 

Mr. H. Bidwell presented specimens of Lastrea cristata (Presl.), 
collected by him at Bexley decoy, near Ipswich, in August last. 

The continuation of Mr. W. H. Coleman’s paper ‘ On the Plants 
indigenous to the Neighbourhood of Horsham, Sussex,’ was read.— 
G. E. D. 


685 


A Catalogue of the Plants growing wild in Hampshire, with occa- 
* sional Notes and Observations on some of the more remarkable 
Species. By WitiLiAM ARNOLD BRromMFIELD, M.D., F.L.S., &c. 


(Continued from page 669). 


Galeopsis Ladanum. In dry gravelly, sandy, or chalky corn-fields, 
fallows, waste ground, and on chalk or limestone rubble; also on 
ditch-banks, dry, stony hills, grassy borders of fields, thickets, and 
amongst pebbles on the sea-beach. Abundant in most of the chalk 
districts of the Isle of Wight, as along the Undercliff about Yarmouth, 
Newport, Shorwell, Bembridge, &c. Frequent, I believe, throughout 
the county. About Selborne, &c. Var. 8. canescens, Koch; G. ca- 
nescens, Schultz. Near Southampton, on shingles; Mr. Babington. 
I think I have remarked this form on the way from Southton to Net- 
ley Abbey, probably Mr. B.’s station. 

—— Tetrahit. In cultivated ground amongst corn, &c.; in 
waste places, moist woods, thickets, hedges and about ditches; abun- 
dantly in the Isle of Wight and county generally. Var. 8. Flowers 
white. At Lower Knighton, near the mill. A variable species in the 
colour and markings of the flowers. G. ochroleuca (G. villosa, S%m.) 
and G. versicolor may possibly be found in the county. The former 
is in Britain a rather northern plant, but the second has been found 
in several of the southern and eastern counties—as Sussex—and is 
very likely to prove a native of the sandy tracts along the borders of 
the county between Petersfield and Farnham, a district which has 
yielded several interesting additions to the Hants flora this summer, 
and is full of promise for future investigation. 

Stachys Betonica (Betonica officinalis, Sm.). In woods, groves, 
thickets, and dry, open sandy or heathy pastures; very common in 
the Isle of Wight, and in most parts of mainland Hants visited by 
myself. Oss.—S. germanica should be looked for in chalky thickets 
and pastures, as it occurs in plenty in the adjoining county of Berks, 
as well as in Oxfordshire. J remember finding it a good many years 
since in one of the two larger of the Channel Islands, apparently 
quite indigenous, but the locality has escaped my memory. 
sylvatica. In damp shady situations, woods, thickets and 
hedges, on ditch-banks, by stream-sides, and in waste weedy places; 
abundantly over the county and island. 
palustris. In wet marshy places, boggy thickets, by rivers 
and ditches, also in moist arable land, corn-fields, gardens, &c.; very 


686 


common. Var. @. Leaves all shortly stalked. Near Shanklin; Miss 
KE. Kirkpatrick. Field at Lower Morton, by Sandown. The var. am- 
bigua (S. ambigua, Sm.), which differs from this in its broader, more 
cordate leaves, and which occurs in Sussex, Mr. A. Hambrough tells 
me he found by the side of a new road between Ryde and Sea View. 

Stachys arvensis. In waste and cultivated ground, fallows, and dry 
open fields; very frequent in the Isle of Wight, and I believe through- 
out the county. Common about Ryde in the autumn, amongst tur- 
nips, potatoes, &c. 

Oss.—S. annua, which is a common weed in various parts of cen- 
tral Europe, and has been found at Gadshill, in Kent, will in all pro- 
bability prove to be native to the south-east of England, though at 
present supposed to have been imported with grass-seed in its only 
known station. I have seen it abundantly about Paris, and in Ger- 
many. S. recta, also indigenous to the north of France, and in Nor- 
mandy, may some day become accredited to the English flora. The 
recent confirmation of Teucrium Botrys as indubitably wild at Box 
Hill, teaches us that we may look forward with confidence to the dis- 
covery of many more continental plants in the south and east of Eng- 
land, the flora of which is every year assimilating to that of the main- 
land of Europe, by the detection in increased abundance of recently 
discovered species, or the addition of others entirely new to Britain. 

Ballota nigra. Var. a. B. foetida, Lam., Bab. Man. p. 252. In 
dry waste places, borders of woods and fields, amongst rubbish, and 
on hedge-banks; everywhere, but in greatest plenty in general on ap- 
proaching towns and villages. One of the commonest plants of its 
order in this part of England, occurring profusely in almost every 
hedge throughout the Isle of Wight, and in most, if not all, parts of 
the county equallly abundant. Var. @. Flowers white; rare. By 
the road-side immediately opposite Rew farm, near Ventnor, and in 
a lane near Merston. Between Freshwater Gate and Farringford 
Hill; Mr. W. D. Snooke. Iam at this time unable to say to which 
of the two supposed species my Merston plant and that of Mr. Snooke 
are referrible, but the Rew-farm specimens plainly belong to the B. fe- 
tida of Lamarck, in having very broad, shortly acuminate and recurved 
calyx-teeth, as does also the white-flowered form in a field-hedge be- 
tween Idlecombe farm and Bottomground Rew, which I found grow- 
ing with the common purple-flowered state, in moderate quantity and 
still in good flowering condition, October 28, 1845. But at St. Law- 
rence I have gathered a white-flowered Ballota exactly corresponding 
to the B. ruderalis of Fries, the calyx of which is longer, narrower, 


687 


and “ gracefully dilated upwards ;” the teeth ovate-lanceolate, taper- 
ing into long points, and erecto-patent. But as Mr. Bentham observes 
(Labiat. p. 598), “ The form of the limb of the calyx is so uncertain 
within the above mentioned limits, that I cannot distinguish the three 
plants figured as separate species by Reichenbach,”—a remark to the 
correctness of which my own repeated observations on our native 
species enable me to bear testimony. 

Marrubium vulgare. In dry waste places, pastures, by road-sides 
and about villages; rare in the lower and more level parts of the 
county and island, more frequent and most truly wild in the higher 
districts, and especially on the elevated chalk downs, and along the 
earthen or stone fences that traverse them. A local plant in the Isle 
of Wight, more frequent in West than in East Medina. Pastures at 
Bonchurch. Frequent on many parts of Afton Down, and in other 
places about Freshwater. On the slope of the down a little above 
Brook Church, in plenty, and about Brixton. Abundant on all the 
downs west of Calbourn; Sandown; Colwell: Mr. W. D. Snooke 
(in Fl. Vect.). Sparingly and sporadically in the lower grounds of 
the island, where in many cases it has, probably strayed from cultiva- 
tion. On several parts of Short Heath, near Selborne, and observed 
by me in various parts of mainland Hants, but I find no memoranda 
of particular stations amongst my notes, which for that portion of the 
county are of very recent compilation, and consequently imperfect as 
regards many species native thereto. I should say the Marrubium 
was by no means uncommon throughout the county, but partially or 
locally distributed, chiefly in the hilly parts of it. I have seen it 
growing plentifully and perfectly naturalized in Georgia, United States. 

Teucrium Scorodonium. In dry woods, thickets, hedges, and 
rough, stony, bushy, or heathy places; plentiful in most parts of the 
county and Isle of Wight. 

t Chamedrys. On old walls, banks and borders of fields ; 
a very doubtful inhabitant of the Isle of Wight, now apparently ex- 
tinct. In the area of Carisbrook Castle; Dr. Stokes in Withering’s 
Bot. Arrangem. Certainly not to be found there now, since I have 
made repeated search for it myself, as have likewise persons residing 
at the castle, who show the ruins to strangers. It will probably be 
found hereafter in some part or other of the county. I have never 
seen it but on old walls or banks contiguous to ruined houses, and 
have gathered it on walls at Winchelsea and at Stapleton in Radnor- 
shire. T. Botrys, which Mr. Borrer tells me grows certainly wild on 
Box Hill, Surrey, may with reason be expected on the chalk hills of 


688 


this county, being a species indigenous to most parts of central Eu- 
rope, as France, Germany and Belgium. 

Ajuga reptans. In moist woods, thickets, pastures and shady 

places; abundantly over the island and county. Var. 8. Flowers 
light purple, pink or flesh-coloured; rare. In Quarr Copse and Ap- 
ley Wood, near Ryde. Var. y. Flowers pure white; occasionally. 
A patch in the wood adjoining to Calbourne New Barn (New Barn 
Hummet), June, 8th, 1844, and observed in the same place not un- 
frequently the following year. I have also picked this variety near 
Ryde. Whitedell; Mr. W. L. Notcutt. ‘“ Abounds in the Isle of 
Wight;” Sm. in Engl. FI., but this can scarcely be said of it at the 
present day, although somewhat more frequent than the flesh-coloured 
form with us. 
Chamepitys. In dry, sandy, gravelly or chalky fields, and 
rough, stony ground; very rare? A dubious inhabitant of the Isle 
of Wight, reported to me as growing about Week farm, near Niton, 
along with Melampyrum arvense, but though a very likely station to 
produce it, this species has never occurred to my observation there or 
elsewhere in the island. On Longwood Warren; Rev. Messrs. Gar- 
nier and Poulter in Hamp. Repos. !!! The plant grows here on the 
bare stony gravel or diluvial deposit, but would seem to be uncertain 
in its appearance and in amount, as I have not succeeded in finding 
more than a few very small specimens, but have seen larger and more 
abundant ones from thence in the possession of others. About Old 
Alresford; Mr. Wm. Pamplin. Abbotston Warren; Mr. J. Forder. 
When last at Alresford, I learnt from Mr. F. that the plant is very ca- 
pricious in this station also, nor have I myself seen it in or from that 
neighbourhood. 

N. B.—Hyssop (Hyssopus officinalis, L.), is perfectly and abun- 
dantly naturalized on the ruins of the beautiful and romantically situ- 
ated Abbey of Beaulieu in the New Forest, particularly on the walls 
and in the area of the cloisters ; now as fully established and perma- 
nent as the wall-flower, calaminth, pellitory, and other mural plants 
that flourish on the picturesque remains of that once “ proud abbaye.” 
Still partially in flower, October 9th, 1849. 

Verbena officinalis. Of extremely common occurrence throughout 
the county and Isle of Wight, on dry banks, along hedges, road-sides, 
in waste ground, churchyards, &c., also, but less frequently, in pas- 
tures and woods remote from habitations. A truly indigenous Eng- 
lish plant, although found most abundantly in the lower enclosed and 
inhabited country, yet occasionally haunting very sequestered spots. 


689 


Woods at Swainston, Ape’s Down, &c. Rather rare about Ryde, but 
extremely common in the island generally. Plentiful about Winches- 
ter and elsewhere on the chalk. 

Pinguicula vulgaris. In bogs; rare? Not yet detected in the 
Isle of Wight. On Titchborne Common; Mr. William Pamplin and 
Mr. J. Forder. Gathered there in tolerable plenty in flower and fruit 
June 22nd, 1849!!! In a chalk-pit! close to the railroad at Bram- 
bridge, near Otterbourne; Mrs. Delmé Radcliffe in the herbarium of 
Miss G. E. Kilderbee! Near Cranberry (Cranbury ?) and Forest of 
Bere; Rev. Messrs. Garnier and Poulter in Hamp. Repos. In the 
marsh by the ltchen, near Otterbourne, called the Common Mead ; 
Miss A. M. Yonge. Bransbury Common, near Bullington; Rev. D. 
Cockerton. Mr. Curtis thinks it grows with P. lusitanica in the Bos- 
combe Chine station, given below for that plant. The common But- 
terwort doubtless exists in other parts of Hants, but is much less 
frequent in the south than in the north of England. 

lusitanica. In spongy bogs and moist heathy places, 
rare, but apparently less so than the preceding species. First found in 
the Isle of Wight in July, 1839, by Miss G. E. Kilderbee, on a piece 
of boggy ground called Little Moor, just below Cockleton farm, near 
West Cowes, in considerable plenty !!! On Colwell Heath, Freshwa- 
ter, but sparingly. These are the only stations known to me at pre- 
sent in the island for this truly western and maritime species, which 
attains in this county its most easterly English limit. Abundant at 
the wet base of the cliffs at the mouth of Boscombe Chine, near 
Bournmouth (the fashionable watering place five miles west of Christ- 
church); Mr. Curtis (Icon. ex loco in Brit. Entom. vol. viii. tab. 341). 
“In several of the boggy places on Shidfield Common (near Wick- 
ham), above Mr. Denny’s, but farther south from the road, below a 
bank in wet ground, and also in wet ground below (7. e., south) of the 
church ;” Miss Hawkins. I suspect this station, from its rather in- 
land position, may really belong to P. vulgaris. In bogs near Ston- 
ham, and in places a little north of Southampton ; Sir J. Banks in 
Bot. Guide. Townhill Common (Southton ?); Mr. Winch in New 
Bot. Guide. According to the authors of the old ‘ Botanist’s Guide,’ 
the species is stated to be “common in this county” on the authority 
of Hudson, probably from his verbal testimony, as Hudson does not 
say so in the ‘Flora Anglica, and the assertion is scarcely a correct 
one, certainly not so as respects the county at large, since it is only 
on and near the coast that this species of Pinguicula is to be found 
at all. 

VOL; 111. AU 


690 


Utricularia vulgaris. Jn clear ditches, drains and pools, also in 
peat holes, but very rare in the Isle of Wight, and apparently equally 
so in mainland Hants. Ditches in the marsh at Easton (Freshwater 
Gate) plentifully ; Mr. W. D. Snooke in FI. Vect.!!!__I find it there 
in several of the drains or ditches abundantly, but have never suc- 
ceeded in obtaining it in flower, nor have I any other county station 
to record at present for a species which can hardly be supposed ab- 
sent from or even very rare on the mainland division of it. 

minor. In similar places with the last, and as regards 
the Isle of Wight equally uncommon. Abundantly in a ditch in the 
meadows immediately below Mr. Jacob’s farm at Langbridge, by 
Newchurch, but flowering very sparingly, July 5th, 1842. Profusely 
in the same place in September last, forming dense masses, but not 
appearing to have blossomed at all this season. It would seem to be 
more frequent, like all our other aquatics, on the mainland part of the 
county. Near Heron Court (by Christchurch); Hon. C. A. Harris 
in Curtis’s Brit. Entom. vol. viii. tab. 343. Forest of Bere; Rev. 
Messrs. Garnier and Poulter in Hamps. Repos. Titchfield Common; 
Mr. W. L. Notcutt! U. intermedia, by far the rarest of our three 
British species, occurs in peat holes in Dorsetshire (Purbeck, I think), 
and will probably be found in the adjoining parts of Hants on Poole 
Heath, or on the extensive moorlands of the New Forest district, 
about Ringwood, Christchurch, &c., as well as on the eastern forests 
of Bere, Wolmer and Alice Holt. 

Primula vulgaris. In woods, thickets and groves, on banks, under 
hedges and about the borders of fields, also in open meadows and 
pastures ; in profuse abundance in all parts of the Isle of Wight and 
mainland Hants. Var. a. Flowers pure white, with a yellow eye. 
Occasionally about Ryde. I have gathered it in Whitefield Wood, 
and various other places in this neighbourhood, I think also, in Quarr 
Copse. In Symington Copse, between Somerford and Medham 
farms, near Cowes, in one spot abundantly. Near Landguard farm, 
by Shanklin; the Miss Herons!! Very fine and plentiful in a copse 
near the Medina, by New Fairlee; Mr. G. Kirkpatrick. Var. 8. 
Flowers bright purplish red; rare. Wood between Steephill and St. 
Lawrence ; Mr. Albert Hambrough !!! where this beautiful variety is 
truly wild, and growing in a clump of considerable size. In a field 
by Morton House; Dr. Salter (wild?). I found it some years back 
abundant on banks in the grounds at Montpellier House, Ventnor, 
but probably disseminated from roots originally planted, the variety 
being frequent in gardens. Var. 0. caulescens. Scape umbellate, 


691 


flowers deeper yellow. In copses occasionally. In a copse betwixt 
Shanklin and Bonchurch I found in April last two roots of this va- 
riety. The copse was full of primroses, but not a single cowslip was 
to be seen on or near the spot, the leaves were truly those of the 
primrose, and excepting in the umbellate flowers and their somewhat 
deeper colour, the plants differed in nothing from the ordinary prim- 
roses which grew around them. In this form we perceive the first 
approach to the cowslip structure, of which it possesses two of the 
attributes, the umbelled arrangement of the peduncles, and deeper 
tinted corolla. It is, in fact, the stepping-stone from the simple prim- 
rose to the var. 8. of the following species (P. veris). Under cultiva- 
tion, and occasionally in the wild state, the primrose sends up a 
single erect stem various in height, bearing an umbel of reddish or 
brown-edged, often richly-coloured flowers, the well-known Polyan- 
thus of our borders, with all its beautiful, but endless varieties. The 
flowers of the wild polyanthus primrose are usually liver-coloured, as 
we see them become in poor or neglected garden soil. This form of 
the primrose I have gathered in Sussex (near Hastings), but have not 
met with it in the Isle of Wight myself, although it has occurred here 
to Mr. Albert Hambrough. At no season, perhaps, is the primrose 
wholly out of bloom in this county, unless during the latter summer 
and earlier autumn months; for, as it is the last flower of spring to 
retire at the approach of fervid summer’s gayer throng,— 


pale primroses 
That die unmarried ere they can behold 
Bright Pheebus in his strength,— 


so is it the first returning to await in hopeful anticipation through the 
waning year’s long and dull decline, the brighter days that follow on 
the birth of the next. A bunch of primroses on New Year’s morn is 
a gift, from the mildness of our winters of late, hardly more thought 
of as a rarity than a nosegay of spring daffodils or a bouquet of sweet 
violets at Lady day. 

Primula veris. In meadows, pastures, woods, on dry banks, chalky 
slopes and downs; more local than the primrose, but abundantly 
distributed over the entire county and Isle of Wight. Rarely seen 
about Ryde; in fields near Quarr Abbey and the Spencer road, spar- 
ingly. Frequent about Brading and Yaverland, in fields at Ashey, 
Nunwell, &c. About Shanklin, Newchurch and Appuldurcombe. 
About Carisbrook Castle on the walls and glacis. Very common 


692 


along the Undercliff at Eastend, Bonchurch, Ventnor, Steephill, &c. 
Very fine on grassy slopes at Niton, to the westward of that village, 
everywhere about Thorley, and in various parts of Freshwater. Ge- 
nerally dispersed on and at the base of the central chalk range, on 
the downs, and in the woods that partially clothe their slopes, as 
about Idlecombe, Buccombe, Chillerton, Shorwell, &c., in the greatest 
plenty. On mainland Hants the cowslip occurs abundantly about 
Winchester almost everywhere. Frequent about Basingstoke, at 
Hackwood Park, Maple Durwell,* and common in pastures at Nately, 
&c. Jn the north-west of the county at King’s Clerc, &c. Var. 8. 
elatior. Limbs of the corolla flat or flattish.  P. elatior, With. (not 
Jacq.). Not uncommon intermixed with a., into which it may be 
seen so insensibly passing that many individuals appear exactly in- 
termediate betwixt both forms. Near Brading, and in various places 
between Newport and Shorwell. At Steephill not unfrequent. Very 
common in meadows about Thorley. At Swainston; the late Lady 
Simeon. Meadow betwixt Nunwell New Farm and the down; fre- 
quent; Dr. T. Bell Salter. On visiting the field with Dr. S. in May 
last not a single oxlip could be found amongst thousands of cowslips, 
which would seem to show that the former is not of equal permanency 
with the latter. Probably of equal frequency over the county. About 
Basingstoke, at Chingham, &c., where the poor people transplant 
them into their gardens. The oxlip is occasionally found in copses 
and meadows with the common primrose, where a cowslip does not 
grow within miles of the place. In P. veris elatior, the calyx is 
longer, narrower, with more acute segments than in the cowslip, in 
which the calyx surrounds the corolla like a loose bag, open at the 
mouth, and considerably inflated, not closing around the tube as in 
the oxlip. The flowers of the latter are nearly inodorous, though oc- 
casionally very sweet scented, and the leaves have not the same con- 
traction towards the middle, as in the cowslip. 

The oxlip has been thought by many to be a hybrid betwixt the 
cowslip and primrose, but conceding the point to those who still in- 
sist on keeping the two last separate, from what we know of the mo- 
difications to which both are subject, and by which they as it were 
anastomose in the polyanthus, it is reasonable to conclude that the 
oxlip is the primary deviation from the cowslip to the primrose form, 
and an advance half-way from the cowslip to the polyanthus, which 
last is itself pretty exactly at the point of structural equidistance 


* Pronounced Mapple Durwell by the natives. 


693 


between P. veris and P. vulgaris. The specific identity, however, of 
the cowslip and primrose being once admitted, the notion of the 
oxlip being a mule production (to which its occurrence in localities 
producing only one or other of the plants is a solid objection) falls to 
the ground immediately. The cowslip may be regarded as a con- 
tracted, and, so to speak, concentrated, form of the primrose, with 
smaller leaves and flowers, which last are more highly coloured and 
more powerfully scented, the sulphur yellow of the latter becoming 
exalted into golden yellow, and the five tawny watery rays around 
the orifice of the tube heightened into as many well-defined, deep 
orange dots ; the peduncles and calyx segments shorter, the limb of the 
corolla contracted, and hence cupped or concave, and the leaves con- 
stricted in the middle, each of these differences denoting a concentra- 
tion or abridgment of the organs of the entire plant, displaying itself 
exactly in proportion to the degree in which the specimen recedes 
from the typical primrose towards the normal cowslip. In the words 
of Mr. H. C. Watson (Phytol. ii. 44), which express my own senti- 
ments on the subject, “ Even those botanists who refuse faith in the 
carefulness or exactness of the experiments on record, may see with 
their own eyes that the intermediate links do exist (between genuine 
primroses and cowslips). Indeed, they may be raised by any body, 
may be seen in many gardens, or may be found wild by diligent 
search. Nevertheless, while I see no escape from the necessity of 
doing so, I am still somewhat reluctant to place cowslip and primrose 
as a single species. The fact, once fairly admitted, of such exten- 
sive varieties of a single species, must throw doubt upon thousands 
of supposed species as they now stand recorded and described in 
books.” The question of the specific identity or diversity of the 
primrose and cowslip, with all the light apparently thrown upon it, is 
still beset with difficulty ; and I see no more plausible way of solving 
the problem than by placing these two plants in the category of 
what are called permanent races, in each of which certain individuals 
are found evincing a tendency to pass over reciprocally to their oppo- 
site limits of structural divergency, the change in each individual 
being more or less complete or imperfect according to the force or 
feebleness of the nixus impelling it to deviate towards either extreme, 
the impulse itself dependant on, or influenced by, soil, climate, or oc- 
cult causes beyond our present ken and inquiry. It seems placed 
beyond doubt that the seeds of the primrose are capable of producing 
cowslips and every intermediate grade betwixt these two, or in other 
words, all the puzzling varieties to which we give the name of oxlip; 


694 


it is also indisputable that roots of the primrose have been seen bear- 
ing both cowslips and oxlips along with their own proper flowers, yet 
the tendency to metamorphosis would appear to be very strongly ex- 
erted towards the cowslip termination of the series, and very feebly 
in the direction of the primrose extremity, as I cannot call to mind a 
single recorded instance of the seed of a genuine cowslip reverting to 
the absolute simple primrose of our hedgerows. The effect of culti- 
vation on the Primula seems that of causing it to oscillate betwixt the 
extreme types in various degrees, as may be seen from the very inte- 
resting, and, to myself, convincing experiments of Mr. H. C. Watson. 
In one of these trials (Phytol. ii. 217), a caulescent variety of P. vul- 
garis, but approaching nearer in character to the cowslip than to the 
primrose, produced eighty-eight seedlings, five of which proved genu- 
ine cowslips, twenty true primroses, and the remaining sixty-three a 
sliding series of intermediates betwixt cowslips and primroses. Here 
a middle form was selected, and it is somewhat remarkable that with 
a leaning in the parent towards the cowslip conformation, the progeny 
should tend to assume the features of the primrose. In another ex- 
periment (Phytol. ii. 852), a true cowslip being taken, the results were 
less satisfactory, as but a very few of the seedlings flowered. As far, 
however, as could be seen, the entire progeny retained the main cha- 
racteristics of the parent cowslip, with just that degree of deviation 
towards the opposite or primrose type which might have been antici- 
pated ;—they became oxlips. I would beg to suggest to Mr. Watson 
a repetition of this latter experiment, and that one of the resulting 
oxlips be tested in like manner with the subject of the former trial, 
in order to see whether the series might be carried on as in that, to 
the production of genuine primroses and cowslips from the same in- 
termediate form, but produced by culture from an extreme type. The 
primrose, it is well known, is absent from all the interior regions of 
northern Europe, where the cowslip is indigenous ;_ it would be very 
desirable to obtain cowslip seed from these parts, say Moscow, for 
example, and try whether the primrose type of the species might not 
be derivable from it in our maritime climate by the process of cultiva- 
tion just alluded to. This would settle the question, if it be not so 
already in the mind of every unprejudiced person, beyond all further 
controversy, were it not that primroses and cowslips are so different 
to common eyes and in popular belief, from our earliest dallyings with 
them in our infant rambles, and our first affections so bound up with 
their individuality, that overpowering indeed must the evidence be 
that could induce the mass of mankind to forego their reliance on the 


695 


unquestioned faith of their forefathers and the creed of their child- 
hood, and consent to believe in their identity. 

The plant now regarded as the true P. elatior, Z.? and of Jacquin, 
and first formally brought before the notice of British botanists in 
1842 by Mr. H. Doubleday, who discovered it in wet meadows at 
Bardfield, in Essex, and published it in this journal (Phytol. i. 204) 
as probably the genuine plant of that name of the German botanists, 
has certainly much the air of a distinct species, yet do the observa- 
tions of Mr. H. C. Watson (Phytol. i. 1001) tend to throw doubt on 
the fact, he having, like myself, “seen exceptional instances to all the 
characters (taken singly) by which this plant is distinguished from P. 
vulgaris and P. veris in Mr. Babington’s Manual; the specific cha- 
racter drawn out by that author being quite accurate, but not invari- 
ably applicable.” On the 19th of last April I visited Bardfield with 
the view of seeing and procuring specimens and roots of the plant in 
its native locality, when the impression I received from the sight of 
some acres of meadow covered with it in full flower, was, that of its 
being a third and probably equally permanent race or variety of the 
same Primula of which our primrose and cowslip are co-ordinate re- 
presentatives. 

The Bardfield P. elatior is admirably depicted in E. B. vol. xv. t. 
513, doubtless from eastern county specimens, as they were commu- 
nicated to Sowerby by the Rev. Mr. Hempstead, who, I believe, re- 
sided in Essex. The leaves of the Bardfield oxlip exactly resemble 
in general those of the cowslip, but in many of my specimens they 
are as much like those of the primrose, tapering, as they do, gradually 
into the foot-stalk without any contraction or abruptness, and as they 
are sometimes seen to do in the cowslip also. The calyx in most of 
my specimens is close, narrow and nearly cylindrical or tubular, 
being but slightly ventricose or inflated, a little shorter than the tube 
of the corolla, acutely five-ribbed and angled, the teeth shortish and 
mostly acuminate, broader in proportion than those of the primrose, 
but in some of the specimens the calyx makes a considerable ap- 
proach to that of the primrose in becoming ovoid and ventricose. 
The throat of the corolla is remarkably open, and free from those 
folds, plaits cr puckers, giving the appearance of a slight crown or 
border to the tube, often so conspicuous in the primrose,* being, in 

* Mr. Watson thought the want of these folds might prove a good character in the 
Bardfield oxlip, but they are often very indistinct or wholly obliterated in the prim- 
rose itself, and still oftener in the cowslip, the throat of which is much less contracted 
than in the primrose. 


696 


fact, funnel-shaped within and without, somewhat as it is in P. Auri- 
cula. The limb of the corolla is sometimes flat, more usually cupped 
or funnel-shaped (another point of resemblance to the cowslip), and 
in colour intermediate between that and the primrose, as we usually 
see it in our commonly so-called oxlips. The flowers are pleasantly, 
but not powerfully scented, and are drooping (at least the outer ones) 
as in the cowslip, of which the corolla has less the form than of the 
primrose, but is hardly more than half the size of the latter, and the 
segments are less rounded or more abrupt, and do not overlie each 
other, but are separated by an evident space their entire length in 
most instances, an appearance which the umbellate variety of P. vul- 
garis often assumes, and which cannot therefore be held distinctive of 
the Bardfield plant. The scapes differ much in degree of hairiness, 
but in general are very densely clothed with woolly pubesence. In 
the length of the style and position of the stamens this plant varies 
like others of the genus, and indeed is too much like those old and 
early favourites, the primrose and cowslip, to be satisfactory to the 
lovers of broad, tangible, immutable distinctions. It must, notwith- 
standing, be allowed the merit of being a well-marked form, as per- 
manent probably as either of its congeners, but I have seen some va- 
rieties of the latter that have looked very like the Bardfield plant, and 
the fact of its growing alone, unmixed with common cowslips or prim- 
roses, is no greater proof of specific difference than in the case of 
these two last, which, as is well known, will overspread whole dis- 
tricts, flourishing side by side, or arrogating one or the other exclusive 
possession of entire provinces or even kingdoms. Gaudin* remarks 
of P. elatior, “ Priori (P. acauli) utique nimius affinis, ut in specimini- 
bus quibusdam characteres diagnostici fere omnino evanescant.” He 
might have added that it comes as near to P. veris as to P. acaulis, 
and is almost as exactly intermediate betwixt them as are many of 
our false oxlips. The same excellent botanist notices the extremely 
acute calyx segments of P. elatior, “ calyce acutissimo,” as part of his 
specific character. The only tolerably certain figure I can find of P. 
elatior in the works of the older botanists is that of Clusius, ‘ Rari- 
orum Plantarum Historia,’ p. 331, left-hand figure. That of ‘ Flora 
Danica,’ tab. 434, may admit of doubt. 

Hottonia palustris. In ditches, drains and ponds. To present 
appearance an extremely rare plant in Hants, and certainly not native 
to the Isle of Wight. Abundant in a pool called the Lake, in a green 


* Fl. Helv. ii..p. 84. 


697 


lane at Aldershot, near Farnham; Mr. W.O. Newnham !!! This, the 
only Hants station as yet known to me for the above beautiful aquatic, 
is just within our limits, being close to the west side of the stream 
called the Blackwater, which separates Hampshire from Surrey. It 
will doubtless be found in other quarters of the county, being not un- . 
frequent in many parts of Sussex, Surrey and Middlesex, and has in- 
deed been indicated to me with some doubt by Miss L. Minchin as 
observed by her at Soberton, on the north of the Forest of Bere. The 
American H. inflata, which I have gathered in the States of Rhode 
Island and Georgia, though vastly inferior in appearance to the Eu- 
ropean species, from the small size of its white, inconspicuous flowers, 
hardly larger than in our Samolus Valerandi, and somewhat resembling 
them, is a most singular plant, the scapes being swollen or inflated 
between the verticils to the thickness of the finger, and having the as- 
pect of being constricted at intervals by tightly-drawn ligatures. If 
this be a provision for floating the flower-scapes, it would seem to be 
less needed in the American than in our own species, for the former 
grows freely rooting on wet mud, whilst the other never, I think, 
flourishes except where the lower part of the plant is entirely sub- 
merged. 

Lysimachia vulgaris. \n wet or boggy meadows, thickets, osier- 
beds, on ditch-banks and about the margins of ponds, rivers and 
brooks. Abundantly in many parts of the Isle of Wight, but rather 
locally distributed, and by far the most common in East Medina. In 
various parts of Sandown Level, and throughout the valley of the East 
Yar from Yarbridge to Horringford Bridge, in ditches and swampy 
thickets, as about Newchurch, Alverston, Lake and Blackpan Com- 
mons, &c., in great plenty. Along the Medina River, in some places 
in profusion, especially between Rookley and Cridmore, on the Wil- 
derness, &c. Very common about Godshill, by Bagwich, at Bridge 
and Budbridge, Bowbridge, &c. Marsh at Easton, Freshwater Gate. 
In Pan Moor, by Newport (Mr. G. Kirkpatrick), and numberless 
other places. Extremely common in mainland Hants, at least towards 
the south coast. At Bishop’s Stoke, Southampton, Winchester (about 
King’s Worthy, &c.), Petersfield, and elsewhere in East Hants. In 
vast abundance, almost covering some of the boggy meadows nearest 
the shore to the west of Alverstoke, near Gosport. Bog on Titchfield 
Common.  Plentiful in West Hants, in the New Forest and Christ- 
church hundreds, about Boldre, Lymington, in the Avon betwixt 
Christchurch and Ringwood. Most profusely about Sowley Pond, a 
fine sheet of water about three miles east of Lymington, and in all the 

Vou. it. 4X 


698 


low meadows and pastures in the greatest abundance about Sowley, 
Eastend, &c. I have received notices of its occurrence from several 
friends and correspondents, but all these stations being in the above 
mentioned districts of south Hants, it is needless quoting localities 
- for a plant so universally distributed and abundant as this. Probably 
equally common in the north of the county, although my notes con- 
tain no memoranda of its having been remarked in that quarter by 
myself or others. In very shady, wet thickets the leaves are some- 
times deep green, shining and glabrous above, the whole plant ex- 
tremely luxuriant, in which state I have gathered it between Apse and 
Ninham, near Shanklin, above six feet in height. The beautiful va- 
riety having the base of the corolla fulvous within, and red or orange 
stamens, is frequent on the Wilderness, and elsewhere in this island. 
Capsules in some situations not perfected, in others copiously matured, 
5-10 valved?, usually, I think, indehiscent. The numerous reddish 
or cream-coloured, angular seeds are covered with a friable mealy 
coat (testa), giving them the aspect of little fragments of chalk or 
pipe-clay. 

Lysimachia Nummularia. In damp meadows and pastures, on 
ditch-banks, by stream-sides, the margins of ponds, and in other 
watery situations, but not common. Not yet ascertained to be a 
genuine native of the Isle of Wight. Found a few years since in some 
abundance by Mr. Wm. Jolliffe, groom to R. Milligan, Esq., of Ryde, 
in a field exactly opposite Lord Spencer’s house, growing in a cavity 
made for planting a tree !!!_ The hole has since been filled up, and 
the plant destroyed, which, if not designedly introduced,’ had estab- 
lished itself there from some neighbouring garden. Above the shore 
near West Cowes; Rev. W. H. Coleman, but who is not certain of 
the correctness of his observation. About the edges of the pool in 
which Hottonia palustris grows at Aldershot, near Famham. Damp 
meadow ground in the Duke of Wellington’s park at Strathfieldsaye, 
June, 1848. Wet ground by the Boldre River, just below Brocken- 
hurst Bridge, July, 1849. Netley Wood and Selborne; Miss L. Sib- 
ley. Side of Titchfield River; Mr. W. L. Notcutt. Probably dis- 
persed over the entire mainland of the county, but its apparently total 
absence from this island cannot be accounted for by the want of places 
congenial to its growth. A favourite plant with the class of “ window 
gardeners” in London. The Latin name was anglicized into Herb- 
twopence by Turner, from a fancied resemblance he perceived in the 
leaves to (silver) pennies, “by coples one against another.” The 
same old herbalist first imposed the name of Spindle-tree on Euony- 


699 


mus europzus, for which he informs us he could find none in Eng- 
lish at that time, a fact that should teach us caution how we assume 
a tree or shrub not to be indigenous because unfurnished with any 
ancient or vernacular name. In like manner we owe the name of 
Pasque-flower for Anemone Pulsatilla to Gerarde, who was “ moved” 
thereto, as he informs us, from its flowering about Easter. 

Lysimachia nemorum. In moist shady places, woods, thickets, 
groves, on damp hedge-banks and by the grassy margins of rills, &c.; 
frequent over the county and island. About Ryde, in Quarr Copse, 
Apley Wood, St. John’s Wood and elsewhere, frequent. Plentiful in 
woods near Appuldurcombe and along the Wootton River. Apse 
Castle, near Shanklin, Parsonage Lynch Newchurch, and many other 
places. In the membranaceous, pellucid, globose capsules, having 
five valves, but mostly opening transversely ; in the subhemispherical 
seeds, rough with wart-like and finally chaffy or scaly granulations ; 
in the free stamens, and its general structure and habit, this plant is 
as much an Anagallis as a Lysimachia, or even more so. 

Anagallis arvensis. In cultivated and waste ground, corn-fields, 
on dry banks, by way-sides, in pastures, woods and under walls, &c. ; 
abundant in all parts of the county and Isle of Wight. Var. @ carnea. 
Flowers pale pink or rose-colour, with a purple eye. Under the cliff 
a little way from the Chine, Shanklin, July, 1842. Border of a field 
betwixt Weeks’s and Little Smallbrook, near Ryde, 1837; Miss T. 
Price! but I could not find it the following year. On a piece of 
waste ground at the upper end of Dover Street, Ryde; Miss Lucas!!! 
Field near Shanklin, by the footway from thence towards Luccombe ; 
Miss Kirkpatrick !!!_ Near Barnsley farm; Dr. T. B. Salter !! Var. 
y. cerulea. Flowers sky-blue. <A. caerulea, Sm. Rare in fields, &c. 
Field between Westridge and St. John’s, October, 1839. Hedge-bank 
in Quarr Copse, a single specimen; the dowager Lady Knowles! 
Field at St. Clare, near the sea, 1844; the Lady Catherine Harcoutt. 
Sandown, on a piece of waste ground near the sea; Miss S. Lovell ! 
At Bonchurch; Dr. Martin. Near Christchurch; Mr. J. Hussey. I 
have no other mainland stations as yet to record for either of the 
above varieties. 

In my Isle-of-Wight specimens of y. the stems are equally procum- 
bent, and the whole plant, with the exception of the rather smaller 
and differently-coloured flowers, in all points exactly similar to the 
common scarlet kind, amongst which it was growing. In both, the 
edges of the corolla are finely fringed and crenulate, and that in an 
equal degree. The leaves of the blue pimpernel are often lanceolate, 


700 


as I have gathered it at Cobham in Kent, but this character is incon- 
stant, the leaves in the specimens near Ryde being as broadly ovate 
as in the usual or normal state of the plant. Mr. Leighton has re- 
marked the same of this variety in Shropshire. In the white or pale 
rose variety @. the corolla is also smaller than usual, or about the same 
size as in y.; in other respects the plant does not differ from the com- 
mon red form. The absolute specific identity of the three forms of 
A. arvensis here mentioned has been established beyond all contro- 
versy by the experiments of Professor Henslow (see Loudon’s Maga- 
zine of Nat. Hist. iii. p. 537). I have myself seen the cultivated 
Anagallis in the garden of the Rev. Wm. Sherson, at Yaverland, bear- 
ing flowers of a bright blue on the same stem with those of the flesh- 
coloured variety, of which there was an entire bed. The change from 
pure red to simple blue (both primitive colours) is, I believe, very 
uncommon in Nature’s chromatic sportiveness, and it is perhaps to the 
flowers of the pimpernel that we should look for the best chance of 
getting a correct idea of that anomalous colour, sky-blue scarlet, of 
which most persons must have heard, but which very few indeed 
can have seen. The flowers of this plant often undergo at the close 
of autumn, or in wet seasons, from the deficiency of light and heat, a 
remarkable transformation, the corolla becoming cleft to the very base 
or pentapetalous, the segments rounded, much shorter than the calyx 
and wholly green or partially coloured, and the stamens smooth. 
Sometimes the calyx is converted into a leafy whorl, the capsule be- 
comes five-angled or is itself turned into a bundle of leaves. All 
these changes I remarked in the wet autumn of 1841, on specimens 
from fields above Sandown Bay. They are also noticed by Gaudin 
(Fl. Helv. ii. p. 67, ad calcem), who observes that the seeds of the 
common scarlet Anagallis are fatal to small birds, which eat those of 
the blue variety (held by him distinct) with impunity. 

Anagallis tenella. In boggy, springy or peaty ground, by the sides 
of drains and rills, amongst the short herbage of moist heaths, com- 
mons, and in woods; very frequent in the Isle of Wight, and in many 
other parts of Hampshire, at least towards the coast. Near Ninham 
farm, and in a field near Weeks’s, by Ryde. Abundant on slipped 
land near Niton, especially betwixt Knowle and the Sandrock Spring, 
fringing the margin of a little stream descending to the shore from 
. the cliffs, and where my friend George Kirkpatrick, Esq., and myself 
found a variety with pure white flowers, July 9, 1839. Bog at Cockle- 
ton, near Cowes. On Lake and Blackpan Commons, in plenty. 
Most abundantly in a moory meadow close to Stone farm, near New- 


701 


church, and on moors about Rookley and Godshill plentiful. Boggy 
ground near the shore between Norton and the preventive station, 
Freshwater, in plenty. I find it here and there in a great variety of 
other places. In Luccombe Chine, a very little way from the path 
on the left going down from the sea, in great plenty; Miss G. E. 
Kilderbee! Heath at Colwell (where I find it) and many other places 
in the parish of Freshwater, in plenty. Apse Heath; Mr. W. D. 
Snooke (in Fl. Vect.) Very common, I have reason to believe, over 
the New Forest and Christchurch hundreds. Moors about Bourne- 
mouth (1849), and frequent on the moory heaths of West Hants ge- 
nerally. I feel pretty confident of having seen it on Petersfield Heath 
and on Wolmer Forest. Boscombe Chine, near Bourne; Mr. J. Cur- 
tis in litt. (and Brit. Entom. cum icone) !!! Droxford Forest; Rev. 
K. M. Sladen. Itchenstoke; Miss L. Legge. Forest of Bere; Rev. 
Messrs. Garnier and Poulter in Hamp. Repos. Titchfield Common; 
Mr. W. L. Notcutt. Short Heath, near Selborne; Dr. T. B. Salter!!! 
This most elegant and delicate plant probably becomes rarer in the 
north of the county, or more remote from the sea, as I have no locali- 
ties from my own notes or from the observations of others to give for 
its occurrence in that quarter. 

Centunculus minimus. In damp, sandy, gravelly places on heaths, 
&c., often with Radiola Millegrana; probably not rare, but made to 
appear so from its extreme minuteness. Near Heath farm, by New- 
port. At the foot of Bleak Down, by the junction of the Chale, Ni- 
ton and Godshill roads. Heath at Colwell, plentifully; Mr. W. D. 
Snooke (in Fl. Vect.) !!! On Shortheath, near Selborne, Sept. 1848. 
On wet gravel betwixt Boldre village and Royden farm, Oct. 10, 1849. 
Near Christchurch; Mr. J. Hussey (in litt.) 

Glaux maritima. In salt-marshes, creeks and ditches, and in 
brackish meadows near the sea; very common in the Isle of Wight 
and along the opposite shores of Hants. Most abundantly in the mea- 
dows behind Ryde Dover, and sparingly on the Dover itself, if not 
now destroyed by buildings. Mouth of the Wootton River in plenty. 
Abundant by the Medina, above West Cowes, and in the meadow 
nearest the sea at Freshwater Gate, also by the marshy sides of the 
Yar under Beckett’s Copse. In Gurnet Bay; Miss G. E. Kilderbee!!! 
In Portsea Island, and along the coast of Hampshire so generally that 
I have neglected noting down special localities. Shore near Cams, 
and near Quay (by Fareham); Mr. W. L. Notcutt. Petals said to 
be sometimes present in the south of Europe. 

Samolus Valerandi. In wet, marshy places, low meadows, by 


702 


brooks, the sides of drains and ditches, also in moist woods; by no 
means rare in the Isle of Wight and the parts at least of Hants adja- 
cent to the coast, being more frequent in the vicinity of brackish than 
of fresh water. In the marsh ditches behind the Dover, Ryde, here 
and there. Plentifully in the boggy part of the wood called Chapel 
Corner Copse, on the west shore of the Wootton River, at its mouth. 
More common in Freshwater Island* than elsewhere in the Isle of 
Wight. At Norton. Plentiful in some of the marsh ditches at Easton, 
and in salt-marshes along the Yar, and about a little pool in a mea- 
dow not far from Yarmouth Mill. Pretty abundant on the boggy 
parts of Colwell Heath, at its upper end. On the beach at Wolver- 
ton, by St. Lawrence, near a spring; the late Mr. Samuel Hailstone, 
jun.! Near Blackgang; Miss G. E. Kilderbee! Blackgang Chine ; 
Mr. J. Curtis in Brit. Entom. vol. iv. tab. 154. Banks in Colwell 
Bay and in the marsh at Freshwater Gate, plentifully; Mr, W. D. 
Snooke in FI. Vect.!!! Ditches at Schoolhouse Green, Freshwater ; 
Mr. Charles D. Snooke in litt. In alow, marshy meadow at Keyha- 
ven, near Milford. In plenty in one of the boggy meadows behind 
Stokes Bay, to the westward of Alverstoke. Hill Head; Mr. Robin- 
son in Mr. W. L. Notcutt’s Cat. of Plants of Fareham in Phytol. ii. 
211. The present species is stated by writers to occur in almost all 
parts of the globe, but this must be understood with considerable li- 
mitations. Lt is certainly not a very northern plant, and many of the 
boreal countries of Europe want it altogether. In America it would 
seem to be wholly absent, the S. Valerandi of American botanists 
being a very different species, long confounded with our own, and now 
called S. floribunda. Before I was aware of the separation, I was 
struck with the difference of aspect in a Samolus 1 found in Alabama, 
in wet woods along the Mississippi, and about Carrollton, by New 
Orleans. S. floribunda differs from S. Valerandi in its much and dif- 
fusely branched stems, shorter, less erect and subpaniculate racemes, 
in its very slender, filiform, more spreading and generally straighter 
pedicels, and notably in its far smaller flowers and capsules, the for- 
mer very minute, scarcely half the size they are in the European 
plant, the corolla but little exceeding the calyx in length. The 
leaves are described as obtuse, and so they often are, but in the plant 


* The western extremity of the Isle of Wight, insulated by the river Yar, is called 
Freshwater Island in old maps, as the eastern end, though less perfectly cut off by the 
estuary of Brading, was called the Isle of Bembridge, terms which, though not now 
in common use, very conveniently serve to designate these two well-defined districts. 


703 


as I find it at Carrollton all the leaves, even the very lowest, are more 
or less acute, the middle and upper obovate-lanceolate, and very dis- 
tinctly pointed, of a thin, membranaceous texture, and bright, lucid, 
somewhat shining green. I have never seen specimens from the mid- 
dle or northern states, but the S. Valerandi of Dr. Darlington’s ‘ Flora 
Cestrica’ evidently belongs to S. floribunda. The specific character 
of S. Valerandi may be thus amended: Stems simple or sparingly 
branched, leafy ; leaves obovate-oblong, or spathulate, very obtuse ; 
racemes many flowered, straight, simple, erect; pedicels bracteate, 
patent ; corolla twice the length of the calyx. 


Wy. A. BROMFIELD. 
Eastmount, Ryde, Isle of Wight, 


October, 1849. 
(To be continued.) 


ERRATA, 


P. 663, line 1, for “ Bab.” read “ Bob.” 
», line 14 from bottom, for “ Rockley” read “ Rookley.” 
» line 15 from bottom, for “‘ How-” read “ Hor.” 

P. 664, line 21 from top, for “Scome” read “ Sconce.” 

P. 665, for “ Armfield” read “ Arnfield.” 

P. 668, line 12 from top, for “ Gatecomb” read “Gatcomb.” 


Experiments on the Specific Identity of the Cowslip and Primrose. 
By JoserH SipEBOTHAM, Esq. 


THE communication to the ‘ Phytologist’ by the Rev. J. S. Henslow 
(Phytol. iii. 651), reminds me that I have not yet furnished the readers 
of the ‘Phytologist’ with the result of some experiments on the Pri- 
mule completed this season (vide Phytol. ii. 887). 

In the summer of 1846 I determined to try some experiments on 
the specific identity of Primula veris and P. vulgaris, in imitation of 
those published by Mr. Watson and others, but on a much larger 
scale, and with such precautions that the result might be relied on. 
With this view I transplanted seven or eight roots of Primula veris 
from Reddish Vale into my garden ; my late friend E. 8S. Wilson sent 
three plants of P. vulgaris, var. intermedia (L. C.), from the neigh- 
bourhood of Congleton; P. vulgaris I obtained from Bredbury Wood, 


704 


and P. veris, var. major (L. C.), from the Manchester market; P. 
Jacquinii, received from Mr, H. Doubleday, was already in the 
garden. 

In 1847 most of these were flourishing plants, and to prevent any 
hybridization from the visits of insects, I protected them with glass 
during the early part of their flowering. The season was particularly 
favourable for ripening the seed, and when I came to collect I found 
a considerable quantity. 

To prevent all errors as much as possible, I collected the seed my- 
self, and again sowed it on beds, where no Primule had been previ- 
ously grown. These I again planted out, and this year most of them 
have flowered, and here are the particulars. 

Primula veris seed produced nearly eight hundred plants, but only 
four hundred and seventy-three were planted out for observation, and 
these may be characterized as under. 


Primula veris, true a an ee 412 
P. veris, var. major (L. C.) —.... ae Pa 
Do. do. hose-in-hose ro nas 3 
P. veris, dark-coloured .... we ns eh 
Do. approaching polyanthus_.... fies 5 
Do. do. hose-in-hose .... me BAe 1 
No flowers ay Bare ne abe 18 
473 Total. 


Primula veris, var. major, produced sixty-five plants, of which the 
subjoined list gives the particulars. 


w 
—_ 


P. veris, var. major 

P. veris (true) ai 
Polyanthus of different shades; 

Do. hose-in-hose 

Do. with leafy calyx 

P. vulgaris, var. intermedia (L. C) 
P. vulgaris, var. caulescens (? ) 

P. vulgaris 

P. Jacquinii ! 

No flowers 


— 


wor wnwnwnrte WD © 


65 Total. 


705 


P. vulgaris, var. entermedia, L. C., produced twenty-seven, as under. 


P. vulgaris, var. ¢ntermedia _.... it 19 
Do. var. caulescens see es aac 3 
P. vulgaris (true) 1 
No flowers | 4 
27 Total. 


P. vulgaris produced eighteen, as under. 


P. vulgaris am mi ze ste 15 
Do. var. caulescens E 
No flowers D4 
18 Total. 


P. Jacquinii produced thirty-two, as under. 


P. Jacquinii __.... sk seit soi 24 
P. vulgaris ss ae soe are 1 
Do. var. caulescens ae bess sons 1 
No flowers Ba Beit beck am 6 
32 Total. 


% 


Such are the results of my experiments, which I must own disap- 
pointed me greatly, and interfered very materially with my previous 
ideas of specific identity : we have certainly no direct change from 
the primrose to the cowslip, or the reverse, but we have the change 
in two steps, first, from the P. veris to P. veris, var. major, and then 
from that to P. vulgaris, and however unwillingly acknowledged, such 
transition appears really to take place. The change in P. Jacquinii 
surprised me much, as I had not heard of its altering in form, and my 
previous experiment only went to prove the contrary. 

I have now a large number of seedlings of this year’s growth, for 
the purpose of carrying on the investigation; for the present I shall 
say no more, but leave the above facts to speak for themselves. 


JOSEPH SIDEBOTHAM. 
Manchester, October 3, 1849. 


VO. Tit: 4A Y 


706 


Blight on Oak Trees. By the Rev. W. T. Bree, M.A. 


Tuere has been during the present year all about this neighbour- 
hood a sort of blight upon many of the oak trees, in consequence of 
which the foliage turned colour at an unusually early period of the 
season. By the middle of August or before, I observed that many 
oaks had assumed as brown and autumnal an appearance as they 
commonly present at the end of October or early in November. The 
blight was partial only, affecting some trees, but not others. It did 
not appear to depend on the age or vigour of the tree, or on soil or 
situation. Both large and small oaks, old and young, thriving and 
those in decay, in sheltered as well as exposed situations, in woods 
and in hedge-rows, were alike subject to the disease. I have heard 
this premature decay of the foliage attributed to honey dew; but that 
can hardly have been the case; for it was common to see two oaks 
growing side by side and in close contact, in the same hedge-row or 
wood, one of which was turned to a rich brown or yellow, while the 
other remained in full verdure of foliage. On examining the indivi- 
dual leaves, they were found to be marked with irregular brown or 
yellow blotches, principally at the apex and the lobes round the ex- 
tremities, rather than at the base of the leaf. I did not observe that 
the blighted leaves presented any other peculiarity, or that they had 
been subject to the attacks of insects (galls, oak-spangles, &c.) to a 
greater extent than those leaves which were in a healthy condition, 
and retained their usual verdure. Has the same blight made its ap- 
pearance in other parts of the country as well as in Warwickshire ? 
T may remark also, that with the exception of such trees as had been 
more or less stripped of their leaves by the grub in the spring and 
part of the summer (in which case nature invariably makes an effort 
to repair the loss by throwing out fresh leaves and shoots later in the 
season), the oaks generally have made hardly any Midsummer shoot 
this summer. Many thriving young oaks on the premises here, which 
usually make a most vigorous Midsummer shoot of a foot or more in 
length, have this year made next to none. I apprehend that the pre- 
sent year will have proved a very unfavourable one for the growth of 
oak timber, and that the concentric annual ring of wood representing 
the year 1849, will be found to be of remarkably contracted di- 


mensions. W. T. BREE. 
Allesley Rectory, near Coventry, 
October 10, 1849. 


707 


Botanical Notes for 1849. By G. 8S. Gisson, Esq., F.L.S. 


I nap hoped that some one else might have furnished the ‘ Phyto- 
logist’ with a notice respecting some discoveries of the present year, 
but as this has not been hitherto done, and it seems desirable that 
they should be recorded in its pages, for the information of botanists 
generally, I shall briefly describe those which have come under my ob- 
servation. The first to which I refer is the occurrence of Poterium mu- 
ricatum of Spach, P. polygamum of Waldstein, in the neighbourhood of 
Cambridge, in two different places, discovered by gentlemen in that dis- 
trict. Only a few specimens of it were seen, and being subsequently 
cut down, there was little opportunity of making observations upon it. 
Soon afterwards, having been informed of the discovery, I met with it 
in a gravel-pit at Heydon, in this county, and subsequently on grassy 
places by the road-side, for some distance; I also found it in plenty 
in a field of saintfoin, in this parish, and my friend T. Bentall in- 
forms me that he has gathered it in a field of the same plant near 
Halstead, which might have tended to throw some doubt on its being 
native, had not the Heydon locality been free from suspicion, and 
quite satisfactory to several of our best British botanists, who visited 
the spot. Itis possible it may, nevertheless, have been introduced 
in some places, but it is very unlikely that a foreign plant should be 
found simultaneously in so many different places and varying circum- 
stances. A short time after, I again met with it on Boxhill, when 
searching for another plant, as will presently appear, and I believe it 
has been found in Warwickshire ; so that it will probably prove not a 
rare plant in chalky and limestone districts. It is likely to be over- 
looked for P. Sanguisorba, which it much resembles, though doubt- 
less quite distinct. The following are some of the prominent differ- 
ences between the two plants :-— 

Fruit of P. muricatum large, strongly winged, with its surface pitted, 
and the elevated margins of the pits dentate. In P. Sanguisorba the 
fruit is small, angular, but scarcely winged, reticulate-rugose, but not 
pitted. The calyx of the former is larger and more spreading; the 
heads are much heavier, perfecting more seeds. The leaves are ge- 
nerally more coarsely serrated, and the whole plant stronger. The 
hermaphrodite character of the central flowers is insisted on by some 
authors, but it is not very constant or certain. 

The locality is generally cultivated or waste ground. 

In another part of the parish of Heydon, I was much surprised and 
pleased to meet with Melampyrum arvense in considerable abundance, 


_ 


708 


in a field of tares, whether native or introduced with seed at some time, 
I am unable to say, but as that part of the country has not been much 
explored, it is not unlikely that it may be as indigenous there as in 
Norfolk. Thesium linophyllum, Alsine tenuifolia, Orobanche elatior, 
Papaver hybridum, Melilotus arvensis, Fumaria parviflora or Vaillantii, 
and other rare plants also grow here. As regards the latter, I very 
much doubt whether we have two British species under these names, 
and incline to think that all the specimens will be found alike, but to 
which species they are to be referred I am unable to say, not having 
foreign specimens with which to compare them. The plant, which is 
not uncommon in this neighbourhood, agrees more nearly in leaves 
and fruit with the figure of F. parviflora in ‘ English Botany,’ than 
with that of F. Vaillantii. Melilotus arvensis appears to be rather the 
commoner species of the two in this district, and it is also common 
about Stortford; I do not notice that they are either of them confined 
to any particular situations, being found indiscriminately intermixed. 
It is rather surprising that there is no record of its having been more 
generally observed this year. : 

I mentioned in a former paper, having made an unsuccessful expe- 
dition last year to Boxhill, in search of Teucrium Botrys, which was 
reported to grow there; but being invited by my friend W. Borrer to 
accompany him in a fresh search this season, I gladly accepted the 
proposal, and after some time spent in examining the spot, we suc- 
ceeded in finding it there, and scattered along the stony sides of the 
hill for some distance, and most indubitably wild. Though not in 
great abundance, there were a considerable number of specimens, and 
it is remarkable that a plant by no means inconspicuous should have 
so long escaped observation, in a place so much frequented, though 
this part may be rather secluded. It is a very interesting addition to 
the British Flora, but is scarcely likely to be confined to so small a 
space, and has been reported to have been found in another place, 
though not on very good authority. 

In a corn-field near the hill we also gathered Anagallis cerulea, 
Ajuga Chamepitys, Lathyrus Nissolia, Bromus arvensis, &c. The 
latter, though probably introduced, has been found in so many places, 
that it surely deserves a place in the British Flora, more than many 
corn-field and other plants which are always considered to be natu- 
ralized ; but in the ‘ Manual’ it is put in brackets, and in the ‘ Lon- 


don Catalogue’ classed with the excluded species. 
G. 8S. GiBson. 
Saffron Walden, October, 1849. 


709 


Notes on the rarer Ferns observed in a fortnight’s Pedestrian Tour 
in North Wales; with several new Localities for Asplenium 
lanceolatum. By Wi.i1aAM BENNETT, Esq. 


WE arrived at the small town of Builth, in Brecknockshire, one 
evening about the beginning of last month. A few minutes after five 
the next morning found us crossing the bridge over the Wye into 
Radnorshire. The road to Rhayader keeps the course of the river, 
now reduced to a mountain torrent. Polypodium Phegopteris was 
first observed on some rocks on the right of the road to the posting 
hamlet of Llangurig, about three miles out of Rhayader. Our inten- 
tion was to have crossed Plinlimmon to Machynlleth, but his highness 
had by this time put on a threatening aspect, and was now completely 
enveloped in mountain mist, so as to render the attempt indiscreet, if 
not impracticable to strangers, as well as useless in point of scenery 
and enjoyment. So after holding a few minutes’ council, we deter- 
mined to keep the high road, and deviate to the Devil’s Bridge, in 
South Wales, which proved as well; for within an hour the clouds 
began to come down, first as gentle rain, and then increasing steadily 
to a thorough wet evening, swelling the watercourses we had to cross 
on a part of this road to a degree of inconvenience. Polypodium 
Phegopteris beautifully covers a wall on the right, just through the 
Yspitty Cynfen gate, after leaving the main road to Aberystwith, two 
miles before the Devil’s Bridge. 

The ferns of this charming locality are too well known to admit of 
discovering anything new. The evening had likewise gained upon us, 
and it was very wet. We were satisfied with visiting one of the spots 
for Hymenophyllum, on the Hafod Arms side of the Mynach, which 
the guide you are obliged to have from the inn, in order to gain 
access to some of the falls, said the Bishop of Winchester had pro- 
nounced to be the best fern of the district, and had called Tunbride- 
ense, but upon examination we find to be Wilsoni. Probably both 
grow here. Lastrea Oreopteris was the predominant fern seen 
throughout this day’s excursion. 

Our walk the next morning extended from the Hafod Arms, direct 
by a mountain road or track nearly the whole of the way to Machyn- 
lleth. Over half way a little stream is crossed, forming the boundary 
between Cardiganshire and Montgomeryshire, or between South and 
North Wales. Almost the whole of this tract consists of vast, brown, 
moory, bare mountain, too wet for Pteris aquilina. We thence pro- 


710 


ceeded on the road to Dolgelly, which winds up for a long way 
among fine woods and picturesque cottages, until it opens out on the 
summit level, and then plunges down near the head of the solitary 
lake of Tal-y-Llyn, and ascends once more up a most desolate gorge, 
of which the perpendicular precipices of Cader Idris form the oppo- 
site side. Polypodium Phegopteris occurs very plentifully in many 
stations, on banks and stone walls, in the three counties of Cardigan, 
Montgomery and Merioneth, included in this day’s journey. 

From Dolgelly to Barmouth is a splendid walk. On the wall of 
the embankment, just over the bridge across the Maw, was noticed a 
single plant of Ceterach officinarum, by no means a common fern in 
Wales. As we knew we were approaching the famous locality for 
Asplenium lanceolatum, and never having seen this fern in a natural 
habitat, we commenced searching every hole, wall, bridge, and rock, 
and closely examining amongst the innumerable Adiantum-nigrum, 
which was growing luxuriantly all along on both sides of the road. 
Hundreds of the more attenuated, shrivelled, and odd-looking fronds 
of the last-named fern fell a sacrifice, alternately fluctuating between 
hope and despair of identifying the object of our search, till the se- 
cond mile-stone from Barmouth was passed. Here the road some- 
what ascends to round the last promontory that shuts out the view of 
Barmouth and the open sea beyond. Exactly at the bend of this 
sweep, on the wall, originally of large, loose stones, that bounds the 
road on the right, an almost simultaneous shout from each of our 
party, removed at once all our doubts and fears, and announced the 
prize. Here was the undoubted lanceolatum in abundance, perfectly 
unmistakeable when once seen, growing intermingled with, but pre- 
dominant over Adiantum-nigrum. It roots very deeply in the holes 
and fissures amongst the stones, assisted by the length of the stipes, 
which renders it very difficult to get at perfect, unmutilated fronds. 
From the dry, sandy nature of the road, the fronds, though large, at 
this time were covered with dust, and of a shrivelled habit. We 
again met with it on the high rocks, just before entering the town, as 
recorded in Newman’s ‘ British Ferns,’ p. 251; and much finer and 
greener, on rocks and walls about the same distance on the other side 
of the town, towards Harlech. Polypodium Phegopteris was seen 
plentifully, and Osmunda regalis at one station, on this walk. The 
road to Harlech, and thence to Tremadoc, across the ferry of the 
Traeths, presented nothing fresh to notice. 

The following morning was spent in ascending the great rocky emi- 
nences, which so romantically overhang the remarkably neat and 


711 


pretty Welsh town of Tremadoc. We were gratified in identifying 
Asplenium lanceolatum once more at an elevation of perhaps 700 feet. 
Though we saw but one single plant, of which a couple of fronds only 
were gathered, it was sufficient to prove the habitat ; and there is little 
doubt this vast district of wild and lofty rock would amply repay for 
a longer search, with more time at command. 

Our next station was Pwllheli (pronounced Poo-thel-ly). Here a 
narrow neck of land or embankment runs out to a sandy promontory, 
terminated by an abrupt and very conspicuous rock, altogether form- 
ing the western and southern boundary of the harbour. _ It was twi- 
light when we gained this rock, which is very steep, and inaccessible 
on the sea-board side. Our attention was immediately attracted by 
something green in the crevices rather difficult to reach, which, upon 
pulling out, proved, to our no small delight, to be Asplenium lanceo- 
Jatum, in the very finest condition. The darkness and time did not 
admit of ascertaining whether it was really plentiful on this rock; but 
it is a most interesting locality. 

The whole of the peninsula round by Aberdaron, and through 
Nevyn to Carnarvon, produced nothing fresh to record, though the 
wild portion of the road beneath the great Rivel mountains, and the 
fine old Abbey Church of Clynnog, which looked as if it might have 
been covered with something more rare than Adiantum-nigrum, ap- 
peared particularly attractive and inviting. 

From Carnarvon to Bangor, and thence to Conway, was performed 
by coach and rail, except the detour to visit the stupendous works of 
the Britannia tubular bridge, which does not belong to the present 
subject. 

One day was spent on Great Ormes Head, searching for Asplenium 
marinum without success. The state of the tide was unfavourable, 
and after penetrating as far as we well could along the cliffs from the 
eastward, we returned, ascended the promontory, and came down on 
the other side; and then kept close along the shore until the north- 
western point was rounded, and we found ourselves among that sort 
of grand debris, precisely similar to the magnificent scenery of Fair- 
head on the coast of Antrim, minus the basaltic formation, among 
which Asp..marinum grows so luxuriantly. We proceeded as far as 
we dared, scrambling among the rocks and ruins as it were of one of 
the ends of the world, for ever defying the unimpenetrable waves, till 
the red ball of the setting sun dipped itself in ocean, and warned us 
reluctantly to return. 

In the old trench outside the wall of Conway grows a curious va- 


712 


riegated variety of Polystichum angulare. On the walls of the fine 
old castle itself we found nothing new; though it looks as if Asple- 
nium marinum might as well take up its abode there as not, if inhabit- 
ing the neighbourhood. 

The next morning was occupied with the walk up the Vale of 
Conway. Of course Asplenium septentrionale was the grand object 
on approaching Llanrwst. We thought we identified the exact spot 
described at page 270 of Newman’s ‘ British Ferns,’ where that gentle- 
man once found it in’such profusion. At first we feared our unpractised 
eyes had missed it, never having seen this interesting little fern in a 
native habitat, for after much patient searching, and tracing and re- 
tracing our steps, we had been unable to detect anything of it; but 
we afterwards came to the conclusion that some “ piratical botanist” 
passing that way must probably have destroyed it all: for on a wall 
in another road, somewhat further, leading to Capel Curig, one of our 
party in advance pounced upon a single plant, which was borne off 
in triumph, after all had been called to see it growing, and was suffi- 
cient to convince us that we had hardly passed it before. There was 
no doubt more about that spot, had we had time to continue the 
search. The day closed at Capel Curig. 

Assisted by the very kind and graphic instructions of Professor 
Ramsay, whom we fortunately met at this hotel, pursuing his geolo- 
gical researches, the next morning found us at the head of Llyn Id- 
well, and “ making bold for the wall of rocks” that closes up the vast 
hollow of Cwm Idwell, except the great chasm or rift called Twll 
Du. Polypodium Phegopteris and Dryopteris, Asplenium viride, Al- 
losorus crispus, Cystopteris dentata, Hymenophyllum Wilsoni, with 
Lycopodium alpinum, Selago and Selaginoides, grow in profusion 
among and beneath the enormous masses of this wilderness of rocks, 
on which perhaps the sun never shines. But neither here, nor about, 
nor within the chasm, were we fortunate enough to light upon Polys- 
tichum Lonchitis. We were not aware at the time of the locality of 
Llyn-y-Cwn, above the chasm, as a habitat of Woodsia. Near the sum- 
mit of the pass we gathered Polystichum aculeatum, a fern by no means 
commonly seen in Wales, and not once intermingled with angulare. 
After the descent into the Llanberis road, we visited a tier of tall, 
black rocks, on the left of the road to Capel Curig, a little beyond the 
turnpike, known as Craig Du; and on which grows a peculiar, simply 
pinnate form of Asplenium Ruta-muraria, which might readily be set 
down as germanicum, but does not agree in any other diagnostic. 
Onan adjacent dry white rock, we found a good supply of septentrionale, 


713 


which we have reason to believe is tolerably plentiful in these parts, 
and, fortunately for its preservation, in some places quite inaccessible. 
For these localities we are indebted to Professor Ramsay. 

The beaten ascent of Snowdon will not do for the botanist. We 
succeeded in obtaining a guide, who was willing to conduct us 
wherever we wished. We first proceeded to a lofty precipice, form- 
ing one of the western buttresses of Snowdon, called Clowgwyn Du 
Yrarddu (Clogwyn dur Arddu of the Ordnance Survey). Here, among 
the rocks and wild débris, between the base of the precipice and Llyn 
Arddu, were all the ferns we had seen in Cwm Idwell, some of them 
growing, if possible, still more luxuriantly, as Asplenium viride, and 
Hymenophyllum Wilsoni of a very large size, and tufts of Allosorus 
crispus almost a yard in diameter. From the constancy of the moun- 
tain form of Cystopteris met with throughout these regions, perfectly 
distinct in the form and cutting of the pinnules from the more south- 
ern plant we had previously known as fragilis, we are inclined to 
believe in the specific distinctness of dentata, which we had before 
doubted ; but have brought home a supply of seedlings to cultivate, 
the result of which shall be communicated, if successful. 

When on the last shoulder, in full sight of the summit, we met one 
of the older guides coming down, well known for his botanical lore, 
and especially for his knowledge, said to be exclusive, of the habitat 
of Woodsia in Clogwyn-y-Garnedd. After some chaffering to obtain 
information, and not without the aid of a little bribery,—for which, 
however, he promised to transmit us a plant if we did not succeed in 
finding it,—he brought us back a little to the edge of the ridge, and 
professed to point out the exact spot where the Woodsia grew, far 
down amid a world of rocks and precipices. All the time we did not 
think he meant us to findit. The absurdity of identifying by descrip- 
tion from above one particular wet rock, when down amongst such a 
chaos of rocks and precipices, was apparent enough. We were de- 
termined, however, not to fail for want of trying; and luck might 
come in to aid. So down the Capel Curig track we went, and then 
deviated to the right, to get under the precipice constituting Clogwyn-y- 
Garnedd. Itis almost needless to say, that after a tremendous scramble 
we had to give up the Woodsia; but were sufficiently rewarded by 
capturing several plants of Polystichum Lonchitis, and saw some still 
finer ones in places inaccessible. It is a great treat to see this truly 
splendid and weird-looking fern, evidently framed to brave, under its 
weather-beaten form, the storms of its native mountains. After round- 
ing the little Llyn Glas below, we had to ascend the tremendous 

VOU.) IIT. AZ 


714 


Bwlch-y-Lacthan, to the summit, just before sunset. Here we found 
that the guides who are stationary at the top, having erected booths, 
where parties who wish to see the sun rise may now sleep, that is, lay 
miserably awake, had Lonchitis for sale at sixpence a root; a prac- 
tice which, if encouraged, must soon annihilate this fine and sparingly 
scattered fern from all accessible habitats. They knew nothing of 
Woodsia. Since returning home, the guide, faithful to his promise, 
has sent by post a small root, and some fronds of a true Woodsia, but 
unfortunately so mutilated that we cannot satisfactorily determine the 
species. 

We had bad weather at Beddgelert, which prevented our searching 
that interesting neighbourhood. We again had the pleasure of seeing 
Asplenium lanceolatum, at the station just half way between Beddge- 
lert and Tan-y-bwlch. The county, however, requires correction, as 
stated in Newman’s ‘ Ferns,’ p. 249, being Merionethshire, not Car- 
narvonshire. The rock is here a slate, and the fern grows very firmly 
wedged in the fissures, wherever a little soil has been caught. On 
this rock also grows a simply pinnate form of Asplenium Ruta-muraria. 

There is a pretty waterfall in the grounds of Tan-y-bwlch house, 
which are liberally thrown open to visitors with a card from the inn. 
The rocks and banks are covered with the most magnificent clothing 
of Polypodium Phegopteris, rejoicing in the spray. This fern must 
be seen in such a locality to form any just notion of its grace and 
beauty, and the size to which it attains, as compared with its dwarfed 
appearance occurring on walls and drier habitats. 

We again met with Polypodium Phegopteris in all its pride and 
profusion, at the fine and romantic falls of the Cynvael, near Festiniog. 
The river forms a series of continuous cataracts for a mile or more, 
along which this fern carries the preponderance over all others. Op- 
posite Huw Lliwyd’s Pulpit, a rock which steens one part of the cata- 
ract, we observed a patch of Hymenophyllum on the face of a rock, 
but out of reach, the waters being swollen, and too far off to distin- 
guish which species, but probably Wilsoni, or perhaps both intermixed, 
as they are recorded to grow in this celebrated vale. Also a noble 
root of Osmunda regalis. 

Polypodium Dryopteris was noticed on the old road half way be- 
tween Bala and Corwen, on a bank on the right; and again sparingly 
on the rocks a little before entering Llangollen. Equisetum sylvati- 
cum occurs near the first named station. We left Wales by the Llan- 
gollen-road railway station. 

It will be seen by the extent of ground covered, nearly all on foot, 


715 


that this excursion must have been a very rapid one, affording little 
time to dwell anywhere. Much more would no doubt have been ob- 
served by practised eyes, with more leisure to investigate. The com- 
moner ferns have not been mentioned in course, in order not to en- 
cumber this paper. The following isa complete list of all we noticed, 
in the order of their abundance, as agreed upon by our party of three, 
and as we happened to observe them throughout the whole journey. 


1. Athyrium Filix-foemina 14. Cystopteris dentata 

2. Lastrea Oreopteris 15. Asplenium viride 

3. Pteris aquilina 16. Polypodium Dryopteris 
4. Lastrea Filix-mas 17. Polystichum angulare 

5. =, ~— multiflora 18. Asplenium lanceolatum 
6. Polypodium Phegopteris 19. Hymenophyllum Wilsoni 
7. Lomaria Spicant 20. Asplenium septentrionale 
8. Asplenium Adiantum-nigrum 21. Polystichum aculeatum 
9. Polypodium vulgare 22. Osmunda regalis 

10. Scolopendrium vulgare 23. Lastrea spinosa 

11. Allosorus crispus 24. Ceterach officinarum 

12. Asplenium Trichomanes 25. Polystichum Lonchitis 
13. 5 Ruta-muraria 


W. BENNETT. 
October 12, 1849. 


Occurrence of Poterium muricatum in Warwickshire. 
By Tuomas Kirk, Esq. 


Tuis recent addition to the British Flora occurs in various places 
on the slopes of the Coventry and Leamington railway. It is abun- 
dant near the Leamington station, and is more or less plentifully dis- 
tributed at short intervals, till within two miles of Coventry ; when it 
becomes a scarce plant. It also occurs in a field adjoining the 
Kenilworth station. 

The stems appear to me rather more angular than those of P. San- 
guisorba, from which, notwithstanding its close resemblance, it is rea- 
dily distinguished by the alate angles and deeply pitted sides of the 
fruit. I believe it is considered identical with the Hungarian P. po- 
lygonum of Waldstein and Kitaibel, but at present some doubt exists 
on that point. 

Its discovery in counties so widely distant as Essex and Warwick, 
is an argument in favour of the probability of its frequent occurrence ; 


716 


more especially as its close similitude to P. Sanguisorba is doubtless 
the cause of its having been so long overlooked in this country. 


T. Kirk. 
Coventry, October 16, 1849. 


Note on a List of Newbury Plants. By Mrs. Russe... 


On reading in the September number of the ‘ Phytologist’ Dr. 
Bromfield’s interesting paper on the plants of Hampshire, to the con- 
tinuation of which in each succeeding number I always look forward 
with pleasure, I found, in a note, some criticisms on a list of plants 
in the neighbourhood of Newbury, touching which I would offer a 
few remarks. The list was chiefly drawn up by myself, at the request 
of a relation residing in the place, and with few exceptions comprised 
only such plants as I had seen with my own eyes, or had his autho- 
rity for. On receiving a printed copy of the list, | was vexed to per- 
ceive that sundry additions had been made to it, for the correctness 
of which I had no means of vouching, although Mr. Job Lonsley, on 
whose authority they were principally made, is, I understand, an acute 
and zealous observer. I cannot wonder at Dr. Bromfield feeling 
staggered by the insertion of such plants as [lecebrum verticillatum 
and the others mentioned in his note, and feeling assured, as I do, of 
the general correctness of the list, I am anxious to ascertain that of 
these apparently doubtful admissions. Ona very recent visit of a day 
or two to Newbury, I was promised an interview with Mr. Lonsley, 
but it was prevented by his illness: I still hope, however, through my 
friends there, to obtain the information I desire, and specimens of the 
plant which he considers to be the species in question. With regard 
to Cnicus heterophyllus, the error lies with me only; the plant is, as 
Dr. Bromfield supposes, C. pratense, but at the time I drew up the 
list was mistaken by me for its kindred species, which I had not then 
seen. I may take this opportunity of saying that Sidmonton, the lo- 
cality given for Doronicum pardalianches ?, is certainly in Hampshire : 
I gathered the plant there many years ago, but cannot now feel cer- 
tain as to which of the two species it really is: it is to all appearance 
wild. Dr. Bromfield does not mention D. pardalianches as a Hamp- 
shire plant, and speaks doubtfully as to D. plantagineum: one of the 


two most assuredly grows at Sidmonton. 
ANNA RUSSELL. 
Kenilworth, October 19, 1849. 


rid 


BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 


Friday, November 2, 1849.—John Reynolds, Esq., Treasurer, in 
the chair. 

The following donations were announced :— 

‘ Proceedings of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liver- 
pool during the Thirty-seventh Session ;’ presented by that Society. 
* Parts 1 and 2 of Volume i, of Transactions of the Royal Society of 
Arts and Sciences of Mauritius ;’ presented by that Society. ‘ On 
the Destructive Power of the Scolitus destructor and Larva of the 
Cossus ligniperda, by Dr. C. J. Cox; presented by the Royal Bo- 
tanic Society of London. ‘ Pharmaceutical Journal and Transac- 
tions ;’ presented by the Pharmaceutical Society. 

British plants from Mr. G. S. Gibson, Mr. B. Wardale, Mr. F. R. 
Goulding, Mr. T. Moore, Rev. F. Douglas, Mrs. E. M. Jones, Mr. J. 
Wynne, Mr. R. Embleton, and Mr. Wing. 

Mr. W. Evans, of Llanrwst; and Mr. E. Browne, of Burton-on- 
Trent, were elected corresponding members. 

Mr. Thomas Moore communicated a paper ‘ On Dr. Dickie’s Cys- 
topteris. —G. EH. D. 


Notice of ‘ Foot-prints of the Creator: or the Asterolepis of Strom- 
ness. By Hucu Miter, Author of ‘The Old Red Sandstone, 
&c. London: Johnstone and Hunter, 26, Paternoster Row ; 
and 15, Princes Street, Ediuburgh. 1849. 


ABOUT nine years ago geologists were “‘ taken aback” by the sudden 
appearance of a colleague, whose discoveries in the Old Red Sandstone, 
a deposit previously looked upon as singularly barren of fossil organic 
remains, opened up a new field to the investigations of the scientific, 
and developed facts of so wonderful and unlooked for a nature, that 
their discovery rendered necessary the abandonment, or at least the 
modification, of many a long-cherished hypothesis, and gave a new 
aspect to several portions of the existing systems of Geology. These 
discoveries received the commendation they richly deserved, from some 
of our most eminent geologists at the Meeting of the British Associa- 
tion in September, 1849; and their author, Mr. Hugh Miller, at once 
took the highest position among the learned, both as an original 


718 


investigator, and as an able and graphic describer of the results of his 
labours. 

It was no light praise for such men as Murchison and Buckland to be- 
stow upon the literary productions of a quarryman, the one, to speak of 
them as being “ written in a style so beautiful and poetical, as to throw 
plain geologists like himself into the shade;” and the other, to declare 
that they made him feel ashamed “ of the comparative meagerness and 
poverty of his own descriptions in the ‘Bridgewater Treatise,’ which had 
costhim hours and days of labour.” Dr. Buckland further observed, that 
if Providence were pleased to spare the useful life of Mr. Miller, “ he, 
if any one, would certainly render the science attractive and popular, 
and do equal service to Theology and Geology ;” positions which 
have been fully borne out by the character of Mr. Miller’s subse- 
quently published volumes—* The Old Red Sandstone,’ ‘ First Im- 
pressions of England and its People,’ and more especially perhaps in 
his latest child, ‘ Foot-prints of the Creator.’ 

Mr. Miller has from the beginning been the uncompromising op- 
ponent of the Lamarckian theory of progression. Even in his work 
on the ‘ Old Red Sandstone,’ published before the appearance of the 
‘ Vestiges of Creation, he exposes the fallacies and controverts the 
so-called facts of the hypothesis upon which the author of that 
volume builds his ingenious but most unstable edifice. In his latest 
publication he lashes with no unsparing hand the errors of the ‘ Ves- 
tiges, and indicates the serious mischief to which an unchecked dis- 
semination of those errors must inevitably lead, among a certain class 
ofreaders, who, in proportion as they are unable to detect the fallacies 
of such a work, are exposed to all the evil consequences of their pro- 
mulgation. In doing this, however, Mr. Miller is careful to distin- 
guish the mischief he is combating from the, perhaps unconscious, 
author of the mischief—he fights with the book, not with the man 
who wrote it. “ I have not even felt,” he says in his Preface, “ as if 
I had a man before me as anopponent; for though my work contains 
numerous references to the author of the ‘ Vestiges, I have invariably 
thought on these occasions, not of the anonymous writer of the vo- 
lume, of whom I know nothing, but simply of an ingenious, well- 
written book, unfortunate in its facts, and not always happy in its 
reasonings.” 

We have thought that our readers would by gratified be such ex- 
tracts from the ‘ Foot-prints’ as exhibit purely phytological objections 
to the Vestigian hypothesis of development. We use the term Veste- 
gian advisedly, as being more intelligible, or at all events more popu- 


719 


lat than Lamarckian; especially as the author of the ‘ Vestiges’ 
has so ingeniously modified and remodelled the views of the older 
writer as to have made them in great measure his own. 

Mr. Miller opens his volume with an interesting description of a 
visit to Orkney two years back, “ while engaged in prosecuting the 
self-imposed task of examining in detail the various fossiliferous de- 
posits of Scotland,” in the hope of ultimately acquainting himself 
with them all. On this visit he resided for some time in the vicinity 
of Stromness. This town stands at the bottom of the upturned geo- 
logical deposits of the island of Orkney. “ 'The geology of the island,” 
says the author, “ owes its chief interest to the immense development 
which it exhibits of one formation,— the Lower Old Red Sandstone, 
—and to the extraordinary abundance of its vertebrate remains;” so 
abundant indeed are the ichthyolites of the formation at this particu- 
lar locality, that, as the author observes, were the trade once fairly 
opened, these remains could be thence supplied, by the ton and by 
the shipload, to the museums of the whole world. 

We need not be detained by the author’s geological explorations 
of this district, interesting as they are, since our business is with the 
botanical portion of his volume ; suffice it here to say that he was re- 
warded in his researches on the first evening of his sojourn at Strom- 
ness, by the discovery of their principal object, in the form of a well- 
marked bone, probably the oldest vertebrate remain yet discovered in 
Orkney, imbedded in a grayish coloured layer of hard flag, and in 
form closely resembling a large roofing-nail, which he figures, as 
we believe, for the first time. “ This nail-like bone formed a charac- 
teristic portion of the Asterolepis,—so far as is yet known the most 
gigantic ganoid of the Old Red Sandstone, and, judging from the 
place of the fragment, one of the first.” 

Passing over the reflections to which the discovery of this interest- 
ing fragment in s¢tw naturally give rise, we will now accompany him 
to another locality, as interesting to the botanist as the more immedi- 
ate vicinity of Stromness is to the paleontologist. 

“ T extended my researches, a few days after, in an easterly direc- 
tion from the town of Stromness, and walked for several miles along 
the shores of the Loch of Stennis,—a large lake about fourteen miles 
in circumference, bare and treeless, like all the other lakes and lochs 
of Orkney, but picturesque of outline, and divided into an upper and 
lower sheet of water by two low, long promontories, that jut out from 
opposite sides, and so nearly meet in the middle as to be connected 
by a thread-like line of road, half mound, half bridge. ‘ The Loch 


720 


of Stennis,’ says Mr. David Vedder, the sailor-poet of Orkney, ‘ is a 
beautiful Mediterranean in miniature.’ It gives admission to the sea 
by a narrow straight, crossed, like that which separates the two pro- 
montories in the middle, by a long rustic bridge; and, in consequence 
of this peculiarity, the lower division of the lake is salt in its nether 
reaches and brackish in its upper ones, while the higher division is 
merely brackish in its nether reaches, and fresh enough in its upper 
ones to be potable. Viewed from the east, in one of the long, clear, 
sunshiny evenings of the Orkney summer, it seems not unworthy the 
eulogium of Vedder. There are moory hills and a few rude cottages 
in front; and in the background, some eight or ten miles away, the 
bold, steep mountain masses of Hoy; while on the promontories of 
the lake, in the middle distance, conspicuous in the landscape, from 
the relief furnished by the blue ground of the surrounding waters, 
stand the tall gray obelisks of Stennis,—one group on the northern 
promontory, the other on the south,— 


‘ Old even beyond tradition’s breath.’ 


“ The shores of both the upper and lower divisions of the lake were 
strewed, at the time I passed, by a line of zwrack, consisting, for the 
first few miles from where the lower loch opens to the sea, of only 
marine plants, then of marine plants mixed with those of fresh-water 
growth, and then, in the upper sheet of water, of lacustrine plants ex- 
clusively. And the fauna of the loch is, I was informed, of as mixed 
a character as its flora,—the marine and fresh-water animals having 
each their own reaches, with certain debateable tracts between, in 
which each kind expatiates with more or less freedom, according to 
its specific nature and constitution,—some of the sea-fish advancing 
far on the fresh-water, and others, among the proper denizens of the 
lake, encroaching far on the salt. * * * But the change induced 
in the two floras of the lake,—marine and lacustrine,—is considerably 
more palpable and obvious than that induced in its two faunas. As 
I passed along the strait, through which it gives admission to the sea, 
I found the commoner fucoids of our sea-coasts streaming in great 
luxuriance in the tideway, from the stones and rocks of the bottom. 
I marked, among the others, the two species of kelp-weed, so well known 
to our Scotch kelp-burners,—Fucus nodosus and F. vesiculosus,— 
flourishing in their uncurtailed proportions; and the not inelegant 
Halydrys siliquosa, or ‘ tree in the sea,’ presenting its amplest spread 
of pod and frond. A little farther in, Halidrys and Fucus nodosus 


721 


disappear, and Fucus vesiculosus becomes greatly stunted, and no 
longer exhibits its characteristic double rows of bladders. But for 
mile after mile it continues to exist, blent with some of the hardier 
Conferve, until at length it becomes as dwarfish and nearly as slim of 
frond as the Conferve themselves; and it is only by tracing it through 
the intermediate forms that we succeed in convincing ourselves that, 
in the brown stunted tufts of from one to three inches in length, which 
continue to fringe the middle reaches of the lake, we have in reality the 
well-known Fucus before us. Rushes, flags, and aquatic grasses may now 
be seen standing in diminutive tufts out of the water; and a terrestrial 
vegetation at least continues to exist, though it can scarcely be said 
to thrive, on banks covered by the tide at full. ‘The lacustrine flora 
increases, both in extent and luxuriance, as that of the sea diminishes ; 
and in the upper reaches we fail to detect all trace of marine plants : 
the Algz, so luxuriant of growth along the straits of this ‘ miniature 
Mediterranean,’ altogether cease; and a semi-aquatic vegetation at- 
tains, in turn, to the state of fullest development anywhere permitted 
by the temperature of this northern locality. A memoir descriptive 
of the Loch of Stennis and its productions, animal and vegetable, 
such as old Gilbert White of Selborne could have produced, would 
be at once a very valuable and curious document, important to the 
naturalist, and not without its use to the geological student. 

“ T know not how it may be with others; but the special phenomena 
connected with Orkney that most decidedly bore fruit in my mind, 
and to which my thoughts have most frequently reverted, were those 
exhibited in the neighbourhood of Stromness. I would more parti- 
cularly refer to the characteristic fragment of Asterolepis, which I de- 
tected in its lower flag-stones, and to the curiously mixed, semi-marine, 
semi-lacustrine vegetation of the Loch of Stennis. Both seem to bear 
very directly on that development hypothesis,—fast spreading among 
an active and ingenious order of minds, both in Britain and America, 
and which has been long known upon the Continent,—that would 
fain transfer the work of creation from the department of miracle to 
the province of natural law, and would strike down, in the process of 
removal, all the old landmarks, ethical and religious.”—p. 9. 

Before we introduce to the notice of the reader the author’s inge- 
vious application of the above facts to the development hypothesis, 
let us accompany him on a more extended tonr of observation, 
wherein we shall find that the boundary line between the vegetation 
of land and water, so clearly defined upon the shores of the Loch of 
Stennis, as distinctly separates the marine and littoral floras of the 

Vous 115; 5 A 


722 


sea-coasts of our island home. Reverting to his former observations, 
the author thus introduces the subject :— 

““ What does experience say regarding the transmutative conversion 
of a marine into a terrestrial vegetation,—that experience on which 
the sceptic founds so much? AsI walked along the green edge of 
the Lake of Stennis, selvaged by the line of detached weeds with 
which a recent gale had strewed its shores, and marked that for the 
first few miles the accumulation consisted of marine Algw, here and 
there mixed with tufts of stunted reeds or rushes, and that as I re- 
ceded from the sea it was the Algz that became stunted and dwarfish, 
and that the reeds, aquatic grasses, and rushes, grown greatly more 
bulky in the mass, were also more fully developed individually, till at 
length the marine vegetation altogether disappeared, and the vegetable 
débris of the shore became purely lacustrine,—I asked myself whether 
here, if anywhere, a transition flora between lake and sea ought not to 
be found? For many thousand years ere the tall gray obelisks of Sten- 
nis, whose forms I saw this morning reflected in the water, had been torn 
from the quarry, or laid down in mystic circle on their flat promon- 
tories, had this lake admitted the waters of the sea, and been salt in 
its lower reaches and fresh in its higher. And during this protracted 
period had its quiet, well-sheltered bottom been exposed to no dis- 
turbing influences through which the delicate process of transmuta- 
tion could have been marred or arrested. Here, then, if in any cir- 
cumstances, ought we to have had, in the broad permanently brackish 
reaches, at least indications of a vegetation intermediate in its nature 
between the monocotyledons of the lake and the Algz of the sea; 
and yet not a vestige of such an intermediate vegetation could I find 
among the up-piled débris of the mixed floras, marine and lacustrine. 
The lake possesses no such intermediate vegetation. As the water 
freshens in its middle reaches, the Alge become dwarfish and ill-de- 
veloped; one species after another ceases to appear, as the habitat 
becomes wholly unfavourable to it; until at length we find, instead 
of the brown, rootless, flowerless fucoids and Conferve of the ocean, 
the green, rooted, flower-bearing flags, rushes, and aquatic grasses of 
the fresh water. Many thousands of years have failed to originate a 
single intermediate plant. And such, tested by a singularly extensive 
experience, is the general evidence. 

“ There is scarcely a chain-length of the shores of Britain and Ire- 
land that has not been a hundred and a hundred times explored by 
the botanist,—keen to collect and prompt to register every rarity of 
the vegetable kingdom; but has he ever yet succeeded in transfer- 


723 


ring to his herbarium a single plant caught in the transition state? 
Nay, are there any of the laws under which the vegetable kingdom 
exists better known than those laws which fix certain species of the 
Algz to certain zones of coast, in which each, according to the over- 
lying depth of water and the nature of the bottom, finds the only ha- 
bitat in which it can exist? The rough-stemmed tangle (Laminaria 
digitata) can exist no higher on the shore than the low line of ebb 
during stream-tides ; the smooth-stemmed tangle (ZL. saccharina) 
flourishes along an inner belt, partially uncovered during the ebbs of 
the larger neaps; the forked and cracker kelp-weeds (Fucus serratus 
and F. nodosus) thrive ina zone still less deeply covered by water, 
and which even the lower neaps expose. And at least one other spe- 
cies of kelp-weed, the Fucus vesiculosus, occurs in a zone higher 
still, though, as it creeps upwards on the rocky beach, it loses its 
characteristic bladders, and becomes short and narrow of frond. The 
thick brown tufts of Fucus canaliculatus, which in the lower and 
middle reaches of the Lake of Stennis I found heaped up in great 
abundance along the shores, also rises high on rocky beaches,—so 
high in some instances, that during neap tides it remains uncovered 
by the water for days together. If, as is not uncommon, there be an 
escape of land-springs along the beach, there may be found, where 
the fresh water oozes out through the sand and gravel, an upper ter- 
minal zone of the Conferve, chiefly of a green colour, mixed with the 
ribbon-like green laver (Ulva latissima), the purplish-brown laver 
(Porphyra laciniata), and still more largely with the green silky En- 
teromorpha (H. compressa). And then, decidedly within the line of 
the storm-beaches of winter,—not unfrequently in low sheltered bays, 
such asithe Bay of Udale or of Nigg, where the ripple of every higher 
flood washes,—we may find the vegetation of the land,—represented 
by the sentinels and picquets of its outposts,—coming down, as if to 
meet with the higher-growing plants of the sea. In salt marshes the 
two vegetations may be seen, if I may so express myself, dovetailed 
together at their edges,—at least one species of club-rush (Scirpus 
maritimus) and the common salt-wort and glass-wort (Salsola Kali 
and Salicornia procumbens), encroaching so far upon the sea as to 
mingle with a thinly-scattered and sorely-diminished Fucus,—that 
bladderless variety of the Fucus vesiculosus to which I have already 
referred, and which may be detected in such localities, shooting forth 
its minute brown fronds from the pebbies. On rocky coasts, where 
springs of fresh water come trickling down along the fissures of the 
precipices, the observer may see a variety of Rhodomenia palmata,— 


724 


the fresh-water dulse of the Moray Frith,—creeping upwards from the 
lower limits of production, till just where the common gray Balanus 
ceases to grow. And there, short and thick, and of a bleached yel- 
low hue, zé ceases also; but one of the commoner marine Conferve,— 
the Conferva arcta, blent with a dwarfed Enteromorpha,—commencing 
a very little below where the dulse ends, and taking its place, clothes 
over the runnels with its covering of green for several feet higher: in 
some cases, where it is frequently washed by the upward dash of the 
waves, it rises above even the flood-line; and in some crevice of the 
rock beside it, often as low as its upper edge, we may detect stunted 
tufts of the sea-pink or of the scurvy-grass. But while there is thus 
a vegetation intermediate 7 place between the land and the sea, we 
find, asif it had been selected purposely to confound the transmutation 
theory, that it is in no degree intermediate in character. For, while 
it is chiefly marine weeds of the lower division of the Conferve that 
creep upwards from the sea to meet the vegetation of the land, it is 
chiefly terrestrial plants of the higher division of the dicotyledons 
that creep downwards from the land to meet the vegetation of the sea. 
The salt-worts, the glass-worts, the Arenaria, the thrift, and the scurvy- 
grass, are all dicotyledonous plants. Nature draws a deeply-marked 
line of division where the requirements of the transmutative hypothe- 
sis would demand the nicely graduated softness of a shaded one; 
and, addressing the strongly marked floras on either hand, even more 
sternly than the waves themselves, demands that to a certain definite 
bourne should they come, and no farther.” —p. 240. 

Turning now to the chapter upon the “ Lamarckian Hypothesis of 
the Origin of Plants” and its consequences, we find the discovery of 
a new animal organism in the lowest member of a geological group, 
and the flora of Stennis and its shores, thus applied :— 

“‘ T have said that the curiously-mixed, semi-marine, semi-lacustrine 
flora of the Lake of Stennis became associated in my mind, like the 
ancient Asterolepis of Stromness, with the development hypothesis. 
The fossil, as has been shown, represents not inadequately the geo- 
logic evidence in the question,—the mixed vegetation of the lake may 
be regarded as forming a portion of the phytological evidence. 

“ ¢ All life,’ says Oken, ‘is from the sea. Where the sea organism, 
by self-elevation, succeeds in attaining into form, there issues forth 
from ita higher organism. Love arose out of the sea-foam. The 
primary mucus (that in which electricity originates life) was, and is 
still, generated in those very parts of the sea where the water is in 
contact with earth and air, and thus upon the shores. The first crea- 


725 


tion of the organic took place where the first mountain summits pro- 
jected out of the water,—indeed, without doubt, in India, if the 
Himalaya be the highest mountain. The first organic forms, whether 
plants or animals, emerged from the shallow parts of the sea, 
Maillet wrote to exactly the same effect a full century ago. ‘Ina 
word, we find him saying, in his ‘ Telliamed,’ ‘ do not herbs, plants, 
roots, grains, and all of this kind that the earth produces and nourishes, 
come from the sea? Is it not at least natural to think so, since we 
are certain that all our habitable lands came originally from the sea ? 
Besides, in smal] islands far from the continent, which have appeared 
but a few ages ago at most, and where it is manifest that never any 
man had been, we find shrubs, herbs, roots, and sometimes animals. 
Now, you must be forced to own, either that these productions owed 
their origin to the sea, or to a new creation, which is absurd.’ 

“Tt is a curious fact,” continues Mr. Miller, “ to which, in the 
passing, I must be permitted to call the attention of the reader, that 
all the leading assertors of the development hypothesis have been bad 
geologists. Maillet had for his errors and deficiencies the excellent 
apology that he wrote more than a hundred years ago, when the 
theory of a universal ocean, promulgated by Leibnitz nearly a cen- 
tury earlier, was quite as good as any of the other theories of the 
time, and when Geology, as a science, had no existence. And so we 
do not wonder at an ignorance which was simply that of his age, 
when we find him telling his readers that plants must have originated 
in the sea, seeing that ‘ all our habitable lands came originally from 
the sea;’ meaning, of course, by the statement, not at all what the 
modern geologist would mean were he to employ even the same words, 
but simply that there was a time when the universal ocean covered 
the whole globe, and that, as the waters gradually diminished, the 
loftier mountain summits and higher table-lands, in appearing in their 
new character as islands and continents, derived their flora from what, 
in a universal ocean, could be the only possibly existing flora,—that 
of the sea. But what shall we say of the equally profound ignorance 
manifested by Professor Oken, a living authority, whom we find pre- 
facing for the Ray Society, in 1847, the English translation of his 
‘Elements of Physio-philosophy’? ‘ The first creation of the organic 
took place,’ we find him saying, ‘ where the first mountain summits 
projected out of the sea,—indeed, without doubt, in India, if the 
Himalaya be the highest mountain. Were, evidently, in this late 
age of the world, in which Geology does exist as a science, do we 
find the ghost of the universal ocean of Leibnitz walking once more, 


726 


as if it had never been laid. Is there now in all Britain even a tyro 
geologist so unacquainted with geological fact as not to know that 
the richest flora which the globe ever saw had existed for myriads of 
ages, and then, becoming extinct, had slept in the fossil state for 
myriads of ages more, ere the highest summits of the Himalayan 
range rose over the surface of the deep? The Himalayas disturbed, 
and bore up along with them in their upheaval, vast beds of the ooli- 
tic system. Belemnites and ammonites have been dug out of their 
sides along the line of perpetual snow, seventeen thousand feet over 
the level of the sea. What in the recent period form the loftiest 
mountains of the globe, existed as portions of a deep-sea bottom, 
swum over by the fishes and reptiles of the great secondary period, 
when what is now Scotland, had its dark forests of stately pine,— 
represented in the present age of the world by the lignites of Helms- 
dale, Eathie, and Eigg,—and when the plants of a former creation 
lay dead and buried deep beneath, in shales and fire-clay,—existing 
as vast beds of coal, or entombed in solid rock, as the brown massy 
trunks of Granton and Craigleith. And even ere these last existed 
as living trees, the coniferous lignite of the Lower Old Red Sandstone 
found at Cromarty had passed into the fossil state, and lay as a semi- 
calcareous, semi-bituminous mass, amid perished Dipterians and ex- 
tinct Coccostei. So much for the Geology of the German Professor. 
And be it remarked, that the actualities in this question can be de- 
termined only by the geologist. The mere naturalist may indicate 
from the analogies of his science, what possibly might have taken 
place; but what really did take place, and the true order in which 
the events occurred, it is the part of the geologist to determine. It 
cannot be out of place to remark farther, that geological discovery is 
in no degree responsible for the infidelity of the development hypo- 
thesis; seeing that, in the first place, the hypothesis zs greatly more 
ancient than the discoveries, and, in the second, that its more pro- 
minent assertors are exactly the men who know least of geological 
fact. 

“The author of the ‘ Vestiges’ is at one, regarding the supposed 
marine origin of terrestrial plants, with Maillet and Oken; and he re- 
gards the theory, we find him stating in his ‘ Explanations,’ as the 
true key to the well-established fact, that the vegetation of groups of 
islands generally corresponds with that of the larger masses of land 
in their neighbourhood. Marine plants of the same kinds crept out 
of the sea, it would seem, upon the islands on the one hand, and upon 
the larger masses of land on the other, and thus produced the same 


T27 


flora in each; just as tadpoles, after passing their transition state, 
creep out of their canal or river on the opposite baaks, and thus give 
to the fields or meadows on the right hand a supply of frogs, of the 
same appearance and size as those poured out upon the fields and 
meadows of the left.”—p. 219. 

Mr. Miller here quotes from the ‘ Vestiges’ a passage wherein the 
author of that work, after citing several several striking examples of a 
correspondence of form in the floras of neighbouring lands, propounds 
his own hypothesis of “ a spread of terrestrial vegetation from the 
sea into the lands adjacent,” as a much “ simpler cause” of such 
correspondence than Professor Forbes’s surmise “ that the spaces 
now occupied by the intermediate seas must have been dry land at 
the time when these floras were created ;” and asserts as a fact, ad- 
mitting of no dispute, that “ the community of forms in the various 
regions opposed to each other merely indicates a distinct marine crea- 
tion in each of the oceanic areas respectively interposed, and which 
would naturally advance into the lands nearest to it, as far as circum- 
stances of soil and climate were found agreeable.” One obvious con- 
sequence of a belief in this s¢mpler mode of distribution would be the 
necessity of holding, contrary to all experience, that dulse and hen- 
ware* became, through a very wonderful metamorphosis, cabbage 
and spinach ; that kelp-weed and tangle bourgeoned into oaks and 
willows ; and that slack, rope-weed, green rawt shot up into mangel- 
wurzel, rye-glass and clover!” Well may we exclaim with our 
author, “ Simple, certainly !’—especially as the time allowed by the 
author of the ‘ Vestiges’ for the operation of all these marvellous 
transmutations, whereby “fucoids and confervas became dicotyle- 
donous and monocotyledonous plants,” was so brief that not a single 
whorl in the shell of Purpura lapillus or of Turritella terebra was al- 
tered during that period, nor did the slightest change occur in the mi- 
nute projections of the hinges of Cyprina Islandica or Astarte borea- 
lis, or in any of the nicer peculiarities of their muscular impressions. 

From the chapter on the evidence afforded by the Silarian mol- 
luscs and the fossil flora, we quote a passage relating to the contem- 
poraneous existence of some of the higher forms of vegetation with 
those of a far lower class, during the carboniferous period of the 
earth’s history, and the true bearing of this now well ascertained fact 
upon the development hypothesis, into the service of which has 


* Rhodymenia palmata and Alaria esculenta. 
+ Porphyra laciniata, Chorda filum, and Enteromorpha compressa. 


728 
been pressed the geological history alike of animal and vegetable 
organisms. 

“It is not much more than twenty years since it was held that no 
exogenous plant existed during the carboniferous period. The fre- 
quent occurrence of Conifer in the secondary deposits had been 
conclusively determined from numerous specimens; but, founding on 
what seemed a large amount of negative evidence, it was concluded 
that, previous to the liasic age, Nature had failed to achieve a tree, 
and that the rich vegetation of the coal measures had been exclu- 
sively composed of magnificent immaturities of the vegetable king- 
dom,— of gigantic ferns and club-mosses, that attained to the size of 
forest trees, and of thickets of the swamp-loving horse-tail family of 
plants, that well-nigh rivalled in height those forests of masts which 
darken the rivers of our great commercial cities. Such was the view 
promulgated by M. Adolphe Brongniart; and it may be well to 
remark that, so far as the evidence on which it was based was posi- 
tive, the view was sound. It zs a fact, that inferior orders of plants 
were developed in those ages in a style which in their present state 
of degradation they never exemplify: they took their place, not, 
as now, among the pigmies and abortions of creation, but among its 
tallest and goodliest productions. It is, however, not a fact that they 
were the highest vegetable forms of their time. True exogenous 
trees also existed in great numbers and of vast size. In various lo- 
calities in the coal-fields of both England and Scotland,—such as 
Lennel Braes and Allan Bank in Berwickshire, High-Heworth, Fel- 
lon, Gateshead, and Wideopen near Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and in 
quarries to the west of the city of Durham,—the most abundant fos- 
sils of the system are its true woods. In the quarry of Craigleith, 
near Edinburgh, three huge trunks have been laid open during the 
last twenty years, within the space of about a hundred and fifty yards, 
and two equally massy trunks, within half that space, in the neigh- 
bouring quarry of Granton,—all low in the coal measures. They lie 
diagonally athwart the strata,—at an angle of about thirty,—with the 
nether and weightier portions of their boles below, like snags in the 
Mississippi; and we infer, from their general direction, that the stream 
to which they reclined must have flowed from nearly north-east to 
south-west. The current was probably that of a noble river, which 
reflected on its broad bosom the shadow of many a stately tree. 
With the exception of one of the Granton specimens, which still re- 
tains its strong-kneed roots, they are all mere portions of trees, rounded 
at both ends, as if by attrition or decay ; and yet one of these portions 


729 


measures about six feet in diameter by sixty-one feet in length ; 
another, four feet in diameter by seventy feet in length; and the 
others, of various thickness, but all bulky enough to equal the masts 
of large vessels, range in length from thirty-six to forty-seven feet. 
It seems strange to one who derives his supply of domestic fuel from 
the Dalkeith and Falkirk coal-fields, that the carboniferous flora 
could ever have been described as devoid of trees. I can scarce take 
up a piece of coal from beside my study fire, without detecting in it 
fragments of carbonized wood, which almost always exhibit the cha- 
racteristic longitudinal fibres, and not unfrequently the medullary 
rays. Even the trap rocks of the district inclose, in some instances, 
their masses of lignite, which present in their transverse sections, 
when cut by the lapidary, the net-like reticulations of the Conifere. 
The fossil botanist who devoted himself chiefly to the study of micro- 
scopic structure would have to decide, from the facts of the case, not 
that trees were absent during the carboniferous period, but that, in 
consequence of their having been present in amazing numbers, their 
remains had entered more palpably and extensively into the composi- 
tion of coal than those of any other vegetable. So far as is yet known, 
they all belonged to the two great divisions of the coniferous family, 
araucarians and pines. The huge trees of Craigleith and Granton 
were of the former tribe, and approximate more nearly to Altingia 
excelsa, the Norfolk-Island pine,—a noble araucarian, that rears its 
proud head from a hundred and sixty to two hundred feet over the 
soil, and exhibits a green and luxuriant breadth of foliage rare among 
the Coniferze,—than any other living tree. 

“Beyond the coal measures terrestrial plants become extremely 
rare. The fossil botanist, on taking leave of the lower carboniferous 
beds, quits the land, and sets out to sea; and it seems in no way sur- 
prising, that the specimens which he there adds to his herbarium 
should consist mainly of Fucacez and Confervex. The development 
hypothesis can borrow no support from the simple fact, that while a 
high terrestrial vegetation grows upon dry land, only Alge grow in 
the sea; and even did the Old Red Sandstone and Silurian systems 
furnish, as their vegetable organisms, fucoids exclusively, the evidence 
would amount to no more than simply this, that the land of the Pa- 
leozoic periods produced plants of the land, and the sea of the Palzo- 
zoic periods produced plants of the sea.”—p. 185. 

The three formations of the Old Red Sandstone—the Upper, the 
Middle, and the Lower— seem to have had each its own peculiar 
flora. In the Upper, the only vegetable remains met with appear to 

VOL.. Ir. 5 B 


730 

be those of “sorely comminuted fucoids ;” the vegetable remains 
of the Middle, “ are at once more numerous and better defined ;” but 
still they are the remains of fucoid plants: while the fossil flora of the 
Lower Old Red apparently consists of but two species—the one, a 
plant resembling a Lycopodium more than aught else, the other, a 
smooth-stemmed fucoid. These two plants are figured as fossil im- 
pressions upon a block of stone. A third form, however, is given 
from a unique specimen found in a quarry at Skaill, in Orkney, which 
greatly resembles a minute dichotomously branched Botrychium or 
Asplenium. 

Mr. Miller gives a series of magnified figures, variously placed, 
of the lignite referred to in his work on the ‘ Old Red Sandstone,’ as 
having been found in that formation at Cromarty. The nodule which 
inclosed it was imbedded, with many others “ half-disinterred by 
the sea, in an icthyolitic deposit, a few hundred yards to the east of 
the town of Cromarty, which occurs more than four hundred feet over 
the great conglomerate base of the system.” ‘The nodule which con- 
tained the lignite, contained also some “ scales of Diplacanthus, a 
scarce less characteristic organism of the lower formation ;” thus its 
veritable position in the system is unfailingly indicated. A recent 
and searching microscopic investigation of this interesting lignite has 
revealed its true character, namely, that of a fragment of fossil coni- 
ferous wood, of undoubted araucarian relationship. The following 
quotation refers to the evidence furnished by this most interesting 
organic remain. 

“ The olive leaf which the dove brought to Noah established at 
least three important facts, and indicated a few more. It showed 
most conclusively that there was dry land, that there were olive trees, 
and that the climate of the surrounding region, whatever change it 
might have undergone, was still favourable to the development of ve- 
getable life. And, farther, it might be very safely inferred from it, 
that if olive trees had survived, other trees and plants must have sur- 
vived also; and that the dark muddy prominences round which the 
ebbing currents were fast sweeping to lower levels, would soon present, 
as in antediluvian times, their coverings of cheerful green. The olive 
leaf spoke not of merely a partial, but of a general vegetation. Now, 
the coniferous lignite of the Lower Old Red Sandstone we find 
charged, like the olive leaf, with a various and singularly interesting 
evidence. It is something to know, that in the times of the Coccos- 
teus and Asterolepis there existed dry land, and that that land wore, 
as at after periods, its soft, gay mantle of green. It is something also 


731 
to know, that the verdant tint was not owing to a profuse development 
of the mere immaturities of the vegetable kingdom,— crisp, slow- 
growing lichens, or watery spore-propagated fungi that shoot up to 
their full size in a night,—nor even to an abundance of the more 
highly organized families of the liver-worts and the mosses. These 
may have abounded then, as now; though we have not a shadow of 
evidence that they did. But while we have no proof whatever of their 
existence, we have conclusive proof that there existed orders and fa- 
milies of a rank far above them. On the dry land of the Lower Old 
Red Sandstone, on which, according to the theory of Adolphe Brong- 
niart, nothing higher than a lichen or a moss could have been ex- 
pected, the ship-carpenter might have hopefully taken axe in hand, 
to explore the woods for some such stately pine as the one described 
by Milton,— 
‘ Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast 
Of some great admiral.’ ” 


—p. 200. 


The concluding chapter of the volume, that on “ Final Causes— 
Their Bearing on Geologic History,” appropriately commences with 
Cuvier’s observation, that “ Natural History has a principle on which 
to reason, which is peculiar to it, and which it employs advantage- 
ously on many occasions: it is that of the conditions of existence, 
commonly termed jinal causes.’ In amplifying on these words, the 
author well remarks that ‘in Geology, which is Natural History ex- 
tended over all ages, this principle has a still wider scope,— embrac- 
ing not merely the characteristics and conditions of the beings which 
now exist, but of all, so far as we can learn regarding them, which 
have ever existed,—and involving the consideration of not merely 
their peculiarities as races placed before us without relation to time, 
but also of the history of their rise, increase, decline, and extinction.” 
To rise, increase, decline, and finally to become extinct, seems to be 
the lot of all created beings—“ all bear the stamp of death,—indivi- 
duals,—nations,—species.” Geology makes us acquainted with the 
fact, that “in the course of creation the higher orders succeeded the 
lower,” but this succession was one of order, not of development ; 
a higher order of animated organisms would appear to have been suc- 
cessively called into being so soon as the earth became fitted for its 
reception ; and “ it is in the style and character of the dwelling-place 
that gradual improvement seems to have taken place,—not in the 
functions or the ranks of any class of its inhabitants; and it is with 
special reference to this gradual improvement in our common man- 


732 
sion-house, the earth, in its bearings on the ‘ conditions of existence,’ 
that not a few of our reasonings regarding the introduction and 
extinction of species and genera must proceed.” 

Reasoning upon the well-grounded supposition that the earth was 
destined eventually to become the dwelling place of a being, “ the 
sum total of all animals, — the animal equivalent to the whole animal 
kingdom,” as Oken calls man, Mr. Miller well observes that the “ defi- 
nite period at which man was introduced upon the scene seems to 
have been specially determined by the conditions of correspondence 
which the phenomena of his habitation had at length come to assume 
with the predestined constitution of his mind.” This position he il- 
lustrates by reference to the peculiar impression made upon the mind of 
man by the occurrence of those now comparatively rare phenomena, 
earthquakes. And after quoting from Humboldt and Tschudi their 
graphic descriptions of the effects of earthquakes upon the human 
mind, he thus continues :— 

““ Now, a partially consolidated planet, tempested by frequent earth- 
quakes, of such terrible potency, that those of the historic ages would 
be but mere ripples of the earth’s surface in comparison, could be no 
proper home for a creature so constituted. The fish or reptile,—ani- 
mals of a limited range of instinct, exceedingly tenacious of life in 
most of their varieties, oviparous, prolific, and whose young immedi- 
ately on their escape from the egg can provide for themselves, might 
enjoy existence in such circumstances, to the full extent of their nar- 
row capacities; and when sudden death fell upon them, — though 
their remains, scattered over wide areas, continue to exhibit that dis- 
tortion of posture incident to violent dissolution, which seems to 
speak of terror and suffering,—we may safely conclude there was but 
little real suffering in the case; they were happy up to a certain point, 
and unconscious for ever after. Fishes and reptiles were the proper 
inhabitants of our planet during the ages of the earth-tempests; and 
when, under the operation of the chemical laws, these had become 
less frequent and terrible, the higher mammals were introduced. That 
prolonged ages of these tempests did exist, and that they gradually 
settled down, until the state of things became at length comparatively 
fixed and stable,‘few geologists will be disposed to deny. The evidence 
which supports this special theory of the development of our planet 
in its capabilities as a scene of organized and sentient being, seems 
palpable at every step. Look first at these grauwacke rocks; and, af- 
ter marking how in one place the strata have been upturned on their 
edges for miles together, and how in another the Plutonic rock has 


733 


risen molten from below, pass on to the old red sandstone, and 
examine its significant platforms of violent death,— its faults, dis- 
placements, and dislocations ; see, next, in the coal measures, those 
evidences of sinking and ever-sinking strata, for thousands of feet to- 
gether; mark in the oolite those vast over-lying masses of trap, 
stretching athwart the landscape, far as the eye can reach; observe 
carefully how the signs of convulsion and catastrophe gradually lessen 
as we descend to the times of the tertiary, though even in these ages 
of the mammiferous quadruped, the earth must have had its oft-re- 
curring ague fits of frightful intensity ; and then, on closing the sur- 
vey, consider how exceedingly partial and unfrequent these earth- 
tempests have become in the recent periods. Yes; we find every- 
where marks of at once progression and identity, — of progress made, 
and yet identity maintained ; but it is in the habitation that we find 
them,—not in the inhabitant.”—p. 286. 

The author, in continuation of this interesting subject, here adduces 
examples of vast tracts of country inundated by overflows of once li- 
quid trap rock to the depth of several hundred feet, as occurring in 
Hindustan, in southern Africa, and even, though ona far more limited 
scale, in Scotland; and asks, 

“What could man have done on the globe at a time when such 
outbursts were comparatively common occurrences? What could he 
have done where Edinburgh now stands during that overflow of trap 
porphyry of which the Pentland range forms but a fragment, or that 
outburst of greenstone of which but a portion remains in the dark 
ponderous coping of Salisbury Craigs, or when the thick floor of rock 
on which the city stands was broken up, like the ice of an arctic sea 
during a tempest in spring, and laid on edge from where it leans 
against the Castle Hill to beyond the quarries at Joppa? The rea- 
soning brain would have been wholly at fault in a scene of things in 
which it could neither foresee the exterminating calamity while yet 
distant, nor control it when it had come; and so the reasoning brain 
was not produced until the scene had undergone a slow but thorough 
process of change, during which, at each progressive stage, it had fur- 
nished a platform for higher and still higher life. When the Coniferz 
could flourish on the land, and fishes subsist in the seas, fishes and 
cone-bearing plants were created ; when the earth became a fit habi- 
tat for reptiles and birds, reptiles and birds were produced ; with the 
dawn of a more stable and mature state of things the sagacious quad- 
ruped was ushered in; and, last of all, when man’s house was fully 
prepared for him,—when the data on which it is his nature to reason 


734 


and calculate had become fixed and certain,—the reasoning, calculat- 
ing brain was moulded by the creative finger, ‘and man became a 
living soul.’ Such seems to be the true reading of the wondrous in- 
scription chiselled deep in the rocks. It furnishes us with no clue by 
which to unravel the unapproachable mysteries of creation; these 
mysteries belong to the wondrous Creator, and to Him only. We 
attempt to theorize upon them, and to reduce them to law, and all 
nature rises up against us in our presumptuous rebellion. <A stray 
splinter of cone-bearing wood, —a fish’s skull or tooth,—the vertebra 
of a reptile,— the humerus of a bird,—the jaw of a quadruped,—all, 
any of these things, weak and insignificant as they may seem, become 
in such a quarrel too strong for us and our theory: the puny frag- 
ment, in the grasp of truth, forms as irresistible a weapon as the dry 
bone did in that of Sampson of old; and our slaughtered sophisms 
lie piled up, ‘ heaps upon heaps’ before it.”—p. 288. 

We ought to conclude with this eloquent passage, but, as “ we are 
nothing if not critical,” we must just hint to our author that Crabbe’s 
“salt lavender, that lacks perfume,” is not Statice Armeria with its 
flowers changed to blue by the influence of sea air (p. 289), but the 
naturally blue-flowered Statice Limonium and its allies: and that we 
doubt whether Eriocaulon septangulare (p. 229) is really a native of 
America, where other species of that genus are common. These, how- 
ever, are minor defects in a book of great excellence, a book which every 
one should read, and one that does equal honour to the author’s industry 
and ability, and to his zeal in the cause of religion and true science. 


L. 


Remarks on Glyceria fluitans and G. plicata. 
By Ws. Henry Pourcuas, Esq. 


WHEN looking in this neighbourhood for Glyceria plicata, I was 
much puzzled by the apparent inconstancy of some of the characters 
given for that plant and G. fluitans: a more careful scrutiny has con- 
vinced me that their limits are not yet correctly laid down in books, 
and also, that in addition to forms exhibiting trifling deviations from 
the type of G. fluitans, there is one which appears almost intermedi- 
ate between that and G. plicata, and which, if only a variety of the 
latter, is well deserving of notice. I believe that other botanists have 
had suspicions of the kind, while Mr. Townsend has gone so far as to 
propose a third species,—G. hybrida,—but which does not seem to 


735 


have met with general acceptance. As the subject is still before the 
minds of some of our best botanists, I propose, by way of contributing 
in some degree to its elucidation, to lay before your readers a short 
account of all the forms which I have hitherto noticed in this district. 
I do not, however, at all pretend that I have detected the whole of 
the variations which may occur here, and still less that I have selected 
all the most salient and available points of distinction between them. 

First.— Glyceria fluitans. The plants which agree in possessing 
acute outer pales nearly thrice as long as broad, anthers about five 
times as long as broad, and acute simply folded leaves, present the 
following modifications :— 

a.— Branches of the fruit panicle appressed. 

1. Anthers purple. 

8.—Branches of the fruit panicle divaricate. 

1. Green,—anthers yellow or purple before bursting. 

2. Glaucous,—anthers pale yellow before bursting. 
Thus it will appear that colour is not at all to be relied on as a dis- 
tinctive mark. a@. is the most common of all the forms; I do not re- 
collect to have noticed it with pale yellow, nor the glaucous plant, 8.2, 
with purple anthers. 

Secondly.—Glyceria plicata. Of plants which agree in having their 
outer pales twice as long as broad, obtuse, with three nearly equal 
teeth, and anthers about three times as long as broad, there are two 
forms. 

a.—A plant which precisely accords with a living plant of G. pli- 
cata which Mr. T. Moore kindly sent me, and which has flowered, 
during the past summer, in my garden: from its agreement with this 
plant, and with the descriptions of Babington and Koch, I take it to 
be the typical form of Fries’s plant: in this the tip of each outer pale 
seems to reach only one-third of the way up the next floret on the 
same side. In dried examples, for which I am indebted to Mr. Wat- 
son and Mr. Moore, the uppermost leaf is much shorter in proportion 
toits sheath than in the plant I shall next notice,—and I once thought 
that this might furnish a distinction, but my Ross specimens seem to 
prove the character too variable to be of any value. The only point 
in which I have seen the leaves of the cultivated or wild plants differ 
as regards plicature from those of G. fluitans, is in having their mar- 
gins folded inward; never at all resembling Dr. Lindley’s idea of 
“ plicate” (Elements and Introduction to Botany); and even this 
additional fold seems only to be found early in the season, the young 
leaves produced towards the close of summer being much narrower 


736 


than the early ones. Neither wild nor garden plants have at this 
present time other than simply folded leaves. Koch seems to have 
noticed the variation of their folding, as he says “ foliis novellis plu- 
ries plicatis.” 

I have hitherto seen this plant in one spot only through this neigh- 
bourhood, and there by no means luxuriant, for it does not seem to 
relish its position on the margin of a ditch polluted by sewage. 
Other stations will probably be found by and bye, but this is evi- 
dently much the rarest of all the forms in this district. 

6.—A plant which has the short pales and anthers of G. plicata, 
but combined with a more compound panicle, and the acute, green, 
simply folded leaves of G. fluitans. I have attempted to characterize 
it as follows. 

G. ————.__ Panicle twice compound, nodding at the end ; 
branches mostly in fives, t2o compound, the rest bearing single 
spikelets, patent in flower, divaricate with fruit ; spikelets of eight to 
fourteen oval, oblong, closely imbricated florets ; outer pale twice as 
long as broad, obtuse, with three nearly equal teeth, its summit reach- 
ing half way up the next floret on the same side; anthers about 
thrice as long as broad; leaves acute, simply folded; ligule elongate. 
Whole plant bright green, except the outer pales, which with fruit 
are, as in @., tinged near the summit with purple. The leaves are un- 
distinguishable from those of G. fluitans,—I have examined them at 
all seasons of the year, and have never seen them other than simply 
folded: the panicle has a fuller look than that of a., from the greater 
number of compound branches; in all the examples which I have 
seen of that plant, one alternating branch only of each whorl is com- 
pound, the rest bearing single spikelets,;—while in this plant two 
branches at least of each whorl are almost constantly compound ; and 
thus, as they turn in opposite directions, the panicle of a. seems al- 
ternately, and that of 8. oppositely branched: the spikelets are 
more numerous than in the typical plant, but shorter, being composed 
of fewer and more closely imbricated florets, the summit of each outer 
pale reaching exactly half way instead of one-third up the next floret 
on the same side ; in spikelets of thirteen florets taken from the pa- 
nicle of each plant, that of a. exceeded that of 8. by the length of a 
floret: the anthers are shaped like those of the typical plant, and 
are either purple or pale yellow before bursting. These points though 
constant, so far as I have been able to observe the plants of this dis- 
trict, may not prove universally so: accordingly, I offer them only as 
suggestions. This form is pretty generally distributed over a district 


737 


of some miles in extent, less commonly indeed than G. fluitans, and, 
unlike that species, evincing a peculiar partiality for running water, 
its customary resorts being shallow streamlets and the margins of 
brooks; I do not remember to have noticed it in a single stagnant 
pool. I have no means of ascertaining whether this is what Mr. 
Townsend meant by his G. hybrida, as no description seems to have 
been published of that plant, and I have seen no authentic specimens. 
Whatever rank be conceded to the present plant, it is certainly not of 
hybrid origin: its occurrence in such large quantities in company 
with G. fluitans, while the typical G. plicata is almost absent from 
the neighbourhood, is fatal to such an idea. I should very unwil- 
lingly be guilty of hasty or unnatural manufacture of species; and con- 
sidering the very small amount of good structural characters which I 
have been able to detect for this plant, I cannot at present claim for 
it a higher grade than that of variety ; yet is it, when once known, so 
readily distinguishable from a., that I am desirous of directing the 
attention of botanists to it, as it most probably occurs elsewhere. 
Other and better points of distinction between it and G. plicata might 
perhaps have presented themselves had I enjoyed fuller opportunities 
of studying the latter in a living state: perhaps those who are more 
fortunate in this respect will look out for the other plant, and make 
known through your pages the result of a careful comparison. 


W. H. Purcuas. 
Ross, Herefordshire, Nov. 17, 1849. 


Note on the Discovery of Teucrium Botrys. 
By WILLIAM BENNETT, Esq. 


As one of the original discoverers of Teucrium Botrys, in company 
with my friend Thomas Ingall, in the neighbourhood of Boxhill, when 
rambling over that beautiful district in the autumn of 1844, it is with 
the greatest pleasure and interest I read the account of its rediscovery 
by G. S. Gibson and W. Borrer, in the last number of the ‘ Phytolo- 
gist,’ and their opinion of its being most indubitably wild; especially 
after hearing reports of its extermination, and knowing of unsuccess- 
ful attempts to find the plant by several industrious botanists, so as 
almost to throw doubts upon its authenticity. No one who had seen 
the plant and its locality could hesitate in pronouncing it truly wild. 
The spot is peculiarly solitary, at least for being within the range of 

VOL. III. 5 Cc 


738 


a metropolitan county. It is far from any human habitation. The 
plant is not one ever grown in gardens; nor was that part of the hill- 
side ever previously known to have been under cultivation, so that it 
could not have been introduced with the crops; though I have since 
heard that a portion of it has been ploughed up. I visited the spot 
several times in the course of that autumn, and sent a living plant still 
in flower as late as the middle of November to the Secretary of the 
London Botanical Society. I left that part of the country before the 
following season, and have never had the opportunity of visiting it 
since. I grew several plants from seed the following year, but they 
all went off without coming into bloom. 

One of my objects in this communication is to ascertain, if possible, 
whether G. 8. Gibson’s is identical with the spot where we first found 
the plant, or a new locality. Knowing the “ piratical tendencies” of 
some botanists, though gladly supplying specimens to all my friends, 
I resisted the communication of the exact spot to any but one parti- 
cular friend. Our locality answers precisely to the description of a 
rough, stony, steep hill-side ; and the plant was scattered pretty plen- 
tifully, varying much in the size and growth of the specimens, over a 
considerable space, but none at the bottom nor very near the top of 
the side of the hill or rather ravine; and it was not properly on a part 
of Boxhill, being on the eastern or Reigate side of the ravine, in a di- 
rect line between the village of Brockham and Headley Lane, and 
more correctly a part of Brockham or Headley Hill. That somewhat 
local plant, Ajuga Chamepitys, grows in great profusion in the fields 
at the base of Boxhill, on the southern or Brockham side; or rather 
grew ; for a railroad now cuts them all through. 


WILLIAM BENNETT. 
London, 17th of 11th mo. 1849. 


Occurrence of Carex Persoonit in an unrecorded Locality in York- 
shire. By Jonn G. Baker, Esq. 


PERHAPS it may be interesting to some of the readers of the ‘ Phy- 
tologist’ to know that in the beginning of the summer of the present 
year I gathered a few examples of Carex Persoonii (Sieber) in Snailes- 
worth, the most western of the dales which intersect the group of hills 
situated in the north-east of Yorkshire. | 

The station was in a rather boggy wood near the source of the 


739 


Locker Beck, a small tributary of the Wheal, the principal stream of 
the dale. In the same wood Trientalis europea occurred plentifully. 
The elevation, as nearly as I can ealculate, will be about one thou- 
sand feet above the level of the sea. 
JoHN G. BAKER. 
“Market Place. Thirsk, 
19th of 11th mo. 1849. 


Occurrence of Rare Ferns in the Snowdon District. 
By Epwarp Newman. 


Woodsia Ilvensis. This fern has appeared in unusual abundance 
during the past season at the old station on a rock above Llyn-y-Cwn. 
A correspondent writes me for my own information, that as many as 
about a hundred plants are visible; fortunately, however, nearly the 
whole of them are inaccessible, and cannot possibly be obtained with- 
out the assistance of a ladder. 

Woodsia alpina. ‘This fern has occurred in smaller quantities than 
the above at the old station of Clogwyn-y-Garnedd: two botanists 
have kindly handed me this information. 

Asplenium germanicum. Two plants of this species have been 
found in the previously recorded locality between Llanrwst and Capel 
Cerig. I believe it is properly called Bwlch-y-Rhyn, but the spell- 
ing of Welsh names seems not to be governed by any fixed law, but 
to be optional with the tourist. Would it not be wise as well as con- 
venient to adopt the spelling of the Ordnance Survey, thus reducing 
topographical nomenclature to a fixity, rather than leaving it as at 
present a mere matter of taste ? 

Asplenium septentrionale. In twenty localities near Llanrwst, or 
between that town and Capel Cerig, more particularly in Bwlch-y- 
Rhyn. 

Polystichum Lonchitis. Cwm Idwell and Clogwyn-y-Garnedd, not 
very sparingly in either locality. 

Epwarp NEWMAN. 

Devonshire Street, London. 


740 


Additional List of the Rarer Plants growing near Colvend. 
By PETER Gray, Esq. 


ALLow me to offer, by way of addendum to the list I furnished last 
year, a few additional stations in Colvend for less frequently occur- 
ring species included in the first volume of Hooker’s ‘ British Flora.’ 
They have been ascertained by my friend, the Rev. James Fraser, in 
the course of occasional rambles in his interesting parish during the 
season just elapsed. 

Carex extensa. Marshes near the detached rock on the coast, 
called by the aborigines “ Lot’s Wife;” and about Glenstocking. 
distans. Along almost the whole coast. 

Eryngium maritimum. Shore near the mill-stone quarry. 

Lycopus europeus. Lockhouse; border of Manse Loch, and se- 
veral other places. 

(nanthe pimpinelloides. Marshes near Lot’s Wife, and sea-side 
near Glenluffin. 

Utricularia minor. Cloak Moss, between Colvend and the parish 
of Urr. 

Osmunda regalis. Waterfall at Lot’s Wife. 

In a wood between Colvend and the village of Dalbeattie, in the 
neighbouring parish of Urr, Mr. Fraser also finds Convallaria majalis, 
“to all appearance indigenous.” And across the estuary of the Urr, 
on the walls of the old tower of Orchard-town, in the parish of Buit- 
tle, as well as upon the old dyke surrounding it, growing out of the 
decaying lime, he has found Ceterach officinarum. My correspon- 
dent also informs me that Ophioglossum vulgatum is said to grow 
abundantly in a marsh in the adjoining parish of Kirkbean. This I 
shall endeavour to authenticate. I know only one locality in the 
county of Dumfries for this pretty fern; “a marsh,” however, is not, 
I should think, a likely habitat. 


PETER GRAY. 
Queen Street, Dumfries, 


November 21, 1849. 


P. S.—In last year’s list Leonurus Cardiaca and Meum athamanti- 
cum were given through some inadvertence on the part of my infor- 
mant as denizens of Colvend. Neither, I now understand, is known 
to grow there; although the discovery of the latter is not improbable, 
as it grows about here in a similar country. I may mention, too, that, 
confounding the names of two Carices similar in meaning, however — 


741 


distinct the plants are in form, I gave the vicinity of Port o’ Warren 
as a station for Carex vemota instead of distans, which Mr. Fraser 
has since found elsewhere in abundance. With these exceptions all 
the stations then given have been authenticated by specimens. 


P. G. 


Occurrence of Polypodium Phegopteris in Gloucestershire. 
By Epwarp T. Bennett, Esq. 


Durin@ a day’s excursion to the Forest of Dean this summer, I 
had the pleasure of very unexpectedly meeting with that elegant fern 
Polypodium Phegopteris. About a mile and a half above Lydbrook, 
towards Coleford, out of a low wall by the road-side, grows Polypo- 
dium caleareum. The station for Phegopteris is nearly opposite this, 
on the other side of the road, a short distance within the wood. It is 
growing among bushes in a boggy bit of ground; I think in rather 
an unusual position, its favourite habitat being among moss on rocks 
and stones, amid the spray of waterfalls. Although a considerable 
patch of a hundred or two fronds, it had not attained to near that 
luxuriance and size of frond which makes it such a beautiful object 
in some more mountainous parts of the country. But it is an inte- 
resting addition to the ferns of Gloucestershire, in which county I am 
not aware that it has been previously recorded. 


Epwarp T. BENNETT. 
Woodfields, near Ross. 


A Catalogue of the Plants growing wild in Hampshire, with occa- 
sional Notes and Observations on some of the more remarkable 
Species. By W1LLIAM ARNOLD BromMFIELD, M.D., F.L.S., &c. 


(Continued from page 669). 


Statice Limonium. On mud flats and salt marshes; very abun- 
dantly on most parts of the shores of the Isle of Wight and mainland 
Hants that are of this character. Plentiful along the muddy banks of 
the Medina above Cowes. Banks of the Yar and Wootton Rivers, 
and in Newtown marshes in the greatest profusion. | Yarmouth and 
Brading harbours in abundance; Mr. W. D. Snooke (FI. Vect.)!! On 


742 


the rocks in Scratchells Bay, near the Needles; Mr. E. Lees in New 
Bot. Guide Suppl. May not this station belong to S. spathulata, as 
S. Limonium does not usually grow on rocks or cliffs, which the for- 
mer, I think, invariably does? (see our third species). Var. 8. 
Flowers distant on the branches, see next species, and Ray’s Syn. 
Dillen. edit. p. 202. On the mainland the Sea Lavender abounds 
about Portsmouth harbour, in Hayling Island, and wherever mud flats 
are found. 

Statice rariflora. In exactly the same places with the last species, 
from which it is not separated by one constant and tangible character 
that I can discover, and into which it may be seen passing so insensibly 
as to preclude the possibility of fixing the limit between them. Side 
of the Yar near Freshwater Mill; sparingly. In muddy places about 
Wootton Creek, intermixed with the ordinary S. Limonium, and 
growing to a large size (two feet or upwards); Rev. G. E. Smith!!! 
Shore at Cams; the Salterns (near Fareham); Mr. W. L. Notcutt !!! 
I have taken considerable pains to verify the characters laid down for 
this and the foregoing species by careful comparison of living speci- 
mens, and can come to no other conclusion than that already stated. 
I find in well-marked §. Limonium the branches very often strongly 
incurved, the calyx segments seem to me to differ little or nothing in 
both, the toothing being very irregular, sometimes well-marked, at 
other times nearly obsolete. It is true that in the sparse-flowered va- 
riety of S. Limonium (S. rariflora) the outer bracts are in general 
larger than in the dense-flowered state of the plant, but even this I 
found to fail occasionally, and if invariable, would be too slight a 
character to found a species on by itself. Mr. H. C. Watson (Cybele 
Brit. vol. ii. p. 307) remarks that plants of this supposed species from 
the southern coast of England, and others from the West Lowland 
province (S.W. of Scotland) “ differ somewhat from each other ;” Mr. 
W. would find just the same difference in specimens from the same 
locality on the Hampshire coast as he perceives in examples from 
distant localities. 
spathulata? On rocks and cliffs by the sea; (never?) on 
flat or muddy shores; very rare, if not now extinct, in Hants. Isle of 
Wight: given (but erroneously) on the authority of the Rev. G. E. 
Smith in the ‘New Botanist’s Guide. In two subsequent communi- 
cations from my esteemed friend, he tells me he believes it was col- 
lected on the cliffs near Freshwater by the Rev. Mr. Wood or the 
Rev. R. Price. On rocks in Scratchell’s Bay ? Mr. E. Lees (see S. Li- 
monium). Now apparently destroyed on these ever-crumbling cliffs, 


743 


as I have personally searched every accessible spot along the whole 
range of the majestic chalk rampart from Freshwater Gate westward 
to the Needles, and round the point into Alum Bay, without success, 
and have likewise instructed the cliffsmen, in their perilous task of 
samphire-gathering, to send me any plants of sea lavender they might 
find on the cliffs, but which they assure me they have not yet fallen 
in with.* Should these ‘ Notes’ meet his eye, Mr. Lees may perhaps 
still have it in his power to dispel the doubt, so far as he is concerned, 
regarding this species as indigenous to the Isle of Wight, by examin- 
ing his specimens afresh, and communicating the result to the pages 
of this journal, or through private communication to myself, as he 
thinks proper; either of which courses I should esteem a favour from 
that gentleman. Although the existence of S. spathulata as a Vectian 
species rests on somewhat uncertain grounds, I retain it on the list of 
natives from the respectability of the testimony given, but rather du- 
biously, by Mr. Smith, and because I think it most probable that the 
plant of Messrs. Wood and Price and that of Mr. Lees was the same, 
and in the latter case unlikely to have been S. Limonium from the 
nature of the situation in which it was found growing, besides which, 
the chalk cliffs of this island are just the localities where the S. spa- 
thulata may reasonably be supposed to have occurred. I have myself 
gathered it in precisely analogous places near Dover, where Mr. 
Smith first noticed it, and published it as a plant new to Britain. 

Armeria vulgaris. On rocks, cliffs, banks and pastures by the sea, 
as well as on the shore itself; abundantly on the island and main- 
land, along most parts of the coast. By the Medina, the Yar, on the 
spit at St. Helen’s, &c. Var. 6. Flowers white; very rare? Amongst 
the abandoned Salterns near Lymington, towards Milford, in one spot 
abundantly with the common red sort, June 3rd, 1849. The flower- 
ing time of this, as of many other of our native plants, is very incor- 
rectly given in books. The common Thrift begins to flower in ordi- 
nary years with us here in April, and is ever in good bloom in May, 
continuing to blossom on till September, whereas our British authors 
assign July for the commencement of inflorescence. 


* To botanists visiting Freshwater, who may wish to procure specimens of the wild 
stock, samphire, or other plants inaccessible from above to the longest arm, I would 
beg to recommend a cliffsman named Jackman, whom I have been in the habit of 
employing for some years past, for his civility, intelligence and activity, and who may 
generally be found in attendance as a boatman at Freshwater Gate on inquiry at 
Groves's Hotel. 


744 


Plantago Coronopus. In dry, sandy, gravelly places, fields, pas- 
tures and waste ground, under walls, &c., very common. On Ryde 
Dover in plenty. Very fine and abundant on the green sand along 
the coast, as on Royal Heath, and above Sandown Bay, betwixt San- 
down and Shanklin. Particularly abundant and luxuriant everywhere 
on the green sand along the whole line of cliff coast betwixt Black- 
gang and Compton Bay. 
maritima. In mud flats and salt-marsh meadows and pas- 
tures ; common on the coasts of the island and mainland. In the 
meadows behind Ryde Dover in abundance. Muddy sides of the 
Medina above Cowes. Shores of Brading and Yarmouth harbours, 
&c., in plenty. 
lanceolata. In meadows, pastures, by road-sides, waste 
places, &c., everywhere plentiful. 
media. In dry meadows and pastures, particularly on cal- 
careous soils; very frequent over the county and Isle of Wight. 
About Ventnor and other parts of Undercliff, the prevailing species. 
Plentiful about Newport, Carisbrook, Thorley, Calborne, and through- 
out the chalky districts generally. Common on most of the chalk 
downs and pastures in the county, as about Winchester, Whitchurch, 
Andover, &c. The prettiest of all our plantains, and very sweet- 
scented in flower. Sir James Smith recommends for destroying this 
plant on grass plats, the pouring a drop of sulphuric acid on the 
crown of the root; a piece of valuable advice to such gardeners as 
have time to undertake and patience to perform the operation ef- 
fectually. 


Wo. A. BROMFIELD. 


Eastmount, Ryde, Isle of Wight, 
November, 1849. 


(To be continued.) 


EDWARD NEWMAN, PRINTER, DEVONSHIRE STREET, BISHOPSGATE. 


THE PHYTOLOGIST FOR 1849. 


Pp. 885—744. 


LONDON: 
‘ - ee ris q A Aa q is f 
PRINTED BY E. NEWMAN, DEVONSHIRE STREET, 


_ BISHOPSGATE. 


THE 


Po YY moOw OG 1 S i: 


POPULAR 


BOTANICAL MISCELLANY. 


CONDUCTED BY 
EDWARD NEWMAN. 


VOLUME THE THIRD. 


(CONTINUED). 


LONDON: 


JOHN VAN VOORST, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
M.DCCC.XLIX. 


Yet happier, in my judgment, 
The wandering Herbalist, who, clear alike 
From vain, and that worse evil, vexing thoughts, 
a ez a * oe * peeps round 
For some fair floweret of the hills, or plant 
Of craggy fountain; what he hopes for, wins 
Or learns, at least, that ’tis not to be won. 
Then, keen and eager, as a fine-nosed hound, 
By soul-engrossing instinct driven along, 
Through wood or open field, the harmless man 
Departs, intent upon his onward quest. 

W orpDsworTH. 


PREFACE. 


In the annual address to my subscribers at the close of 1848, I 
expressed my willingness to increase the monthly quota of letter-press 
without any additional charge, provided my contributors would send 
a greater amount of communications: the result, however, has shown 
that the usual thirty-two pages has sufficed without delaying a single 
contribution ; and consequently there has been no necessity for car- 
rying out the project. Another mode of adding to the value of the 
‘Phytologist’ has been suggested by a friend, and I feel confident it 
will give satisfaction to my subscribers: it is to publish, without any 
additional charge, a carefully engraved figure of every newly-disco- 
vered British species. On an average the annual increase of species, 
exclusively of the genera Rubus, Rosa and Salix, which I totally 
exclude from my proposition, may be taken at a fraction less than 
four, and the cost of four engravings does not present any material 
obstacle ; indeed, were the expense greater than I ought to incur, I 
feel confident that several of my friends will be willing to afford 
pecuniary assistance. I therefore beg to announce that from the pre- 
sent time I shall be happy to give a finished figure of every new plant 
that may be discovered: a few conditions must, however, be observed. 

First. Specimens must be submitted to a competent botanist for 
his decision as to the name, distinctness and novelty of the species : 
Mr. Borrer, Mr. Watson, or Mr. Wilson, of Warrington, occur to me 
as unexceptionable referees, and I trust neither of these gentlemen 
will hesitate to lend their assistance. 

Secondly. Perfect specimens of the plant must be sent to the her- 


vi 


baria of the Linnean and Botanical Societies, labelled with the name, 
locality, date and name of communicant. 

Thirdly. Perfect specimens, in a recent state, if possible, must be 
transmitted to Devonshire Street for the purpose of being drawn, or 
for comparison with drawings accompanying them. Drawings made 
by the communicant will be preferred, and magnified details of diag- 
nostic characters, where the new plant resembles a generally known 
species, will be acceptable. 

Fourthly. A careful description must accompany the drawings, 
&c.: if the plant be new to science this, of course, must be original, 
but if previously known as a continental species, a translation from a 
standard author will suffice. 

I sincerely hope that British botanists will see the great utility of 
this project, and will cheerfully and heartily co-operate with me in 
carrying it into execution. I have already received such manifest 
proofs of kindness and goodwill from my contributors that I feel no 
hesitation in again soliciting their assistance: an additional ex- 
pense will now be incurred, and this can, I think, be readily defrayed 
by an increased sale: a larger number of copies will be prepared, 
and the exertions of my friends are most earnestly requested in the 
obtaining of additional subscribers. 


In looking back on the past year, it does not occupy a prominent 
place in the botanical annals of the country. Beyond sundry pro- 
posed subdivisions and changes of name, thus imparting a superficial 
idea of novelty, the botanical additions for the year 1849 have been 
very few. 

Poterium muricatum of Spach, the P. polygamum of Waldstein, 
has been found (Phytol. ili. 707) by several botanists near 
Cambridge; my valued correspondent, Mr. G. S. Gibson, 
subsequently met with it at Heydon, in Essex, and at Box- 
hill, in Surrey; and Mr. Kirk (Phytol. 11. 715) has found it 
in various places on the slopes of the Coventry and Leaming- 
ton railway, in Warwickshire. This plant is to be regarded 


as an old and probably not uncommon inhabitant of this 


Vil 


country, where it has always been confounded with the still 
more abundant Poterium Sanguisorba. I am not competent 
to decide on its specific distinctness from that familiar plant, 
but am willing to put faith in the opinion of those who have 
thus decreed. 

Teucrium Botrys has again been found at Boxhill, and ‘ae 
Borrer and G. 8. Gibson pronounce it a true native (Phyto 
ii. 707). 

Bromus arvensis, for which other species have been so often mis- 
taken, has been found introduced in corn-fields in the same 
locality, and by the same energetic botanists. 

New localities have been reported for the following rare, or perhaps, 

more correctly speaking, little-known species. 

Filago spatulata has been found by Mr. Varenne (ili. 385) at In- 
worth, in Essex. 

Udora canadensis has occurred in a number of localities almost 
sufficient to induce the conclusion that this plant has been 
hitherto most negligently overlooked. The first of these lo- 
calities, in the Lene, near Nottingham, is recorded by Miss 
Kirby (ii. 387), who remarks that Mr. Mitchell’s attention 
was attracted to the circumstance from seeing pieces of the 
plant scattered about the meadows after a flood. Mr. Kirk 
(iii. 389) has found it in great abundance at Watford Locks, 
in Northamptonshire. Dr. Johnston found it (111. 541) at the 
lake at Dunge Castle, so far back as 1842, and again in 
abundance in 1848, in the Whitadder or its tributaries: I 
believe these localities are in Berwickshire. And last, Mr. 
Brown (iii. 647) informs us that it forms large submerged 
masses in the Trent. Fashion, and perhaps the love of no- 
velty, have changed the name of this plant from Udora cana- 
densis to Anacharis Alsinastrum. Is there sufficient botanical 
ground for the change? Dr. Johnston says (1. c.) “I have 
specimens of Udora canadensis from Dr. P. W. Maclagan, 
gathered in Detroit River, July, 1848, and they exactly re- 
semble our Whitadder plant, as found at the Newmills sta- 


tion:” other excellent botanists express the same opinion. 


Vill 


Woodsia Ilvensis. Mr. Stevens says of this species (iii. 392) “This 
rare and handsome little fern J found in considerable abun- 
dance on very steep, crumbling rocks, amongst the hills di- 
viding the counties of Dumfries and Peebles, in July last ; it 
is growing in dense tufts in the crevices of the rocks, and 
very luxuriant, many of the fronds measuring nearly six 
inches in length.” It is interesting to know (iii. 739) that as 
many as a hundred plants of this rarity still exist at the old 
Caermarvonshire station, Llyn-y-cwn. 

Woodsia alpina has reappeared at Ray’s old Caernarvonshire sta- 
tion, Glogwyn-y-Garnedd (iii. 739). 

Stmethis bicolor “has been found (i. 453) by Mr. Thaddeus 
O’Mahony, growing in a perfectly wild situation on hills near 
Derrynane Abbey, the seat of the O’Connells. The hills 
where this plant grows have probably never been turned up, 
and the plant has certainly never been cultivated in a neigh- 
bouring garden.” — Dr. Harvey in the ‘ London Journal of 
Botany, 

Linaria supina. Ina report of the ordinary meeting of the Bota- 
nical Society (iii. 536) it is recorded that a station has been 
found for this plant by Mr. G. Maw, at St. Blazey’s Bay, in 
Cornwall. 

Hypericum linariifolium. Mr. Goulding announces (iii. 643) that 
he has found this species by the side of a hedge, ascending a 
hill from Blakstone to Maristowe, near the river Tavy, 
Devon; and adds that it is now to be found plentifully about 
the Morwell Rocks, by the Tamar. Mr. Goulding kindly 
transmitted a specimen, which Mr. Watson pronounces to be 


correctly named. : 
Leersia oryzoides. Dr. Bromfield has a detailed account of this 


very local grass (iii. 681) as found by himself in the New 
Forest, in Hampshire: the paper contains some useful re- 
marks on characters by which it may be readily distinguished 
from Phragmitis communis, a plant with which, in the Eng- — 


lish stations, it is commonly associated. 


1X 


Melilotus arvensis is reported by Mr. G. §. Gibson (iii. 707) to 
occur in the parishes of Heydon and Stratford, both in Essex. 

Carex Persoonit. Mr. Baker (iii. 738) has found this mountain 
Carex at Snailsworth, the most western of the dales which 
intersect the group of hills situated in the north-east of York- 
shire. 

Polypodium Phegopteris. This fern, hitherto supposed to be con- 
fined to the northern and western counties and a solitary 
locality in Sussex, has been found (ili. 741) by Mr. Edward 
T. Bennett, in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire. 


I cannot allow the opportunity which this annual address affords 
me of noticing Dr. Bromfield’s admirable papers on the Plants of 
Hampshire. That contribution has indeed extended to an unprece- 
dented length, but it contains such a mass of new and useful matter 
and of interesting observations incidental to the leading subject, that 
it assumes a peculiar botanical value, quite independent of its utility 
as a county list and guide to localities. The comments on each spe- 
cies would have formed excellent contributions to these pages even 
if printed as separate articles. 

Mr. Watson’s admirable paper, entitled “ Who knows Viola cani- 
na?” clears up and corrects much that was previously obscure and 
erroneous: I much wish he would favour this Journal with brief diag- 
nostics by which the three species of Smith, Viola canina or sylvatica, 
V. flavicornis and V. lactea might be readily distinguished from each 
other. 


Among the books noticed during the year, I may mention the com- 
pletion of the ‘Flora Hertfordiensis’ and the second volume of 
‘Cybele Britannica,’ as real contributions to the science of Botany, 
more especially in connexion with the British Islands. Dr. Balfour's 
‘Manual of Botany’ is a good educational work. 

My readers will, I doubt not, be pleased with the notice (iii. 717) of 
Mr. Miller’s new work, entitled ‘ Foot-prints of the Creator,’ a work 
the object of which would appear to be to act as an antidote to the 


b 


x 


once celebrated ‘ Vestiges of the Natural History of the Creation.’ 
My own opinion respecting the poetical hypothesis of Lamarck, as 
revived by the author of the ‘ Vestiges’ is very decided: I consider 
that the said author argues throughout on facts which he either as- 
sumes or takes for granted, and that such a proceeding can by no 
possibility lead to just conclusions. In fact, the book is a pleasing 
poem, and like other poems, it mixes a mass of fiction with a modi- 
cum of truth. Still I fear Mr. Miller is hardly the man to answer the 
author of the ‘Vestiges:’ he may be called the poet of geology as 
his fellow-labourer is the poet of philosophy: both possess a fatal 
facility of writing, and an elegant, fascinating style, that appeals 
strongly to the feelings but weakly to the judgment. 


EDWARD NEWMAN. 
9, Devonshire Street, Bishopsgate, 
December 12, 1849. 


CONTENTS. 


ANbDERSON, WILLIAM 

List of Plants naturalized near Bre- 
chin, Forfarshire, observed in 1848, 
477 

Basrineton, Cuar_ss C., M.A., F.LS. 

Reply to the Editorial Observations 
on the Robertsonian Saxifrages, at 
page 541, &c., 473; Remarks upon 
Mr. Watson’s Case between Mr. 
Andrews and Mr. Babington, 542 

Backuouss, JAMES, JUN. 

A few days in Canlochen Glen, &c.,441; 
Adiantum Capillus- Veneris not found 
in Derbyshire, 449 ; A few Remarks 
on the Proof of C. C. Babington’s 
Error respecting the Specific Dis- 
tinctness of Saxifraga Geum, ele- 
gans, hirsuta, &c., 475; A few 
Words in explanation of my “ Odd 
Mistake,” as mentioned by “ C.”, 
544 

Baker, JoHn G. 

Occurrence of Carex Persoonii in an 
unrecorded Locality in Yorkshire, 
738 

BENNETT, Epwarp T. 

Occurrence of Polypodium Phegopte- 

ris in Gloucestershire, 741 
Bartietr, Georce M. 

Inquiry respecting the Class and Or- 
der to which certain Genera of 
Plants belong, 554 

BENNETT, WILLIAM 

Notes on the Rarer Ferns observed in 
a fortnights Pedestrian Tour in 
North Wales ; with several new 
Localities for Asplenium lanceola- 
tum, 709; Note on the Discovery 
of Teucrium Botrys, 737 

Berry, Exinu 
- List of Rarer Plants growing near 
Doncaster and Huddersfield, 386 

Boyer, HENry 

On the Flowering of Plants, 489 
Bree, Rev. W. T., M.A. 

Blight on Oak Trees, 706 
BromFieELp, Wm. Arnotp, M.D., F.L.S. 

Catalogue of the Plants growing wild 
in Hampshire, with occasional Notes 
and Observotions on some of the 


more remarkable Species, 401, 490, 
519, 555, 571, 593, 617, 653, 685, 
741; Note on the flowering time of 
Mentha sylvestris, 439; Notice of 
Leersia oryzoides in Hampshire, 
681 
Brovcuton, Rev. D. 
Inquiry respecting Thalictrum Kochii, 
393 
Brown, Epwin 
Occurrence of Anacharis Alsinastrum 
{[Udora canadensis] in the Trent, 
Burton-on-Trent, 647 
C., REVIEWER 
Reply to certain Errors of Representa- 
tion, on the part of Mr. James 
Backhouse, Jun., in ‘ Phytologist, 
il. pp. 475-6, 509 
Firr, GEORGE 
Occurrence of Spherocarpus terres- 
tris near Fakenham, 489 
Frower, T. B., F.L.S. 
On the Wiltshire Locality for Lysima- 
chia thyrsiflora, 580 
Gipson, GrorGE Stacey, F.L.S. 
Mr. Newbould the discoverer of Meli- 
lotus arvensis, 540; Botanical Notes 
for 1849, 707 
Goutopine, F. H. 
New Locality for Hypericum linariifo- 
lium, 643 
Gray, PETER 
Additional List of the Rarer Plants 
growing near Colvend, 740 
Henstow, Rev. J. S., M.A., F.L.S., &e. 
On the Experiments of raising 
Primule, &c., from Seed, 651 
IncHBALD, PETER 
Naturalization of Petasites albus near 
Huddersfield, 445; Record of the 
Rarer Plants occurring in the neigh- 
bourhood of Adwick, four miles 
North of Doncaster, 445 
JERDON, ARCHIBALD 
Notes on a Botanical Excursion in 
Roxburghshire, 394 
Keys, Isaran W.N. 
Dates of the Flowering of British 
Plants, 459, 537 


Xi 


Krresy, Miss 

Occurrence of Udora in the Lene, 

near Nottingham, 387 
Kirk, THomas 

Notice of a New Locality (Watford 
Locks, Northamptonshire) for Ana- 
charis Alsinastrnm [Udora], 389; 
Notice of the Occurrence of Po- 
terium muricatum in Warwickshire, 
716 

Lawson, GEORGE 

Note on and Query respecting the 

Flowering of Mentha sylvestris, 388 
Lees, Epwin, F.L.S. 

Note on Rubus nitidus of the ‘ Rubi 
Germanici’ and on some specimens 
so named in the Smithian herba- 
rium, 397; On the Disappearauce 
of Plants from Localities once as- 
signed to them, 510 

LuxrorbD, GEORGE 

Occurrence of Doronicum plantagi- 

neum at Shooter’s Hill, 453 
Newman, Epwarp, F.LS. 

Nephrodium feenisecii of Lowe Iden- 
tical with Lastrea recurva, 455; At- 
tempt to Characterize an apparently 
undescribed Species of Lastrea, 678 ; 
Occurrence of Rare Ferns in the 
Snowdon District, 739 ; 

O eitvieE,W. M. 

Occurrence of Stereocaulon tomento- 

sum in Fruit, 555 


Porcuas, Wo. Henry 
Remarks on Glyceria fluitans and G. 
_ plicata, 734 

RussE.L, Mrs. 

Note on a List of Newbury Plants, 
716 

SIpEBOTHAM, JOSEPH 

Experiments on the Specific Identity 

of the Cowslip and Primrose, 703 
STEVENS, WILLIAM j 

Notes on the Flora of Dumfriesshire, 

390 ; Errata in the above, 452 
VaRENNE, E. G. 

Occurrence of Filago spatulata at In- 
worth, Essex, 385; Note on a few 
rare Plants occurring at Kelvedon, 
643 

Watson, Hewert C. 

Discovery of S. bicolor in Ireland, 453; 
Notes on certain British Plants for 
distribution by the Botanical So- 
ciety of London, in 1849, 478; Case 
of the Robertsonian Saxifrages be- 
tween Mr. Andrews and Mr. Ba- 
bington, 505; Reply to Mr. C. C. 
Babington’s Defence in the case of 
the Irish Saxifrages, 570 ; Who 
knows Viola canina? 635 

Woops, JosEpH, F.L.S. 
Remarks on the genus Atriplex, 587 


NOTICES AND EXTRACTS. 


London Journal of Botany, 83, 84; December, 1848, 450 
Paper on three supposed Species of Polystichum. By Professor Kunze, 455 


Abstract of a Paper by Professor Edward Forbes on some Peloria Varieties of Viola 
canina (Extracted from the Proceedings of the Linnean Society, xxxvi.), 457 
Flora Hertfordiensis; or a Catalogue of Plants found in the County of Hertford, with 
the Stations of the rarer Species. Part IV. By the Rev. R. H. Wess, 
M.A., and the Rev. W. H. Coreman, M.A., 461 
Hand-Book of British Ferns ; intended as a Guide and Companion to Fern Culture. 
By Tuomas Moors, Curator of the Botanic Garden of the Society of Apo- 
thecaries, 465 
The Elements of Botany. By M. Aprien bE Jussi£u, Translated by James HEw- 
ETson WI son, F.L.S., F.R.B.S., &c., &c. London: Van Voorst, Paternos- 
ter Row, 1849, 471 
The Letters of Rusticus on the Natural History of Godalming, 517 
On the Discovery of Udora or Anacharis in Berwickshire, in 1842, and again in 1849. 
By Dr. Grorce Joanston (Extracted from the Proceedings of the Ber- 
wickshire Naturalists’ Club), 540 
The Ancient Straits of Malvern. An Essay on the Former Marine Conditions which 
separated England and Wales, and an Account of the Probable Physical 
Changes by which the Principality has become united to Great Britain. By 
James Buckman, F.G.S., Professor of Geology and Botany in the Royal Ag- 
ricultural College ; Fellow of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh; Honorary 
Local Secretary of the Botanical Society of London; Honorary Member of 
the Cheltenham Literary and Philosohpical Society ; of the Gloucester Phi- 
losophical and Literary Society, &c. London: Longman, Brown, Green, 
and Longmans, 546 
The Sea-Side Book. By W.H. Harvey, M. D. London: Van Voorst, 1849, 549 
A Paper on the Study of Natural History. By W.D. Kine. Read at the Mecha- 
nic’s Institution at Sudbury, March 16, 1849. Sudbury: Wright, 1849, 565 
Manual of Botany ; being an Introduction to the Study of the Structure, Physiology 
and Classification of Plants. By Joun Hurron Batrour, M.D., &ce., Pro- 
fessor of Medicine and Botany in the University of Edinburgh, 581 
Count Suminski’s Recent Observations on the Reproduction of Ferns, 613 
The Rhododendrons of Sikkim Himalaya. By JosepH Darron Hooker, M.D., 
&c. With Drawings and Descriptions made on the Spot. Edited by Sir 
W. J. Hooxer, K.H., &c. Second Edition. London: Reeve, Benham 
and Reeve, 1849, 615 
The Rudiments of Botany: A Familiar Introduction to the Study of Plants. By 
Artruur Henrrey, F.L.S., Lecturer on Botany at St. George’s Hospital, 
author of Outlines of Structural and Physiological Botany. With Illustra- 
tive Woodcuts. London: Van Voorst, 1849, 647 
Cybele Britannica ; or British Plants and their Geographical Relations. By Hew- 
ETT Corrrett Watson. Vol. II. London: Longman & Co., 1849, 670 
Foot-prints of the Creator: or the Asterolepis of Stromness. By Hucu MitiEr. 
London : Johnstone and Hunter, 26, Paternoster Row, 1849, 717 


REPORTS OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 


Botanical Society of London, 396, 454, 488, 536, 564, 586, 610, 644, 669, 684, 717 
Dundee Naturalists’ Association, 444, 554, 586, 612, 644 


ADVERTISEMENT. 


‘Tue Puytotoaist’ will be continued both as a monthly and an 
annual publication. As a monthly, tt will contain thirty-two pages 
of letter-press, occasionally accompanied with figures of New British 
Plants; it will be on sale two days before the end of every month; 
and will be charged one shilling. As an annual tt will be sold on 
or about the 1st of December ; will contain twelve monthly numbers, 
bound and lettered uniformly with the present volume; and will be 
charged thirteen shillings. An alphabetical list of contributors ts 
published once in the year. 


THE PHYTOLOGIST FOR 1850. 
Pp. 745—1020. 


LONDON: 4 ( 
; 5 I 73 


PRINTED BY E. NEWMAN, DEVONSHIRE STREET, 


- BISHOPSGATE. 


THE 


PHYTOLOGIST: 


POPULAR 


BOTANICAL MISCELLANY. 


CONDUCTED BY 


EDWARD NEWMAN. 


VOLUME THE THIRD. 


(CONCLUDED). 


LONDON: 
JORN, VAN VOORST; PATERNOSTER ROW. 


M.DCCC.L. 


The smallest flower 
That twinkles through the meadow-grass, can serve 
For subject of a lesson ; aye, as well 
As the most gorgeous growth of Indian climes ; 
For love of nature dwells not in the heart 
Which seeks for things beyond our daily ken 
To bid it glow. It is in common life, 
In objects most familiar, we find 
Exhaustless matter for our privilege, 
Our glorious privilege of reading God 
Amid his bright creation. 
L. A. TWAMLEY. 


PREF A:‘C.E. 


THE British character with which from the beginning I have striven 
to invest this journal, has been remarkably developed during the present 
year, and [ believe this restriction has been a main cause of the very 
considerable increase in circulation which has taken place. The 
establishment of a somewhat rival journal, under the title of the 
‘ Botanical Gazette, although conducted with the same fairness, and 
absence of hostile expression, which I trust has invariably characterized 
the pages of the ‘ Phytologist, yet seemed likely to divide botanists 
into two sections, and establish a party in favour of each. I cannot 
find that this has been the case, and I regard the ‘ Gazette’ as likely 
to draw from the pages of the ‘ Phytologist’ only such purely tech- 
nical papers as previously were occasionally, but very unfrequently, 
found in its pages. One circumstance, however, connected with the 
‘Gazette’ I cannot avoid mentioning with regret. I allude to the fact 
that on its commencement the Botanical Society of Edinburgh ceased 
to send me reports of their meetings, while such reports were regularly 
supplied to the ‘ Gazette.’ Seeing that I was one of the earliest sub- 
scribers to the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, that I obtained for 
them a great number of other subscribers, and that I never subscribed 
to any other Botanical Society, this conduct certainly seems uncour- 
teous, some might say unjust. The Botanical Society of London has 
taken a directly opposite course, and has regularly transmitted an 
account of its proceedings, although I have never subscribed towards 
their expenses. I beg very cordially to thank Mr. Dennes, the ener- 
getic and indefatigable Secretary, for his continued kindness and 
attention in this matter. 


Vi 


The ‘ Phytologist’ for the present year is characterized by the 
value and extent of Dr. Bromfield’s paper, intituled a ‘ Catalogue of 
the Plants growing wild in Hampshire.’ Independently of the mass 
of general information conveyed under this title, Dr. Bromfield has 
conferred an important and lasting benefit on the science of British 
Botany, by reviewing, in a truly,philosophical and most truth-seeking 
spirit, the claims of certain disputed species to be regarded as true 
natives of this island. This talented botanist entirely ignores the fact 
of occasional cultivation as a sufficient ground for distrust ; and con- 
tends that if a species increases spontaneously, firmly maintaining its 
position in our woods or moors, under similar circumstances as regards 
latitude, soil and situation, to those in which it has always been found 
on the continent of Europe, and which have obtained for it an unques- 
tioned place in European floras, then it has an equal right to be 
admitted without question into our own. Dr. Bromfield’s observa- 
tions on Fritillaria Meleagris (Phytol. ili. 964) and Lilium Martagon 
(Id. 968) are worthy of the most careful study. Nothing can be more 
confused, contradictory and unsatisfactory, than the capricious deci- 
sions of our publishing botanists as regards the nativity of plants 
growing wild in Britain; and great praise is due to one who has 
ventured to treat the subject in so searching and logical a manner. 
The same distinguished botanist has for the first time laid down 
characters whereby the closely-allied Orchis bifolia and O. chlorantha 
may be distinguished from each other (Phytol. iii. 991). 


Mr. Watson has an admirably lucid paper, intituled ‘ Explanatory 
Notes on certain British Plants for distribution by the Botanical So- 
ciety of London, in 1850’ (Phytol. iii. 801). The plants noticed are 
the Viola canina group, Poterium muricatum, Melilotus arvensis, 
Fumaria agraria, Stachys ambigua, Sinapis Cheiranthus, Arenaria 
media, Lastrea uliginosa, Cystopteris fragilis, var. Dickeana, Hiera- 
cium sylvaticum, c. pictum, Polygala depressa, Atriplex patula-del- 
toidea, Bromus pseudo-velutinus, Pyrethrum inodorum, proliferous 
variety, and Hyacinthus non-scriptus with foliaceous bracts. 


The Rev. Mr. Bree, whose writings must, I am sure, be always 
read with delight and instruction, has three interesting papers. The 
first is called ‘Warwickshire Habitat for Gagea lutea’ (Phytol. iii. 
922). The second, ‘A Visit to the Lily Field, or Narcissus poeticus 
in Warwickshire’ (Phytol. iii. 945). In this contribution the extra- 
ordinary abundance of the beautifu] Narcissus in the locality described 
is very pleasingly set forth (Phytol. 111. 945). And the third, ‘ Note 
on Lastrea uliginosa’ (Phytol. iii. 1087). In the last, Mr. Bree pro- 
nounces this fern, which I had ventured to describe as new, to be 
identical with Lastrea spinosa, as he is accustomed to see it in his 
own immediate neighbourhood. He does not pronounce this judg- 
ment carelessly or hastily ; neither does he content himself with my 
own imperfect description; but has been at the trouble of obtaining 
a living plant from Mr. Kennedy, of Covent Garden, and has insti- 
tuted a fair and searching examination of its characters. On such a 
question as this I have the highest possible respect for Mr. Bree’s 
judgment: the great talent he has displayed in extricating rigida and 
recurva from the confused mass of species previously known as dila- 
tata of Smith, and spinulosa of Hooker, entitle him to our warmest 
praise. On the other hand, it seems fair also to state that Mr. Moore, 
of the Chelsea Botanic Garden, a gentleman who has made our Bri- 
tish ferns his peculiar study, and who has written with great success 
on this very subject, labels the fern in question, without doubt, as 
Lastrea cristata (see Phytol. iii. 802). It may, I think, however, be 
gathered from a careful study of the passages to which I have referred, 
that both these excellent botanists regard the fern rather as an aber- 
ration from the species named than as its typical form; and thus their 
opinions assimilate more nearly with each other, and also with what 
I have advanced on the subject, than at first sight appears to be 


the case. 


Mr. Bloomfield mentions (Phytol. iii. 943) the discovery of Orchis 
hircina in Suffolk, a circumstance of considerable interest ; and while 
writing of this rarest of British Orchidew, I will take the opportunity 
of recording the fact that James Potter, well known as a collector of 


vill 


British ferns and Orchidezx, and who, I regret to say, has lately died 
of consumption, brought to me for four successive years living speci- 
mens of Orchis hircina, with a round of virgin turf still investing the 
stem, which he asserted he had himself dug up in Kent. As Potter 
always refused to disclose the exact locality, I have hitherto declined 
saying anything on the subject, knowing that the extravagant price 
given by some botanists for this and other rarities holds out a pre- 
mium to deception, and thinking it possible poor Potter might have 
received the plants from abroad. I may, however, add that I never 
had any better reason for this uncharitable suspicion than the fact 
that botanists have uniformly failed in rediscovering the plant in, its 
Kentish station. 


Mr. Woods has a paper intituled ‘ Botanical Notes, the result of a 
Visit to Glamorgan and Monmouthshire in the latter part of July and 
beginning of August’ (Phytol. i. 1053). This paper is interspersed 
with numerous observations on the characters of supposed species of 
Rubi, and the introductory paragraph on this fashionable genus con- 


tains some highly valuable remarks, worthy of a very careful perusal. 


To Mr. Bladon, of Pont-y-Pool, we are indebted for a paper on 
the genus Hieracium, exhibiting a tabular view of the species as they 
stand in Fries’s ‘Symbol ad Historiam Hieraciorum’ and Mr. Ba- 
bington’s ‘ Manual of British Botany.’ This contribution might have 
been rendered still more useful had the author added more largely, 
and given more copious explanations, from his own resources ; for it 
is well known that few of our British botanists have paid so much 
attention to this difficult genus. A careful revision of the British 
species is still a great desideratum, and I hope Mr. Bladon may be 
induced to undertake it. By confining the attention to a limited 
group of this kind, much more may be effected even by a tyro in 
botany than can be achieved by the greatest proficient, as an infini- 
tesimal portion of the vast whole which he is desirous of grasping. 


Mr. Kirk has an interesting paper on Udora canadensis, as occurring 


ix 


in Watford Locks. This gentleman learned that a branch of the 
Market Harborough Canal was so full of this plant, “ that the passage 
of boats was impeded by it, and the canal necessitated to be cleared 
out once or twice a year, and that it had been so for many years” 
(Phytol. iii. 990). In connexion with this subject, Mr. Kirk well 
observes, “ How very remarkable that for so long a period this plant, 
in widely separated localities, should, with the single exception of 
Berwickshire, have totally escaped the notice of botanists.” I can- 
not resist the temptation I feel again to express my regret that Mr. 
Babington should have thought it necessary to give this plant another 
name, and more especially that the new name should be even partially 
retained, although our best botanists consider the plant absolutely 
identical with the North-American species. 


Mr. Thomson records the discovery of Lobelia urens in a wood 
near Ashford, in Kent (Phytol. iii. 1051). The only previously known 
British habitat of this conspicuous species is in Devonshire, and its 
occurrence in Kent is a circumstance of great botanical interest. I 
may add that Mr. Thomson most obligingly brought me a living spe- 
cimen from this locality, in order to convince me that the species 
was correctly named. 


Mr. Webb has a paper on the Allium Holmense of Ray (Phytol. iii. 
937), which he appears to consider identical with A. Porrum, and to 
be descended from the common leek, as cultivated in gardens: he 
also invites a further examination of the Steep-Holms’ plant, since it 
has been universally treated by botanists as Allium Ampeloprasum, 
a plant which appears to be absent from the western departments of 
France. 


Mr. Lees reports the occurrence of Atriplex hortensis in Worces- 
tershire (Phytol. iii. 1050), at the same time informing his readers 
that he finds it on made ground, and suggests that the seeds of this 
old olitory plant may have lain dormant for many years. The same 


b 


x 


botanist also communicates a paper on the ‘Botanical Features of the 
Great Orme’s Head’ (Phytol. iti. 869). 


Mr. Keys, of Plymouth, contributes (Phytol. iii. 869) a list of ‘ Plants 
found in Devonshire and Cornwall, in addition to those contained in 
Jones’s ‘ Flora Devoniensis, and in Art. LII. of Part 1 of the ‘ Phy- 
tologist’.’ The list contains thirty-one species, but I suspect that some 
of them, as Datura Stramonium and Polemonium ceruleum, must be 
regarded rather in the light of intentional omissions on the part of 
former botanists, than as additions to the Devonian flora. 


The other contributors of original papers are Mr. James Backhouse, 
Mr. Alfred W. Bennett, Mr. W. Bennett, Mr. Buckman, Mr. De la 
Chaumette, the Rev. Mr. Douglas, Mr. B. Flower, Mr. Holland, Mr. 
Hussey, Mr. Luxford, Mr. Ogilvie, Mr. Oliver, Mr. Roby, and Mr. 
Withers, all of them recording the observations made during botanical 
excursions, or some facts of interest connected with the science; and 
I must not omit to notice, although recorded only on the wrapper, the 
discovery of Cyclamen Hederefolium on our southern coast, near 
Hastings, by Mr. W. W. Saunders ; of Lycopodium annotinum in a 
second Caernarvonshire station, by Mr. W. W. How; and of Cystop- 
teris montana a third time in Scotland, by Mr. Borrer and Dr. Walker- 
Arnott. 


The reports of the Botanical Society of London contain a number 
of interesting records. I would particularly cite the discovery of 
Lilium pyrenaicum between South Molton and Molland, in Devon- 
shire, by Mr. George Maw (Phytol. iii. 988), and that of Naias flexilis 
in a pond near Roundstone, Connemara, Ireland, by Mr. Daniel Oli- 
ver, Jun. (Phytol. iii. 1088). 


It is well known to the majority of my readers that I am indebted 
to an abler botanist than myself for those notices of new works to 
which the signature “C.” is affixed. One of these, intituled “Notice 
of the ‘ Tourist’s Flora’” (Phytol. iii. 1042), has, I regret to find, been 


xl 


thought unfair by the author reviewed, and has led him to publish a 
reply (dd. 1085). In distinctly stating that the notice in question is 
not my own, I by no means desire to shrink from every responsibility. 


we.” of. a 


The public has no rule for separating the anonymous 
reviewer from the actual and avowed editor, although the latter may 
possess neither the talent nor the knowledge to write the article in 
question ; and I therefore adopt as my own the said review, and nei- 
ther evade nor extenuate the responsibility incurred. Regarding, 
then, the review of the ‘ Tourist’s Flora’ as my own until another shall 
claim its paternity, I think it right to say that I extremely regret the 
use of such terms as “ false” and “ faithless” as applied to that work 
(I cannot admit that they are applied to its author), because, although 
in the multiplicity of the statements it contains, some may not be per- 
fectly correct or perfectly trustworthy, yet I believe such exceptions 
to arise solely from the difficulty of attaining perfect accuracy, and 
therefore not deserving the epithets in question. On the other hand, 
I cannot but regret that Mr. Woods should have stated his objections 
in the manner he has done. “The whole charge against me,” says 
Mr. Woods, “ was, that I had not given certain habitats of plants, 
when I knew them, or ought to have known them, since they had 
been published in the works of Mr. H. C. Watson.” Now the 
reviewer, as an example of insufficient habitat, cites Lycopodium 
annotinum, and of erroneous habitat, Lastrea foenisecii, plants the 
habitats of which Mr. Watson, as far as I am aware, has nowhere 
given. 

The other books noticed during the present year are three: ‘A 
Manual of the British Marine Alge,’ by W. H. Harvey, M.D.; ‘A 
Flora of Leicestershire, comprising the Flowering Plants and Ferns 
indigenous to the County,’ by Mary Kirby, with Notes by her Sister. 
‘ Entwickelungs Geschichte der Farrmkriuter, von J. Grafen Lesc- 
zyc-Suminski. The first of these has taken its station among the 
standard publications of the day; the last is one of those German 
wonders which, whether intrinscally true or somewhat poetical, we 
are too apt in this country to regard with distrust. It is intended to 


resume the notice at an early period, but the testing of Suminski’s 


Xil 


observations, by an examination of the objects themselves, is attended 
with considerable labour, and requires a large share of patience and 
perseverence; and as it is highly important that a premature judg- 
ment on this most inter€sting question should not appear in the pages 
of the ‘ Phytologist,’ I feel confident that my readers will pardon what 
may appear an uncalled-for delay in the completion of a literary 
notice. ‘The theory has been condemned on the continent by Schlei- 
den, and adopted in this country by a reviewer in a Quarterly 
Journal of Medicine; but from a perusal of the judgment pronounced 
by both these writers I am led to doubt whether either has possessed 
the means of testing Suminski’s accuracy. A difficulty presents itself 
on the very threshold of the inquiry. Suminski describes certain 
actions as taking place within a cell, the walls of which are fleshy 
and perfectly opaque. Now it is remarkable that neither his advo- 
cate nor his detractor explains how they obtained a view of the inte- 
rior; neither does anything they have written justify the conclusions 
at which they have respectively arrived. 


On a former occasion I expressed an opinion in favor of those 
papers which record the observations made during a_ botanical 
ramble. I entertain precisely the same opinion of them still. I 
consider that such papers afford an agreeable and convenient mode 
of communicating our thoughts to a larger circle than can be reached 
by a private letter; and the points to be kept in view in penning 
them, are, fist, to render them instructive, by making known new 
stations, pointing out geological relations, restricting or extending 
the supposed range of variation in a species, and, in fact, adding in 
any manner to our previous knowledge; and, secondly, by never 
reciting as discoveries such stations for plants as were previously 
generally known, unless it be with a view of recording that the 
species still exists in the described locality. It would not be difficult 
to select from the pages of the ‘ Phytologist’ localities recorded as 
new, although they have previously appeared in ‘ English Botany,’ 
the ‘ British Flora,’ both ‘ Botanist’s Guides,’ and ‘Cybele Britannica.’ 


This seems to me objectionable, and certainly implies a want of 


xiii 


acquaintance with the works in question. The last-named work, 
being last also in date, contains, as far as it has yet gone, a digested 
summary of the stations published in all the rest, in addition to the 
mass of information conveyed in the ‘ Phytologist,’ and the result of 
the author’s personal observations during his excursions. Thus the 
topography of our plants has become patent to all inquirers; and to 
repeat without comment prior observations, implies either a want of 
care or a want of courtesy. I do not hesitate to believe that the 
first is invariably the case. I am, however, of the decided opinion 
that a local or comital enumeration of species affords the best of all 
opportunities for communicating such casual observations as might 
and must ever occur in botanical conversation, and which certainly 
give a chief zest to the pursuit; and [ recommend this plan in pre- 
ference to all others, well knowing how superficial is the idea ofa local 
flora which one obtains by means of a hasty ramble, compared with 
that resulting from a long residence and intimate acquaintance with 
the neighbourhood described. How many tracts throughout the king- 
dom would repay a minute examination !—and how many botanists 
are there who have both leisure and ability to perform the task! I 
hope the hint will not be lost, but that many who read these observa- 
tions will be induced thereby to become the botanical historians of 
their respective homes. 


In conclusion, I beg to offer my very sincere thanks to those bota- 
nists who have so kindly and cordially supplied me with contributions, 
and at the same time I most earnestly solicit their continued assis- 
tance. I know not how to state more emphatically than I have 
already done the estimation in which I hold the slightest fact con- 
nected with Natural History. It matters not how soon or how 
entirely the discoverer or recorder may be forgotten: the fact remains 
for the instruction of all ages. Thus the ternary arrangement of 
the floral envelopes in a great proportion of the endogens; the quater- 
nary and quinary arrangement in large orders of exogens; the strict 
analogy between regular and irregular corollas, so beautifully ex- 
emplified by the occasional return of the latter to the former, as in 


X1V 


the pelorian snapdragons and violets; the extreme rarity of instances 
in which any species of plant produces in its corolla the three usual 
colours, two being the utmost variation in which nature seems dis- 
posed to indulge ;—these and a hundred other instances might be 
adduced to prove the utility of recording facts: directly they are made 
patent they become part and parcel of the science; so obvious, 
indeed, that they are never in future to be overlooked, though 
formerly unknown to all, and even now escaping the notice of all but 
the instructed. It rarely, indeed, falls to our lot in the present day 
to be the first to notice facts like those I have here incidentally men- 
tioned; neither do we all possess the discriminating power of 
originally detecting such facts. We cannot all be Robert Browns, 
but we can all add our mite to the general mass of knowledge, and 


we owe this return for the instruction we have received. 


EDWARD NEWMAN. 
9, Devonshire St., Bishopsgate, 


December 12, 1850. 


CONTENTS: 


Backnousek, JAMEs, JUN. 

Some Account of a Botanical Trip in 

Scotland, 768 
BENNET, ALFRED W. 

Notes on the more interesting Flower- 
ing Plants gathered in North 
Wales, in September, 1849, 774 

BENNETT, WILLIAM 

Discovery of Epipactis ovalis in Here- 
fordshire, with Notes on the more 
interesting Plants found in a day’s 
Excursion on the Great and Little 
Dowards, 856 

Buiapon, JAMES 

On the British Species of Hieracium 
contained in the ‘Symbole ad 
Historiam Hieraciorum’ of Fries, 
995 

Bioomrie.p, E. N. 

Discovery of Orchis hircina in Suffolk, 

942 
Bree, Rev. W. T., M.A. 

Warwickshire Habitat for Gagea lutea, 
922 ; A Visit tothe Lily Field, or 
Narcissus poeticus in Warwick- 
shire, and a Note on Narcissus 
lobularis, 945; Note on Lastrea 
uliginosa, 1087 

BromriEtp, Wn. Arnotp, M.D., F.L.S. 

A Catalogue of the Plants growing 
wild in Hampshire, with occa- 
sional Notes and Observations on 
some of the more remarkable Spe- 
cies, 745, 793, 817, 882, 897, 
951, 961, 1002, 1025, 1061, 1098; 
Some Remarks on the Specific 
Characters of the Greater and 
Smaller Butterfly Orchises, (Pla- 
tanthera chlorantha and P.bifolia) 
991 

Buckman, JAMES 

New Habitat for Thlaspi perfoliatum, 

942 


CuauMETTE, H. L. DE ta 

Note on a remarkable Monstrosity in 
a Specimen of Verbascum nigrum, 
1088 

Dovetas, Rev. R. C. 

Note on Sagina procumbens with 

double flowers, 1000 
FLoweEr, Tuomas Brucgs, F.L.S. 

On the Locality for Tulipa sylvestris 
at Bitten, Gloucestershire, 854 ; 
On the Occurrence of Asarum 
europeum in Wiltshire, 868 

Hottanp, Roserr 

Remarks upon a few of the rarer Plants 

found in Cheshire, 863 
Hussey, James 

Note on the return of Corollas normally 

Irregular to a Regular Form, 949 
Keys, Isatan W. N. 

Plants found in Devonshire and Corn- 
wall, in addition to those con- 
tained in Jones’s ‘ Flora Devoni- 
ensis, and in Art. LII. of Part 1 
of the ‘ Phytologist,’ 1022 

Kirk, THomas 

Anacharis alsinastrum of Babington at 

Watford Locks, 989 
Lees, Epwiy, F.L.S. 

On the Botanical Features of the Great 
Orme’s Head, with Notices of 
some Plants observed in other 
parts of North Wales during the 
Summer of 1849, 869; On the 
Appearance of Atriplex hortensis, 
Linn., near Worcester, 1050 

Luxrorp, Georeg, A.L.S. 
Note on Agraphis nutans, 994 
Newnan, Epwarp, F.L.S. 

Note on an Aberration in the Floral 

Envelopes of a Fuchsia, 950 
Oartvie, W. M. 

New Station for Mentha sylvestris in 

Glen Ogilvy, 1051 


XV1 


OuivER, DANIEL, JUN. 
Note on Serratula tinctoria, Alsine 
stricta, and a species of Woodsia, 
775 
Rosy, JoHNn 
Remarks on a Narcissus found near 
Malvern, 921 
Tuomson, WILLIAM 
On the Occurrence of Lobelia urens in 
Kent, 1051 
Watson, Hewert Cotrre tt, F.L.S. 
Explanatory Notes on certain British 
Plants for distribution by the Bo- 
tanical Society of London, in 1850; 
Inquiry for Celtic and other An- 
cient Names of the doubtfully 
native Trees and Shrubs, 941 
Wess, Puitip Barker, F.L.S. 
On the Allium Holmense of Ray, 929 


Witson, WILLIAM 

Additional Note on the Ovule of Vis- 
cum album, 862; Note on the 
Ovary of Cucurbitacez, 862 ; Note 
on the Ovule of Orchis Morio, 
943 

Wiruers, R. 

Figures and Description of Scirpus 
Savii, S. § V.; 8. monostachys, 
Hook. ; and Scirpus setaceous, L., 
865 

Woops, Josrpu, F.L.S. 

Botanical Notes, the result of a Visit 
to Glamorgan and Monmouth- 
shire in the latter part of July 
and heginning of August, 1850, 
1053; Observations on the No- 
tice of the ‘ Tourist’s Flora’ (Phy- 
tol. iii. 1042), 1085 


NOTICES AND EXTRACTS. 


The Botanical Gazette, a Monthly Journal of Botany, Edited by Arthur Henfiey, 
PALS: ce: 2 776, 814, 854, 867, 939, 987, 1001, 1048, 1086, 1120 
On the Injuries sustained by certain Plants from the Attacks of parasitic Fungi, with 


particular reference to the Cause of the Potato Disease. 


F.LS. 


Double-flowered Variety of Matricaria Chamomilla. By J. Hose, F.RS.&LS. 784 
Observations on certain Species of the Natural Order Cycadez. 


By F. J. Grawam, 
783 


By James YaTEs, 


F.RS., F.L.S. : : : : : . 785 
A Manual of the British Marine Alge. By W.H. Harvey, M.D., &c. London, 
Van Voorst, 1849 E ; ; i : 789 
On the Growth of Grass. By W.S. Lzonarp . : 792 


Hooker’s Journal of Botany . 


Curious Species of Cypripedium. 


811, 855, 867, 940, 988, 1001, 1048, 1086, 1120 
On the Development of the Ovule in Orchis Morio, L. By Arruur HENFREY, 
F.L.S. : : : A : 


814 
881 


Relations of Plants to Subjacent Rocks, in the Chain of ‘the Jura, &e. Extracted 


from Mons. Jules Thurmann’s ‘ Essai de Phytostatique Appliqué a la Chaine 


du Jura, &c. 


918 


A Flora of Leicestershire, comprising the Flowering Plants and Ferns indigenous to 


the County. By Mary Kirsy, with Notes by her Sister. 1850 923 
Entwickelungs Geschichte der Farrnkranter. Von J. Graren Lesczyc-SuMINsKI. 
925 


Berlin, 1848 
The Tourist’s Flora: 


the British Islands, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and the 
By JoserH Woops, F.A.S., &c.. ; 4 


Islands. 


a Descriptive Catalogue of the Flowering Plants and Ferns of 


Italian 
. 1042 


PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 


Botanical Society of London 


774, 829, 855, 924, 948, 988, 1020, 1088 


THE PHYTOLOGIST. 


A Catalogue of the Plants growing wild in Hampshire, with occa- 
stonal Notes and Observations on some of the more remarkable 
Species. By WiLLIAM ARNOLD BrRoMFIELD, M.D., F.L.S., &c. 


(Continued from page 744). 


Plantago major. In meadows, pastures, waste places and by road- 
sides ; everywhere extremely common. 

A few specimens of P. Psyllium, arenaria or Cynops (I am unable 
to distinguish between these three in the dried state), were found on 
the loose sand of the Dover at Ryde, in May, 1848, by Thos. Brown, 
Esq., with one of which he kindly presented me. The specimen is 
small and stunted, and agrees better with P. Cynops, I think, than 
with the other two species. Both this and P. Psyllium are rather 
southern plants, and the Ryde specimens, to whichever of the three 
kinds mentioned above they belong, have in all probability been casu- 
ally introduced, and have since disappeared or been eradicated by 
recent improvements. PP. arenaria, nevertheless, may reasonably be 
expected to prove a British species, as it inhabits many of the neigh- 
bouring countries of the continent as far north as Hamburgh. 

LInttorella lacustris. On the margins and in the shallows of pools, 
lakes, canals, &c.; rare? Not yet noticed in the Isle of Wight. 
* Wolmer and Frensham Ponds are in a manner paved with it ;” Mr. 
Wm. Pamplin. I have seen it in the former station. Wolmer Forest 
and Shortheath; Dr. T. Bell Salter!!! Plentiful in Sowley Pond 
(three miles E. of Lymington) “in large beds quite under water;” Mr. 
Robert Jefferd!! Probably frequent on the old forest district of the 
county. 

Oss.—I omit Amaranthus Blitum from the catalogue of the plants 
of this county, although it has been indicated to me by the Rey. E. 
M. Sladen as growing at Warnford, near West Meon, because I think 
it very possible that some species of Chenopodium (probably C. po- 
lyspermum) was mistaken for it by Mr. 8S. It has inadvertently crept 

VOL. II. 5 D 


746 


into the list of Hants plants in the ‘ New Botanist’s Guide,’ where the 
station at Ripton must be expunged, as on referring to the authority 
cited, that of the ‘ English Flora,’ it will be seen that Ripton in Hunt- 
ingdonshire is the place specially mentioned by Smith. Still, A. Bli- 
tum is not an wilikely plant to occur within the county on waste 
ground, dung-hills, and in gardens; I am told it is persistent within 
certain limits, and by no means rare on the Surrey side of the Thames 
near London, at Wandsworth, if I recollect rightly, and as a weed in 
garden ground. <A. retrof{lexus would appear to have occurred (wild ?) 
in Hertfordshire. It is frequent in the north of France, and I have 
remarked cither this or A. sylvestris in plenty at Paris formerly. Po- 
lycnemum arvense, an inconspicuous plant of dry, sandy fields, be- 
longing to this order (Amaranthacex) | should not think strange to 
hear had been discovered in England. It is indigenous to France, 
Belgium, and most parts of Germany. 

Schoberia maritima (Chenopodium maritimum). On muddy sea- 
shores, in salt-marshes, and about the mouths of tide rivers; very 
common both here and on the mainland of the county. Plentiful 
along the Medina betwixt Cowes and Newport. Brading harbour and 
Newtown salt marshes; abundantly. Profusely in a salt-marsh mea- 
dow at Springfield, near Ryde, which is covered with this species ex- 
clusively. Shores of Portsmouth and Langston harbours, Hayling 
Island, &c., abundantly. Var. @. Larger, stems spreading, procum- 
bent, almost woody, root thick, ligneous, biennial? (Wahlenb. FI. 
Suec. ed. altera, i. p. 168, supra). In loose sand at Springfield ; plen- 
tifully. In Newtown marshes, as about Newtown Saltern, &c., abun- 
dantly. 

Schoberia fruticosa (Chenopodium fruticosum) should be looked for 
along the coast of Hants. It grows in profusion on a part of Poole 
harbour called the Baiter, on a neck of land which is nearly an island 
at high water, and is particularly abundant there near a small building 
once a powder-magazine, and still known as the powder-house. On 
this peninsula it forms large bushes, three or four feet high, with ex- 
cessively hard and perfectly igneous stems; some of the oldest have 
existed before Dr. Salter, who is a native of Poole, can remember, and 
I cut down a stem as thick as my wrist some years ago, which was 
nearly black with age. The plants do not grow on mud, but on the 
diluvial deposit of the Poole basin, mixed, perhaps, with a proportion 
of sea-sand. It may very possibly be found on some part of our 
Hampshire line of coast, which, with its various indentations, is of con- 
siderable extent, and has yet been but imperfectly and partially ex- 


747 


plored botanically by myself and others. The genus Schoberia has 
been properly separated from Chenopodium by the spiral embryo and 
want of albumen, as well as by the great difference in habit, in both 
which it approaches Salsola. Yet it is remarkable, that whilst Smith 
removed Sch. fruticosa from Chenopodium to Salsola, he retained 8. 
maritima amongst the Chenopodia, and so very unnaturally separated 
generically two plants having the most intimate specific relationship. 
The seeds of Schoberia maritima are horizontal, thrice as large as m 
Schoberia fruticosa, orbicular-reniform, considerably flattened, with a 
somewhat indistinct border, purplish black, shining, and very finely 
and copiously reticulate-striate. In Schoberia fruticosa the seeds are 
vertical, nearly globose, scarcely, if at all compressed, without a bor- 
der, jet black, exquisitely polished, and, under a high magnifier only, 
appearing faintly reticulated. In both species the embryo is equally 
spiral, surrounding but little or no albumen. Mogquin-Tandon in his 
‘Monographia Chenopodearum’ -places both our native species of 
Schoberia in the genus Sueda, but in different sections, whilst, in his 
later arrangement of the order Salsolacez, forming Part 13 of Decan- 
dolle’s Prodromus, he disunites them again generically, as Smith had 
done, placing Schoberia fruticosa, as before, in Sueda, and transferring 
Schoberia maritima to his own new genus Chenopodina, mainly on 
account of the horizontal position of the seeds, which in the other is 
vertical, as we have just now seen. But the intimate alliance between 
these two species proves how artificial is the generic character found- 
ed on the position of the seed, which in some Chenopodiums, for in- 
stance, C. glaucum, is vertical in the lateral and horizontal in the 
terminal flower of each cluster. 

Salsola Kali. On sandy sea-shores ; frequent in the few localities 
fitted for its production in the Isle of Wight, and I believe along the 
coast of the county generally. Plentiful on Bembridge and St. He- 
len’s Spits. Sandown Bay; Mr. E. Lees in New Bot. Guide Suppl. 
(1 am not sure of having seen it there myself). Very abundantly 
along the south shore of Hayling Island, if I recollect right, and in 
Portsea Island, but I quote from memory, finding no entry amongst 
my notes to that effect of a plant so generally common as this. I did 
not remark it, however, on the sand-hills at Christchurch Head, or 
on the shore to the eastward of Muddiford, both which stations I 
found unusually deficient even in the commoner sea-side plants. 

Chenopodium olidum. In dry waste places about towns and vil- 
lages, and especially at the foot of walls and amongst rubbish, but 
certainly not common in Hants. Very rare in the Isle of Wight. 


748 


Rather abundantly at the foot of an old and long wall at East Cowes, 
where I have known it for at least ten years; but the species was first 
observed and pointed out to me in this island by my friend the Rev. 
Darwin Fox, growing in his garden at Binstead, but very sparingly, 
and he suspected introduced by accident from seed brought by him 
out of Derbyshire. Observed for some years past under a wall in Mr. 
Butt’s garden, at Ryde, though sparingly, by Dr. Salter!! At Gos- 
port here and there; rather plentifully under the wall of Trinity 
Church Cemetery. At Fareham, under a wall, October, 1848. Fare- 
ham, Wallington; Mr. W. L. Notcutt !!! By the Magazine at South 
Sea Castle, Portsea Island; Mr. Jacobs!!! and probably in many other 
places in the county. More frequent usually along the coast than in- 
land, but I have seen it plentifully at Guildford, in Surrey, and other 
interior towns. The smell of this repulsive little species has been 
compared to that of stale salt fish. I can liken it to nothing so much 
as to the odour with which our common snake (Natrix torquata) as- 
sails the olfactories of the zealous herpetologist who ventures on its 
capture in the breeding-season, and who is more to be pitied than 
the captive, as he vainly tries with soap and water to purify his hands 
and clothes from the slimy exudation that bewrays them. The smell 
of the plant is nearly as difficult to be got rid of, and I recollect once 
sending a specimen to a female friend of my own, who was so annoyed 
by its offensiveness, that my well-meant contribution to her collection 
of plants, instead of being received with thanks, was thrown by her 
out of window without farther ceremony. Gerarde (em. p. 327) is 
pleased to be facetious on the subject of this plant, but the nature of 
his humour is probably of such a kind as makes it safer to take its 
excellence for granted, rather than more fully to appreciate its point 
by a too nice inquiry into the import of his remarks. This, unlike 
the generality of small annuals, is very persistent in its several 
stations. 

Chenopodium polyspermum. In low, damp, muddy places, waste 
ground, gardens, about dung-hills, and even in woods. By no means 
unfrequent in the Isle of Wight, though it cannot be called here a 
common plant, unless relatively, as compared with most other species 
of the genus with us. Unlike the last, it is fugacious in its habitats, 
seldom remaining long in one station without becoming scarce, or va- 
nishing altogether to appear elsewhere. Cultivated fields near Ryde, 
Binstead, and, I understand, a weed in the garden at Pondwell. Fre- 
quent on old manure heaps at Sandown. About Shanklin, in the 
garden of the Shanklin (late Williams’s) Hotel. In a wood (Sham- 


749 


bler’s Copse) near Cowes. Waste ground betwixt Yarmouth and 
Shalfleet. By the lower farm at Ningwood. Merston, plentifully, 
1847. Abundant in 1844 in several places, as Godshill, Newchurch, 
Shanklin, Wraxall, America, &c. Northwood Park; Miss G. Kil- 
derbee !!! East bank of the Medina below Copping’s Bridge (New- 
port); Mr. W. D. Snooke (Fl. Vect.): and in various other places 
occasionally. 1am unable to state its frequency in mainland Hants, 
but as far as my observation has yet extended, it appears to be rarer 
considerably than in the Isle of Wight, as I have seldom lighted on it 
myself, nor have I but in one instance received notice or specimens 
from others. At Iford, near Christchurch, October 2nd, 1849. He- 
ron Court; Mr. J. Curtis in litt. and Brit. Entom. vol. ix. tab. 402, 
ex loco. It is not mentioned in Mr. Notcutt’s List of the Plants 
about Fareham (Phytol. ii. p. 201), but is probably dispersed perhaps 
sparingly throughout the county. The var. acutifolium, E. B. xxi. t. 
1481, is the prevailing, if not the only form of this plant with us in 
Hants. 

Chenopodium urbicum, var. intermedium. Next to the following (C. 
album) this is by far the most common species of the genus in Hants, 
at least in the Isle of Wight. Its usual stations are on dung-hills, 
rich waste ground in the outskirts of towns (hence its specific name) 
and on village greens, but most particularly in and around farmyards. 
Abundant at Troublefield and Ninham farms, near Ryde. Common 
on St. Helen’s Green and at Sandown, about the cottages and farms. 
At Ventnor and Niton. By Yafford Mill. Grange by Brixton. At 
Adgeton, Arreton, Chillerton, Hasely, Brook, Compton, Palmers, Up- 
per Morton, Yaverland, Rill and other farms, often in great abun- 
dance. Probably frequent throughout the county, though I have 
myself noticed it as yet in but few places on the mainland. At Blash- 
ford Green, Ibbetley, and elsewhere betwixt Ringwood and Fording- 
bridge. By Sowley farm. Wallington (near Fareham); Mr. W. L. 
Notcutt! Var. 6. Spikes ramose, subcymose ; upper leaves nearly 
entire. In the farm-yard at Sheepwash, by Appledurcombe, and in a 
lane close to Yaverland farm. At Yafford Mill, near Shorwell. The 
Rev. G. E. Smith has observed the same variety in Sussex, but I sus- 
pect it to be a monstrosity, and to arise from a diseased state of the 
plant, having never seen this form of inflorescence on large and vigo- 
rous individuals, but only on small discoloured and unhealthy ones. 
The inflorescence in this variety resembles that of C. murale. It has 
come up in St. John’s garden, near Ryde, from seed, J believe, of the 
common form, nor is the transformation of the inflorescence from 


750 


the simple spiked to the subeymose character, complete in these ca- 
sual specimens. 

Chenopodium album. In cultivated and waste ground, fields, gardens, 
on rubbish, dunghills, &c., most abundantly everywhere. Var. 8. 
viride, C. viride, Z. Leaves oblong-lanceolate, more or less (often 
quite) entire, inflorescence cymose, racenies nearly leafless, straight or 
recurved. Common. Obs.—C. ficifolium must be expunged from 
the Hampshire flora, its occurrence at Wallington, near Fareham, as 
given by Mr. Notcutt in his Catalogue of the Plants of that vicinity 
(Phytol. ii. 211), being, as Mr. N. informs me, a mistake on his part. 
C. opulifolium, a species too closely, I should fear, akin to C. album, 
and differing chiefly in its broader, bluniter, almost three-lobed leaves, 
will probably be found in England eventually. 

— murale. In waste and cultivated places, kitchen gardens, 
under walls and in bye-streets of towns, on dunghills, rubbish-heaps, 
&c., but not common. Rare in the Isle of Wight. At East Cowes 
in several places; sparingly. At Yarmouth and Ningwood. In 
Northwood Park; very sparingly, September, 1844. Rather frequent 
at Newchurch, in the neglected cottagers’ gardens, and at the vicar- 
age. Under the rocky cliff on the right-hand side of the road from 
St. Lawrence to Niton, a little beyond the turning off (at the shoot) 
to Whitwell, in plenty, growing with Beta maritima; Miss O. Had- 
field! I am induced to believe there must have been some mistake 
in the locality, as, although the specimen is an indubitable one of C. 
murale, I have never seen this species growing beyond the bounds of 
cultivation, or at least remote from the abodes of man. The station 
in question is under a mass of rock, high up on the steep bank above 
the road, in a perfectly wild, retired situation, and on visiting it for 
the purpose of verifying the correctness of the habitat, I found no 
trace of the Chenopodium, whilst of the Beta there was still abun- 
dance. At Newport, Freshwater, Sandown, &c., in plenty; Mr. W. 
D. Snooke (in Fl. Vect.) ; but there is, I think, no doubt that C. ur- 
bicum was the plant intended in that little work, as C. murale has 
never been seen by me in the alleged places, and so far from being 
plentiful, the plant is remarkably sporadic with us wherever it does 
occur. Apparently not very unfrequent along the coast of the main- 
land, and its two adjacent islands of Portsea and Hayling. In the 
latter I found it last year and this, in considerable plenty on a bank of 
sea-weed, close behind the ferryman’s house, opposite Cumberland 
Fort, and have picked it in the former at Milton. In considerable 
plenty on an extensive plot of ground about half a mile or less inland 


751 ° 


from Southsea Castle, evidently former garden ground, but now waste, 
and railed off for building-lots, growing with abundance of Mercuria- 
lis annua, and a number of plants of the variety of Datura Stramonium 
with purple stems and flowers (D. 'Tatula, Z.), which last I had never 
seen naturalized in England till now, November 5th, 1849. At Clay- 
hall, betwixt Gosport and Alverstoke. At Lymington, Christchurch, 
and at Avon, near Sopley, 1849. Lower Quay, Fareham; Mr. W. 
L. Notcutt! A wideiy-dispersed species, which I have gathered at 
New York, and notably about Norfolk, in Virginia. C. hybridum may 
with reason be expected in the county. Dr. Salter finds it in his father’s 
garden at Poole, but I should think it had become naturalized there 
through casual introduction. Also native to America as well as Ku- 
rope: I have collected it near Montreal, and in Canada West. 
Chenopodium rubrum. Yn similar places with the last, but a paludal 
and even sylvestral species occasionally, not as that merely ruderal, 
septal or viatical, occurring in low muddy or wet sandy places, salt- 
marshes or margins of rivers and ponds; more commonly, however, 
in rich waste ground about houses, farms, and on dunghills, &c. A 
very rare species in the Isle of Wight. On a manure-heap by Gate- 
house farm, a few miles from Ryde, sparingly, October 7th, 1844. In 
considerable plenty on an old compost-heap by Ningwood Green 
farm, near Shalfleet, August Ist, 1845. In a truly wild and natural 
station on the half-dried-up muddy edge of the pond near Harding- 
shoot farm, in great plenty, September 30th, 1844. In the two for- 
mer stations the plant is now, I believe, quite extinct, but it may be 
found with certainty every year at Hardingshoot, in tolerably dry sea- 
sons, when the water has left the flat margin of the pond uncovered, 
but in a most remarkably dwarf state, the largest specimens being 
under two inches high, and many can be covered with the tip of the 
finger. The stems are either quite simple or branching from the root, 
and prostrate on the mud to the extent of one, two, or even three 
inches. When sown or removed into a garden, the plants are deve- 
loped into the usual erect form of the species as seen in waste ground, 
or on dunghills. Freshwater Gate; Mr. W. D. Snooke in FI. Vect. ; 
but I have never seen it there, nor have I any station to give for this 
species as yet on mainland Hants, although its occurrence there can 
hardly be doubted. This species has been separated from Chenopo- 
dium and removed to Blitum, but it has neither the habit nor the en- 
larged succulent perianth of that genus; the stamens vary from one or 
two to five (mostly, I believe, three), the seed is partly vertical, partly 
horizontal, as in some other true Chenopodiums, of which it has per- 


752 


fectly the habit and appearance, closely approaching C. urbicum, 
which is often mistaken for it. C. botryoides, a species I have no 
practical acquaintance with, should be looked for along the sea-coast. 

Chenopodium glaucum. In low, rich, waste ground and on dung- 
hills, &c.; very rare. Abundantly on a piece of low waste ground at 
Thorley, near Yarmouth, just outside of Thorley farm-yard, near the 
church, betwixt the churchyard and the high road, 1837. On an old 
manure-heap in the park at Swainston, with stems quite procumbent, 
August, 1839, sparingly. Still there, and in somewhat increased 
quantity, in September, 1842, but lost, by the removal of the heap, in 
1843. Springing again in 1844 in some plenty from the ground 
where the heap had stood, but not since observed. At Thorley this 
rare British species is fully established, and may be obtained every 
year, but is sometimes covered under the compost from the adjoining 
farm, which is periodically deposited on the spot, and then the plant 
can only be gathered in small quantity on the contiguous muddy soil, 
but when the bulk of manure is small, the vacant space is covered 
with this Chenopodium. I am not aware of any station for the pre- 
sent species on the mainland of the county. In the specimens from 
this island I find the central flowers of each cluster or glomerule ele- 
vated on a very short and thick peduncle, and bearing a horizontal 
seed, the lateral flowers clustered around the footstalk of the central 
one, and carrying vertical seeds.* Perianth three or four-cleft. I 
found this species in moist spots in the Navy-yard at Philadelphia, 
and on waste ground in the city itself: it had not, I believe, been 
previously noticed in the United States. 

Bonus-Henricus. In waste ground, about towns, on vil- 
lage-greens, by road-sides, in churchyards and about farm-houses ; 
by no means common in the Isle of Wight; much more frequent on 
the mainland of the county. Farm-yard at Ninham, near Ryde. 
Near Quarr Abbey, very sparingly. Farm-yard at Apse, near Shank- 
lin, abundant. At Rew farm, near Appuldurcombe, and abundant by 
the road-side opposite the same. At Wellow, Arreton, Shanklin, 
Gottens, and elsewhere in the island, occasionally. At Bishopstoke ; 
Blackmore farm, Wolmer Forest. By the church at Crux Easton, 
and at Kingsclere. At Hambledon in several places; Petersfield ; 
near farm-houses betwixt Clanfield and East Meon, in plenty; Sel- 


* There would seem to be no certainty in the position of the seeds in this species. 
Koch found them more frequently horizontal than vertical, just the reverse of my own 
experience. 


753 


borne village; Binstead, near Alton; Blashford, near Ringwood, on 
the road to Fordingbridge. Fareham; Mr. W. L. Notcutt!!!) Warn- 
ford; Rev. E. M. Sladen. About the Priory (Selborne), plentifully ; 
Mr. Wm. Pamplin. Andover; Mr. Wm. Whale; and I have every 
reason to believe frequent throughout the county. This plant has the 
habit both of Amaranthus and Spinacia, and is familiarly known as 
“wild spinage” in the Isle of Wight, where, however, if it was ever 
used as such, as it still is in some parts of the kingdom, no tradition 
of its employment as a pot-herb here has survived its disuse. Better 
entitled, from its peculiarity of habit, perennial duration, and very 
elongated stigmas, which are sometimes as many as four or five, to 
generic distinction. It formed the genus Agatophyton of Moquin- 
Tandon, but that author in the Prodromus refers it to Blitum. 

Beta maritima. Abundant, often to profusion, in muddy salt- 
marshes, on old walls, chalk cliffs, banks and waste ground along the 
sea-shore, or even a little inland, on rocks, &c.; on most parts of 
the coast, both of the island and main. In great plenty by the shore 
between Springfield and Sea View, and elsewhere near Ryde. Com- 
mon at Cowes and Yarmouth. Profusely on the ledges or terraces of 
the cliffs betwixt Freshwater Gate and the Needles, called meads and 
greens by the cliffsmen (see Orobanche Picridis, iii. 604). At the 
foot of the rocks of galt or firestone that hem in the Undercliff on the 
north, as in the Pelham Woods, behind St. Lawrence, many hundred 
yards from the sea-shore, and some two or three hundred feet above 
it, in great plenty. Common, I believe, almost everywhere on the 
opposite coast, in Hayling and Portsea Islands, at Porchester, &c. 
In common. with the last, usually called “wild spinage” by the 
poorer classes, but also beet, and is by them gathered from the shore, 
boiled, and eaten as greens with the pork or bacon that forms so con- 
stant an article in the dietary of our Hampshire peasantry. Dr. Salter 
remarks to me that the flowers of the sea-beet possess a powerful fra- 
grance, like that of Clematis (C. Flammula) and new hay conjoined. 
He has also perceived the same agreeable odour in the flowers of 
black mustard (Brassica nigra). 

Salicornia herbacea. On muddy salt-marshes, shores and inlets 
of the sea, abundantly. On each side of the Medina above Cowes. 
Shores of the Wootton River and of the Yar. Salt-marshes at Brad- 
ing, Newtown, &c. Var. #. procumbens; stems prostrate. 8S. pro- 
cumbens, Sm. Shores of Yarmouth harbour, and abundantly with a. 
in the Newtown salt-marshes. Abundant on the coast of mainland 
Hants, where, as in this island, it grows even in the brine in the high 

VoL, 11. 5 E 


754 


state of concentration in which the latter is found in the shallow rect- 
angular reservoirs (brine-pans) into which the sea-water is admitted 
for evaporation by the sun’s heat before it is pumped into the boilers 
for granulation, which brine is nearly at the point of saturation when 
taken from the pans. “A large state of this plant, one to two feet 
high, with a woody stem, and much resembling S. fruticosa, Z., occurs 
in the salt-marshes near Portsmouth. Professor Don, however, con- 
siders it merely as a form of S. herbacea;” Dr. Macreight, ‘Manual of 
British Botany, p. 195. This I have not hitherto fallen in with, but 
a great deal of the mainland line of coast is still unexplored by me, 
and even the shores of Portsea Island have been very partially ex- 
amined in person. If our S. radicans (see below) be merely, as Mo- 
quin-Tandon marks it, a variety of S. fruticosa, Z., may not the large 
form found by Dr. Macreight be the true fruticosa of Linneus, not- 
withstanding the opinion to the contrary of the late and much la- 
mented Professor Don, who, with all his extensive knowledge, was 
occasionally hasty and careless in pronouncing on species submitted 
to him for his decision ? 

Salicornia radicans. In similar situations with the foregoing, but 
far-less generally abundant. On Ryde Dover, and by the Medina 
above West Cowes, on the edge of the little salt-pools left by the 
ebbing of the tide. Plentiful in Newtown salt-marshes. ‘ Abundant 
near Cumberland Fort (Portsea Island) and Anglesey” (near Gosport) ; 
Dr. Macreight, Man. Brit. Bot. Shore at Cams (by Fareham). The 
Salterns (Fareham) ; Mr. W.L. Notcutt. This species is referred by 
Moquin-Tandon to his genus Arthrocnemum (Monogr. Chen. p. 111), 
of which Salicornia fruticosa, Z., is the type, and our S. radicans con- 
sidered as a variety of that plant by him. According to Moquin- 
Tandon Arthrocnemum differs from Salicornia in the want of a wing 
or border to the perigone, and in the semiannular embryo (in Salicor- 
nia the embryo forms a complete ring around the albumen). But 
besides that the membranous appendage above mentioned is very 
slight and inconspicuous in Salicornia, and the incompleteness of the 
annular curvature of the embryo a character of degree, and one very 
troublesome to recur to in practice, the habit of these genera is too 
similar to warrant the establishment of Arthrocnemum on the slender 
distinctions afforded by a few Salicornias which barely offer even 
good sectional characters. 

A highly curious instance of the strongest possible analogy in form, 
aspect and habit between plants widely separated in natural affinity, 
is exemplified in the Salicornia of our salt-marshes, and a West 


750 


Indian plant, Batis maritima, which, like the former, is exceedingly 
social, and covers the muddy margins of the lagoons and salt creeks 
in Jamaica with a dense under-growth of yellowish green, visible at a 
great distance. So similar is the Batis in external structure, aspect 
and habit to a Salicornia, that on first meeting with it, I collected 
specimens without the slightest suspicion that I was gathering any- 
thing but a species of glasswort, and even supposed it to be only our 
British S. herbacea, with the stems rendered very luxuriant and arch- 
ing by difference of climate. Yet Batis maritima has no real rela- 
tionship to Salicornia, but is placed by Lindley (The Vegetable King- 
dom) as a tribe or suborder (Batidez) of Empetracew. The plant is 
dicecious, and the structure of the ripe fruit said to be unknown to 
botanists, but from having no books to refer to at the time, and more- 
over completely deceived by appearances into the belief of its being 
only a Salicornia, I lost the opportunity afforded me of examining a 
genus of uncommon botanical interest, for in the dried state the parts 
shrivel and become undistinguishable. 

In the subjoined list of Atriplices indigenous to this county and 
island, Iam compelled to acknowledge my ignorance of the recent 
species by which the genus in Britain has been augmented through 
the labours of Mr. Babington; ignorance not arising from any im- 
pression of the futility of his praiseworthy exertions to elucidate this 
most perplexing tribe of Chenopodiacee, or to save myself the trou- 
ble of following the teaching of that able botanist in the detailed de- 
scriptions he has given us in the Manual, but simply through inability 
to unravel the knot of difficulties which attend the discrimination in 
their multitudinous forms and varieties of A. erecta, prostrata, pa- 
tula, deltoidea and rosea, and from a conviction that British and fo- 
reign authors apply the same names to very different plants, and that 
the nomenclature is still in a very shifting and uncertain state abroad 
as wellas at home. For these reasons I prefer waiting patiently the 
result of farther researches by those who are willing to devote their 
time to a task of such labour and difficulty, rather than hazard giving 
to our Hampshire species names which may hereafter be discovered 
to have been falsely imposed. 

Atriplex nitens. This species must be expunged from the list of 
Hampshire plants, so far as concerns its right to a place in the floral 
census of the county, either as indigenous to or completely natural- 
ized therein. I have lately met with it in several and distant parts of 
the county, and clearly ascertained it to be still an object of cultiva- 
tion in the gardens of the poorer classes under the name of French 


756 


spinage, from whence it sometimes escapes, or is carried out with re- 
fuse or manure into the adjoining fields and waste places, but is no- 
where persistent with us in such situations. At most, therefore, it 
can only merit a passing notice with Reseda alba, Nicandra physa- 
loides, and some other foreigners, transitory outcasts or stray subjects 
of our Flora hospita. 

Atriplex littoralis. On the muddy beach, upon banks and along 
ditches by the sea, in salt-marshes, &c., not uncommonly. On the 
sea-beach betwixt Ryde and Binstead. By the Medina above Cowes 
at Medham brickfield. Most abundantly along the shore betwixt 
Springfield and Nettleston Fort. Under the shore nearly below 
Bouldner, by Yarmouth. In Thorness Bay and Newtown marshes. 
Coast near Cowes; and most other parts of the coast; Mr. W. D. 
Snooke (FI. Vect.). I have not attended to the distribution of this 
species on the opposite mainland coast, but suppose it to be there 
pretty general. Betwixt Southampton and Netley. The shore (Fare- 
ham) everywhere ; Mr. W. L. Notcutt. 

marina. With the last, and possibly not rare, but hav- 
ing till lately been accustomed to look on it as a toothed-leaved va- 
riety of A. littoralis, I find no stations recorded for it apart from the 
last. Under the shore nearly below Bouldner, with A. littoralis, and 
I think seen elsewhere in the island. Probably not unfrequent on the 
opposite mainland coast. Hayling Island. Perhaps not specifically 
distinct from A. littoralis, but the closed perigone in opposition to the 
open one (when in seed) of the latter may, if constant, be allowed to 
weigh in favour of their separation. 
angustifolia. In waste ground, fields, gardens, by road- 
sides, &c., very common everywhere. A. erecta is no doubt a native 
of the county and Isle of Wight, as Mr. Babington says it is common 
on cultivated land. With my present imperfect knowledge of these 
protean plants, [ probably confound this and the next together. 

patula. In similar places with the last; universally, if 
I do not mix it up with other forms or species of Atriplex. A large 
straggling, prostrate or decumbent plant, with broadly triangular or 
hastate leaves, more or less white or hoary with crystalline efflores- 
cence, is very common along the coast by high-water mark, as on the 
shores of Brading harbour, near Carpenter’s, &c., along the shore be- 
twixt Ryde and Binstead, and plentifully on the shore north of 
Shanklin Chine, &c. This I have not yet carefully examined, as it 
perhaps deserves, having been accustomed to esteem it a sea-side 
form of A. patula, and now suppose it may be the A. prostrata, 


757 


Bouch.? of Babington’s Manual. If so, it would seem from Mr. B.’s 
account to be rare in Britain ; in this island at least it is very abun- 
dant. I suspect it is the A. hastata of Wahlenberg’s ‘ Flora Suecica,’ 
2nd edition, p. 683, and perhaps of Linneus himself, Fl. Suec. edit. 
2, No. 921. 

Atriplex rosea (Babington’s Man.), scarcely of Linneus? or the 

continental botanists. _ Waste places, &c. I believe very common. 
Shore between Ryde and Binstead. Abundant on the Dover, Ryde, 
and betwixt Ryde and Nettleston ; Mr. C. C. Babington !!! 
— laciniata. On sandy sea-shores; not common. On the 
Spit at Norton, opposite Yarmouth, in tolerable plenty. On the ex- 
treme point of the Spit at St. Helen’s; sparingly. In Ventnor Cove 
some years ago, but I doubt if it can be found there at present. Ra- 
ther frequent on the shore betwixt Shanklin and Sandown, August, 
1844, but its footing on that part of the coast is very precarious (see 
remarks on Lathyrus maritimus in a preceding part of these Notes). 
Shore between Sea View and Brading; Mr. Wm. Wilson Saunders. 
I have not remarked this plant as yet on the coast of mainland 
Hants, but cannot doubt of its existence there. It were to be wished 
that our other species of Atriplex were as well marked and invariable 
in character and appearance as the present, which approaches the ge- 
nus Halimus somewhat in the silvery scaliness (not mealiness) of the 
leaves, and in the rounded, scarcely angular or furrowed, almost 
woody stems of a pale yellow or reddish colour. The leaves, which 
remind one by their shape of the great shrubby orache of the gardens, 
A. Halimus, Z., in common cultivation here for sea-side fences, and 
which Mogquin-Tandon retains in this genus, emit the foetid odour of 
Chenopodium olidum, but in a far less degree. I remarked the fruc- 
tiferous perigones to be commonly pierced by some insect unknown 
to me, and the enclosed seed devoured by it. 

Halimus portulacoides. In muddy salt-marshes, and especially on 
the edges of salt pools, creeks, ditches, and tide-rivers, also on dry 
chalky cliffs at a considerable elevation above the shore. An ex- 
ceedingly abundant shrub on every part of the Hampshire coast suited 
to its growth. Banks of the Medina above Cowes in plenty, and 
along the Wootton Creek. Abundantly in Gurnet Bay, but of small 
growth there. Fringes the marsh ditches and edges of the brine-pits 
at the salt-works at Newtown in luxuriant profusion. By the Yar at 
Norton. On the ledges of the lofty chalk cliffs called meads and 
greens, between Freshwater Gate and the Needles, in various places, 


758 


as on the Main Bench, Rose-hall Green,* and above the west end of 
Scratchell’s Bay, &c., in great abundance. Yarmouth, and Brading 
harbour, in great plenty; Mr. W. D. Snooke, FI. Vect.!!! Profusely 
in Hayling and Portsea Islands, and in almost every salt-marsh ditch 
and muddy creek along the entire line of coast from Emsworth to 
Christchurch. I have never seen the Sea Purslane with the leaves 
acute, as they are drawn in E. B. It is possible, though J think not 
very probable, that H. pedunculata may be found in salt-marshes on 
the Hampshire coast. The species has hitherto shown itself an ex- 
treme instance of Mr. Watson’s Germanic type of distribution, and 
would appear to be exactly coextensive in its range with another Bri- 
tish species, the most perfectly and purely eastern plant I know of in 
this country, 1 mean Hippophiae rhamnoides. 

Rumex maritimus and R. palustris. One or other, if not both 
these species are still desiderata to the Hampshire flora, but it is 
to be hoped will not long remain so. I find the following entry in 
pencil, without date or comment, in my MS. Flora, which I had over- 
looked till this moment: ‘ One or other of these (R. maritimus or R. 
palustris) Mr. G. E. Smith found at the entrance to Shorwell.” I now 
remember to have searched for it there a few years back without suc- 
cess, and I must trust to my reverend friend to confirm the truth of 
this statement, or correct it if erroneous. Although a local and gene- 
rally scarce species in Britain, there is nothing to discourage the 
idea of the probable existence of both within our limits, and they 
should be looked for in marshy meadows, the sides of pools, and other 
low, moist situations. One or both have occurred in the contermi- 
nous counties of Sussex and Dorset, and it is not likely the interme- 
diate one of Hants should want them altogether. 
conglomeratus (R. acutus, Sm.). Common everywhere on 
waste ground, about houses, by road-sides, and in damp pastures, &c. 

sanguineus. Var. 8. viridis. Common in most places by 
yoad-sides, in woods, and shady, moist situations. The variety with 
bright red veins to the leaves I have not yet seen in this county and 
island, but they are often partially coloured in the commoner form 


above given. 


* For an account of these shelves or ledges see Orobanche Picridis in a former part 
of these Notes, at p. 604 of vol. iii. The distinction made by the cliffsmen between 
meads and greens is not correctly stated in the foot-note. Such ledges as are covered 
with a miscellaneous vegetation, like that described in the note, retain the latter name, 
whilst meads are understood to designate similar projections that are clothed with 


grass only. 


759 


Rumex pulcher. In dry waste places, pastures, borders of fields, 
by road-sides, under walls, on hedge-banks and in churchyards, by 
no means unfrequent over the entire county and Isle of Wight. Rare 
about Ryde. By Quarr Abbey, but sparingly. Border of a corn-field 
above Sandown Bay, and on the virgin turf of Brading Down near its 
summit and base, in considerable plenty. On the shore at Bembridge. 
At Bonchurch and elsewhere in the Undercliff. In various parts of 
Freshwater Island, as at Freshwater Gate, &c. Very common about 
Yarmouth; abundant betwixt Yarmouth mill and the town. Particularly 
partial to churchyards, both in this island and on the main, as in Cal- 
bourne, Carisbrook, Newchurch, Freshwater, Thorley, Brixton, Bin- 
stead, and most other churchyards in the island, sometimes very abun- 
dantly. Occasionally on the tops of our highest downs on the short 
native turf, but by far the most frequent in the lower and warmer coun- 
try, being quite a southern species, and probably sensible to severe frost, 
since in the interior of the European continent, as Germany, it fol- 
lows the depression of the isothermal curves to the south-east, and in 
that country barely attains the parallel even of the Isle of Wight. 
Yet with us it is hardly less common inland than in the mitigated 
climate of the coast, as I find it dispersed over most parts of the 
county I have yet visited. Meadows at Porchester, Porchester Castle, 
sparingly. Havant churchyard. Near Andover. Titchfield. Pe- 
tersfield and Hambledon churchyards, &c. Fields near the work- 
house (Fareham); Mr. W. L. Notcutt. The Fiddle Dock is abun- 
dantly naturalized in some parts of the United States, but only in the 
south, doubtless from inability to resist the northern winters; I found 
it quite a weed in pastures and waste places at Charleston, New Or- 
leans, and other southern cities. The epithet of pulcher, to judge by 
the ungraceful rigidity, straggling habit and general homeliness of its 
appearance, must have been given to this species in a mood of jocu- 
lar antithesis ; a less attractive weed could hardly have been selected 
on which to bestow the praise of beauty than this. 
obtusifolius. In meadows, pastures, waste places, by road- 
sides, &c., extremely common. 
pratensis. In damp meadows and pastures, by way-sides 
and in marshy places; probably not rare in the county and Isle of 
Wight, but it is, I confess, a species I do not well understand, and I 
dare say have repeatedly overlooked or regarded it as R. crispus or ob- 
tusifolius. First gathered near Newtown, June 30th, 1842, in com- 
pany with Mr. Borrer, who drew my attention to it. On Ryde Dover, 
September, 1843; Jd./! In the Cyperus meadow at Apes Down, 


760 


between Carisbrook and Yarmouth, August, 1844; Jd. The plant 
has since been lost sight of by me, and neglected, but renewed in- 
quiry and examination will doubtless detect it on the mainland of the 
county, and in other places on this island. 

Rumez crispus. Common everywhere in similar places with the 
foregoing species of the genus. 

— Hydrolapathum. In wet meadows and pastures, in, and on 
the banks of rivers, ditches and ponds. In several parts of the Isle of 
Wight, but very local, from the paucity of congenial situations for its 
growth. In meadows along the valley of the East Yar, towards Al- 
verston, &c., in plenty, and by the same stream at Yarbridge. Marsh 
at Easton, Freshwater Gate. Very common, if I remember rightly, in 
the damp valley of the Medina about Rookley, Cridmore, and else- 
where to the south of Newport, but I find no special entry made of 
these stations for a plant so generally frequent in England as this. 
Abundant in many parts of mainland Hants, and I believe universally 
distributed over the county. At Bishopstoke. Water meadows about 
Winton, at Kingsworthy, &c. Titchfield river; Mr. W. L. Notcutt. 
Acetosa. In meadows and pastures, especially where the 
soil is rather poor and moist; abundantly. 

Acetosella. Everywhere plentiful in fields, meadows, pas- 
tures, waste places, heaths, and on hedge-banks, particularly abun- 
dant on dry, light sandy soils. 

Polygonum Bistorta. In damp meadows and pastures; rare !* 
Not yet found in the Isle of Wight in a state or in situations that 
could entitle it with propriety to form an item in the floral census of 
the county. Naturalized as a weed in the kitchen-garden at West- 
ridge, near Ryde. Wet meadow near the pond at Old Park, Under- 
cliff; abundantly, June, 1838; Mr. Albert Hambrough!!! Nearly 


* It must have been remarked that throughout these Notes the rarity of plants is 
for the most part indicated interrogatively, seldom positively, or without a sign of 
doubt. As regards the Isle of Wight, I can with confidence give the absolute or rela- 
tive infrequency of the species composing its flora from many years of observation over 
its limited surface, but with respect to the far more extensive area of the county at 
large, of which the Isle of Wight forms hardly more than a fifth part, if even so much, 
my personal acquaintance with the vegetation of mainland Hants is yet too confined 
and imperfect to enable me to pronounce any species to be certainly rare because it 
has seldom presented itself to view during excursions, most of which have been made 
within these last two years, and embrace a very small field of observation compared 
with that remaining for scrutiny. The experience of the past two summers has 
greatly reduced the amount of species which till lately I had supposed quite rare, or 
at all events very local. 


761 


naturalized from the garden of which the pond forms as it were a part. 
Truly wild in damp meadows on the mainland, although certainly not 
common. | found it some years ago in great plenty in a moist mea- 
dow near North or South Stoneham, a few miles from Southampton, 
in full flower in August, but the memorandum of the exact locality 
and date is at this moment mislaid ; these documents not then being 
preserved with the same method and regularity as at present, and en- 
tered in a book kept expressly for the purpose, like the Sybilline 
leaves, I sometimes find not to be consulted when wanted for reference. 
Formerly by the stream side (Itchen river) above Deangate Mill, 
Winton (close to the city on the north side, at the entrance to Win- 
nal water-meadows); Dr. A. D. White: but not now to be found 
there, as I have ascertained myself, and the station might perhaps be 
deemed suspicious from its vicinity to the town. Warnford; Mr. 
Vickery : and Cheriton; Miss L. Sibley. Near Gill Copse (Fareham) ; 
Mr. W. L. Notcutt!! Probably genuine stations, but I cannot an- 
swer for their being so. I found, September 17th, 1848, a single spe- 
cimen in a meadow betwixt Selborne and Oakhanger, but certainly 
wild and still in flower. 

Polygonum amphibium. In ponds, ditches, marshes, and low wet 
meadows. Frequent in the county, but not so in the Isle of Wight, 
and very rarely flowering in the latter. Var. a. natans. Floating ; 
leaves broadly oblongo-lanceolate, smooth and shining. Var. 8. ter- 
restre. Erect; leaves lanceolate, and as well as the stipules hairy on 
both sides. The former is certainly rare in this island, at least in the 
flowering state. In a small pond near the road-side, just out of 
Kingston, on the way to Shorwell, in plenty and flowering freely. A 
most conspicuous ornament to the pond on Petersfield Heath.  Fre- 
quent, I have no doubt, in various parts of the county, though I have 
no memoranda to that effect. The var. 8. occurs in several parts of 
the Isle of Wight in plenty, but very rarely flowering. | Abundantly 
in a hollow by the road-side on the left hand, a few hundred yards 
beyond the turnpike going from Yarmouth to Shalfleet. In Sandown 
marshes, and at Freshwater Gate. Area of Quarr Abbey, &c. 

lapathifolium. On rich cultivated or waste ground, 
dunghills, &c.; frequent in the Isle of Wight, and as far as my ob- 
servation has gone, over the rest of the county. Possibly only a 
permanent form or race of P. Persicaria, but possessing characters 
sufficiently definite and constant to support its claim to specific dis- 
tinction with considerable plausibility. The very obscure P. laxum 
may occur in the county, but I am by no means desirous of swelling 

Vous it, 5 F 


762 


the Hampshire Flora with dubious, false, or book species, although 
anxious not to overlook or omit mentioning as varielies when they 
occur both, this and other such quasi species, leaving to future com- 
pilers of general or local floras who may be pleased to avail themselves 
of my labours, to exalt them into specific notoriety if they shall see 
fit to do so. 

Polygonum Persicaria. In low rich moist ground, on ditch-banks, 
dunghills and waste or cultivated land, very common. 

mite. A solitary specimen of this very apocryphal spe- 
cies was picked by the Rev. G. E. Smith, September, 1838, in a lane 
between Apley and St. John’s, near Ryde!! I have not succeeded 
in finding it there since, but have reason to believe that it grows in- 
termixed with P. Persicaria and P. minus in the marshes of Sandown 
Level. 

Hydropiper. In moist places by road-sides, wet mea- 
dows and on ditch and river banks, &c.; abundantly almost every- 
where. The grassy sides of our damp shady lanes and bye-roads are 
usually fringed with this species from August to October. 

minus. In similar places with the last, also in moist 
gravelly depressed spots on heaths, and bare places on moory, peaty 
ground. Very rare in the Isle of Wight. In great profusion in the 
little drains intersecting the meadows on Sandown Level, betwixt the 
high road from Ryde and Brading to Shanklin, &c., and Lake and 
Blackpan Commons, extending up the valley of the East Yar, in front 
of the latter, growing intermixed with P. Hydropiper, and I suspect 
also with P. mite. First found there by Miss S. Lovell, in whose her- 
barium [ saw it marked P. Hydropiper, and who kindly conducted 
me to the station, September 23rd, 1847. The Sandown plant is the 
upright variety of E. B. and of the ‘ Flora Londinensis.’ Apparently 
frequent on the moorlands of the Hampshire forest districts, where it 
occurs abundantly, and usually with perfectly depressed or prostrate 
stems, of a deep red or purple colour, on bare damp spots of black 
vegetable soil. In this state I find it in several places on Wolmer 
Forest, as betwixt Blackmore farm and the great pond, and elsewhere 
in the vicinity of the latter. On Petersfield Heath. Close to Ring- 
wood, and very abundant at Blashford, about a mile north of that 
town, at both ends of the village, in wet, depressed, pasture ground by 
the road-side, September 29th, 1849. Abundant on Short Heath, 
near Selborne; Dr. T. Bell Salter!!! The variety with prostrate 
stems is the only form I have yet fallen in with on the mainland of 
the county. 


763 


Polygonum aviculare. In some one or other of its multitudinous 
forms a most abundant weed throughout the county and Isle of 
Wight, in almost all soils and situations. Var. a. segetale; stems 
erect, sometimes prostrate, more or less (often copiously) branched, 
very slender, filiform and wiry, flowers remote, leaves small, narrow 
lanceolate, acute. Abundant in corn stubbles after harvest: the 
Wire-weed of the Isle of Wight. Probably the P. virgatum of Loise- 
leur Deslongchamps, as suggested by Babington (Man. p. 275). 
Var. 8. Stems short, thickish, prostrate, much branched, spreading 
mostly in a circular form, flowers and leaves very small, crowded, the 
latter elliptic lanceolate or oblong. In sandy ground by the sea. 
Betwixt Ryde and Sea View, October 2nd, 1845. I believe not at 
all uncommon on our Hampshire shores, and certainly a remarkable 
variety, but having neglected to make further notes of its occurrence, 
I will not trust to memory for additional localities. Were it not that 
I hesitate to give utterance to a word of such sesquipedalian length, 
I would have headed this last form herniarioides, for so strong is the 
resemblance it bears to Herniaria glabra or ciliata, and their places of 
growth so analogous, that I have more than once been cheated into 
the momentary belief that I had rediscovered the Herniaria formerly 
found, according to Martyn, at Portsmouth. ‘The first variety is not 
less remarkable, and reminds one strongly of Bupleurum tenuissimum 
in its habit of growth. A much branched, large and prostrate form, 
with large opaque fruit (P. littorale, Zink ?), occurs here and there 
on our island sea-shores (see next species below); and lastly we have 
another state of this most multifarious plant, with remarkably large 
and broad obovate leaves, which grows by the path-side above the 
cliffs of Sandown Bay and elsewhere, and comes very near the Ame- 
rican P. erectum, if not identical with that plant, reduced by Dr. Gray 
(Man. of the Bot. of the Northern United States) to a variety of P. 
aviculare. 


Raii. On sandy sea-shores; very rare? A doubtful 
native of the Isle of Wight. On waste ground opposite Plumbley’s 
Hotel, Freshwater Gate, and at Brook, I found what I believed to be 
this species some years since, but having preserved no specimens 
from these localities, Iam at present unable to confirm it as an 
inhabitant of the island. I have a fine specimen of a plant labelled 
P. Raii, which I found on the shore betwixt Sea View and the Priory, 
near Ryde, July 26th, 1837, with a reference to the figure and de- 
‘scription of that species in E. B. Supplem. 111. t. 2805, appended, as 
if carefully compared therewith, and found identical. But on exa- 


764 


mining this specimen afresh, I find the nut dull, opaque, brown, and 
copiously covered with minute points or granulations, and therefore 
not corresponding to the account given by Mr. Babington of the fruit 
of P. Raii. In all other respects, and in the nut exceeding the peri- 
anth in length, it perfectly agrees with P. Raii. The root, and base 
of the much-branched, prostrate stem in my specimen has a woody, 
perennial look, and reddish brown colour. J] suppose it can only be 
the maritime form of P. aviculare (P. littorale, Link ?), unless it may 
be that the fruit becomes finally dull and striate by pressure and keep- 
ing, as I can hardly believe myself to have overlooked the most ma- 
terial character in determining this species from the commoner P. 
aviculare. Near Muddiford, by Christchurch; Mr. Borrer: from 
whence the specimen in E. B. was drawn. 

Polygonum maritimum. On sandy sea-shores; extremely rare, 
and there is every reason to believe extinct in the only known Hamp- 
shire station. Discovered upwards of a dozen years ago by Mr. 
Borrer, on the sandy shore between Christchurch or Hengistbury 
Head and Muddiford, but in a situation that exposed it to speedy de- 
struction from the encroaching waves! I searched for it this autumn 
when exploring the neighbourhood of Christchurch, and found, as I 
had expected,—not the plant, but the fulfilment of Mr. Borrer’s pre- 
diction concerning it. We may, however, reasonably hope for its re- 
appearance on the same or some other part of the Hampshire line of 
coast. Mr. H.C. Watson, whose caution and moderation in adopt- 
ing new species cutitles his opinion to the greatest weight, and who 
is much in the habit of subjecting such recent promotions to the ad 
crucem test of protracted cultivation, is perfectly satisfied that P. Raii 
is hereditarily distinct from both P. aviculare and P. maritimum. It 
would ill become me to set up a decided opinion against authority 
like those of the three able botanists best acquainted with these spe- 
eles, backed, as their views are, by the experimental results of Mr. 
Watson, yet I cannot divest myself of a lurking suspicion that what- 
ever may become of P. maritimum as a species, P. Raii will hereafter 
be acknowledged as a variety only of P. aviculare. The ochree are 
the same in both, the length of the nut, as compared with the peri- 
anth, confessedly liable to variation (in my dubious Ryde plant it is 
quite as long as in the E. B. figure), the nut, it appears, may be both 
shining and granulated, as well as granulated and without lustre (see 
E. B.in loc.) ; the plant either apparently annual or apparently peren- 
nial, and lastly, to crown all, “there is a maritime variety of P. avi- 


765 


culare which eaactly resembles P. Raii in appearance, but its fruit 
differs totally.’ (E. B. 1. c. and Phytol. ii. p. 617), 

Polygonum Convolvulus. In waste and cultivated ground, corn- 
fields, gardens, and waste places, also in damp hedges and thickets ; 
an abundant and troublesome weed, especially in light sandy soils. 
Var. 8. Outer segments of the perianth distinctly and conspicuously 
winged. Occasionally in light soils. I have gathered it running up 
pea sticks in the garden of the Shanklin (late Williams’s) Hotel. On 
the Dover, Ryde; Mr. Wm. Wilson Saunders !!! where I have re- 
peatedly found it. In a garden-hedge on Short Heath, near Selborne, 
1848. In a sandy field and in garden ground at Holy Water, on 
Wolmer Forest, and in fields at Passwell Common, very abundant and 
luxuriant; apparently quite frequent on the loose sandy soil of the 
forest, but varying much in degree of development of the wings. 
Totally distinct from the following species, with which there is a risk 
of its being confounded by the tyro unless attention be paid to the 
characters laid down for their discrimination. P. Convolvulus is 
called Lily in Hampshire, a most comprehensive term in the county, 
including most herbaceous plants with climbing or trailing stems, 
without regard to the size or shape of the flowers. 

— dumetorum. In hedges, thickets, bushy places, and in 
newly cut copses; very rare? In the dry hedges of a sandy bye- 
road within a mile of Petersfield, towards Steep, a few hundred yards 
before coming to a public house called the Harrow, in great plenty, 
twining about hazel and whitethorn at intervals for a very consider- 
able distance, August 22nd, 1849. _ I had always calculated on find- 
ing this truly elegant plant in the county, as it has been found in so 
many localities in the south of England since its first detection in this 
country at Wimbledon, by Mr. J. A. Hankey, about twelve years ago, 
and because it was observed by Mr. Jenner a few years back, abun- 
dantly betwixt Petersfield and Midhurst, beginning a little east of 
Rogate, and therefore not within our limits. Mr. Borrer could not 
find it there last year, nor could I discover a trace of it in September 
on any part of the road between the two towns. It is therefore evi- 
dently capricious in its seasons of appearing, if not disposed altoge- 
ther to desert its former haunts. Yet this inconstancy will not 
explain the omission of so beautiful and conspicuous a plant from the 
British flora up to a recent period, because it must have been known 
to our leading English botanists as a native of the continent, and 
could hardly have been passed by as the variety of P. Convolvulus 
with winged angles to the perianth just described, from which it dif- 


766 


fers too materially in aspect not to excite special attention. I cannot 
find any allusion to P. dumetorum as a British species in the writ- 
ings of Ray, Gerarde, or other old English botanists, and it is a re- 
markable fact that Linneus was ignorant of its existence in Sweden, 
although it appears from Wahlenberg, Fries and others to be no rare 
plant in that country, even in the vicinity of Upsal, where Linnezus 
taught and resided, and was in the habit of making herborizing ex- 
cursions with his pupils, accompanied by the acute German botanist 
Ehrhart. Yet Linneus knew the plant well, and imposed the specific 
name of dumetorum upon it in the second edition at least of the 
‘Species Plantarum’ (for I have not the first by me to consult), only 
seven years after the publication of the improved edition of his ‘Flora 
Suecica’ in 1755, wherein no mention is made of the plant even as a 
remarkable variety. Wikstrém (Stockholm’s Flora, p. 282) tells us it 
was first noticed as a Swedish plant in the province of Halland, and 
published as such by Dr. Osbeck, in his ‘Flora Hallandica, printed 
in the Swedish Royal Society’s Transactions for 1788, some years 
after the death of Linneus, and consequently when the species was 
generally known and distinguished from P. Convolvulus and its winged 
variety. Yet Wikstrém himself gives many stations for it in his ex- 
cellent flora of the country one (Swedish) mile round Stockholm. 
Facts like these are curious, as attesting the slow advances of the hu- 
man mind in discovery, even when dependent on the simple exercise 
of the senses, involving no process of inductive reasoning or laborious 
research. Impulses arise, we scarcely know how, at distant and in- 
determinate epochs, the spirit of inquiry is aroused and pervades the 
nations, when discoveries of all kinds, natural, moral, and political, 
crowd thick and fast upon us. The high latitude attained by P. du- 
metorum on the continent of Europe, even along the western coasts, 
renders it probable that it will eventually prove indigenous to the 
greater part of Britain. 

The American P. scandens, now referred by my friend Dr. Gray to 
P. dumetorum of Europe, of which it is possibly only a form, certainly 
presents some striking and permanent differences in the much more 
robust growth of its very long, twining stems, which are usually 
strongly tinged all over with purple; in the broader, shorter, less 
acuminate leaves, that approach more to cordate and less to hastate 
or sagittate than in ours, the lobes being more rounded ; in the ra- 
cemes, which are notably less elongated in the American plant, and are 
usually interspersed with several small but conspicuous leaves, where- . 
as in P. dumetorum the racemes are naked, or very nearly so, the 


767 


leaves, when any, minute, and little apparent amongst the flowers. 
The latter are, in the American P. scandens, somewhat superior, per- 
haps, in size to those of P. dumetorum, and the wings of the enlarged 
perianth project a little more beyond the apex of the seed, and are 
more rounded at their anterior margins, which gives the appearance 
of a deep notch or sinus, causing the fructiferous perianth to assume 
more the form and aspect of the samara of an elm than in the Euro- 
pean species. In the size, shape, and smoothness of the finely po- 
lished fruit, I perceive no difference betwixt our own and the transat- 
lantic plant. The American P. scandens I have always found growing 
exclusively in wet, or at least very moist thickets, most commonly on 
willows or other low bushes in swamps or osier beds, whilst our P. 
dumetorum affects dry as well as damp spots, and, as we have just 
seen, will even flourish in sandy hedgerows. 

I suspect P. dumetorum and the American form or species P. scan- 
dens to be occasionally biennial. Wahlenberg says (Fl. Ups. p. 132) 
“Radix subbiennis,” and in FI. Suecica, i. p. 251, 2nd ed., “ Radix 
circiter biennis et tota planta magis longeva et extensa.” The ap- 
pearance of these plants favours such an idea, but P. scandens from 
seed I collected at Philadelphia has shown itself an annnal hitherto 
in St. John’s garden, near Ryde, where in dry soil it has preserved all 
its original character through two generations, evincing no disposition 
to become P. dumetorum, which last from Hampshire seeds I shall 
hope to have under my eye next year, to compare with the American 
variety, if such it should prove really to be. Mr. Borrer tells me he 
has a plant labelled P. scandens from the Cambridge Botanic Garden 
which has proved more than annual. It is worthy of remark that al- 
though the larger plant of the two, P. dumetorum has smaller flowers 
at first than P. Convolvulus, it being only in fructification that they 
so notably surpass those of the latter in size. The seeds of P. dume- 
torum and scandens are smaller in all their stages than in P. Convol- 
vulus. Wahlenberg, in his ‘ Flora of Upsal,’ inclined to believe P. 
dumetorum a wood variety of P. Convolvulus,* but in his later work, 
the ‘Flora Suecica,’ he has tacitly renounced an opinion so manifestly 
erroneous. 

Oxss.—Polygonum Fagopyrum (Buckwheat) is excluded from the 
floral census of the county, being only found as an occasional and 
very fugacious intruder on waste ground, either strayed from cultiva- 


* Nihilo tamen minus vix nisi forma nemorosa precedentis (P. Convolvuli) est- 
Fl. Upsal. p. 132. 


768 


tion, or springing from seed accidentally dropped. It should be 
omitted in like manner from all our general and local floras, having 
no plea to urge in favour of retention beyond unmeaning adherence 
to custom from blind submission to precedent and authority, or from 
a desire to increase as much as possible the apparent botanical riches 
of a district by a parade of borrowed wealth. See Mr. Watson’s 
pithy remarks on this subject in ‘Cybele Britannica,’ vol. 11. p. 341. 
Wo. A. BROMFIELD. 
Eastmount, Ryde, Isle of Wight, 
November, 1849. 
(To be continued.) 


Some Account of a Botanical Trip in Scotland. 
By James Bacxuouse, JUN., Esq. 


In the early part of 7th month (July) last, our little party, compris- 
ing my friend John Tatham, of Settle, my father and self, left the 
railway at Forfar to spend a few days among the Clova and Glen Isla 
mountains. During the excursion we visited Glen Phee, Glen Dole, 
the ravine of the White Water, Glen Callater, Doch Dhu (Dhuloch), 
Lochnagar, the Glass Mhiel-mountains and Canlochen Glen. As all 
these localities have been previously explored and their botanical ra- 
rities described, it will be unnecessary to occupy space in the ‘ Phy- 
tologist’ by minute detail. I shall therefore only touch upon those 
points which may convey fresh information, or manifest some de- 
cidedly interesting feature. 

On “The Bassies,” the mountain due west of the hamlet of Clova, 
a form of Hieracium Schmidtii (Tausch), H. diaphanum (Fries and 
Bab.), with fewer and larger flowers than usual, occurs: the stem-leaf 
is half-clasping, if not decidedly amplexicaul. Was the étrue; H. 
amplexicaule ever really found on the Clova Mountains by G. Don? 
or was it only some shaggy and strongly amplexicaul form of H. 
Schmidtii like this? 

The range of hills comprising “Carlowie,” “The Bassies” and 
“The Scorie,” is composed of mica slate, covered on the top with 
granitic sand or gravel. On the granitic knolls at the top Azalea 
procumbens forms fine tufts. On the summit of Lochnagar, which is 
entirely granitic, it grows in still greater luxuriance, covering the 
ground in some places like a carpet studded over with exquisite little » 
pink blossoms. 


- 


. 


769 


Woodsia Ilvensis still luxuriates among the cliffs of Glen Phee: a 
specimen (out of reach) seen by one of our party, appeared to have 
fronds five inches in length. We saw no trace of Woodsia alpina 
throughout our whole journey, strange to say; as from the records 
respecting the latter it would seem to be more frequent than the 
former. 

Spergula saginoides (Eng. Bot.), Sagina saxatilis (Bab.), was very 
abundant in some places at the foot of the cliffs in Glen Phee and 
Canlochen Glen ; and being in full flower, was as conspicuous as its 
minuteness would admit of. 

Mulgedium alpinum was not in flower in Glen Dole, the plants ap- 
pearing to want another fortnight to bring them to perfection. 

The cliffs in Glen Dole and Canlochen were beautifully ornamented 
by Veronica saxatilis and alpina and Silene acaulis, which covered 
the rocks in many places with bright cushions and drapery of pink 
and blue. Saxifraga oppositifolia was rather past its best. Silene 
acaulis, var. alba, was gathered on a high rock in Glen Dole, as also 
Vaccinium uliginosum in fine flower. 

In Glen Callater, Salix lanata was in fine order; also Carex aqua- 
tilis, var. pauciflora, Persoonii and rariflora. Carex vaginata was scat- 
tered upon the serpentine rocks, and below Loch Calder C. rupestris 
in many places seemed to form almost the entire herbage: many of 
the specimens were very fine and well developed. It grows exclu- 
sively on the serpentine rock, and occupies a zone about half way up 
the crag. One specimen of C. vaginata, far more robust than com- 
mon, exhibited the curious refracted form mentioned in some botani- 
cal works; the stalk of the barren spikelet bending back at an acute 
angle from the uppermost bract. In this state the main stem is thick 
to its union with the barren spikelet, while the stalks of the fertile 
spikes are diminished almost to a capillary structure. Saxifraga ri- 
vularis was in the greatest abundance on the dripping rocks under 
the cliffs of Lochnagar, and among rocks on the west side of the 
mountain we were fortunate in discovering the apparently undisturbed 
habitation of Carex leporina. Its dense tufts were spread around us 
on all sides; in some places a dozen specimens or more might have 
been gathered at atime. After the momentary delight at the “ find” 
had in some degree passed over, I could not help feeling regret at 
the irresistible annihilation of the idea of extreme rarity hitherto al- 
most mystically connected with this humble sedge! I could not 
retain the delusion any longer, and was obliged to give in to the con- 
viction that the unlikely-looking places of its choice were the main 
VoL. Il. 5 G 


770 


securities of its comparatively undisturbed possession and character 
for rarity. Next to these two treasures the most interesting object 
we saw on Lochnagar was a fine eagle, which sailed out of the cliff 
within a stone’s throw of us. 

In descending the Glass Mhiel to the head of Canlochen Glen we 
fell in with Cerastium latifolium; a very distinct plant from C. alpi- 
num, with which it was growing. Indeed, the chief similarity seems 
to be in their both forming dense, matted tufts, and usually bearing 
solitary flowers. The corolla of our C. latifolium is but little longer 
than the calyx; the uppermost bracts are entirely destitute of any 
membranous margin, and the pubescence, instead of being soft, silky 
and shaggy, is bristly, rather rigid and short. 

Poa montana, Balfourii and nemoralis were gathered in Canlochen 
Glen (?). Gentiana nivalis, Erigeron alpinus, &c., &c., were abun- 
dant as usual. A root of the former, placed under a tumbler at Brae- 
mar, expanded its deep cerulean blossom beautifully in the sunshine. 

Saxifraga nivalis studded the face of one of the great crags in every 
direction, but the dark, hard rock seemed to be destitute of all other 
objects of interest. 

A solitary specimen of a Juncus, resembling biglumis, was gathered 
on the Glass Mhiel; whether the true biglumis or a very reduced 
castaneus, we could not decide. Its size was that of a fine biglumis, 
but the character was that of castaneus with two glumes and a pro- 
jecting tall bract. Forms of biglumis and of triglumis certainly ap- 
proximate in a very confusing and rather unpleasant manner. Can 
these be hybrids between castaneus and triglumis? An affirmative 
proof would be rather consolatory. 

In looking over my specimens gathered on the Glass Mhiel in 1848, 
I was struck with the dissimilarity between a plant which we then 
took for a large form of Sagina saxatilis and the usual state of it as 
shown by our specimens gathered this year in Glen Phee, &c. On 
referring to the ‘Guide to Forfarshire, I found that G. Don disco- 
vered a plant which he called Spergula maxima, which is supposed 
to have been a variety of S. saxatilis (Spergula saginoides), and pro- 
bably the S. macrocarpa of Reichenbach. Not having the works of 
that author to refer to, I sent it to C. C. Babington, who has always 
most kindly assisted me in the determination of species, when my 
own sources of information have failed. He tells me that he thinks 
it will prove the Sagina nivalis of Fries, a species hitherto unknown to 
Britain. That it is no variety of S. saxatilis seems certain: it differs 
in the plant being destitute of the central tuft of leaves, in having 


771 


thick, erect peduncles, a capsule five-cleft, fully twice as long as the 
calyx, and a compact habit of growth. Though in saxatilis the plant 
is densely matted, yet few or none of the very slender peduncles are 
erect. 8. saxatilis, moreover, covers the ground in dry, exposed 
places with a little carpet, while S. nivalis forms small solitary tufts 
in the courses of the mountain streams, judging by the position in 
which our specimen was found. Should any botanist visit that part 
of Scotland next season, a little time devoted to a search for this ap- 
parent novelty might not be unrewarded. 


JAMES BaCKHOUSE, JUN. 
York, December 13, 1849. 


Notes on the more interesting Flowering Plants gathered in North 
Wales, in September, 1849. By ALrrep W. BENNETT, Esq. 


ALTHOUGH it was late in the season when we started on our trip 
into Wales, and our attention was more particularly directed to the 
ferns, we met with many interesting flowering plants, some of them 
new to us, who have had but few opportunities of botanizing in moun- 
tain districts, of which I send a few notes, if thought worthy of record. 

About half way between Builth and Rhayader the beautiful little 
Wahlenbergia hederacea was first observed in patches by the road- 
side, and afterwards, where the road opens out on to a common, we 
found it creeping among the grass and low herbage in the greatest 
profusion. Hypericum elodes is also abundant. Epipactis latifolia 
almost lines the road-side in several places. In the ditches before 
coming to Llangurig we first noticed a white-flowered Ranunculus, 
but nearly past flower, without capillary leaves, which struck us at 
once as somewhat different in habit and appearance from R. aquatilis, 
and it proves on examination to be the newly separated R. Lenormandi. 
It was afterwards found more abundantly in several localities in the 
sub-alpine districts all round Plinlimmon. The meadows and banks 
in the same district were profusely ornamented with Viola lutea, of 
every variety of colour, from entirely yellow to dark purple. 

On hedge-banks and in damp places near Machynlleth, the Wah- 
lenbergia was again extremely abundant; and Cotyledon umbilicus 
was almost everywhere on the walls. On the highest part of the road 
between Machynlleth and Dolgelly we had much pleasure in obsery- 
ing Spirea salicifolia in a hedge, exceedingly fine and handsome ; 


772 


whether truly indigenous or not we had no means of deciding; though 
the locality is anything but one in which it is likely to have been 
planted. About Barmouth, Geranium sanguineum almost covers the 
banks and rocks in some places, and Rubia peregrina was scrambling 
among the bushes a little out of Barmouth, on the road towards Har- 
lech; both, of course, out of flower at this time of the year. The 
sands beyond Harlech produced Aster Tripolium, Plantago maritima, 
and other common sea-side plants. 

At Penmorfa, near Tremadoc, Viola palustris was observed by the 
road-side, but past flower. On the embankments forming the harbour 
of Pwllheli, Caernarvonshire, we gathered Eryngium maritimum, Eu- 
phorbia Paralias, Cakile maritima, Alsine marina, peploides and rubra, 
Polygonum Raii, Salsola Kali, and Rosa spinosissima. Lepidium 
Smithii, readily distinguished from its congener, L. campestre, by its 
exserted style when in fruit, is extremely abundant on the promontory 
extending westward of Pwllheli, and terminating at Aberdaron; and in ge- 
neral throughout Caernarvonshire and Merionethshire. In pastures near 
Aberdaron, Gentiana campestris and Trifolium medium occur sparingly ; 
Artemisia Absinthium is abundant; Alsine rubra was again noticed in 
sandy places about the village, and A. marina on the rocks. Extend- 
ing into the burial-ground of the ancient church, Glaucium luteum 
was conspicuous. 

The Great Ormes Head is one of the most interesting localities in 
North Wales, both on account of its bold scenery, and its interesting 
flora, being almost the only limestone district indicated by the bril- 
liant blue flowers of Cichorium Intybus, and the yellow and pink heads 
of Anthyllis vulneraria greeting the eye. By the side of the road near 
the village of Llandudno, which is rapidly rising into importance as a 
watering place, on account of the magnificent scenery in its immedi- 
ate vicinity, Senecio viscosus grows in considerable abundance, along 
with S. sylvaticus, from which its longer rays and remarkably neat and 
pretty appearance clearly distinguish it at first sight. High up on the 
cliffs the large shining leaves of Brassica oleracea attracted our atten- 
tion, growing out of the clefts, and Thalictrum minus among the loose 
débris. Inthe deep fissures and hollows of the otherwise bare, im- 
mense masses of rock heaped together at the base of the western 
cliffs, we collected Crithmum maritimum, Statice spathulata, and Se- 
dum rupestre; and on the shingly beach more to the south, some very 
stunted and half-starved specimens of Samolus Valerandi. Above the 
cliffs were noticed Spirea Filipendula and Spiranthes autumnalis ; 
and the beautiful flowers of Geranium sanguineum still to be seen 


773 


here and there in the more sheltered parts. We much regretted that 
we had not time at command more thoroughly to investigate this most 
interesting locality. 

A single plant of Erodium moschatum was observed on the town 
walls of Conway. ‘Trifolium medium is tolerably plentiful near Pont-y- 
Clydd, half-way between Conway and Llanrwst. Near Llanrwst, on 
the wall which we have no doubt is the same indicated in Newman’s 
‘ British Ferns, as having afforded Asplenium septentrionale in such 
great abundance, the neat and pretty Thlaspi alpestre grows plenti- 
fully. 

In Llyn Idwell, which occupies the bottom of the well-known Cwm 
Idwell, we had the pleasure of gathering Lobelia Dortmanna for the 
first time, the few remaining blossoms standing out of the water some- 
what difficult to reach. Among the fallen rocks up which it is neces- 
sary to clamber in order to reach Twll Du, thrive Saxifraga hypnoides, 
Oxyria reniformis, and Silene acaulis. Sedum anglicum and Saxifraga 
stellaris are abundant throughout the whole of the Snowdon district. 
In the chasm itself grows Meconopsis cambrica, and it is alone suffi- 
cient to repay all the toil and exertion of the scramble to see and to 
gather this fine plant in a situation so truly wild. We did not at- 
tempt to gain the Lloydia, being far too late in the season to see it in 
flower. In the descent towards Llanberis, a very steep part of the 
mountain-side is almost covered with Carduus heterophyllus ; and the 
course of a romantic streamlet coming down in the form of a continued 
cascade out of Glyder Vawr, is decorated with the beautiful snow-white 
blossoms of Parnassia palustris. Under Clogwyn-dur-Arddu, one of 
the shoulders of Snowdon, we gathered Arabis petraea, Cochlearia of- 
ficinalis, var. alpina, Empetrum nigrum in fruit, and a few specimens 
of Silene acaulis still remaining in flower; on Clogwyn-y-Garnedd, 
Thalictrum minus and one single plant of Saxifraga nivalis. 

Myrica Gale perfumes the morning air on the boggy ground be- 
tween Pont-aber-Glaslyn and Tan-y-bwlch, where Scutellaria minor is 
also abundant. By the road-side, in an old quarry a little before the 
station for Asplenium lanceolatum, we noticed a remarkably fine and 
striking variety of Convolvulus sepium, with handsome pink flowers. 

From Festiniog to Bala is a monotonous dreary road, winding 
among bare, brown, moory mountains, very thinly inhabited, and any- 
thing but generally interesting to the botanist. At one spot Spirea 
salicifolia appears to have spread itself as if naturally, and exceedingly 
fine by the side of some small rivulets tributaries to the Dee. We 
again noticed it where it is recorded to have been planted between 


774 


Bala and Corwen, lower down by the side of that river; but there 
seems no reason to suppose that it has thus been extended upwards 
to the spot indicated above. Artemisia Absinthium was again ex- 
ceedingly fine and abundant close to the bridge of the little village of 
Llandrillo, half-way between Bala and Corwen. From here through 
Llangollen the road conducts out of Wales. 

The more commonly occurring plants have not been noticed above. 
The time occupied in this excursion was just fourteen days, accom- 
plishing on the average nearly thirty miles per day on foot; which, 
with the days drawing in rapidly at this advanced period of the year, 
left but little time to explore any particular locality, or our list might 
probably have been much richer. 


ALFRED W. BENNETT. 
London, December, 1849. 


BoTANICAL Society oF LONDON. 


Thursday, November 29, 1849.— Thirteenth Anniversary Meeting. 


J. E. Gray, Esq., F.RS., &c., President, in the chair. 

W. Bean, Esq., of Liverpool, was elected a corresponding member. 

The following donations were announced :— British plants from 
Mr. Hewett C. Watson, the Rev. Professor Henslow, Mr. A. Hen- 
frey, Dr. Bidwell, Mr. T. Bentall, Mr. E. G. Varenne, Mr. J. Storey, 
the Rev. H. P. Marsham, Mrs. Russell, Mr. D. Oliver, Mr. J. Whit- 
taker, Mr. T. Clark, Jun., Mr. W. H. Purchas, Mr. J. L. Lawrence, 
Mr. T. Sansom, Mr. W. Bean, Mr. Brent, Mr. J. Reynolds, Mr. G. 
Cooper, Mr. J. Hussey, the Rev. T. Butler, Mr. G. Rich, Mr. G. E. 
Dennes, Mr. G. Maw, and Mr. R. Hudson. 

The Secretary read the Report of the Council, from which it ap- 
peared that fifteen new members had been elected since the last an- 
nual meeting, and that the Society now consisted of two hundred and 
forty-nine members. The distribution of the British duplicates had 
given the greatest satisfaction to the members, and increased exer- 
tions had been made this year to obtain the rarer and interesting spe- 
cimens, which had been attended with much success. The donations 
to the library had been considerable. 

The Report was unanimously adopted, after which a ballot took 
place for the Council, when the President was re-elected, and he no- 
minated J. Miers, Esq., F.R.S., and E. Doubleday, Esq., F.L.S., 


7795 


Vice-Presidents. Mr. J. Reynolds, Mr. G. E. Dennes, and Mr. T. 
Moore were respectively re-elected ‘Treasurer, Secretary, and Libra- 
rian. Mr. J. Coppin, M.A., Mr. G. Luxford, and Mr. J. L. Lawrence 
were elected new members of the Council, in the room of Mr. A. H. 
Hassell, Dr. Cooke, and Dr. Ayres.—G. E. D. 


N.B.—In consequence of the death of Mr. E. Doubleday, one of 
the Vice-Presidents, no meeting was held in December. 


Note on Serratula tinctoria, Alsine stricta, and a Species of Woodsia. 
By DaniEL OLiver, Jun., Esq. 


Serratula tinctoria. Botanizing in Teesdale a while ago, I fell in 
with an example of what appears to be the broad-leaved saw-wort, or 
Serratula tinctoria, var. integrifolia. TY have not observed any mention 
of this variety in Hooker or Babington’s Manual: it occurs in Smith’s 
‘English'Flora’ and ‘English Botany.’ The figure in Petiver’s works 
is, So far as the leaves are concerned, like the plant in question, but the 
form of inflorescence is different. It may be common, but never be- 
fore turned up, to my knowledge, to botanical friends here or myself. 

Alsine stricta. Examples of this rare plant which I possess, from 
Teesdale, appear to have glabrous peduncles; if such be a character, 
it might be introduced with advantage into the specific description,— 
more especially as the presence or absence of nerves in the leaves is 
not so easily determined in the dried plant. Very frequently little 
reliance is to be placed on pubescence or hairiness; but, so far as I 
have recently examined, the peduncles of Alsine verna are always 
more or less hairy or pubescent. 

Woodsia. I collected, a few months ago, some miles northerly 
from Moffat, Scotland, the variety? gracilis, | think, of W. Ilvensis, 
and agreeing pretty well with the figure in ‘ English Botany,’ No. 
2323. If I mistake not, W. Ilvensis was mentioned as occurring in 
that neighbourhood some time ago in the ‘ Phytologist.’ 

D. OLIVER, JUN. 

January, 1850. 


776 


Contents of the ‘ Botanical Gazette’ for 1849 ; a Monthly Journal 
of Botany, Edited by ARTHUR HENFREY, F.L.S., &c. 


PERIODICAL publication appears to become each year a more popu- 
lar form of literature, both with readers and writers on science; and 
Botany has not been left out of this prevailing tendency of the times. 
‘The Phytologist’ led the way as a monthly botanical journal and 
miscellany, published at a price which placed it within easy reach of 
almost all persons who could be supposed likely to feel sufficient in- 
terest in a scientific study, to induce them to take and read a monthly 
periodical specially devoted to the one subject. For seven years ‘The 
Phytologist’ was alone in this career; the contemporaneous botani- 
cal journals keeping to the old-established price of a half-crown for 
the monthly Number. Last year, however, saw the commencement of 
two other monthly journals of Botany, published at equal price with 
‘The Phytologist.’ One of these, namely, ‘ Hooker’s Journal of Botany,’ 
was simply the continuation of an older periodical, in a smaller form, 
and at a lower price, but otherwise very little changed in its real cha- 
racter and objects. ‘To this one some slight allusion has been for- 
merly made in ‘The Phytologist’ (Phytol. iii. 452); and we may 
probably mention it more particularly next month. Its objects ap- 
pear to be quite different from those sought by ‘ The Phytologist ;’ 
and it is addressed to a different class of readers. 

The other is altogether a new “ venture” in the periodical literature 
of botany; and one that sails much nearer to the track of ‘ The Phy- 
tologist,’ without coming clearly within it. The ‘ Botanical Gazette’ 
has been ably edited during 1849 ; although, we may venture to say, 
its so-intituled “ Original Communications” appear to us rather too 
frequently to be translations of papers published in foreign journals. 
We by no means object to see such articles in an English form; and 
if it better suits the editor’s convenience to include them among the 
really “ original” communications, we suppose that he will continue 
todo so. The peculiarity is alluded to just now, in explanation of 
our remark above, to the effect that the ‘ Botanical Gazette’ does 
not sail quite in the same course with ‘ The Phytologist.’ While this 
periodical has always been preeminently, though not quite exclu- 
sively, a journal of British botany, the ‘ Botanical Gazette’ becomes 
more a journal or repertory of European and physiological botany, 
through its translations, and in its miscellaneous news about foreign 
botanists. Uncertain whether it would be continued through a 


Vi 


second year, we have hitherto abstained from noticing the contents 
of the ‘ Gazette; but the editor informed his readers in the twelfth 
Number, published in December last, that “ the First Number of the 
Second Volume will appear in due course on the Ist of January, 
1850;” and accordingly a thirteenth Number did then appear. 
While there is still no positive promise or pledge to such effect, we 
construe this commencement of a second volume into an intimation 
that the ‘ Botanical Gazette’ will probably be carried on through 
another year. Its editor has paid ‘ The Phytologist’ the compliment 
of regularly inserting a list of monthly contents; and as we desire to 
reciprocate the same plan, it appears advisable to do so ab initio, by 
giving at once the list of contents of the ‘ Gazette’ for 1849, before 
commencing the monthly lists for 1850. 


First Number. 

Introductory Address. [Two explanatory pages by the Editor. ] 

On some recently-discovered British Plants. By Charles C. Ba- 
bington, M.A., &c. [The recently-discovered plants are most of them 
rather dissevered than discovered. Allium triquetrum (Linn.) has 
been found in Guernsey, by the Rev. T. Salwey. Thlaspi alpestre 
(British authors) is sub-divided into T. alpestre (Linn.) and T. virens 
(Jord.) This latter name is applied by Mr. Babington to the plant 
so plentiful on hilly ground near Matlock Bath; but which is thought 
by Mr. Borrer not to be the T. virens of Jordan. Another “ form,” 
T. occitanum (Jord.), is reported as a variety of T. alpestre; while T. 
alpestre and T. Gaudinianum (of the same “ splitting Frenchman ”’) 
are quoted as synonyms of T. alpestre. Medicago falcata is bisected 
into two varieties, “vera” and “sylvestris,” both occurring near 
Thetford, Suffolk. Arenaria viscosa (Fries) is reported from Redneck 
Heath, near Thetford, and considered to be only a hairy or glandular 
variety of A. tenuifolia. AKnautia arvensis, variety integrifolia, 
which we had supposed familiar to English botanists, is recorded as 
“noticed for the first time” at Cherry Hinton, near Cambridge, in 
1848. ] 

On three species of Ferns hitherto involved in much confusion : 
Aspidium lobatum, Sm., A. aculeatum, Sm., and A. Braunii, Spenn. 
By Prof. G. Kunze of Leipsic. [Translation from the ‘ Flora’ of 
June 14, 1848. Continued in No. 2 of Bot. Gaz. |] 

On the Stolons of Epilobium palustre, and of some other species of 
the same genus. By Thilo Irmisch. [Translation from the ‘ Bo- 
tanische Zeitung.’ | 

Vou, 111, 5 4 


Te 
Literature. Proceedings of Societies. Miscellanea. [Among the 
last is a record of Trifolium strictum having been found in Anglesea, 
by Mr. T. Dickenson; but the discovery seems somewhat vague or 
uncertain, by the record. | 


Number 2. 


On Valeriana officinalis, Z., V. sambucifolia, Mzk., and some other 
doubtful species. [Notices about the plants from foreign authors. | 

Note upon the Effects of Cultivation on Plantago lanceolata, v. 
spherostachya (W. & G.) of Bab. Manual. By George Lawson, 
F.B.8S.E. [Mr. Lawson removed a root from the sands of Barrie in- 
to a garden, where it became ordinary P. lanceolata, as might have 
been expected. | 

Discovery of Bromus tectorum in Britain. [A paper by Mr. C. C. 
Babington, to record the discovery of B. tectorum “ for the first time 
as a native of Britain,” near the New Mill, Hertford; where Setaria 
glauca and various other foreign species have likewise occurred, 
doubtless equally introduced with seeds of flax or other foreign pro- 
duce. | 

Literature. Proceedings of Societies. Miscellanea. 


N umber 3. 


Additions to the Flora of South Wales. By Hewett C. Watson. 
[A list of species not on record as occurring in South Wales, when 
the first volume of the ‘ Cybele Britannica’ was printed, but subse- 
quently reported from thence by Mr. James Motley, Mr. C. C. Ba- 
bington, or other botanists. | 

On the Causes that determine the Fall of Leaves. By Dr. Inman. 
[From the ‘ Proceedings of the Literary and Philosophical Society of 
Liverpool.’ ] 

On the Fumaria agraria, Lag. By Charles C. Babington, M.A. 
[A form long known in England, and usually labelled “ F. capreo- 
lata” by English botanists. ] 

On the Varieties of Lythrum Salicaria, Z. By Prof. Schlechten- 
dal. Ditto; by Ph. Wirtgen of Coblentz. [Translations from the 
‘ Botanische Zeitung. | 

On a curious Fact in the Physiology of Roots : their penetration 
into Mercury. By M. Durand. [Translation from the ‘ Annales des 
Sciences. Continued into the succeeding Number of Bot. Gaz. | 

Literature. Proceedings of Societies. Miscellanea. 


779 


Number A. 


On Sagina ciliata, Fr., and S. apetala, Z. By F. Beneken. 
[Translation from the ‘ Botanische Zeitung.’ The purport of the pa- 
per is to establish the identity of these two alleged species. | 

Abnormal Morphology. By Hewett C. Watson, Esq. 

On a Transformation of the perichetial part of the Mosses. By 
C. Muller. [Translation from the ‘ Botanische Zeitung.’] 

Literature. Proceedings of Societies. Miscellanea. 


Number 5. 


On the Causes which limit the Distribution of Plants in the North 
of Europe and analogous Regions. By Alph. De Candolle. [Ab- 
stract of a paper published in the ‘ Annales des Sciences Naturelles.’ 
The author recognizes heat as the grand cause, but considers that the 
true mode of reading its effects is, by reckoning up the sum of heat re- 
quired during the period of growth for the species ; the length of time, 
and the height of the thermometer, being in an inverse ratio ; more 
heat for a shorter time, being equivalent to less heat for a longer 
time. We fear that there is a fallacy of reasoning here, although 
the view is founded in truth. ] 

On the Rubus nitidus of Authors, and some other Species. By 
Charles C. Babington, M.A. 

Contributions to the History of certain Cultivated Plants. By Dr. 
Fraas. [Translation from the ‘ Botanische Zeitung.’ | 

Literature. Proceedings of Societies. Miscellanea. 


Number 6. 


On the Transformations of the Flora of Central Europe during the 
Tertiary Period. By M. V. Raulin. [Translation from the ‘Annales 
des Sciences.’ | 

Vegetation of the Upper Regions of the Nile. From M. Fred. 
Werne’s Account of Mehemet Ali’s Expedition to the White Nile. 

Literature. Proceedings of Societies. Miscellanea. 


Number 7. 


Observations on Viscum album. 

On the Periods of Vegetation of Winter Rye and Wheat, from the 
Flowering to the ripening of the Seed. By G. Lucas. [Translation 
from the ‘ Botanische Zeitung.’ | 


780 


On Sagina ciliata. By Charles C. Babington, M.A. [Mr. Ba- 
bington distinguishes 8. ciliata by its sepals being adpressed to the 
capsule in the mature plant, and S. apetala by its sepals ultimately 
spreading in the form of a cross. Other differences are mentioned in 
the characters printed, but these are rather verbal than real. ] 

On Twice-flowering Trees, and the influence of last Winter. By 
Prof. Schlechtendal. [Translation frsm the ‘ Botanische Zeitung.’ ] 

On the Causes which interfere with the Development of Flowers, 
Fruits and Seeds. C. F. Gartner. [From C. F. Giartner’s ‘ Beitrage 
zur Kenntniss der Befruchtung,’ 1844. | 

Literature. Proceedings of Societies. Miscellanea. [The most 
important article of the ‘ Miscellanea,’ is a plan or proposal for the 
“ Registration of Localities,’-—one likely to become very useful, if 
supported and well carried out. ] 


Number 8. 


On Viola sylvatica and canina. By Fenton J. A. Hort, Esq. 
[Rather behind the ‘ Phytologist,’ in its subject and matter; and as- 
serting some errors. | 

List of the Silesian indigenous Willows; with some appendices 
on Synonymy, &c. By the Director Wimmer, of Breslau, &c. 
[Translation from the ‘ Flora.’ Continued into succeeding numbers of 
Bot. Gaz. | 

Literature. Proceedings of Societies. Miscellanea. 


Number 9. 


Note on Fumaria Vaillantii. By C.C.Babington, M.A. [The 
author of the Note deems it probable that we possess only one spe- 
cies in Britain, under the two names of Vaillantii and parviflora. A 
similar opinion was expressed in the ‘ Cybele Britannica,’ in 1847. ] 

Descriptions of new and more accurately discriminated species of 
Odontites, growing in Britain. By John Ball, Esq., M.R.LA. [Ex- 
tracted from the ‘ Annals of Natural History. ‘The novelty appears 
to lie in dividing the Euphrasia Odontites into two species, “ verna” 
(Reich.) and “rotundata” (Ball), and then subdividing the former into 
two forms or varieties, “ rubra” (Pers.) and “ elegans” (Ball). ] 

On the Reproduction of Plants. By Prof. Schleiden. [Transla- 
tion extracted from the ‘ Principles of Scientific Botany.’ | 

Literature. Proceedings of Socicties. Miscellanea. 


781 


Number 10. 


On Viola sylvatica and canina. By W. H. Purchas, Esq. [A se- 
ries of figures of the capsules, with judicious remarks on the two spe- 
cies and their nomenclature. | 

On Fumaria parviflora, Zam., and Vaillantii, Lots. By Arthur 
Henfrey, F.L.S.  [Mr. Henfrey considers that the plants of Kent and 
Essex, found by himself and by Mr. G. 8S. Gibson, belong to F. par- 
viflora, and states that he has not seen British specimens of F. Vail- 
lantii. | 

Observations on certain French and German Plants.. By Dr. F. 
Schultz. [Translation from the ‘ Flora,’ of April 12, 1849.] 

Special Morphology. By Prof. Schleiden. [Extract. | 

On a remarkable Monstrosity of the Vinca. By Professor Edward 
Forbes. 

Literature. Proceedings of Societies. Miscellanea. 


Number 11. 


Observations on the genus Ulex, with the Description of a New 
Species common to Brittany and the South-east of England. By J. 
E. Planchon, Dr. es Sciences. [Translation from the ‘ Annales des 
Sciences Naturelles.” The alleged new species was known several 
years ago among English botanists, and mentioned in Babington’s 
Manual as a variety, “ major,” of Ulex nanus. Dr. Planchon gives 
to it the name of U. Gallii. | 

On the Dorsetshire Ulices. By Prof. E. Forbes. [Mr. Forbes 
says of Dr. Planchon’s dissevered species, nanus and Gallii, that “the 
distinctive characters he assigns to them will not do in the field, how- 
ever well they may contrast on paper.” 

Note on Dr. Planchon’s paper on Ulex Gallii. By Charles C. Ba- 
bington, M.A. 

On the British forms of Daucus Carota. By Prof. Edward Forbes, 
F.R.S.  [Prof. Forbes thinks “ that we had better give up attempting 
to divide our British carrots into more species than one.” | 

On the Rumex palustris of Smith. By C. C. Babington, M.A. 

Literature. Proceedings of Societies. Miscellanea. [The ‘ Mis- 
cellanea’ include “ Records of Localities,” and other minor points of 
information. The records doubtless are understood by the editor to 
rest upon the personal testimony of the individual contributor. Some 
few of them are errors of name, or unnecessary repetitions of facts old 
in print; and this class will soon increase, if not guarded against. It 


782 


is much to be wished that both these objectionable features in the re- 
ports of localities could be prevented or checked. There seems only 
one course likely to effect this desirable object ; namely, submitting 
the reports of habitats to the eyes and opinion of some competent 
boatnist, before printing them. | 


Number 12. 


Note on Viola sylvatica and canina. By the Rev. W. A. Leighton, 
B.A., &c. [A short paper, with two figures, to show a difference in 
the form of the stigmas of the two species mentioned. ‘These diffe- 
rences, however, are too slight to be made available in a verbal cha- 
racter: they would probably puzzle, rather than assist, any botanist 
who was not already familiar with the plants, and therefore familiar 
with more obvious and broader differences. | 

Dr. Dickie’s Cystopteris. By Thomas Moore. 

Notes on some British forms of the genus Thalictrum. By John 
Ball, M.R.I.A. 

On Equisetum arvense, var. serotinum, Meyer. By J. W. Sturm. 
[Translation from the ‘ Flora’ of July, 7, 1848. ] 

Literature. Proceedings of Societies. Miscellanea. [Among the 
“ Records of Localities” is one for Orchis hircina; namely, “ In the 
parish of Great Glemham, near Saxmundham, Suffolk. E.N. Bloom- 
field, July, 1847.” It would be very desirable to have some corrobo- 
ration of this alleged locality for so rare and so conspicuous a plant. 


Number 13. 


Notice on Potamogeton fluitans, Roti, and Ulex Gallii, Planch. 
By F. J. A. Hort, Esq. 

On the genus Bromus, Sect. Serrafalcus, Parlatore. By Dr. F. 
Schultz. [Translation from the ‘ Flora’ of April 21, 1849. ] 

On extensive Fissures observed in the Stems of two living and 
healthy Trees of the Spruce Fir. By Ralph Carr, Esq. [From the 
‘Transactions of the Tyneside Naturalists’ Field Club.’] 

Remarks resulting from a perusal of Mr. Watson’s ‘ Cybele Britan- 
nica,’ vol. ii. By C. C. Babington. [Notes in explanation or cor- 
rection of points in the ‘ Cybele,’ chiefly where the name of Mr. Ba- 
bington is mentioned as the authority for statements, &c.] 

Literature. Proceedings of Societies. Miscellanea. [Among the 
latter is an extract from the ‘ Botanische Zeitung,’ “ On the plan to 
be pursued in teaching Botany in schools,” that is highly deserving 


783 


the attention of Professors in Colleges, equally with Masters in Schools. 
“ Terminology, which is superabundant, containing much that is use- 
less, must be used with discrimination.” And, “ We should not teach 
this or that natural system, since all are more or less incomplete [ra- 
ther, more or less arbitrary and unnatural], and the student will al- 
ready have become aware of the existence of natural families from 
the course of instruction.” Our self-deluded system-coiners, who 
mistake words for things, terms for knowledge, will very little relish 


such advice. | 
C. 


Eatracts from the ‘ Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, 


On the Injuries sustained by certain Plants from the attacks of 
parasitic Fungi, with particular reference to the Cause of the 
Potato Disease, by F. J. Grauam, F.L.S. 


In order to demonstrate the subject more clearly, Mr. Graham ex- 
hibited drawings, with magnified figures of several species of para- 
sites; and a great many specimens of different plants, both native 
and exotic, presenting an healthy appearance on those parts which 
were still free from the attacks of the different species of mildew to 
which they were subject, but at the same time showing the most in- 
disputable signs of disease on those parts which were infested by tufts 
of mildew. The manner in which one plant in particular, Shepherd’s 
Purse (Thlaspi Bursa Pastoris, L.), was effected, was very remarkable. 
Portions of the stems of this were covered, to the extent of two or 
three inches, with Botrytis parasitica, which caused them to become 
gouty or swollen to three times their natural size; and eventually 
these parts assumed a brown colour, and a moist putrescent character, 
which could be traced down the stalks, and in many cases killed the 
plants. Transverse sections of these blotches, compared with similar 
sections of a blotch on the potato stalk, exhibited the same effects, 
the dark fluid having penetrated the tissues of both to a considerable 
extent. Of all the species of parasitic mildews which he has noticed, 
Mr. Graham considers those belonging to the genus Botrytis to pro- 
duce the severest injuries ; and it is an undisputed fact that the potato 
crops have been universally attacked, during the last three seasons, 
by Botrytis infestans. 


784 


As to the manner in which these parasites acquire their destructive 
power, Mr. Graham considers that it arises from the natural decay of 
their mycelium or internal filaments, which he has found traversing 
the tissues of plants, beneath the external tufts of mildew. That the 
tissues of plants are extensively permeated by this mycelium, has been 
frequently shown by the Rev. M. J. Berkeley and other mycologists ; 
but the important fact that these roots (as they may be termed) die 
within the tissues of plants, along with their superstructure, assuming 
a dark colour in decay and ultimately dissolving into a viscous mass, 
has hitherto, Mr. Graham states, escaped the notice of authors. De- 
caying matter being thus secretly introduced, corrupts the adjacent 
tissues, and in many cases spreads over the entire plant and kills it. 
Mr. Graham states that he has arrived at this conclusion after re- 
peated examinations under powerful microscopes, but that the effects 
are visible in some cases to the naked eye. Experiments made by 
enclosing tufts of mildew in the sap of those plants on which it grew, 
also exhibited the results above stated. 


Double-flowered Variety of Matricaria Chamomilla, by J. Hoce, 
F.R.S., F.L.S. 


Mr. Hogg exhibited dried specimens of a plant which he regarded 
as a double variety of Matricaria Chamomilla, Z., found by himself 
on the sandy road-side near Whitburn, Durham, together with a co- 
loured drawing of the natural size. He stated, in a communication 
accompanying the exhibition, that he had never before observed any 
similar variety of the species above named, nor could he find any ac- 
count of its having been known to vary with a double flower. Sir J. 
E. Smith, however, in his ‘ English Flora,’ states of Anthemis nobilis, 
that “ varieties with double flowers are common in gardens ;” and in 
Smith’s own herbarium, in the Museum of the Society, are two spe- 
cimens of Pyrethrum inodorum, var. flore pleno, the flowers of which 
very strongly resemble those exhibited. These were found in Nor- 
folk, by Mr. Crowe, in 1799, and are mentioned in the ‘ English Flora’ 
as “a double variety, having a multiplied radius and an obliterated 
contracted disk.” In the present example Mr. Hogg states that “the 
external white petals, or rather the florets of the radius, are altogether 
larger and stronger; they are much elongated, strap-shaped, less nar- 
row, with their margins somewhat folded inwards, and are rather more 
numerous than those in the ordinary single flower, from which they 


785 


also differ by being sometimes bilabiate; whilst the disk itself is 
greatly contracted and reduced, and its tubular florets appear to have 
become very small and abortive; thus apparently indicating that the 
florets of the radius have become lengthened and enlarged at the ex- 
pense of those of the disk.” Mr. Hogg adds, that in general appear- 
ance these large double flowers of Matricaria Chamomilla resemble 
the common white double flowers of the genus Chrysanthemum. 


Observations on certain Species of the Natural Order Cycadee, by 
JaMes YATEs, Esq., F’.R.S., F.L.S., &c. 


Cycas revoluta. Since the year 1799, when a female plant of this 
species flowered at Farnham, as described by Sir James Edward 
Smith in the 6th volume of the Linnean Transactions, a considerable 
number of the same sex have flowered in this country. Five indivi- 
duals might be mentioned, which are now in a flowering state. On 
the other hand, only one male plant is known to have flowered in our 
island. ‘This was formerly at York, and is now in the Botanic Gar- 
den at Sheffield. Its cone, or rather spike, nearly a metre in length, 
is preserved in the museum of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society, 
and exhibits in a very striking manner the affinity of this genus to the 
rest of the Cycadez, whilst the female cone of Cycas differs greatly 
from that of all the other genera. 

Macrozamia spiralis. 'The genus Macrozamia, the scales of whose 
cone, whether male or female, are distinguished by terminating in a 
single spine, directed upwards, appears to be very closely allied to 
the Dioon of Professor Lindley. It is difficult to distinguish the 
young seedlings of these two genera. The only perceptible difference 
is, that in Macrozamia the leaflets are contracted at the base, and are 
more remote from one another than in Dioon. Also in both of these 
genera the leaves of the young plants differ most remarkably from 
those of the same plants in the adult state. Macrozamia, as well as 
Dioon, approaches Cycas in the circumstance that the leaflets are de- 
current, whereas in the remaining genera, Encephalartus, Zamia and 
Ceratozainia, they are not at all decurrent, but are contracted at the 
base, and join the midrib of the leaf by a distinct articulation. ‘The 
decurrent leaflets of Macrozamia spiralis are especially apparent in 
the young plants. 

Encephalartus brachyphyllus. A wale plant flowered last year at 
Chatsworth. The cone appeared early in May, and was full-grown 
in two months. 

VOL. I. 5 1 


786 


Encephalartus Altensteinit. There are at Chatsworth two splen- 
did specimens of this species, which are labelled as such. Some of 
their leaves are two metres long. One of the two specimens has 
thrown out bulbs, producing offsets of considerable size. On com- 
paring the leaves of the offsets with those of the parent plant, the for- 
mer are observed to be much more spinous and smaller than the latter, 
the number of the leaflets also being much less. This individual 
therefore affords a decisive proof that such diversities in the leaves 
may depend upon the age of the plant, or upon other circumstances. 
Hence it may be inferred, that many individuals, which in our conser- 
vatories are distinguished by other names, and especially many of 
those called “ Zamia pungens,” or “ Encephalartus pungens,” belong 
to the Encephalartus Altensteinii of Lehmann and Miquel. Lehmann 
assigned this name and made his description of the species from the 
study of specimens directly imported from South Africa. But if the 
view here taken be correct, the species was already common in Eu- 
rope under other names. A plant called “ Zamia pungens,” in the 
Botanic Garden at Birmingham, agrees exactly in appearance with 
Lehmann’s plate of E. Altensteinii, in his ‘ Pugillus Sextus’ (Ham- 
burgh, 1834). The history of two of these plants called “ Zamia pun- 
gens” is remarkable. They are a male and a female, of about equal 
size and similar appearance, and formerly belonged to Lord Tanker- 
ville’s collection at Walton-on-Thames. When they were sold, the 
male plant went to Kew, the female to Chatsworth. Both have 
flowered, and the flower of each has been represented. An engraving 
of the female with its cone, produced in 1832, was published by A. 
B. Lambert, Esq. (see Buckland’s ‘ Bridgewater Treatise,’ i. 494; 11. 
plate 59), and Mr. R. Horsman Solly obtained a fine drawing of the 
flower of the male in 1839 (Proceedings of Linn. Soc. p. 52). This 
male cone is preserved in the collection of the Linnean Society, and 
a cone afterwards produced by the same plant is in the museum at 
Kew. ‘This plant is now putting up a new crown of leaves. Its fel- 
low, the female at Chatsworth, has been in fruit many months. M1- 
quel observes, that this species was formerly cultivated in Kuropean 
conservatories under the name of “ Zamia spinulosa,” or “ Z. spino- 
sissima.” Both he and Lehmann assign the name of “ Kncephalartus 
pungens” to an entirely different species. 

Encephalartus Caffer. This species, which in Miquel’s arrange- 
ment immediately follows E. Altensteinii, differs from it distinctly in 
the form of the leaves. Also in both species the form of the leaves, 
and more especially the obliquity with which the leaflets are set upon 


787 


the midrib, and which increases regularly from the base of the leaf to 
its apex, may be traced to the imbricate vernation. In all Cycadez 
the vernation affords important aids for distinguishing both genera 
and species, and these characters are the more deserving of attention 
on account of the rare occurrence of the flowers. 

The next species to Encephalartus Caffer, in Miquel’s arrangement, 
is K. longifolius. He however represents these two species as scarcely 
differing except in habit. The plant in the great conservatory at 
Kew, named “ Zamia longifolia,” seems to me undistinguishable from 
EK. Caffer. Specimens of the same may be seen at Chelsea and Chis- 
wick, which in those gardens are called “ Zamia elegans.” At Sion 
House there is a remarkably fine plant of this species, called there 
“ Encephalartus Caffrorum.” 

Probably no finer specimens of E. Caffer have ever been known 
than two, which are at Chatsworth. They were sent to the Duke of 
Devonshire’s collection by the late Baron Ludwig, from his own gar- 
den at the Cape of Good Hope, together with all the Chatsworth 
specimens of this genus, excepting that already mentioned, which was 
brought from Walton-on-Thames. These two plants cannot be less 
than a hundred years old. On a close examination of the cicatrices, 
which are arranged in spirals on their trunks, appearances present 
themselves which make it probable, that not the leaflets only, but the 
leaves also are articulated. Many of these cicatrices are concave, 
smooth within, but showing the marks of bundles of vessels, which have 
closed after the separation of the petioles. Although, therefore, the 
longevity of these leaves is certainly very great, as it is in all Cyca- 
dex, yet they appear to have their natural term of life, perhaps ten 
years or more; after which they are thrown off by an effort of the 
plant resembling that which in common cases takes place every year. 
One of these two specimens is a female, and having recently borne 
fruit, requires a more detailed description. The cone made its ap- 
pearance in the spring of 1847. In the following September it had 
attained so great a size, that it was thought desirable to take a cast of 
it in plaster, and models, made from this cast, are now in the museum 
at Kew, in the collections of the British Museum and of the Linnean 
Society, and in other collections both public and private. At the 
time when the cast was taken, the prevailing colour of the cone was 
a dark shining green, the pyramidal extremities of the rhomboids be- 
ing of a lemon-yeilow, streaked with brown. These colours were af- 
terwards blended or changed, so that the surface of the cone assumed 
a pretty uniform bronze colour. For a long time the cone was as 


788 


compact as possible; but at the end of the year a fissure might be 
discerned round the base of some of the pyramids, especially of those 
near the top of the cone. The cone had then become twice as large 
as it wasin September. But the rhomboids which terminated the 
scales, rising in the form of truncated and tuberculated pyramids, had 
increased much less in the upper part of the cone than in the lower. 
Accordingly the scales in the upper part, extending a fourth of the 
way down the axis, were afterwards found to be barren. Moreover, 
as the rhomboids in the middle and lower part increased, they ex- 
tended themselves laterally much more than vertically, and there 
arose thus a remarkable swelling or protuberance in the part of the 
cone below that, which consisted of the barren scales. In this respect 
the cone assumed the appearance of that of an Encephalartus, which 
is figured in Jacquin’s ‘ Fragmenta,’ plate 27. Although the barren 
scales at the upper part of the cone became gradually less close and 
compact, they continued firmly attached to the axis until the follow- 
ing midsummer. Had a male plant been present, it appears probable 
that under these circumstances fertilization would have taken place. 
Although the Cycadez are classed as gymnospermous, their ovules, with 
the exception of the genus Cycas, are so covered and guarded in the 
earlier stages of their development, that it is difficult to imagine how 
the pollen can possibly obtain access to them. But, after the barren 
scales at the top of the cone have begun to separate, a shower of pol- 
len, falling on it, would easily make its way through the fissures be- 
tweeen these barren scales, and, going in the direction of the axis, 
would come into immediate contact with the summits of the ovules, 
which are all directed towards the axis and placed at a very short dis- 
tance from it. In considering the mode of impregnation, it is also im- 
portant to observe, that, whereas the male cone quickly comes to matu- 
rity, sheds its abundant pollen, and decays, the female cone, being of 
much slower growth, remains for many weeks in that state, in which 
the provision here described is made for the admission of the pollen. 
About July, 1848, all the scales separated from the axis, beginning at 
the top of the cone. A coloured wax model having been made of a 
scale with the fruit upon it in the mature state, copies of it accom- 
pany the before-mentioned models of the cone. ‘The scales were 
arranged in eight spirals, each spiral consisting of forty scales, and 
making two revolutions round the axis. The number of drupes con- 
taining nuts, was probably about 400, two upon each perfect scale. 
The scales were weighed as they fell from the cone, and their entire 
amount was 46 tbs. After all the scales had fallen, the axis was found 


789 


to be supported by a very short thick peduncle, not exceeding fifteen 
millemetres in length, and covered with down. A section having 
been made across the axis in its thickest part, the centre was observed 
to be pith, without cells, vessels, or woody fibre. ‘This central por- 
tion was surrounded by pith, abounding in cells and bundles of woody 
fibre. The cells were filled with gum, and very different from the 
bundles of woody fibre. These latter, being destined to supply the 
scales, first pursued a course parallel to the axis, and then turned out- 
wards to the bases of the scales. In relating the history of this plant, 
it is to be observed, lastly, that some time before the scales began to 
fall from the axis, a set of young leaves made their appearance on 
one side of its base. They were invested with a thick, silky, olive- 
coloured pubescence. ‘They at first took a horizontal direction, but 
on the removal of the cone their tendency was upwards. 


Notice of ‘A Manual of the British Marine Alge. By W. H. 
Harvey, M.D., &c. London: Van Voorst. 1849. 


IMMEDIATELY on its appearance in 1841, Mr. Harvey’s ‘ Manual of 
British Algze’ became a standard authority on the Sea-weeds of the 
British Isles. The author was fortunate in being able to avail himself 
of the invaluable assistance of Mrs. Griffiths, and the published la- 
bours of Dr. Greville, in addition to that store of knowledge he had 
himself acquired during the many years in which he had devoted the 
energies of a very superior intellect to the study of these most elegant 
and interesting plants. In the first edition, however, he unfortunately 
fell into the common-place, the all but universal, error of young au- 
thors, of extending the bounds of their subject beyond the limits of 
their knowledge, and so entailing on their works that inevitable con- 
sequence and terrible drawback, a “lame and impotent conclusion.” 
He included in his ‘ Manual’ those microscopic atoms which hover 
(in the minds of our philosophers) between the animal and the vege- 
table kingdoms,—a tribe for which he has no taste, which he had 
never made his study, and of which, consequently, he possessed no 
knowledge. This obscure tribe has since become the subject of two 
important works, by Mr. Hassell and Mr. Ralfs: and Dr. Harvey has 
very properly omitted it entirely from his new edition, which is con- 
fined to Sea-weeds, properly so called; which brings down their his- 


790 


tory to the present time; and which is, beyond all doubt, the best 
book that has yet appeared on this most interesting subject. In ad- 
dition to the greater amount of matter contained in the body of the 
work, it has two valuable additions to the edition of 1841: an admir- 
able glossary of terms, constructed precisely on the model of that in 
Newman’s ‘ Introduction to the History of Insects ;’ and a series of 
beautiful plates, in which the general figure, fructification and struc- 
ture of one species in each genus are delicately and elaborately ex- 
hibited. In fine, it is a work which every collector of our Sea-weeds 
must possess; and, possessing it, he will need no more costly or ex- 
tensive series of illustrations. 

There are, however, two points on which we incline to offer a 
friendly criticism ; and the more so, because they are common errors, 
—errors which occur in all of our systematic botanical works,—and 
therefore errors which we think Dr. Harvey ought to have avoided. 
The first of these is what we might fairly term a straining after deri- 
vations; the second is the substitution of superficial for structural 
leading characters in primary groups. We will give examples of 
each. 

Derivation. “ Ulva, Linneus. Name supposed to be derived from 
Ul, water in Celtic.”—p. 216. 

Our Latin dictionaries teach us “ Ulva, weed of the sea.” Virgil, 
using the word, gives no hint at any derivation beyond his own lan- 
guage. We have not the Mantuan at hand, but recollect three pas- 
sages in which the word occurs :— 


Limosoque lacu per noctem obscurus in wlva 
Delitui. 


Tandem trans fluvium incolumes vatemque, virumque 
Informi limo, glaucaque exponit in wlva. 


Nec vescas salicum frondes, ulvamque palustrem. 


Now suppose a school-boy denying the latinity of these passages, 
and contending that Ulva was derived from the Celtic; it is a matter 
of certainty he would have the school-calf of the Delphin edition 
brought into unpleasant proximity with his calf’s-head. Are we to 
suppose Linneus had no Latin dictionary ’—are we to suppose he had 
no Virgil ?—or wherefore should he wander into the Celtic for a com- 
mon and well-known Latin word ? 

Character of primary groups. Dr. Harvey is unusually caustic on 


791 


the ordinal division of Cryptogamia into such groups as Algz, Lichens 
or Fungi. In alluding to the term orders, so applied to them, he 
pungently remarks, “ we should rather call them disorders.” This 
remark is followed by a subdivision of the Alge into three subclasses, 
which we give zz extenso below, and to which we invite the readev’s 
earnest attention ; and he will see that colour is made the leading dis- 
tinction, and he will find this leading distinction scarcely, if at all, 
supported by the structural details subsequently given. Far be it 
from us to assert that we possess the clew to a better arrangement ; 
but we do unhesitatingly express our conviction, that the division of 
these tribes will hereafter be made to rest on structural differences ; 
and that colour, if it chance to mark such structurally distinguished 
groups, will be held rather as a subsidiary than a primary character. 
It will be a curious, interesting and highly valuable discovery, should 
it be found that colour is even tolerably uniform throughout a class 
or order of animals or vegetables; but we are of opinion this remains 
to be proven. 

“1. Melanospermee. Plants of an olive-green or olive-brown 
colour. Fructification moneecious or dicecious. 1. Spores olive-co- 
loured, either external, or contained singly or in groups in proper 
conceptacles ; each pore enveloped in a pellucid skin (perispore), 
simple or finally separating into 2, 4, or 8 sporules. 2. Antheridia, 
or transparent cells filled with orange-coloured, vivacious corpuscles, 
moving by means of vibratile cilia. Marine. 

“2. Rhodospermee. Plants rosy-red or purple, rarely brown-red 
or greenish-red. Fructification of two kinds, dicecious, always formed 
on separate individuals. 1. Spores (gemmules, Ag.) contained either 
in external or immersed conceptacles, or densely aggregated together 
and dispersed in masses throughout the substance of the frond. 2. 
Spores (called tetraspores, gemmules, Thw.) red or purple, either ex- 
ternal or immersed in the frond, rarely contained in proper concep- 
tacles ; each spore enveloped in a pellucid skin (perispore), and at 
maturity separating into four sporules. Antheridia (not observed in 
all) filled with yellow corpuscles. Marine, with one or two excep- 
tions. 

“3. Chlorospermee. Plants green, rarely a livid purple. Fruc- 
tification dispersed through all parts of the frond, the whole colour- 
ing matter being capable of conversion into propagula. 1. Spores 
(sportdia, Ag.) green or purple, formed within the cells, often (always?) 
at maturity vivacious, moving by means of vibratile cilia. 2. Gem- 
mules (coniocyste, Ag.) or external vesicles containing a dense, dark- 


792 


coloured, granular mass, and finally separating from the frond. 
Marine, or (more generally) found in fresh water streams, ponds and 
ditches, or in damp situations. (The marine species of this sub-class 
are alone described in the present work.)”—p. 4. 

K. 


On the Growth of Grass. By 8. W. Leonarp, Esq.* 


AFTER some preliminary observations, the author stated that about 
three years ago his attention was called to this subject, by observing 
that some grass, which was in a vessel in which he kept some animal- 
cules, increased in height very rapidly, one shoot which he measured 
having grown as much as an inch and a half in twenty-four hours. 
He consequently thought that, by proper management, he might pos- 
sibly be enabled to see it grow under a microscope. Being prevented 
at that time by other avocations from pursuing the subject, he was 
unable to verify his idea until July last, when, having procured a turf 
of the common meadow-grass (Poa annua), he manured it, and then 
found it grew at the rate of an inch or more in twenty-four hours. 
One of the young stems, with its root, was placed in a small test- 
tube, which being properly adjusted under the microscope, he had 
the satisfaction—with a power of 400 diameters—of seeing it traverse 
the field of view. At first no motion was perceptible ; but in about 
half a minute the point darted forwards considerably, and after re- 
maining stationary for a short time it again made a spring forwards, 
and so on at short intervals until it had entirely crossed the field. 
This was repeated several times, with the same results. Suspecting, 
however, that this mode of progression by starts could not be natural, 
he made some alteration in the arrangement, and then found that the 
motion forwards became gradual and equable. The field of the micro- 
scope included rather more than +35th of an inch, and the apex of the 
grass traversed the whole diameter in somewhat less than ten minutes. 
In reference to the mode of growth of this part of the plant, he stated 
his opinion that a gradual expansion and elongation of the cells takes 
place, causing the increase both in the length and breadth of the blade, 
but that there might also be additional cells produced near the root, which 
cells may be gradually developed and matured in the stem during its 


* Extracted from the‘ Proceedings of the Microscopical Society,’ published in the 
“ Zoologist’ for January. 


793 


growth: this he was inclined to think was actually the case, because 
the outer edge of the grass was serrated at regular distances. When 
the upper surface or cuticle was brought into focus, certain more or less 
hexagonal cells, coated with a very thin layer of silica, became visible : 
this outer covering, however, does not appear to undergo the slightest 
change during the progress of the growth: the serrations also appeared to 
cover the whole surface of the grass. Hitherto he had been unable to 
observe the development and growth of cells near the root, his atten- 
tion having been more particularly directed to the apex of the blade, 
the pushing forward or growth of which he considered to be oc- 
casioned not by the before-mentioned expansion or elongation of the 
terminal cells, but by the addition of new matter to the base of the 
blade. 


A Catalogue of the Plants growing wild in Hampshire, with occa- 
stonal Notes and Observations on some of the more remarkable 
Species. By WiLL1AM ARNOLD BromMFIELD, M.D., F.L.S., &c. 


(Continued from page 768). 


Daphne Mezereum. Woods, thickets and copses; rare? It can 
scarcely be held indigenous to the Isle of Wight, as hitherto it has 
occurred in a couple of localities only. A single small plant in a 
moist brambly thicket about a quarter of a mile west of Wackland 
farm; Mr. Thatcher!!! The plant was shown to me by the late Mr. 
R. Loe, of Newchurch, with unripe berries on it, May 12,1845. A 
specimen had previously been found some years since at Apse Castle, 
near Shanklin, by Mrs. Cheverton, of Apse farm, and by her trans- 
planted into the garden there, where I saw it growing. In several 
parts of mainland Hants. In Old Park Wood, Bishop’s Sutton; Mr. 
J. Forder !!!—also reported to grow in Old Down Wood, Ropley, and 
in Brooke’s Wood, Bishop’s Sutton; Jd. In West Wood, West 
Meon, but very scarce, from being so much sought after to supply the 
gardens; Miss E. Sibley !!!_ Reported to grow in the woods at Brook- 
wood; Dr. A. D. White. (This station is very near the last, and 
hence very probably correct). In the beech woods betwixt West 
Meon and Bramdean, quite wild, and not sparingly ; Mrs. Winkworth 
Moody. (Mr. Pamplin in New Bot. Guide Suppl.) This includes 
both the two preceding stations, with perhaps other localities, and | 

Vou. Ti, 5K 


794 


had Mrs. Moody’s own authority for the abundance of the Mezereon 
there when remarked by herself, but on visiting these woods some 
eight or ten years back, in the hope of procuring specimens, I utterly 
failed to discover a single plant, but was shown by the woodman 
thriving bushes in his garden, which had been introduced by him from 
the copses, where he believed it to be then all but extinct, from the 
avidity with which it was hunted out and dug up for transplanting by 
the cottagers, either for their own use or for sale to the nurserymen. 
Wherwell Wood, near Andover, and in Amphiel or Amfield Wood, 
near Winchester, according to Mr. Wm. Whale, but who does not 
give it on personal observation. ‘“ Selborne Hanger (in a part called 
the Scrubs), amongst shrubs at the south-east end above the cottages,” 
—Rev. G. White in Nat. Hist. of Selb..—where it still grows, as I 
learn from Mr. Binnie, gardener to my friend Thomas Bell, Esq. 
The station is one perhaps open to some suspicion, yet may be as 
truly natural as any of the rest. Woods near Andover, plentifully ; 
Miller (Bot. Guide.) Through the kindness of Mr. Forder I was di- 
rected to Old Park Wood, near Bishop’s Sutton, March 21, 1848, and 
where, a few days earlier, several good flowering specimens of Meze- 
reon were marked down, by a person instructed to search for the plant, 
previous to my coming to see them. But, alas! some one had been 
before hand with us, and carried off every flowering specimen they 
could find, leaving numbers of young seedlings dispersed through the 
wood, which in that state are overlooked or disregarded by these ra- 
pacious collectors. A few of these seedlings I took up for cultivation 
at Ryde, and continuing the search over the wood with my guide, 
succeeded in detecting a very limited number of small flowering plants, 
that had escaped observation from their diminutiveness, being scarcely 
six inches high at most. The stems of the wild Mezereon are usually 
simple or very sparingly branched, and seldom, I think, above a foot 
or sixteen inches high, although it is probable they might attain to a 
more considerable stature were they allowed to remain unmolested, of 
which there is but little chance when once they are become large 
enough to be conspicuous in flower. Until it blossoms, or when the 
flowers are past, this shrub is apt to escape notice, from its simple 
and slender habit aiding its concealment amongst the brushwood, and 
from the resemblance the leaves bear to those of the Wood Spurge 
(Euphorbia amygdaloides), a plant of the commonest occurrence in 
every patch of copse or thicket throughout the county. For these 
reasons it is a most difficult undertaking to procure fine native speci- 
mens of Mezereon, which, were the plants left to flourish undisturbed, 


795 


would iu all likelihood be no rare inhabitant of our woods, since it 
contrives to maintain its ground in spite of marauders that seem bent 
on its extirpation. With us, in the wild state the flowers are very 
pale red, or nearly, if not quite, white, but in delicious fragrance not 
inferior to the deepest blush variety seen in the gardens. Cuttings of 
this shrub do not strike, unless perhaps in sand under a hand-glass, a 
process too refined for rustic horticulturists to practise, and hence 
probably the reason why seedlings from the woods are in such request 
for supplying the cottagers’ gardens with a favourite, but I fancy not 
very enduring, occupant. 

As regards the question of the actual spontaneity or indigenous ori- 
gin of the Mezereon in England, it has unquestionably, both in this 
and the adjoming county of Sussex, the appearance of being a ge- 
nuine native. Mr. H. C. Watson, in the second volume of his ‘ Cy- 
bele Britannica, p. 352, has the following remarks on this head. 
“¢ My own inclination would be to treat this shrub as an alien, without 
attempting to fill in the formula in the customary way for native 
plants. By Hooker it is classed with the introduced species; by 
Henslow and Babington with the undisputed natives. Mr. Borrer 
deems it “ truly wild” in Sussex; Mr. Pamplin apparently takes the 
same view of it in Hants; the authors of the ‘ Flora Hertfordiensis’ 
enter it as an unchallenged native of Herts; and so with respect to 
some other counties and their witnesses. The continental distribu- 
tion of the species is such as rather to oppose the idea of the shrub 
being indigenous to Britain.” The objection conveyed in the con- 
cluding sentence of this quotation is the only one which, in my opi- 
nion, carries any weight with it. I presume Mr. Watson here alludes 
to the inland and eastern, or, as it might be termed in accordance 
with his nomenclature of distribution, ultra-Germanic tendencies of 
this shrub. The Mezereon has its principal seat in the north and 
north-east of the European continent, appearing, as a general rule, to 
shun the maritime climate of its western coasts, and of the smaller is- 
lands appertaining to it. The species abounds most in Poland, Rus- 
sia, eastern Germany towards the Baltic, and in all parts of Hungary, 
Gallicia, and other deeply continental lands betwixt the Baltic and 
Mediterranean eastward beyond the Uralian mountains into Siberia, 
and extends northward into Scandinavia as far as the southern pro- 
vinces of Lapland. It certainly approaches the western shores of 
central Europe in several parts of their extent between Norway and 
France, as it is included in the floras of Denmark proper, of Belgium 
and France,—all of which, however, it must be allowed, are to the 


796 


eastward of any British meridian, and so far inconclusive of the abo- 
riginality of the Mezereon in our island. It likewise appears to be 
totally wanting along the entire western coast line of France and the 
Peninsula, but this line is itself west of the limitrophe meridian, be- 
yond which the Mezereon is not found wild in England, and therefore 
does not militate against its claim to be accounted indigenous on 
points lying to the eastward of that line. But partial inflections or 
deviations are observable in the general lines of distribution of very 
many plants; andif we will not allow the Mezereon to be an aboriginal, 
it is at least clear that in the south-east of England it has found clima- 
tic conditions so favourable to spontaneous establishment and disper- 
sion abroad, as to maintain its ground by sheer power of occupancy, 
in defiance of means directed against it apparently adequate to ensure 
its extirpation. A common notion amongst the country people is, 
that the Mezereon plants in the woods originate from seeds of the 
garden shrub dropped by birds. I have in another part of this jour- 
nal (Phytol. ii. 518) expressed the value I attach to this mode of ac- 
counting for the dissemination of species of assumed foreign descent, 
and shall now only observe, that most of the Mezereon bushes in the © 
vicinity of the stations where the plant is found wild have been trans- 
planted seedlings from those very woods that are now but receiving 
back their inhabitants in the descendants of the latter. That such is 
the fact in some degree I am not prepared to deny, for as the Meze- 
reon is doubtless indebted to the agency of birds for its propagation 
from one natural station to another, it would be strange if seeds of the 
same species from the gardens should not occasionally find the like 
means of transport to their original sylvan habitats. But very strong 
and convincing reasons must be assigned for the opinion, before I can 
be persuaded that the presence of the Mezereon in our Hampshire 
woods is due solely to seeds of the cultivated plant conveyed thither 
by birds: there is nothing but bare conjecture to support this idea, 
save certain theoretical considerations of geographical distribution, 
which in the present case are shown to be open to exceptions. It 
may be said that the silence of the older English botanists on the oc- 
currence of the Mezereon as a British plant, is another cause for 
doubting its nativity ; that objection, if admitted, would involve some 
dozens of generally acknowledged aboriginals in the same uncertainty : 
it has been met in a late part of these Notes (Phytol. ii. 622). For 
myself, Iam content to follow the example of Fries in forming my 
judgment in this matter: “ Bene novi,” he says, “ aliis placuisse hance 
plantam exclusam, illam additam, in his suo utantur judicio; equidem 


797 


vero non aliorum commentis, sed mez experienti# indulgere debui ;— 
parum vero curans utrum planta ceterum autoctona vel primitus intro- 
ducta videatur” (Corpus Flor. Provin. Suec. i. Fl. Scan. p. 13.) 
Daphne Laureola. In woods, copses, thickets, hedges, and on 
bushy banks, usually under the shade of other shrubs and trees. In 
many parts of the Isle of Wight, but not generally frequent there. 
Far more common in East than in West Medina, and in the last prin- 
cipally around Ryde, in many of the woods near which town it is quite 
a frequent shrub. In Quarr Copse, Shore Copse, Church Lane, and 
elsewhere at Binstead; between Quarr and Ninham; Priory woods; 
copses near Aldermoor farm; betwixt Aldermoor and Smallbrook 
farms; copses about the Wootton River, and in most other woods and 
thickets for a few miles about Ryde, usually sporadic, but occasionally 
in tolerable abundance within a limited area. It exhibits in this 
island a decided preference for the clay of the tertiary strata, over the 
chalk or any other deposit. Wooded bank betwixt Brading and Nun- 
well. In a wooded hollow in Appuldurcombe Park, and on the bank 
at the top of a sloping field immediately above Span farm; in both 
places on the chalk, and rather plentifully. In the Undercliff, but 
very rarely. By the Pulpit Rock, and wood between Steephill and 
St. Lawrence; Mr. Albert Hambrough!!! In St. Boniface Copse, 
opposite St. Boniface Cottage, in considerable plenty ; Miss Hadfield ! 
Very uncommon in West Medina. On Carisbrook Castle Hill, amongst 
the trees on the east and north sides, and amongst bushes at the up- 
per end of the plantation of beeches by the way up to the castle from 
Newport. A single specimen picked in Stopler’s Copse, betwixt Yar- 
mouth and Thorley. I have not remarked the Spurge Laurel in many 
,, places on the mainland of Hants, but have no reason to believe it rare 
in the county. Selborne, as mentioned by White. I find it in Great 
Dorton (a wood so called), and in various parts of Selborne Hanger, 
especially at the end furthest from the village, when it is quite fre- 
quent in the beech woods. At Boldre Hill, near Lymington. In 
woods (West Meon), frequent; Miss E. Sibley. Holt Woods; Rev. 
Messrs. Garnier and Poulter in Hamp. Repos. Wood at Cams. 
Down-lane chalkpit (Fareham); Mr. W. L. Notcutt. I once found a 
flower of this plant with six divisions, including within a single peri- 
anth a double set of stamens, and two ovaries,—perfectly distinct, yet 
without any appearance as if two of the blossoms had cohered and 
grown into one. This beautiful evergreen shrub is always in full 
flower here by the beginning of February, and in most years as early 
as January. The Rev. G. EK. Smith tells me that the Spurge Laurel 


798 


(called, in Hants, Wood or Copse Laurel) is collected in large quan- 
tities from the woods in Sussex, by persons who go at certain periods 
round the country for that purpose, and bring it to the markets of 
Portsmouth and Chichester, where it is sold as a horse-medicine, but 
he was unable to ascertain for what diseases it was employed,—pro- 
bably as an epispastic, from its great acrmony. I have known it so 
collected in this island. The pulp of the ovoid, black berries is per- 
fectly bland, as in the Mezereon, but the seed in both is intensely 
acrimonious. Passerina annua, not rare in the extreme north of 
France, may possibly be found hereafter in the south-east of England. 

Thesium humifusum (T. linophyllum). On chalky banks, downs, 
and dry, open pastures, more commonly in high than in low situations. 
Very frequent in the Isle of Wight. On Ashey Down, and elsewhere 
near Brading. Plentiful in the Lentenfield Pit, by Carisbrook. On 
grassy slopes between the woods in the valley near Rowledge, pretty 
plentifully. On chalky banks facing the sea at Ventnor; Miss G. E. 
Kilderbee !!! Common on the downs about Ventnor; Dr. G. A. Mar- 
tin!!! Near the Lighthouse, Freshwater Down; Rev. G. E. Smith !!! 
Chalk cliff on the south side of the Isle of Wight; Dr. Stokes in 
With. Bot. Arr. Spitat Norton; Banks near Colwell; Brading Down. 
Afton and Freshwater Downs, in great abundance ; Mr. W. D. Snooke, 
Fl. Vect.!!! Not, I believe, unfrequent in mainland Hants, but ex- 
cept in a station I shall speak of presently, I have never seen it off the 
chalk. I feel pretty certain of having seen it on St. Catherine’s Hill, 
Winton. Once found on some high downs between Old Alresford and 
Stratton, 1828; Mr. Wm. Pamplin in New Bot. Guide. Flower 
Down, near Winchester. Basingstoke; Martyn (Bot. Guide.) Main- 
dell chalkpit; Mr. W. L. Notcutt! Itchen Stoke; Miss L. Legge: 
and doubtless very widely dispersed over the whole cretaceous sys- 
tem. On the short, close turf of our high downs the Thesium is ex- 
tremely dwarfed and diminutive, and its habit of growth not well dis- 
played; but in lower, more sheltered places—as on grassy banks and 
chalk slopes—it acquires a very large size, and the copiously branched 
stems spread in all directions on the ground, or sometimes in a fan- 
shaped manner, to the extent occasionally of eighteen inches or more; 
when growing amongst taller plants, erect or ascending at their ex- 
tremities. This prostrate form, which is particularly fine on the slop- 
ing sea-banks in Ventnor Cove, I have long been accustomed to re- 
gard as probably the T. linophyllum, var. 8. humifusum, of Duby’s 
‘Synopsis, the T. humifusum of De Candolle’s ‘ Flore Frangaise,’ and 
which Mr. Babington has adopted in the ‘ Manual’ for the T. lino- 


199 


phyllum of British authors ; that so called by Linneus being probably 
made up of several species now regarded as distinct: but I confess 
the European plants of this genus appear some of them to be separated 
by characters savouring of too much discriminative refinement. The 
Rev. G. E. Smith, who remarks our Thesium to be “ astonishingly 
abundant and very fine” at Ventnor, observes that it occurs there 
very frequently with proliferous extremities. At Norton, in Freshwa- 
ter, it grows on the loose sand of the flat sea-shore at the western end 
of the Spit. Here the central stems are erect or ascending at base, 
and much stouter than the lateral and exterior, that are prostrate or 
procumbent. The thick, yellowish, woody root is said by Mr. Mitten 
to be parasitic. ‘The little white flowers have a remarkably neat look, 
and the tuft of white hairs on the perianth—reaching up to, but not 
united with, the anthers—is a curious part of their structure, the use 
of which is by no means apparent. 

{Aristolochia Clematitis. Naturalized about habitations and old 
ruins, especially of religious hooses; very rare. Under the old gar- 
den wall of the monastey of St. Cross, near Winchester; Dr. A. D. 
White !!!| At Borden Lodge, Wolmer Forest, near Linford Headley ; 
My. Prettyjohn !!!'| Abundant in both places, and in each introduced 
before the memory of the present occupiers. Borden Lodge is an old 
and lonely tenement on a wild part of Wolmer Forest, now inhabited 
by a Mr. Wm. White, I think one of the forest keepers: the Aristolo- 
chia was growing in considerable plenty in sandy, cultivated ground 
along the palings in front of the house, and amongst potatoes, when I 
visited the spot in September last; one specimen was gathered in 
fruit, which I believe is rarely perfected when formed, and this it sel- 
_dom is from peculiarity of structure in the flower opposing an obstacle 
to impregnation of the ovary, besides the disposition the plant has to 
increase by the widely creeping root. Mr. White being from home 
when I called, I was unable to learn whether the Birthwort occurred 
in other places about the premises, but I understand the date of its 
introduction is unknown to him and his forest neighbours, who regard 
it as a nameless curiosity, and from its strong smell endowed, pro- 
bably, with great medicinal virtues.* Although unquestionably not 
indigenous, the Birthwort is perfectly and permanently established in 
both stations, beyond all likelihood of extirpation, and quite as much 
at home here as in any of the recorded British habitats that I have 
seen, which are all equally artificial in their origin with our Hamp- 


* See p. 668 of the present volume. 


800 


shire ones. Hooker (Brit. Flo.) gives ‘‘ copses and pastures,” as well 
as “amongst old ruins” in the east and south of England: what 
known stations are there in this country for the Aristolochia answer- 
ing to the former description? Hudson (FI. Angl.) says, “ Habitat 
in sylvis et sepibus ;” Relhan also (FI. Cantab.), “ Woods and 
hedges :” neither of these authors makes mention of ruins as an habi- 
tual locality for the plant. Of what kind are the Kentish and Cam- 
bridgeshire habitats alluded to in the works just quoted? I once found 
Aristolochia Clematitis apparently wild in a wood in the Park of St. 
Cloud, and many stations are given for it in the excellent Paris flora 
of Cosson and Germain, whilst it abounds in rough, stony places in 
the south of France, perhaps truly spontaneous; yet is it more fre- 
quently seen as a septal, viatical or ruderal, than as a sylvestral spe- 
cies in middle and western Europe,—the phrase of its occurrence 
generally being, “ Habitat in vineis, cultis, sepibus.” It is assuredly 
most abundant and at home in the east of Europe,* whilst its orien- 
tal prevalence is strongly hinted at in the old English name of Sara- 
cen’s Birthwort, which may countenance a suspicion of its having 
been perhaps introdueed to this country, and even to western Europe 
generally, by the crusaders on their return from Palestine, as a medi- 
cinal plant. Ihave, however, shown in other parts of these Notes, 
the danger of drawing conclusions from such uncertain premises, and 
however harmless and allowable it may be to put forward deductions 
of this kind as purely speculative, they ought never, I think, to be 
adduced as grave arguments against the indigenous claims of a spe- 
cies, or made an excuse for imposing or continuing the symbol of 
doubt in the absence of better testimony. 


* Frequent, for example, in the Russian Steppes, in which country it occurs as 
far north as Moscow, lat. 55° 45’. I have seen it plentiful in the Brigittenan at Vi- 
enna, where it is truly indigenons, and furnishes the only pabulum of the larva of the 
beautiful butterfly Thais Polyxena, which is sometimes plentiful about the Austrian 
capital. 

Wo. A. BROMFIELD. 

Eastmount, Ryde, Isle of Wight, 

January, 1850. 
(To be continued.) 


801 


Kaplanatory Notes on certain British Plants for distribution by the 
Botanical Society of London, in 1850. By H.C. Watson, Esq. 


WHEN last year addressing to the ‘ Phytologist’ (Phytol. iii. 478) 
a paper on the same subject as this present one, two circumstances 
appeared to me to be very probable: first, that I should not continue 
a member of the Botanical Society of London later than 1849; and, 
secondly, that the Society’s periodical distribution of specimens 
would either cease altogether or commence a rapid decrease in value 
and regularity. Neither of these expectations has been practically 
verified at present. 

The Society’s distributions have been continued mainly through 
the opportune and valuable assistance given thereto by Mr. French, 
of London, and Mr. Moore, of the Chelsea Garden. Without the 
energetic aid of these powerful allies Mr. Dennes might have been 
left alone, and would in that case have found himself quite unable to 
effect the arrangement and distribution of the specimens. All three 
of these gentlemen have professional avocations to occupy closely 
their time and attention by day; and they were enabled to manage 
the botanical distributions of last year only by devoting entire nights 
to the task. How long their botanical zeal will urge them to this 
annual exertion and sleep-sacrificing devotedness in carrying out the 
objects of the Society, it might be unsafe to predict. 

As for myself, although I have renounced individual responsibility 
in the future management of the Botanical Society of London, and 
will not be answerable for the dead-lock, towards which some other 
members are fast forcing it, 1 find that there still exists a tie strong 
enough to hold me to the Society as an acting member,—one that 
cannot be curtly cast off, or materially loosened at present, without 
some breach of good faith to the foreign contributors. Steps have 
been taken under my own suggestion, and mostly through my own 
correspondence with botanists abroad, which have virtually placed 
the Botanical Society of London under pledge or promise to distri- 
bute any foreign specimens that may be sent to it, and also to make 
a return for the same to the respective contributors. Several of these 
foreign botanists not unreasonably look to me for the fulfilment of the 
Society’s promises that have been conveyed to them by or through me ; 
and so far as this can be accomplished by an individual member of a 
Society, while struggling against very serious impediments, conse- 
quent on the disorderly management of other parties, 1 may acknow- 

VOL. Itt. 5 L 


802 


ledge myself under a sort of obligation to carry out and act up to the 
promises so given. Hence I have remained a member; and during 
the past year I have devoted considerable time to the distribution of 
the foreign specimens ; many of which, indeed, had been originally 
the duplicates from my own herbarium. 

In respect to the British specimens for distribution in 1850, my in- 
terference and responsibility are only the same as they were last year. 
Early in January, | very rapidly looked through all the British par- 
cels that had been received between Michaelmas and Christmas ; di- 
viding the specimens into three assortments, as heretofore; namely : 
firstly, novelties and varieties not included in the second edition of 
the ‘ London Catalogue of British Plants,’ together with doubtful spe- 
cies or specimens requiring some more special explanation than their 
labels can convey; secondly, those labelled under incorrect names, 
or sent (contrary to regulation) not labelled ready for distribution ; 
thirdly, the great mass of the specimens that I saw no reason for 
placing in either of the two former assortments, while passing them 
hastily under view; although it is far from improbable that some of 
these last would have been separated also, if I could have spared 
time to examine the specimens and labels more closely and com- 
pletely. 

It is on the specimens placed in the first of the three classes men- 
tioned, that I now propose, as in several preceding years, to make 
some explanatory comments addressed to the members who may 
shortly receive the plants. Divided into sets, these specimens will 
be made up into small packets, as far as they will go; leaving only 
three or four of the species for introduction separately into the desi- 
derata parcels of those members whose names may stand lower down 
in the return-list. 

This winter, unfortunately, the supply of “ Novelties, &c.,” is not so 
good as might have been expected, either in number of species or 
number of specimens. But not unlikely I may, in my haste, have 
passed over some of the novelties without recollecting at the moment 
that their discovery dates later than the last edition of the Society’s 
Catalogue. Indeed, Anacharis Alsinastrum is left out of the “ No- 
velty”” group in this way ; for, having heard so much about this plant 
and its localities in 1848 and 1849, I did not recollect at the time of 
looking through the parcels, that the first announcement of it in Bri- 
tain had occurred while the Catalogue was in the press. I presume, 
however. that almost every member received a specimen last year. 


803 


Viole canine (of Authors). These violets are the most numerous 
among the specimens for particular comment,—not as novelties, in- 
deed, but as examples to illustrate and elucidate what has been greatly 
confused and misunderstood. In a paper printed in the ‘ Phytolo- 
gist’ for September last, I distinguished the British violets that have 
passed under the name of “canina,” into three apparent species 
(Phytol. iii. 638), denominated those of Gerarde, of Dillenius, and of 
Smith. The first of these three is abundantly common in England, 
and is known to every botanist ; the second is probably frequent, in- 
cluding forms of varied luxuriance which have been variously named; 
the third I suppose to be quite rare comparatively with the other two. 

Viola (canina) sylvatica (Fries). The first species, or Gerarde’s 
violet, has never been distributed from the Society, simply because it 
is everywhere common in England. Nevertheless, in the course of 
last summer I became well convinced that it would be necessary to 
distribute correctly labelled examples of this very common species, 
in order that the members of the Society might clearly understand to 
which of the Canine violets the name of “sylvatica” is applied cor- 
rectly. I label my examples of Gerarde’s violet under the two names 
of “ Viola sylvatica, Fries,—V. canina, Sm.” These two names may 
be taken as synonymous, although doubtless Smith would have ap- 
plied the name of “ canina” equally to the larger examples of the se- 
cond species. Most of my specimens are in their autumnal state, the 
season being far advanced before I felt the necessity for distributing 
this species along with the next, in order to make both be understood 
by comparisons. The dwarf form of V. sylvatica, which the late Mr. 
E.. Forster mistook for (or, perhaps, more strictly, mingled and con- 
fused with) Smith’s Viola flavicornis, I must hope to procure for dis- 
tribution in the spring of 1850; having been too late for it in 1849. 

Viola (canina) flavicornis (Smith). The second species, or Dil- 
lenius’s violet, was distributed by the Society in the last and preced- 
ing years, from Claygate, in Surrey, from Tiptree Heath, in Essex, 
from the sand-hills near New Brighton, on the coast of Cheshire, and 
sparingly from some few other localities. ‘The numerous specimens 
for distribution in 1850, are partly from my own neighbourhood in 
Surrey, collected about Esher and Claygate; and partly from New 
Brighton, collected by Mr. Francis Brent and Mr. Thomas Sansom. 
I think that the specimens from Surrey and Cheshire will equally be 
referred to the species first distinguished, in this country, from V. ca- 
nina-sylvatica, by Dillenius ; although both he and Smith appear to 
have erroneously supposed that their species (V. flavicornis) was 


804 


always of small size. ‘The Botanical Society has never received speci- 
mens of true Viola lactea (Sm.). At least two dissimilar forms (pos- 
sibly belonging to two different species) have passed under this latter 
name, and among botanists who might be supposed very likely to 
know the species of Smith. Indeed, Smith himself probably mixed 
two species ; for the plant figured as V. lactea in ‘ English Botany ’ 
is scarcely the same with the specimens preserved in Smith’s herba- 
rium as V. lactea. 

“ Viola Curtisti” (?)— V. Rothomagensis? Again this dubious 
plant, intermediately resembling both tricolor and Curtisii, comes be- 
fore us from the New-Brighton sand-hills, on the Cheshire coast, sent 
by Messrs. Brent and Sansom. The labels bear the name of “ Cur- 
tisii,” as quoted; and while I cannot affirm this to be correct, equally 
I feel unable to assert that it is incorrect: See ‘ Phytologist,’ i. 46, 
and ‘ Cybele Britannica,’ i. 183, for the grounds of this uncertainty. 
Although our coast plant is much less hispid than French specimens 
of V. Rothomagensis, the plant of the Cheshire coast closely resem- 
bles that alleged species in other respects. Another link in the 
series, standing between Curtisii and Rothomagensis, is the yellow- 
flowered and hispid Viola from Portugal, numbered 391 in the ‘ Flora 
Lusitanica’ of Welwitsch, but distributed by him without specific 
name on the label, 

Poterium muricatum (Spach). Mr. Gibson has sent some ex- 
amples of this species, which will probably be the most acceptable 
plant in the parcels of this winter to some of the members. There 
seems good ground to anticipate, however, that it will be found in 
numerous localities when looked for. It should be collected in the 
seeding stage, as being then more readily distinguished from ordinary 
P. Sanguisorba. The name of muricatum may perhaps have to be 
suppressed in favour of another. See ‘ Phytologist, iii. 707 and 715, 
for reports of localities. 

Melilotus arvensis (Wallr.). The supply of this species is very 
limited. For the specimens received the Society is indebted to Mr. 
F. J. A. Hort, who labels them from Bottisham Lode. See ‘ Phyto- 
logist,’ iii. 344 and 481. 

“ Fumaria agraria (Lag.). In his valuable contribution, Mr. 
Hort sends also several examples of this plant, which is rather a no- 
velty by name than by reality ; for it is, perhaps, the most frequent 
form of “ F. capreolata,” as formerly understood by English botanists. 
Doubtless many botanists have it already in their herbaria under this 
latter and older name. Distinguishable from the typical F. capreo- 


99 


805 


lata, by its smaller sepals, darker flowers, and pedicels not at all or 
very slightly recurved, with some other less obvious characters. It 
is a curious circumstance in connexion with this species, that Mr. C. 
C. Babington has referred three specimens of an Azoric Fumaria, 
grown under different conditions of place and season, to as many dif- 
ferent species, so called; namely, to F. capreolata (var. media of 
Webb), “scarcely a variety,’—to F’. muralis,—and to F. agraria, when 
raised in England from Azoric seeds. See Bot. Gaz. i. 63. To my 
eyes, after examining scores of those Azoric Fumarias, living and 
dried, they seem all to belong to one single species, and to be so lit- 
tle different, and so gradually dissimilar, as to be scarce worthy of 
separate names, even in the light of varieties only. But whatever be 
thought about this English F. agraria as a species, it is certainly no 
new discovery ; being the F’. capreolata of various local writers and 
collectors. 

Stachys ambigua (Smith). Most of the specimens that have been 
sent to me, labelled under this name, have been ordinary examples of 
S. palustris with the leaves slightly stalked. To assist in correcting 
this frequent error, I last summer dried about thirty specimens of the 
true plant of Smith, or what is understood to be such by myself. 
These will be distributed in the Society’s parcels ; because any bo- 
tanist who may possess S. palustris in his herbarium, labelled as S. 
ambigua, will not be likely to mark Smith’s plant as a desideratum. 
My specimens are partly from the parish of Long Ditton, in Surrey, 
and partly from the adjacent hamlet of Hook. Those from the for- 
mer were found in a bean-field, and are full length specimens; those 
from the latter locality were collected in a ditch, from which they 
grew up through thick bramble bushes, with stems too long and 
straggling to be extricated and pressed in whole lengths. Both S. 
sylvatica and S.-palustris abound in the vicinities; but the stations 
of S. ambigua are each limited to a very small space of ground. 

“ Sinapis Cheiranthus (Koch).” Some five or six specimens of the 
Sinapis from Gower, in Glamorganshire, have been sent to the Society, 
thus labelled, by Mr. Henfrey. I should rather have named them 8S. mo- 
nensis, on account of the glabrous bases of the stem and leaves, which 
have only a very few scattered bristles at most ; while in real S. Chei- 
ranthus of the French coasts, these parts are plentifully hispid. The 
pods of the Welsh plant are also more distinctly angular. S. monen- 
sis may, however, be simply a variety of S. Cheiranthus; or this a 
variety of that. ‘These few specimens are placed among the doubt- 
fuls, because I could not feel warranted in erasing the name written 


806 


on their labels by the contributor, although I still regard that of ‘mo- 
nensis’ to be the correct name for the Welsh specimens, while both 
stand in the Society’s Catalogue. See ‘ Cybele Britannica,’ i. 165, 
were the doubts concerning this Welsh plant were particularly men- 
tioned. I presume that Mr. Henfrey adheres to the original announce- 
ment, reporting the plant as “ S. Cheiranthus.” 

Arenaria media (Linn.?). Mr. George Maw has sent some 
examples of this plant, under name of A. rubra, and located from 
Hartland Quay, North Devon. I have ventured to add “ var. media” 
on the labels. It is distinguished from the true A. rubra by its pe- 
rennial root and other slight characters, and is perhaps often com- 
mingled with the other marine Arenaria, with larger flowers and 
winged or bordered seeds, which represents the Linnean A. marina in 
several English herbaria. Example of this latter are also sent by Mr. 
Maw, and are distributed with the A. media (?), in order to facilitate 
comparisons between these maritime and allied, yet probably distinct, 
species. To which of them do the names of “ media” and “ marina” 
truly belong? Some authors give the name of media to the plants 
with winged seeds. See ‘ Phytologist,’ ii. 321 and 482. In cases 
where confusion has occurred, and is likely still to occur, between 
two resembling plants, it is an excellent plan to send equally nume- 
rous examples of both, even although one of them may be quite a 
common plant. I have only to regret that Mr. Maw did not send 50 
or 100 specimens of each. Indeed, in this, as in many other in- 
stances, the Society’s rule which directs members to send few spe- 
cies, but many specimens in their parcels, would have well applied. 
The best parcels of British plants received by the Society, include 
only three to six species, with ten, twenty, fifty, or even a hundred 
specimens of each, according to rarity or novelty. Parcels of this 
kind not only save a vast deal of trouble to the distributors in Lon- 
don, but in the aggregate they produce also a much better collection 
and supply of rarieties. Parcels that include many species, few speci- 
mens of each, give far more trouble, and are worth less in their ag- 
gregate result when all brought together. 

Lastrea uliginosa (Newm.). Mr. Thomas Moore sends a few cul- 
tivated examples of this fern, which has recently been described by 
Mr. Newman asa species distinct from L. spinosa and L. cristata, 
both which it resembles a good deal in the intermediate form of the 
frond, character of rhizoma, &c. Mr. Moore labels it a variety of L. 
cristata, while Sir William Hooker deems it barely a variety of L. 
spinosa. Some years ago, Mr. Wardale sent a large supply of L. cris- 


807 


tata to the Society ; and among the specimens were many examples 
of the fern since named L. uliginosa. All were labelled alike, by 
name of cristata, and with printed labels. But observing the differ- 
ence of character, I made a large mark of interrogation “?” on the 
labels of the uliginosa form, with pen and ink; and I presume that 
they have been thus distributed from Bedford Street. See ‘ Phytolo- 
gist,’ iii. 677, for Mr. Newman’s description of L. uliginosa. 

Cystopteris fragilis var. Dickeana (Moore). Mr. Thomas Moore 
has likewise sent a dozen cultivated examples of this peculiar form, 
which will assist in making it known to members. On seeing 
them, botanists will be almost induced to pronounce the plant dis- 
tinct from C. fragilis, polymorphous as that species (if not group of 
species) is known to be. The reference is to Mr. Moore’s work for 
description. 

“ Hieracium sylvaticum c. pictum (Hook.).” Plants thus label- 
led are sent by Mr. Thomas Kirk from Arbury Hall, Warwick. I do 
not myself know the plant so named by Sir William Hooker. Mr. 
Kirk’s specimens appear to me one of the connecting links between 
H. sylvaticum and H. maculatum of Smith ; rather less spotted and 
rigid than the state in which the latter is usually found. 

“ Polygala depressa (Wender.).” Dr. Mateer has sent several good 
examples of a Polygala thus labelled. But I do not see how it can 
be described by written characters, so as to distinguish it from our 
ordinary P. vulgaris. The “ five-flowered raceme,” on which Koch 
puts an emphasis, is clearly inadequate if these specimens are rightly 
labelled ; the number of flowers being very variable, and “ ten” 
would likely be nearer the average than “ five.” 

“ Atriplex patula deltoidea (Bab. ?).” Mrs. W. Jones has sent 
specimens of an Atriplex thus named, from Eastbourne, in Sussex, 
and from Woolwich, in Kent. I know Mr. Babington’s A. deltoidea 
only from a starvling and indifferent Guernsey specimen, which he 
kindly took some pains to obtain for me. Putting that one specimen 
beside the luxuriant plants of Mrs. Jones, there is considerable dis- 
similarity ; but I can readily conceive that mere luxuriance of growth 
might cause differences as wide between examples of a single species 
of Atriplex. Those of Mrs. W. Jones are probably to be referred to 
the same species with the common Atriplex of Surrey, which Mr. 
Babington declined to name ; as mentioned in the ‘ Cybele Britan- 
nica,’ li. 325. 

“ Bromus pseudo-velutinus.” This is sent by Miss Barnard, from 
a field at Odsey, in Hertfordshire (or Cambridgeshire ?). It much 


808 


resembles that usually dwarf and littoral state of B. mollis, which has 
been erroneously called “ B. velutinus” by several British botanists. 
These inland specimens have culms fully four times as tall as the 
shore plant, and the pubescence of the glumes or pales is shorter. 
They are, indeed, simply examples of B. mollis, with the pedicels 
and spikelets much shortened, and the panicle thus rendered more 
close or compact. B. commutatus, not B. arvensis, was growing in 
the same field with the present. 

Pyrethrum inodorum, proliferous variety. This interesting mon- 
strosity is sent by Mrs. Russell, from Seaton, in Devon. It is highly 
proliferous, like the Hen-and-Chicken Daisy of the gardens ; about a 
score of secondary heads springing from the axils of the involucral 
bracts, on pedicels of a quarter or half an inch in length. Several of 
these secondary heads are again proliferous, giving origin to a few 
tertiary heads. Ona hasty glance the specimens might be referred 
to the order of Umbelliferz, as likely as to Composite. 

Hyacinthus non-scriptus, with foliaceous bracts. This is remark- 
able only for the continued production of leafy bracts during several 
successive years after removal into my garden. The original wild 
specimen, growing under a hedge, in Claygate, Surrey, had leaf-like 
bracts of three inches long to each flower. In the garden, in dry 
ground, and exposed to the sun, they have become reduced to half 
the size; but still, each year, a few long ones are produced. There 
are other varieties and monstrosities, sufficiently explained on their 
labels, or sufficiently obvious without explanation. 

Rubi. The Society is indebted to the Rev. A. Bloxam for a series 
of specimens in duplicate, which will doubtless be acceptable to those 
members who delight in these troublesome bushes. I regret, how- 
ever, to see them sent with loose labels ; a probable consequence of 
which will be, that half of their labels will get misplaced to the wrong 
species before they reached their final destinations. Mr. Bloxam is 
doubtless a very methodical and accurate botanist; and, as such, he 
will scarcely conceive the necessity that exists for guarding against 
the thorough confusion and commingling, and almost utter absence 
of order and method, which prevail at No. 20, Bedford Street. The 
Rev. W. A. Leighton also sends some Rubi, but these are mostly 
single examples of a species, not in duplicate, and therefore little 
available in a distributing society. 

Cultivated Plants. Several plants are distributed from my garden, 
either because there is difficulty in obtaining wild examples of the 
species, or for some other special reason. Mr. Thomas Moore also 


809 


sends a considerable number of garden specimens, which I have not 
separated from the general stock of duplicates, but have preferred to 
leave them there, whence their own contributor, one of the active dis- 
tributors of the Society, may arrange and distribute them as he shall 
think fit. In reference to the distribution of garden-grown specimens, 
however, I would here make a remark or two. In the instance of 
species where there is difficulty or impossibility of obtaining wild ex- 
amples enough, or when there is some special point to be illustrated, 
or some comparison to be made, in which the garden-raised specimens 
may usefully assist,—in any of such instances I would willingly dis- 
tribute cultivated plants, as a necessity or utility. But, otherwise, it 
does not appear desirable that members should fall into the practice 
of contributing garden plants, simply as examples of species, wild 
specimens of which can readily be obtained by marking their names 
in the Society’s list of desiderata. Asan instance where the distribu- 
tion of garden-grown specimens of very local species, in the absence 
of wild specimens, seems to be quite allowable and desirable, I may 
refer to Mr. H. O. Stephens’s examples of the very rare Allium Am- 
peloprasum, garden grown, from roots originally procured at the lo- 
cality of Steep Holmes. But there could be no call or necessity 
whatever to substitute garden examples of Anacharis Alsinastrum, 
Cladium Mariscus, and other things which, although somewhat local 
and even novel, can be got in any quantity at their natural localities, 
easily within reach of various members of the Society. 

Misnomers. Iam happy to say that the misnomers are now quite 
few comparatively with those on the labels formerly sent to the So- 
ciety, or committed by the curators and distributors in Bedford Street. 
The number of these errors would ere now have been still more re- 
duced, if I could have persuaded Mr. Dennes to adopt a practice 
which appeared very desirable in my own eyes, but to which he al- 
ways seemed disinclined or indifferent. My constant effort has been 
to render the Botanical Society instrumental in correcting or prevent- 
ing those errors.of name which are continually causing false records 
of localities to be printed, through the name of a wrong species being 
mistakenly connected with the locality recorded. But our valuable 
Secretary (who really cares nothing about botanical science, although 
caring so much, and doing so much, for the Botanical Society) can- 
not enter into my views in this respect. I have repeatedly urged that 
an example of any misnamed species, with its label corrected, should 
be returned to the member who sent it, in his next parcel from the 
Society. This course not being taken, although expressly announced 

VOL, It. 5M 


§10 


in the ‘ Regulations,’ the contributor of mislabelled specimens is of 
course confirmed in hiserror. A striking instance occurred in a par- 
cel received this winter. Numerous examples of Anthriscus vulgaris 
and Arabis hirsuta were sent labelled under the false names of Cauca- 
lis daucoides and Turritis glabra. The specimens were excellently 
dried, with their labels printed in full. Here the contributor had 
taken much trouble in collecting and drying the plants, and had in- 
curred some expense in printing their labels,—all for nothing; the 
labels being erroneous, and the species collected not being required 
at all. Now, one or both the same misnomers had been sent by the 
same contributor on a former occasion, also with the labels printed ; 
and if a specimen and corrected label had been then returned to him, 
his repetition of useless trouble and cost might have been avoided ; 
and the Society might have got something useful instead of the same 
useless errors being sent over again. 

Unequal value of the parcels. Before concluding the present no- 
tice, which has already become rather lengthy, I would yet say a few 
words on this subject. There is enormous inequality in the value of 
the parcels, in respect to the selection, the drying, and the labelling 
of the specimens. One parcel from Mr. Gibson, Mr. French, Mr. 
Taylor, Mr. Salmon, the Rev. Mr. Crotch, and others who might be 
named, is worth ten or twenty parcels from as many other members, 
whose names I will not just now mention in the disparaging contrast; 
and the rather, because in some instances the real fault may rest with 
the Secretary in omitting to give copies of the ‘ Regulations’ to new 
members. The difference between the two sets of contributors other- 
wise is, that the former act up to and in accordance with the printed 
‘ Regulations ’ issued by the Society ; while the second set appear to 
hold themselves at liberty to attend to the rules as little as possible, 
and thereby to give as much trouble as they may choose to the dis- 
tributors in London, and to make a valueless donation for the good 
specimens they obtain through the attentive exertions of the former 
class of good contributors. The Society musters near two hundred 
and fifty members. For my own part, I wish heartily that it had 
only the fifty, and was without the two hundred. But far the greatest 
‘desideratum’ in the Society is that of a Curator, qualified for his 
work by a competent knowledge of species, who would wholly relieve 
Mr. Dennes from the duties of that office, which are unfairly, and not 
wisely and profitably, added to those of the over-tasked Secretaryship. 
Three qualities are required in a Curator for a distributing Botanical 
Society; namely, clear knowledge of species,—methodical arrange- 


811 


ment,—rapidity of thought and action. Neither Mr. Dennes, nor any 
one of the four successively appointed Curators, has possessed all 
three qualifications ; while a majority of the five have only brought 
one of these qualifications to a task which required all of them. I 
have remarked that a competent Curator is the chief desideratum : it 
is almost the only want in the Society now ; for all the other requi- 
sites appear to be attained, or to be within reach of attainment. But 
1 still see that the single want is greatly disarranging, and I fear that 
it must shortly arrest, the whole machinery and action of the Society. 


Hewett C. Watson. 
Thames Ditton, Surrey, Feb. 1, 1850. 


Contents of ‘ Hooker's Journal of Botany, Nos. 1—14; for 1849-50. 


REFERRING to the slight mention of the above periodical, under its 
change of name and price, in former Nos. of the ‘ Phytologist’ (Phy- 
tol. iii. 452 and 776), we proceed now to give the list of ‘ Contents’ 
of the back numbers, preliminary to a monthly continuation of the same. 


Number 1. 


Extracts from the private Letters of Dr. J. D. Hooker, written dur- 
ing a Botanical Mission to India. 

Notes and Observations on the Botany, Weather, &c., of the 
United States, made during a tour in that country in 1846 and 1847. 
By Wm. Arnold Bromfield, M.D. 

Botanical Information. Notices of Books. 


Number 2. 
On the Awns of Nepaul Barley. By the Rev. J. S. Henslow. 
Extracts from the Letters of Dr. J. D. Hooker. Continued from 


the former No. 
Botanical Information. Notices of Books. 


Number 3. 
On the genus Triguera of Cavanilles. By John Miers, Esq. 
Dr. Thomas Thomson’s Scientific Mission to Thibet. 
Extracts from the Letters of Dr. J. D. Hooker. Continued. 
Botanical Information. 


812 


Number A. 
Decades of Fungi. By the Rev. M. J. Berkeley. 
Dr. Bromfield’s Notes on the Botany, &c., of the United States. 
Continued. 
Extracts from the Letters of Dr. J. D. Hooker. Continued. 
Botanical Information. Notices of Books. 


Number 5. 
Extracts from the Letters of Dr. J. D. Hooker. Continued. 
On the genus Atropa. By John Miers, Esq. 
On Anatropal and Orthotropal Ovules. By Benjamin Clarke, Esq. 
On some Chinese Plants. By H. F. Hance, Esq. 
Botanical Information. Notices of Books. 


Number 6. 
Extracts from the Letters of Dr. J. D. Hooker. Continued. 
Notes on new or little known Plants of China. By H. F. Hance, Ksq. 
Botauical Information. Notices of Books. 


Number 7. 
Chare Australes et Antarctice. By Dr. Alexander Braun. 
Some Account of the Vegetable Ivory Palm (Phytelephas macro- 
carpa). By the Editor. 
Botanical Information. Notices of Books. 


Number 8 

On the genus Withania. By John Miers, Esq. 

Extracts from the Letters of Dr. J. D. Hooker. Continued. 

Decades of Fungi. By the Rev. M. J. Berkeley. 

Descriptions of some new Genera and Species of Plants, collected 
in the Island of Hong Kong, by Capt. J. G. Champion, 95th Regt. 
By George Gardner, Esq. 

Botanical Information. Notices of Books. 


Number 9. 
On two Balsam Trees (Balsamodendra) from Scinde. By J. El- 
lerton Stocks, M.D. 
Dr. Bromfield’s Notes on the Botany, &c., of the United States. 
Continued. 
Extracts from the Letters of Dr. J. D. Hooker. Continued. 
Botanical Information. Notices of Books. 


813 


Number 10. 

On the Structure of the Pistil in Eschscholtzia Californica. By 
the Rev. J. S. Henslow. 

On a Fungoid Gall from Para. By the Rev. M. J. Berkeley. 

Characez Indiz Orientalis et Insularum Maris Pacifici. By Dr. 
Alexander Braun. 

Extracts from the Letters of Dr. J. D. Hooker. Continued. 

Description of Plants collected in Hong Kong. Continued. 

Botanical Information. 


Number 11. 
Description of Plants collected in Hong Kong. Continued. 
Pucha-Pat, or Patchouli (Pogostemon Patchouli). By Sir W. J. 
Hooker, K.H., &c. 
Extracts from the Letters of Dr. J. D. Hooker. Continued. 
Botanical Information. Notices of Books. 


Number 12. 

Genera Flore Americe Boreali-Orientalis [lustrata. By Isaac 
Sprague; with descriptions by Asa Gray. [An explanatory notice of 
the work, with criticisms on one or two technical points; evidently 
not from the pen of the usual writer of the “ Notices of Books.” ] 

Extracts from the Letters of Dr. J. D. Hooker. Continued. 

Botanical Information. Notices of Books. 


Number 18. 
Remarks on the Flora of the Nicobar Islands. Translated by Dr. 
Wallich. 
Extracts from the Letters of Dr. J. D. Hooker. Continued. 
Botanical Information. Notices of Books. 


Number 14. 

Contributions to the Botany of Western India. By N. A. Dalziel, 
M.A. 

Decades of Fungi. By the Rev. M. J. Berkeley. Continued. 

Note on Microcachrys, Hook. fil., and on a new allied genus of 
Coniferze of Van Diemen’s Land. By William Archer, Esq. 

Extracts from the Letters of Dr. J. D. Hooker. Continued. 

Botanical Information. Notices of Books. 


814 


Contents of the ‘ Botanical Gazette’ for February, 1850. 


Review of the Swiss Characee. By Al. Braun. [Translation 
from the ‘ Flora’ of March 7, 1849.] 

Cornish Plants not included in the ‘ Cybele Britannica.’ By Fran- 
cis P. Pascoe. [A list of species, ascertained by Mr. Pascoe, or 
reported on other authority, to grow in the county of Cornwall; but 
which are not specially mentioned as Cornish plants in the first vo- 
lume of the ‘ Cybele Britannica.’ Sixty-eight species are enumerated, 
including some introduced plants, and about twenty which have not 
been seen by Mr. Pascoe himself, either living or in a dried state. 
Ranunculus tripartitus (E. B. Supp.) may be added to the list.] 

Literature. Including a review of Harvey’s ‘ Manual of the British 
Marine Alge’; and monthly list of contents of botanical journals. 

Proceedings of Societies. Botanical Society of Edinburgh; Tyne- 
side Naturalists’ Field Club ; Alnwick Scientific and Mechanical In- 
stitution. 

Miscellanea. Record of Localities; Additional Note on the cap- 
sules of Viola, by W. H. Purchas, Esq.; Natural History of the Date, 
from Journ. de Pharmacie et de Chimie; New method of drying 
plants ; Collections of Zeyher’s South African Plants on sale. 


Extracts from the ‘ Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London.’ 
(Continued from page 789.) 


On the Development of the Ovule in Orchis Morio, L., by ARTHUR 
HEnFREY, Esq., F.L.S., &c. 

THE paper contains the results of a series of observations made in 
May, 1848, which Mr. Henfrey presents to the Society, partly be- 
cause he believes that in the present state of the question all evidence 
derived from careful observation is of some value, and partly because 
he has succeeded in obtaining a more complete series of figures illus- 
trating the successive conditions of the ovule than has yet been pub- 
lished ; Mohl, who gives the most complete account of the development 
in Orchis Morio, having given no drawings. In the first stage, ex- 
amined on the 3rd of May, the ovules of flowers which were just 
opened and were without signs of pollen on the stigmatic surface, 
were just curving over towards the anatropous position ; the nucleus 


815 


projected beyond the cells forming the single coat of the ovule, and 
consisted of a large central cell (the embryo-sac) enclosed by a layer 
of very delicate cells of small size, constituting a proper coat of the 
nucleus. On the 9th, the ovules of fully-expanded flowers were not 
much altered, except in the much clearer definition of the walls of the 
cells. The embryo-sac was filled with a clear colourless fluid, in 
which floated minute black atoms. In some flowers the stigma was 
smeared with pollen, which sent down numerous tubes, about =,5>5th 
of an inch in diameter, and at most one-fourth of the size of the small- 
est surrounding cells. On the 13th, when the flowers were withered 
and the stigmas were covered with pollen, a dense bundle of tubes lay 
in the midst of the lax tissue of the canal leading to the cavity of the 
ovary. Some of the ovules were completely anatropous, while others 
were about three-fourths curved, the forming being about ~2,th of an 
inch in length. The two coats of the ovule were now distinctly evident, 
and the nucleus was still covered by its own cellular coat, and still 
contained only the clear colourless fluid with black points. On the 
16th, the pistillary cords extended nearly to the base of the ovary, 
presenting all the characters of pollen-tubes, and apparently continu- 
ous with those derived from the pollen on the stigma. Both coats of 
the ovules had become considerably developed, and the inner had 
grown up far beyond the nucleus; the embryo-sac had lost its proper 
cellular coat, had acquired the aspect of a large ovoid sac attached by 
a pedicle to the chalazal region, and contained opalescent mucilagi- 
nous matter (protoplasm), in most cases accumulated at the ends, 
chiefly at that next the micropyle. On the 20th, the last-mentioned 
appearance continued ; and at the micropyle end, one, two or (usually) 
three minute vesicles had been formed, always seeming to originate 
as cavities in the mucilage, and not as if derived from the formation 
of a membrane on the outer surface of a nucleus or cytoblast. These 
vesicles soon took the apperance of distinct cells with exceedingly 
delicate walls, and undoubtedly existed before the pollen-tubes entered 
the foramina of the ovules. In those ovules which had been pene- 
trated by the pollen-tubes, these were traced by Mr. Henfrey through 
the wide mouth of the outer coat and the narrow canal of the inner, 
as far as the apex of the embryo-sac, which however they never en- 
tered, but generally appeared to be directed a little to one side and to 
lie in contact with its outer surface, just over the place where the mi- 
nute vesicles lie within. On the 31st, the previous observations were 
repeated and confirmed on specimens in various stages of growth. 
At this period, in some of the embryo-sacs one of the vesicles had 


816 


become divided into two cells by a horizontal septum, the upper cell 
dividing again and growing out through the endostome in a conical 
form to produce the confervoid filament described by Mr. Brown, and 
which Mr. Henfrey believes Prof. Schleiden to have mistaken for the 
pollen-tube. On the 3rd of June, the author again satisfied himself 
that the vesicle within the embryo-sac (the germinal vesicle) is the 
first cell of the embryonic body ; it generally exhibits a slight collec- 
tion of protopalsm at its base, and soon after the pollen-tube reaches 
the surface of the embryo-sac divides into two cells, the upper divid- 
ing again and growing into the articulated filament, the cells of which 
are formed by the production of septa in the same way as in confer- 
vas, hairs of phanerogamous plants, &c.; the mucilaginous layer (or 
primordial utricle of Mohl) being rendered very evident by the appli- 
cation of iodine. At the same time the lower part of the embryonic 
body enlarges and soon perfectly fills the embryo-sac, the process of 
cell-formation by which the embryo is produced varying apparently 
in different cases. Generally the lowest cell enlarges very much and 
becomes filled with dark mucilaginous matter, and then this is soon 
divided into a number of cells by the formation of septa. In some 
cases two of the germinal vesicles undergo development, and two con- 
fervoid filaments are produced. 

From these observations Mr. Henfrey concludes that the embryo is 
really produced by the ovule itself; that the germinal vesicle exists 
within the embryo-sac before the pollen exerts its influence ; that the 
pollea-tube penetrates the coats of the ovule to reach the embryo-sac; 
and that the passage of the pollinic fluid through the intervening 
membranes impregnates the germinal vesicle, and determines its de- 
velopment into an embryo. The investigations having been made 
with every precaution, and the results being in perfect accordance with 
those of Amici, Mohl, Miiller and others, he believes them to be a 
sufficient refutation of Schleiden’s views so far as the plant in ques- ~ 
tion is concerned. He regards, however, as points requiring further 
investigation, the question whether the whole of the pistillary cords 
are composed of filaments directly produced by the pollen granules ; 
whether there is any relation between the application of the pollen on 
the stigma and the development of the germinal vesicles; and whether 
the production of the confervoid filaments is a normal process, which 
is open to doubt when only observed in ovaries containing such an 
abundance of ovules as those of Orchis Morio. 


817 


A Catalogue of the Plants growing wild in Hampshire, with occa- 
stonal Notes and Observations on some of the more remarkable 
Species. By WiLLIAM ARNOLD BROMFIELD, M.D., F.L.S., &c. 


(Continued from page 768). 


Empetrum nigrum, although now apparently extinct, has cer- 
tainly occurred in Sussex (near Amberley), and may therefore be 
looked for with some hopes of success on our boggy tracts and forest 
peat. Its discovery would be an acquisition to the Hampshire flora 
of no small interest, as being at once the type and sole British repre- 
sentative of the small order Empetracee. 

The Box (Buxus sempervirens) should be looked for on the north- 
ern slopes of our chalk downs. It is profusely abundant on most 
parts of Sidon (Sidedown) Hill, in Highclere Park (Lord Caernar- 
von’s), scattered over its shelving sides as if quite spontaneous, and 
said to disperse itself freely by seed. I could not, however, satisfy 
myself of this fact by finding young plants newly springing up, and 
therefore omit it from the category of naturalized Hampshire species. 
Itis an evident, and indeed acknowledged, introduction at Highclere, 
and only found on Sidon Hill, which is wholly within the boundaries 
of the park, the most extensive and picturesque in the county.* I 
believe there are no recorded habitats for the box on the continent 
quite so far to the north as the well-known and now sole existing sta- 
tion for this shrub in England at Box Hill, in Surrey,t but it is an 
undoubted native of calcareous hills in southern Belgium, between 
latitude 50° and 51°, within a degree of the Box Hill station, the 
aboriginality of which has by some been called in question as usual. 

Euphorbia Peplis. On sandy sea-shores; extremely rare, and I 
fear now quite extinct in Hampshire. A single specimen found in 
Sandown Bay, in this island, now some years since, by J. S. Mill, 
Ksq.! (Phytol. i. p. 91). Through the kindness of Mr. Mill I possess 
the above example of this rare British species from the most easterly 

* The park at Highclere is thirteen miles in circumference, and besides Sidon 
Hill, is overlooked by the still loftier eminence of Beacon Hill, just outside the park, 
and the highest culminating point in the county. I have no hypsometric data as yet 
for the mainland of Hants, but the elevation of Beacon Hill must verge very closely 
on, if it does not exceed, 1000 feet. 

+ The Box is said to grow profusely at a place called Checquers, in Bucks or 
Berks, I forget which, as well as the name of the proprietor; but from the silence of 


our botanists on the subject I infer that the tree is at most only naturalized about the 
house and grounds, and perhaps quite as dubiously so as at Highclere. 


Vor TER, 5 N 


818 


station for it in Britain, if not in Europe. I have repeatedly searched 
Sandown Bay in the hope of again finding this Euphorbia in greater 
quantity, and am willing to believe that with Lathyrus maritimus, 
which formerly inhabited the Bay, its disappearance may be only 
temporary, as expressed under the head of that plant in these Notes. 
In 1835 I collected noble specimens on Slapton Sands, near Star 
Cross, Devonshire. From its intense purple colour, small compara- 
tive size, and perfectly depressed growth, it may be overlooked on a 
casual glance for a fragment of sea-weed. It belongs to a section of 
the genus with opposite, stalked, oblique leaves, furnished with sti- 
pules, prostrate stems, and a rudimentary corolla to the pistillate 
flowers, mostly found within the tropics. 

Euphorbia Helioscopia. A common weed in waste and cultivated 
ground, corn-fields, neglected gardens, amongst turnips, potatoes, &c., 
in autumn and later summer months; occasionally, too, in the spring. 

platyphylla. In corn-fields, fallows, waste and cultivated 
ground, and by road-sides ; far from an uncommon species in the Isle 
of Wight, very often occurring in great abundance in tillage lands as 
a rather troublesome weed, but not very constant in its stations, which 
on that account it would be useless to give, except in a general way. 
Rather frequent about Ryde, at Quarr and Fishbourne; wheat-field 
betwixt Prestwood and Smallbrook farms, and near Westbrook farm 
betwixt Ryde and Nettleston, and found remarkably fine and abun- 
dant in a corn-field by Beaper farm between Ryde and Brading, some 
of the stems being nearly a yard high, and much branched. About 
E. and W. Cowes, by no means unfrequent in corn-fields, clover-lays, 
&c. About Yarmouth, Ningwood, Shalcombe, Gatcombe, Thorley, 
and in most other parts of the island, often in the greatest plenty. 
About Colwell and Brading; Mr. W. D. Snooke, Fl. Vect. Perhaps 
not less general in mainland Hants, but I have not remarked it in 
that part of the county myself. Matterly farm, about four miles from 
Winchester, towards Alresford; Dr. Sibthorp (Bot. Guide). Sel- 
borne (the var. E. stricta, E. B.); Mr. Yalden, fd. This last form, 
the E. stricta of Smith (an Linn.?), is a mere immature or starved 
state of the plant with simple or very slightly branched stems, as it 
commonly appears in the earlier part of the summer, when it seldom 
exceeds a foot or eighteen inches in height. The stem is very com- 
monly furnished with a pair of opposite, ascending branches, spring- 
ing from its very base, and far shorter than itself, but as the season 
advances these lateral stems or branches attain nearly the height of 
the middle or principal one, become, like that, much expanded at top 


819 


into broad umbels, and the entire plant acquires a much larger size 
(often three feet in height), and a beautiful coral red colour. The E. 
stricta of Koch, found in the west of England, certainly comes very 
close to the present species in all its characters, as appears from excel- 
lent specimens I possess through the kindness of W. H. Purchas, Esq., 
of Ross, and from the living plant, which I had some few years ago 
in the garden, from Mr. Borrer, but have since lost. From what has 
been just said, it will be evident, I think, that these two species do 
not differ in size; the examples of E. platyphylla usually found in 
herbaria being mostly small entire specimens, as seen in corn-fields 
early in the summer, may have given rise to the opinion of its being 
a smaller plant than E. stricta of Koch. . The leaves in every speci- 
men of E. platyphylla that I have seen, like those of E. stricta, are 
more or less narrowed above their clasping and cordate base, giving 
to the outline of the leaf an elongate-oblong, somewhat obovate-ob- 
long, strap or tongue-shaped form, equally conspicuous in each spe- 
cies. It is remarkable that Koch, who considers the Monmouthshire 
E. stricta as the Linnean species of that name, actually cites the E. 
B. figure of our E. platyphylla (the var. stricta, E. stricta, Sm.) as the 
true plant of Linneus,* showing clearly how very closely the two are 
allied in botanical character and aspect, although it must be owned 
that the figure in E. B. is so defective from the miserably starved, or 
perhaps very young state of the specimen, that it might stand for ei- 
ther one or the other. E. platyphylla and E. stricta are probably 
really distinct, as their distribution and localities are different, the 
former being an agrestal and viatical, the latter a sylvestral species, 
each preserving its proper habitudes in this country and on the con- 
tinent. 

Euphorbia amygdaloides. A beautiful and most abundant species 
in woods, thickets, hedges, the shady borders of fields, and bushy 
places throughout the county and Isle of Wight. The earliest of all 
our Spurges, in very mild seasons beginning to flower, though spar- 
ingly, in January or February, and retaining its bright red shoots 
fresh through the winter, yet it is never in general and complete 
flower here till early in April. 

Oss.—E. Cyparissias is plentifully naturalized in the shrubbery at 
Northwood Park, W. Cowes, the residence of the late George Henry 
Ward, Esq.; Miss G. E. Kilderbee!!!| The Rev. G. E. Smith recol- 
lects gathering a Euphorbia with hairy fruit some years ago in a 


* Koch, Synop. Fl. Germ. et Helv. edit. secunda, p. 723. 


820 


wood along the shore west of Ryde, which, as far as his memory 
serves, agreed with specimens of E. pilosa, ., since seen by him at 
Oxford. Nothing ef the kind has fallen in my way there yet. 
Euphorbia Paralias. On sandy or pebbly sea-shores. In vast 
profusion along the wide beach of the south shore of Hayling Island, 
more particularly amongst the drift sand towards its western extre- 
mity, where this elegant species occurs for nearly a mile over some 
hundreds of acres, springing up by tens and hundreds of thousands, 
and forming bush-like clumps or tufts on the otherwise bare sand. 
First communicated to me by the Rev. G. E. Smith, and subsequently 
by Miss G. E. Kilderbee!!!| Not known to me on any other part of 
the Hampshire coast, although we have other sandy tracts, but more 
limited in extent, both in the Isle of Wight and on the mainland, ap- 
parently as well fitted for its production. It is indeed remarkable 
that the seeds of this Euphorbia should not have been long since 
wafted across from Hayling Island to the almost opposite sandy spit 
or neck of land that nearly closes the mouth of Brading harbour, and 
which is barely seven miles S.W. from the nearest point of Hayling 
beach, where the plant most abounds. A similar sandy spit occurs 
at Norton, on the Freshwater side of Yarmouth harbour, and like that 
below St. Helens, is very similar in its vegetation to the Hayling 
beach, but does not produce the sea spurge. Desirous to know whe- 
ther or not the absence of the Euphorbia in these stations, apparently 
so perfectly adapted to it, were merely accidental and unconnected 
with climatic or other causes hostile to its spontaneous growth, I last 
year planted roots and scattered seeds in the loose sand at each place, 
a few of which have vegetated, and should no natural obstacles exist 
to prevent its spreading, it is probable the Euphorbia will establish 
itself abundantly on these sandy spits, and become completely natu- 
ralized to this island. To prevent, therefore, its being announced as 
a new station for the species, or taken for an aboriginal Isle-of-Wight 
plant, I have put the fact on record, that before the year of grace, 
1848, Euphorbia Paralias was an utter stranger on Vectian ground, 
and should it spread and become plentiful at these two opposite ends 
of the island, I hope by this free confession and announcement to 
stand acquitted of all intention to mislead or deceive others into the 
belief of its being a native. I likewise trust for the experiment’s 
sake to be pardoned this attempt to naturalize so beautiful a plant on 
the shores of the Solent, by those who, with myself, hold such assis- 
tance given to Nature in flinging abroad her productions, a disservice 
done to Botany and its votaries, and as a general practice, highly re- 


821 


prehensible. The Rev. Hugh Davies, in his ‘ Welsh Botanology,’ 
which uncouth word stands for the Flora of Anglesey, not of the prin- 
cipality at large, mentions a form of the plant as growing on the sandy 
south-west coast of that island, which, from his description, I sup- 
posed might be E. pitynsa, a species nearly allied to the present, but 
inhabiting the south of Europe, one of the characters of which is to 
have, like Davies’s plant, the lower stem-leaves reflexed. Mr. Borrer, 
to whom I mentioned my suspicion, in which I was the more con- 
firmed by Davies’s own doubts of its being only E. Paralias, kindly 
examined the plant in its locality, and satisfied me by a specimen 
from thence of its being merely a form of the latter. 

Euphorbia portlandica. On rocks and cliffs by the sea, as also on 
the sandy or pebbly beach itself; occasionally, too, in woods and 
thickets along the shore; very local. Plentiful on the steep chalk 
banks and cliffs at the upper, or N.E. end of Sandown Bay, the only 
Isle-of-Wight station known to me, and where it seems to have been 
first observed by Mr. W. D. Snooke, in his little work, the ‘ Flora 
Vectiana,’ referred to in a former part of these Notes. Very abun- 
dant and luxuriant on the wide, flat beach of Stokes Bay, near Gos- 
port, formed by the recession of the sea, and interesting from the num- 
ber of rather rare plants it produces, amongst which may be mentioned 
this Euphorbia, Cochlearia danica, Silene nutans, Linaria repens and 
Teesdalia nudicaulis. The flowering time of this very pretty, almost 
shrubby spurge, is very erroneously given in our books, not except- 
ing Babington’s Manual, in which so nuch has been done in the way 
of correcting these and other mistakes of his predecessors. The Port- 
land Spurge begins to flower early in May, and continues in bloom 
till August or September. At Torquay I have remarked it growing 
in the borders of thickets by the side of the Tor Abbey walks, but in 
this county it shows no tendency to become a wood plant. 

Peplus. Common in waste and cultivated ground; par- 
ticularly in weedy, ill-kept gardens in autumn all over the county. I 
have remarked a monstrous form, in which some of the ovaries were 
converted into a long, horn-shaped excrescence, surmounted by the 
styles. 

exigua. In waste and cultivated ground, fallows, and 
especially in corn-fields; most abundantly, both on chalk and sand, 
over the whole county and island. 

t—————- Lathyris. Here and there in waste and garden ground, 
amongst potatoes, by road-sides, and along hedges near houses, very 
rarely in newly cut copses ; doubtfully indigenous in any part of the 


822 


county, and certainly not so to the Isle of Wight. On Ryde Dover 
formerly. Seen at Binstead, Cowes, St. Lawrence, and elsewhere in 
the island, but in no fixed stations. Frequent in cottage gardens, 
and when once introduced not easily got rid of. Said to drive away 
moles, and the large, unripe capsules have been sometimes ignorantly 
pickled for capers, hence the common name of Caper-bush in Hants, 
which we may further suppose to have been appropriately given it 
from the saltatory movements the condiment so prepared would be 
apt to excite in such as partook of it. Certes we may imagine at the 
least, such pungent sauce to elicit a reply like that of the first lieute- 
nant, on the soup at the captain’s table, into which the contents of a 
whole bottle of cayenne had accidentally been transferred, who, when 
the necessity for patient endurance which the etiquette of the service 
imposed, was removed by his superior asking if he did not find the 
soup a little too highly seasoned, abruptly made answer, “smart eat- 
ing, certainly, Sir, smart eating!” The Caper Spurge is said to be 
truly wild in a few localities, as at Ufton, near Reading, springing 
up in dry, stony thickets for a year or two after they have been cut, 
and I have myself seen it perfectly naturalized, if not indigenous, on 
that curious rocky islet, the Steep Holmes, in the Severn. In this 
county Dr. Macreight gives “ woods at Selborne,” as a station for E. 
Lathyris, in his ‘ Manual of British Botany,’ but in a communication 
with which that gentleman favoured me in reply to an application I 
made to him for particulars, he expresses an opinion that the species 
is not indigenous to the station in question. 

Mercurialis perennis. In woods, thickets, copses, on hedge-banks 
and in moist, shady, bushy places; most abundantly in all parts of 
the county and Isle of Wight. One of the most social of our native 
vegetables, often covering the surface of the ground in our damp 
woods to the utter exclusion of all other plants; it is also remarkable 
as being one of the earliest herbs to appear above ground in the 
spring, and the latest to die down on the approach of winter. In mild 
seasons it may be found in flower at the close of February, before its 
leaves are unfolded,* and numbers of the stems survive and retain 
their leaves tolerably green into the second year. Both our native 
species turn partially blue in drying, and perhaps contain indigo, or 
some analogous principle, which, after vitality is extinguished in the 
plant, absorbs oxygen, and becomes apparent by precipitation in the 

* In 1843 I gathered M. perennis in flower in this island as early as the 9th of 


February. It is always fully in bloom here in March, continuing to flower on into 
May. 


823 


vegetable tissue, yet the attempts of a chemist at Glasgow to obtain a 
permanent colouring matter or dye stuff from this plant have failed of 
success. Some species of the genus, as M. tomentosa, are devoid of 
colouring matter. The Miss Sibleys, of Hall Place, West Meon, in- 
form me that cows greedily devour the herbage of M. perennis when 
they can get at it, without injury to themselves, though reputed ex- 
tremely poisonous to cattle and the human species. See Gardiner’s . 
‘Flora of Forfarshire, p. 160. The Rev. Hugh Davies has seen this 
species perfectly mone cious, like the following (Welsh Botan. p. 95). 
Mercurialis annua. In waste and cultivated places about towns, on 
banks and along suburban fences, and particularly in kitchen-garden 
ground. Formerly not very uncommon in the Isle of Wight, but of 
late years it has become exceedingly scarce here through the progress 
of building effecting its extirpation.* In Ray’s time it grew plenti- 


* Although given without an expression or mark of doubt as a genuine native by 
those authors most inclined to dispute the indigenous origin of many a British plant, 
I am strongly disposed to believe the annual Mercury more deserving of the asterisk 
than a large majority of species to which that symbol of doubt has been affixed. In 
the time of Gerarde and Parkinson it was evidently, from their accounts, much rarer 
and more local than at present, and would seem chiefly to have grown in Kent and 
on some parts of the south coast. Such distant localities as Rochester and Romney 
would hardly have been cited as stations by these old authors, had the species been 
the abundant weed it has since become in so many parts of the metropolitan district. 
Ray (Hist. Plant. i. p. 163) makes it rare by implication in his own day, for although 
he says of it “ reperitur in hortis olitoriis, vinctis, aliisque locis humentibus ac um- 
brosis ;” it is evident by the word vinctis he is speaking of its usual places of growth, 
without reference to any country in particular, and it is remarkable that he gives as 
an English station the shore of the very place from which I am writing; “ In maris 
littore prope Ryde Vectis insule oppidulum sponte et copiosa provenit.” Had he 
been acquainted with habitats nearer his own part of England, he would surely have 
mentioned them in preference to, or at least in conjunction with, one so remote as the 
coast of the Isle of Wight. Besides that it has all the appearance of an introduced 
species, the very ancient name of French Mercury seems to point at its foreign ex- 
traction, although I would by no means insist much on this head apart from the other 
considerations just urged, knowing how fallacious are inferences deduced from popu- 
lar names alone. The most of us have heard that so late as the reign of Henry the 
Eighth this country was chiefly supplied with esculent vegetables from Flanders; is 
it not likely that the annual Mercury may have migrated from the continent into 
England when kitchen-gardens first began to be general, spreading with the progress 
of horticulture from our south-eastern coast, where it would naturally be first esta- 
blished, more and more widely through the land? In further confirmation of my 
views on this subject, I will now quote the following curious passages from Tur- 
ner’s Herbal, the black-letter edition of Cologne, 1568, the description illustrated by 
two excellent woodcuts of M. annua, pistillate and staminate. It is to be observed 


824 


fully on the shore at Ryde, (Syn. edit. Dillen. p. 139, see note below), 
doubtless on what is now called the Dover, and where it lingered in 
defiance of the changes that have converted that waste into a part of 
this populous town, till within a very few years back, having myself 
gathered it there in tolerable plenty on one spot, but it has now quite 
disappeared from every part of this neighbourhood. Mr. Wm. W. 
Saunders noticed it, as he believes, some years ago not unfrequently 
about the town, and I have certainly gathered it in other places be- 
sides the Dover, although it has always seemed to me very uncommon 
at Ryde, and I believe it is at present all but, if not quite, extinct 


that Tumer makes no mention of M. perennis under the head of Mercury (Herb. part 
2nd, p. 55). After a short account of the plant he thus proceeds: “ By thys descrip- 
tion it is playn that our forefathers have erred in England which hitherto in the most 
parte of all England have used another herbe in the stede of the ryghte Mercury. 
Therfore as many as had leuer ete whete than acornes, let them use no more theyr old 
Mercury, but thys Mercury (MZ. annua) whych Dioscorides describeth. The ryght 
Mercury groweth comon in the fields and wynyardes of Germany without any settyne 
or sowyng. And it beginneth now to be knowen in London, and in Gentle mennis 
places not far from London. I neuer saw it grow more plentuously in all my lyfe 
than about Wormes in Germany.” What the false Mercury may be which Turner 
alludes to above is not clear, it can hardly be M. pereunis, if all that is said of its 
poisonous properties be true, since it would seem to have been used instead of M. 
annua in “sallettes and mouses” (Gemuse, Germ.). It was most likely Chenopodium 
Bonus Henricus, one of the old names for which was English Mercury, a plant much 
used by our forefathers in lieu of greens or spinage. It is observable that Turner 
does not apply the name of French Mercury to M. annua, which was probably im- 
posed on it at a later period, when it was better known and more plentiful than when 
he wrote. I should infer from Turner's words given above, that the Annual Mercury 
was at first purposely grown as a pot-herb, which those of Gerarde (em. p. 332) seem 
to confirm, where he says, “‘ French Mercury is sowen in kitchen gardens among pot- 
herbs. I found it under the dropping of the Bishop’s house at Rochester; from 
whence I brought a plant or two into my garden, since which time I cannot rid my 
garden from it.” It seems to have been more used medicinally than dietetically, and 
to have soon gone out of use as a pot-herb, being scarcely mentioned as such by Ge- 
rarde and Parkinson. I think I have adduced sufficient evidence to show that M. 
annua was once a much rarer plant in this country than at present, and that the pre- 
sumption amounts almost to a demonstration of its having been imported originally 
from the continent as a garden production. I may here remark that Impatiens Noli- 
me-tangere was regarded as a kind of Mercurialis by these old herbalists, and which 
Parkinson tells us was found in his time “‘ by an industrious Gentleman and Herbalist 
Mr. George Bowles, by the shadie wood sides of the mountains and their vallyes in 
Wales,” a fact which, as it is confirmed by botanists of the present day, sufficiently 
refutes the unreasonable doubt sought to be attached to this widely-spread European 
plant as a genuine, indisputable native. 


825 


here. Ina garden in George Street, along with Nicandra physaloi- 
des, but sparingly, October 3rd, 1844, the last specimen seen. Field 
at Gurnet Bay, near Gurnet farm, 1838. At Ventnor; Dr. Martin!!! 
(Still here and there in garden ground, but less frequent than it was a 
few years back). Abundant in Northwood Park, amongst potatoes ; 
Miss G. E. Kilderbee!!! Betwixt Godshill and Sandford, 1848; 
Mr. Albert Hamborough. At Steephill; /d., 1848!!! Far more fre- 
quent and abundant in mainland Hants, where it cannot be accounted 
arare species. In several parts of Portsea Island, at Frotton, and 
abundantly on waste lots (formerly garden ground) about half a mile 
inland from Southsea Castle, at the back of Southsea Common, along 
with Chenopodium murale, the purple variety of Datura Stramonium 
(D. Tatula, Z.), and Solanum nigrum with flowers rather larger than 
usual; November 5th, 1849. Frequent at Southampton, and pro- 
fusely in and around Winchester, where it is a vile weed in kitchen- 
garden ground, choking the soil and spreading about the fences and 
hedges. I have seen it at Emsworth, Porchester, Wicor farm, near 
Fareham, and at Andover. Petersfield; Mr. Pamplin!!! Church 
Lane, Fareham; Mr. W. L. Notcutt: and doubtless in most other 
parts of the county. Var. 8. ambigua (M. ambigua, Z. fil.): stami- 
nate and pistillate flowers in sessile axillary clusters. With the com- 
mon form, but rarely. A troublesome weed for many years past in 
the kitchen garden at St. John’s, near Ryde, where it may be seen 
occasionally passing, more or less distinctly, into the usual dicecious 
and spicate form of inflorescence. As found at Ryde, this variety 
differs from the usual state of the species in its more ovate, less lan- 
ceolate leaves, of a paler green, with less distinct veins, and more re- 
motely serrated, according well in this respect with the figure and 
description of the younger Linnezus, in the first decade of his ‘ Plan- 
tarum rariorum Horti Upsaliensis,’ tab. 8. The flowers stand in 
small, roundish, axillary clusters of eight or ten together, sometimes 
consisting entirely of pistillate or staminate blossoms, more usually 
intermixed, the latter elevated above the former on rather long pedun- 
cles. This arrangement is such as we find in Buxus, Euphorbia and 
other genera of the order (Kuphorbiacez) naturally diccious. 1 
found in May, 1839, at Hermit’s Tower, Winchester, M. annua exhi- 
biting its usual dicecious character, but with the flowers of both sexes 
in axillary clusters, sessile, or nearly so, as in the monecious variety 
f. ambigua. 

Parietaria officinalis. On old walls, churches, ruins, and amongst 
rubbish ; also on hedge-banks, rocks and sea-cliffs; very frequent 

VoL. It. 5 0 


826 


over the county and Isle of Wight. Amongst the ruins of Quarr 
Abbey. Walls of Carisbrook Castle, plentifully. Common in most 
of the churchyards of the island, as those of Brading, Brixton, Caris- 
brook, Northwood, Newchurch, Freshwater, &c. Plentiful at the 
base of the chalk cliffs in Scratchell’s Bay, and abundant on the 
down along the edge of the cliffs from thence towards Freshwater 
Gate at intervals. Profusely on Rosehall Green, Main Bench. 
Hedge-banks by the road-side between Carisbrook and Buccombe, on 
the way to Shorwell, in several places. Hedge-banks by Blackbridge, 
Freshwater, and near the farm (Old Warren House) at Alum Bay. 
Not less general in mainland Hants. Most profuse and luxuriant on 
the walls of Porchester Castle, Beaulieu Abbey, Winton and South- 
ampton town walls, and many another venerable relic of feudal or ec- 
clesiastical magnificence, 


“ Where the mouldering walls are seen 
Hung with pellitory green.’—CareE. 


I am not at present prepared to say which of the two species of 
Parietaria admitted as British into the Manual, is the commoner in 
Hants, or whether we possess both, as I am inclined to believe we 
do. This genus connects Urticacee with Euphorbiacee through 
Acalypha, belonging to the latter order, some species of which, as A. 
virginica, have considerable resemblance to a Parietaria, in aspect as 
well as structure. 

Urtica pilulifera. Under walls, amongst rubbish, and in waste 
places about towns; very rare, and not seen by myself in Hants. 
Portsmouth; the Rev. G. E. Smith in New Bot. Guide. It was ra- 
ther at Gosport that my worthy friend met with this species, now a 
good many years since; the exact locality he cannot recal, but be- 
lieves it to have been somewhere on the way from Gosport to Gomer 
Pond, perhaps at Alverstoke or Privet, but if so, it still eludes my en- 
deavours to rediscover it at all three places. Hayling Island, accord- 
ing to the catalogue of plants in the Hayling Guide, but the wording 
leaves it uncertain whether the intended station be not at Emsworth, 
part of which town is in Sussex. The list of Hayling plants in the 
work just mentioned is meagre enough, but contains no unlikely spe- 
cies calculated to throw suspicion on the author’s botanical knowledge, 
as too often happens in local catalogues, and as the Roman nettle 
unquestionably occurred at Gosport, it may equally inhabit the adja- 
cent parts of the county. This species is commonly looked upon by 


827 


recent British botanists as an introduced plant: I am disposed to 
think it as truly wild on the Suffolk coast, as in the south of Europe, 
where, although abundant, I have never seen it, except in or about 
towns, as with us. At Gorleston by Yarmouth it seemed to me as 
much at home as at Montpellier, though less plentiful, but the pro- 
gress of building has done much to diminish its frequency in that Eng- 
lish station. U. Dodartii I have every reason for believing a mere 
variety of U. pilulifera, with entire, or partially entire leaves. 

Urtica urens. Very common in waste and cultivated places, by 
road-sides and on dunghills, but less general than the following, and 
more confined to the neighbourhood of habitations. I remarked it as 
unusually frequent in west Hants, about Ringwood and Christchurch, 
last summer. 
dioica. In waste ground, along hedges, in woods, lanes, on 
weedy banks, and by road-sides; everywhere abundant. The var. 8. 
angustifolia (Wim. and Grab.), with ovate-lanceolate leaves rounded 
at base, I have remarked in this island occasionally. 

Humulus Lupulus. In moist or boggy woods, thickets, hedges, 
banks of streams and bushy places, a truly indigenous plant, univer- 
sally and abundantly distributed over the county. As common as 
brambles in very many parts of the Isle of Wight, particularly in low, 
damp thickets, which are often impenetrably matted with its interlac- 
ing stems, or it may be seen running up the slender trunks of alders 
and sallows in our boggy copses, in such abundance as to resemble 
natural hop-gardens, and in these situations has a very picturesque 
effect. Never grown in this island for its strobiles, which in the wild 
plant yield excellent hops, and are sometimes gathered by the coun- 
try people in lieu of the more expensive produce of Kent and Surrey. 
The hop is cultivated for commercial purposes in a very small part 
only of Hants, in the north-eastern portion of the county, along the 
Surrey border, as Alton, Selborne, &c., yet is equally plentiful where 
its culture is unknown ; I have never failed seeing it in every district 
I have yet visited. Mr. H. C. Watson, in his valuable work the 
‘Cybele Britannica,’ where, on the subject of the indigenous origin of 
the plants composing our flora, he has, I cannot help thinking, suf- 
fered his own independent and inquiring mind to be somewhat biassed 
by the antiquated and crude speculations of others, puts the follow- 
ing string of queries under the head of Humulus Lupulus (Cyb. Brit. 
li. p. 872). “Has the hop been introduced into Britain by human 
agency, or is it an aboriginal native? If native, how much of its pre- 
sent area, how many of its localities, should be deemed natural? and 


828 


how much of that area, how many of those localities, may be consi- 
dered artificial? Who can undertake to answer these questions with 
certainty?” The two middle or intermediate queries are soon disposed 
of as transcending human ability to resolve. The challenge contained 
in the last question I will venture to accept, and undertake to answer 
the inquiry with as much confidence and just as much (but not more) 
certainty, as if the spontaneous origin of the oak were the subject of 
debate. Propositions like these are not mathematical problems, ca- 
pable of rigid, undeniable demonstration ; the weight of probability 
must here be allowed to decide where proof of any more exact kind is 
impossible. I need not recapitulate what I have said on the subject 
of the Hop in a former part of these Notes (Phytol. lil. p. 382), to 
which I beg to refer the reader, I will only add a few observations, 
and cite a few authorities in support of the opinion there expressed. 
It would be wasting time and trouble to be at the pains of refuting 
the puerile and inconclusive objection against the indigenous origin 
of the Hop in Britain by such as come armed with the traditionary 
distich 


‘Turkeys, carp, hops, pickerel and beer 
Came into England all in one year.” 


First, because like the cherries of Lucullus, it was unquestionably the 
improved and cultivated produce of the hop-gardens of Flanders that 
is to be understood, and not the wild bines or the burrs, which might 
have been had from many a hedge and thicket, as I shall show anon ; 
secondly, because there is a suspicious appearance of poetic licence, 
or contempt for plain, matter-of-fact historical truth, about the gastro- 
nomic bard, when he enumerates beer as one of the good things that 
flowed in upon us during that memorable epoch, it being well known 
that ale or beer was the national beverage long before hops were em- 
ployed in its fabrication. Turner, who published his Herbal in 1568, 
in his rather long account of “Hoppes,” never once alludes to them 
as an ingredient in malt liquors, but speaks only of their virtues from 
the writings of others, nor does he drop a word that could lead to the 
conclusion that they were cultivated in England at that period, yet he 
says, “They grow also wylde in many places both of England and of 
Germany,” (Herb. part 2nd, p. 43, Cologne edit. black letter). Ge- 
rarde and Parkinson both speak of the wild hop in England, but as 
they refer also to the plant as cultivated for the brewer, I suppose 
their testimony will be objected to on the ground that the hop had 
become wild from the gardens. Neither in the Synopsis, nor in his 


829 


opus magnum, the ‘Historia Plantarum,’ does Ray intimate the 
slightest suspicion of hops not being indigenous to this country, and 
he was one by no means hasty in admitting dubious species to the 
rights of natives. Whence, then, the disposition of some moderns to 
regard the hop as a naturalized foreigner with us? I hope on some 
better pretext than the mere follow-my-leader principle, because Sir J. 
E. Smith says in ‘ English Flora’ (vol. iv. p. 241), “I have sometimes 
suspected Hops not to be indigenous, which was also the opinion of 
Lightfoot with regard to Scotland.” We are not bound, nor do I 
think we ought to attach importance to any man’s mere suspicions, 
unless he condescends to show cause for entertaining them. That 
the hop may not be indigenous to Scotland I think highly probable, 
for as I have before observed, many plants fall far short in the British 
Isles of the latitude they attain on the continent, and the hop may be 
one of these. The striking difference observable in the variety and 
nature of the species composing the floras of Hants and Forfar, for 
example,* is much greater than is due to mere diminution of the 
mean annual or summer temperatures, or even to the higher latitude 
of the Scottish county. The true cause of the rapid failure of so large 
a number of south of England plants before reaching the Scottish pa- 
rallels, is to be sought in the greater humidity and cloudiness of the 
climate, and comparative deficiency of direct solar light, so essential 
to the spontaneous growth of plants, although in general but little af- 
fecting their health and luxuriance under cultivation. An atmosphere 
often at the point of aqueous saturation, deposits a portion of its 
moisture when in that condition upon trifling depressions of tempera- 
ture, and the vapour, now rendered visible, by impairing the transpa- 
rency of the air, intercepts, even in the absence of clouds, much of 
the sun’s light and heat, which in a clearer and drier sky would exert 
its direct influence on vegetation. If the heat of our summer be not 
very much above that of the same season in the north, it commences 
earlier, and is protracted into an autumn of longer duration, dryness 
and serenity, better able to ripen the vegetable tissues, and bring the 
seeds of plants to maturity. It is from our proximity to the conti- 
nent, and the greater breadth of the mainland of England along its 
southern coast than elsewhere, that our atmosphere is less loaded with 
clouds and vapour than is that over the narrow and deeply indented 
promontory of North Britain, environed by a wide expanse of water 


*T select Forfarshire as being the Scottish county of which, through the labours 


of Don and Gardiner, we possess the fullest published flora. 
Ea 


830 


on three sides, without any adjacent land surface to maintain heat by 
terrestrial radiation, or to arrest the deposition of moisture from the 
Atlantic, much of which is precipitated, before it can reach Hamp- 
shire, upon the peninsular counties of Cornwall and Devon. Hence 
the amount of direct solar radiation, so active an agent in developing 
a varied and vigorous vegetation, is oftener and more continuously 
exerted here than in the north, proving more than equivalent in 
energy to the power of a diffuse light protracted through days consi- 
derably exceeding our own in length at the season in question. These 
conditions of atmospheric dryness and unimpeded solar action, cha- 
racterize the countries of continental Europe in a still greater degree, 
and hold good into latitudes higher than those of any part of Britain, 
enabling plants that are indifferent to the increased rigour of the win- 
ters, to advance far to the northward of the parallels they can attain 
in our insular climate, where their progress towards the poles is much 
sooner arrested by the failure of the conditions above mentioned. To 
these causes, more than to the very moderate increased heat of the 
summers, must be attributed the difference we find in the amount of 
species betwixt the floras of Edinburgh and Copenhagen; places 
having almost exactly the same latitude,* but enjoying, the one an 
ultra-insular, cloudy and equable climate, the other an all but conti- 
nental, somewhat extreme climate, the greater dryness and sunniness 
of which gives to the Danish metropolitan flora a much more varied 
aspect. ‘The same comparative poverty of species, though much less 
evident, because latitude is not concerned in producing the change, is 
manifested in the flora of Wales and the west of England over that of 
the eastern counties, and on crossing St. George’s Channel, the total 
absence or great rarity of plants of common or abundant occurrence 
on the English side, is a striking feature in the flora of the sister is- 
land. In each case the cause is the same, diminished solar influence 
from impeded radiation and increased humidity acting as a bar to the 
proper hardening of the vegetable fibres. We must all of us have re- 
marked that those localities are not the richest in species where the 
vegetation is most luxuriant; indeed, that the most unpromising spois 
to the eye, barren, sandy fields and wastes, often yield an ampler har- 
vest than the merry green wood conceals beneath its leafy bowers. 


* The Edinburgh Catalogue of Plants gives a most unfaithful picture of the real 
or indigenous, as well as the derived or naturalized flora of that district, embracing, 
as it does, a multitude of imperfectly established and even planted species, as Staphy- 
lea, &c. 


i 


831 


So Humboldt, I think, observes that the damp shaded forests of the 
Upper Amazons and Orinoco rivers, where frequent rains and a 
clouded sky maintain a majestic arboreous vegetation, are far poorer 
in the number of species they produce than the open burnt-up cam- 
pos of Brazil, covered with an infinite variety of low shrubby plants, 
with a host of herbaceous ones scarcely less numerous. The 
astonishing number of plants that crowd the arid shores of the Medi- 
terranean, where the great hygrometric dryness forbids the growth of 
the major part of our deciduous thin-leaved forest trees, and the land- 
scape is scantily clothed with triste thickets of evergreen and cork 
oaks (Quercus Ilex and Q. Suber), wild olives (Olea sylvestris), and 
pines (Pinus pinea and P. halepensis), is perhaps not much inferior to 
the amount of species on an equal area between the tropics, though 
differing in kind, and owes its existence to the uninterrupted action 
of solar radiation through the long dry summer of that inland basin. 
Experience fully proves that a wet and consequently cloudy climate, 
however mild and agreeable, sustains a flora distinguished usually by 
great luxuriance, but by as remarkable a paucity of species, which, 
however, make some amends for their fewness by their beauty or pe- 
culiarity. New Zealand, Ireland and southern Patagonia furnish 
striking illustrations of this fact, in the comparative poverty of their 
ultra-oceanic but handsome and peculiar phanerogamic floras. Mr. 
Watson found northern (British) forms constituting a large proportion 
of the Azorian vegetation, in a climate warm enough to ripen the 
orange, but too cloudy and humid for the great mass of Portuguese 
and Spanish plants, requiring a larger share of direct solar light to 
flourish spontaneously.* Enough has been said to show why so 


* The climate of this part of England along the south coast combines the advan- 
tages of an insular and continental position. In summer we enjoy the warmth radi- 
ated from the adjacent continent, and from the broad expanse of mainland to the 
north of us, which ensures us considerable hygrometric dryness, and more sunshine 
than falls to the lot of the northern counties, where the land narrows betwixt wider 
waters, and losing the advantages of terrestrial radiation, becomes more completely 
oceanic. In winter, on the other hand, our southerly position and the warm vapours 
from the Channel generate a tolerably mild temperature, and the great prevalence of 
south-westerly winds renders that season more rainy than frosty ; but except on and 
near the coast, the mean heat of winter in Hants is little, if at all, higher than in the 
north of England or Scotland, although that season is of shorter duration and pre- 
ceded by a longer and drier autumn, and followed by an earlier, though often equally 
cold spring, the east winds at that period blowing almost as constantly and keenly as 
on any part of the coast west of the Foreland Point, and constituting here in the 
months of March, April, and too often in May, the “ blackthorn winter,” our truest 


832 


many species common in the south and south-east of England fail to 
reach the northern counties or Scotland, and even become rare or ex- 
tinct in the west of England and Jreland on the same parallel; and 
that, therefore, because a plant does not evince itself indubitably wild 
in the northern, western and even midland parts of Britain, we can- 
not safely predicate the same of it in the southern and eastern coun- 
ties, but must be guided by what we see of its condition there in 
settling the question of spontaneity, without allowing our opinion to 


season of that name, as till then we have seldom any cold worth speaking of, and 
snow has been for several years of very rare occurrence. But the cold winds of 
spring are not so injurious to vegetation here as farther north, because not accom- 
panied by so much moisture, and because the longer and warmer summer ripens the 
wood of tender trees and shrubs, enabling them to resist their ungenial influence. 
Hence we see, in the Isle of Wight and along the opposite coast of Hants, the myrtle 
and the fig luxuriant as standards in the gardens even of the cottagers, the former 
ripening its berries abundantly, and the latter growing to trees of great stature and 
girth, and producing most abundant crops of large and luscious fruit every season. 
Noble fig trees, as large as most I have seen in Italy, and bearing figs fully equal in 
size, but perhaps somewhat less saccharine in general, to those grown abroad, may 
be seen about Portsmouth and elsewhere along the coast, as well as in this island. 
St. John’s garden, near Ryde, is full of old standard fig trees, most prolific bearers, 
that yield a good return to the proprietor yearly at the fig season (August, September) 
for the trouble of gathering, as this tree needs no pruning or attention, and indeed. 
thrives best when most neglected. I have never known the fig suffer from our se- 
verest winters ; even in the extraordinary one of 1838-9 the trees here escaped with- 
out the slightest injury, but at any considerable distance inland the ends of the 
branches are liable to suffer from the spring frosts, and the protection of a wall be- 
comes advisable to ensure a crop of fruit. The varieties of the fig grown at Ryde are 
the brown Ischia, purple Ischia, white Genoa, and a large, green, late fig, the name 
of which I cannot learn, and which often fails to ripen in this climate. Figs of three 
quarters of a pound weight have been gathered at St. John’s, and fruit weighing half 
a pound is not uncommon, but the average is under this last amount. Although 
abundantly cultivated all over the county, in every garden and against almost every 
farm-house and cottage, the vine succeeds but indifferently in the Isle of Wight and 
along the coast line in ordinary years, as, although clusters of large size are frequently 
and copiously produced, they do not arrive at proper maturity before the damp wea- 
ther of autumn sets in and spoils the grapes. More inland, however, the vine comes 
oftener to maturity, and even in this island well-ripened and heavy crops of grapes are 
procured at intervals of about three or four years at furthest. This last autumn, J 
remarked the vines in most places along the south coast from Arundel westward to 
Christchurch, loaded with fine well-grown clusters of black and white grapes, which, 
although of full size and well coloured, in few instances had their proper flavour. The 
vine succeeds better and more constantly in our dry eastern counties, at some dis- 
tance from the sea, as in Kent, Cambridgeshire and the western parts of Suffolk. 


833 


be warped by prior and partial observations (Phytol. iii. 381). If there 
is any principle on which the exclusionists take their stand, it seems to 
be that of cultivation: they appear to hold it as almost an established 
axiom, that no plant in general and extensive cultivation for economic 
or ornamental uses can be free from well-founded suspicion of foreign 
descent,—such at least is the only conclusion 1 am able to arrive at 
in attempting to discover the reasons for so much doubt and demur 
on the side of our British authorities, when the indigenous origin of 
our plants comes to be mooted. I much wish that some one or more 
of these doubting gentlemen would step forward and state their ob- 
jections to the native origin of the Hop and the other disputed vege- 
tables, on some broad intelligible basis, conducting the argument in 
the same philosophic and logical way as in the controversy between 
Daines Barrington and Dr. Ducarel on the right of the chestnut (Cas- 
tanea vesca) to be held a native of England. The fact is, the Hop is 
more properly a plant of northern than of southern countries, the 
“vitis septentrionalium,” as it has been called by ancient authors, 
widely dispersed over the greater part of the temperate zone, being 
abundantly distributed in Europe, the north of Asia and America, and 
admitting of successful cultivation only in cool and even boreal latitudes. 

+Ulmus campestris, Sm. &c. (non Linn.) Small-leaved Elm. In 
woods ? and hedges; rare? Not found in the Isle of Wight. In va- 
rious places about Lymington, and between Lymington and Boldre, 
also near Christchurch, both which places I find are given by 
Goodyer, in Gerarde (em. p. 1478), as the “ narrow-leafed Elme,” 
with a very fair figure, and the following account: “ This tree is like 
the other (the common Elme, U. suberosa), but much lesser and 
lower,” &c. &c. “This kinde I have seen growing but once, and that 
in the hedges by the highway, as I rode betweene Christchurch and 
Limmington in the New Forrest, in Hampshire, about the middle of 
September, 1624.” Goodyer, like myself, was a native of Hampshire, 
and botanized much in the county : his testimony confirms my belief 
that this elm, which is the true U. campestris of Smith’s ‘ English 
Flora’ and the common elm of Norfolk, is a scarce species with us. 
I believe it to be a mere variety of U. suberosa, with no more appear- 
ance of being indigenous than that has. 

+ suberosa. In thickets, groves, borders of woods and fields, 
and especially in hedgerows ; profusely abundant throughout the en- 
tire county and Isle of Wight; by far the most common hedgerow 
timber tree with us, not excepting the oak itself; yet it is, I think, 
very questionable if it be really indigenous. Never seen on the abo- 

VOL, Tt. 5 P 


834 


riginal forest ground, and seldom in woods or copses, excepting 
around their borders or a short distance within them, where it has 
crept from the enclosing hedge-fence, by means of the stools or suckers 
which this species so abundantly sends up, and which are the great 
instruments of its propagation, the seed being seldom perfected here, 
though plentifully enough produced. ‘True it is, that it may some- 
times be seen forming woods by itself, but such woods are for the 
most part narrow slips, or small angular patches of copse between 
hedgerows, called here rews (quasi rows), the elms in which were 
either originally planted, or have arisen from the stools of the trees 
standing in the hedges without. Such is the origin apparently of the 
Elm Close Copse, by St. John’s, Ryde ; Woods near Park farm, Net- 
tlestone ; Breaches Copse, behind Whitecliff Bay ; Bush Rew, by 
Mottiston, betwixt the church and the sea; all of which are mainly 
composed of U. suberosa. Abundant along the crest of the rocky 
precipice overhanging Cowpit Cliff and Hatchet Close woods, where 
it has more of an indigenous aspect than 1 have anywhere seen it 
besides. The samara in all the specimens I have examined is per- 
fectly smooth on the margin, or destitute of cilia. The Dutch elm 
(U. major of Smith) sometimes seen in parks and pleasure-grounds, 
seems to me a variety of U. suberosa, with larger leaves. The bark 
in old trees of U. suberosa is very deeply chapped or rifted, and in 
young ones the branches are winged with a corky excrescence, as in 
the field Maple (Acer campestre). A tree sometimes of enormous 
magnitude, of which in this island—not remarkable for the size of 
the timber it grows—many very fine specimens may be seen at Quarr, 
Nettlestone, &c. 

Ulmus glabra. In woods, hedges and copses, occasionally ; truly 
wild, but scarcely more, probably, than a variety of the following. 

Var. a. Leaves lanceolate, smoothish and shining above, quite gla- 
brous beneath. A large tree near the entrance of Centurion’s Copse, 
by Brading. 

Var. @. Branches upright; leaves ovato-lanceolate, evenly downy 
beneath, pubescent but not rough above, and somewhat shining. In 
Bloodstone Copse, near Ashey farm; plentiful. 

Var. y. (latifolia, Bab. Man.?). Leaves large, remarkably smooth 
and shining; branches drooping. In the farmyard of Apse, near 
Shanklin, a noble tree, but whether wild or planted I know not. The 
fruit smaller than in U. montana, nearly circular and cloven almost to 
the seed. This is, I have no doubt, the U. glabra y. latifolia of Lind- 


835 


ley and Babington, which I have only seen with us in the above 
locality. 

In a. the clusters of fruit are as dense, and the samara nearly as 
large, as in U. montana, of which they have the suborbicular form, 
and are, as in that, cloven to the seed. This was pronounced by the 
late Mr. E. Forster to belong to U. glabra, as he understood that 
species. 

In @. the fruit is smaller and obovate, smooth and deeply cloven, 
as laid down for U. glabra; but the leaves by their greater breadth, 
and in configuration, approach nearer than in «. to U. montana, of 
which I am convinced both these varieties are but forms, with smaller, 
narrower and less scabrous leaves. 

Ulmus montana (U. campestris, Linn., non Sm. et auct. Brit.). In 
woods, coppices and hedges throughout the county, but not very uni- 
versally or abundantly, although truly indigenous. In several parts 
of the Isle of Wight, but not general. In Qnarr Copse, Binstead, not 
uncommon, and where there are some tolerably fine specimens. 
With Tilia parvifolia in a small wood betwixt Yarmouth and Tapnel. 
Common in Hatchet Close and Cowpit Cliff woods, near Shanklin. 
Rocky woods at Eastend, Luccombe. In Westridge Copse, near 
Shorwell, and in other parts of the island occasionally, mostly here 
and on the main in upland situations, and from being usually cut 
with the brush, not often to be seen of timber-like dimensions. 
Common in the high woods about Petersfield, at Stoner Hill, Bordean, 
Froxfield, &c. Woods at Selborne. About Hambledon, and be- 
twixt Clanfield and East Meon. Hedges along the Winchester road, 
near Whitway or Whiteway, a hamlet just outside of Highclere Park, 
and where, about a mile or less south of the village on the same road, 
I find a handsome tree, in the hedges, answering in some degree to 
the characters of U. glabra, except that the large, oblong, cuspidate 
leaves are considerably rough on the upper side; the branches are 
quite smooth and drooping, but the fruit I have not seen. Whether 
these trees are wild or planted I am unable to say, but I have no rea- 
son to suppose them not indigenous in that locality where U. mon- 
tana is frequent and certainly native. 

An inspection of the Linnean herbarium and careful comparison 
of the descriptions and synonyms of Swedish authors, had long led 
me to conclude, with Mr. Borrer, that our U. montana is the true U. 
campestris of Linneus, and assuredly not U. suberosa or its variety, 
with smaller leaves, to which the name campestris was given by 
Smith, and.adopted by subsequent British authors. The very bricf 


836 


character given in the ‘ Flora Snecica, the best authority for Linnean 
species natives of Sweden, is insufficient to settle the point; nor does 
that of the ‘Species Plantarum’ assist us more, as being only a tran- 
script from the former work ; whilst the reference in the latter to the 
‘Hortus Cliffortianus,’ together with the specimen in the Linnean 
herbarium, incontestably show that our U. montana in its typical form 
(the U. folio latissimo scabro of Tournefort) was what Linneus meant 
by his U. campestris, under which, however, he included as varieties 
our U. glabra and another, which may be intended for U. suberosa or 
some of its forms. It being evident from the ‘ Hortus Cliffortianus’ 
that Linneus considered our Wych Elm (U. montana) as the typical 
state or primary form, @., of his U. campestris, we must so consider 
it; for although Linneus seems to have thought all the remaining Ku- 
ropean elms, however different in aspect (varietates longe plures hujus 
speciei distinctas), as forming but one species, his having applied the 
name campestris primarily to a well-recognized and distinct elm, it 
ought not to be discarded, much less transferred, to another species’ 
(U. campestris, Sm.) not indigenous to Sweden. If this last must still 
be held distinct from U. suberosa, some other name should be sub- 
stituted for its present one, and that of campestris restored to our 
Wych elm, a. being the true species so denominated by Linneus, and 
understood as such by Swedish botanists. The figure of U. campes- 
tris, L., in F). Danica, tab. 632, bad as it is, unquestionably represents 
our U. montana,* which, with U. effusa, distinguished by its stalked 
flowers and ciliated samara, are the only species of elm found wild 
in the north of Europe. Wahlenberg cites the figure and synonym 
of U. montana in E. B. for U. effusa, in his ‘ Flora Suecica,’ although 
the fruit in the former is not ciliated. It appears from the ‘ Manual’ 
that the samara of U. suberosa is occasionally ciliated: may not this 
character be inconstant, and, if so, may not U. montana and U. effusa 
be varieties of a single species? No dependance can be placed in 
this genus on the number of the stamens, which varies from four or 
five to six and eight, according to the divisions of the perianth. 
Thus in U. suberosa I find four or five (usually but four); in U. gla- 
bra five, with an hexandrous flower intermixed occasionally ; in U. 
montana, five to seven or eight. I have been at much pains to find 


* The much superior figure of U. campestris in Svensk Botanik. i. t. 15, and 
which may well be accounted authority, is equally our U. montana, as is likewise the 
excellent plate of U. campestris in Guimpel and Hayne Abbild. der Deutsch. Holtz- 
artin, i.,t. 27. 


837 


constant characters between our Hampshire elms, and I am glad to 
see that Mr. Babington coincides in the opinion I arrived at some 
years ago, that all our British species of this genus may without risk 
of error be reduced to two, as shown above—namely, U. suberosa and 
U. montana (U. campestris, Z.) —the former with all its varieties 
marked by a disposition to emit suckers or stools from the root, and 
even from the trunk, to a considerable height from the ground, and 
by which it is mainly propagated, the seed, perhaps from this cause, 
seldom coming to perfection, but dropping whilst yet green, the bark 
in all the forms deeply cracked or rifted, and the younger branches 
often winged or corky. In U. montana and its varieties, U. glabra 
&c., the bark is smoother, and the tree produces few or no suckers, 
being increased by the fruit, which ripens perfectly. The late Mr. 
Knight, of Downton Castle, as I learn from Mr. Bentham, raised se- 
veral of the supposed species of elm from the seed of one kind alone. 
An elm with erect or ascending branches, and fastigiate growth like 
a black poplar, very small, narrow, firm, subpersistent and shining 
leaves, grows about St. John’s and at Brooklands, near Ryde, which 
I take to be the U. stricta (Cornish Elm) of Lindley, but is not indi- 
genous, and I hold it to be a form of U. suberosa allied to Smith’s 
campestris. 

A remarkable fact in the natural history of the elm is the occasional 
partial or total suppression of the flowers at their season for appear- 
ing. In the spring of 1839, scarcely a tree could be found in bloom, 
either of U. suberosa or montana, in this island and elsewhere in Eng- 
land,* although the year before the branches were loaded with flowers, 
which were again tolerably profuse in 1840. The largest Wych Elm 
in Quarr Copse, standing amongst many free flowerers of its own spe- 
cies, although perfectly vigorous, has never shown any disposition to 
blossom since I have known it. The Wych Elm, like the Sycamore 
maple (Acer Pseudo-platanus), is far from attaining the gigantic pro- 
portions in this county it reaches more to the north, and in the west 
of England, the climate of the south-east being rather too warm and 
dry for both these trees to reach their highest perfection, but U. 
suberosa is in Hampshire and other southern counties the successful 
rival of the oak in girth, and commonly far surpasses it in altitude ; 
the wood, though commonly made subservient to the coarser pur- 
poses of the wheelwright and undertaker, shows a good grain when 


* As about London and in Essex, as I learned from the late Mr. E. Forster, and 
probably all over the kingdom. 


838 


polished and worked up into furniture. The White Elm of North 
America (U. americana) comes very near our Wych Elm in charac- 
ter, attains a greater bulk, and exceeds it in the graceful contour of 
its fine recurved branches, being in fact one of the most magnificent 
trees of that continent, and deserving much more attention from our 
arboriculturists than it has hitherto received. It is the pride of the 
beautiful village towns of western Massachusetts and Connecticut, 
such as Newhaven, Springfield and Northampton, above whose ru- 
ral streets and gay tenements its huge massive trunks rise like magni- 
ficent columns, supporting a canopy of deepest shade and verdure. 
It would doubtless flourish as well with us in England as our U. 
suberosa in America, where, at Boston, are many fine specimens in 
and around that most English looking, thinking and speaking city. 
The following list of Hampshire Willows must doubtless seem a 
very meagre one to those who have directed their attention to this, 
the most difficult and perplexing genus perhaps in the whole range of 
botany, not excepting the Brambles and their graceful first-cousins 
the Roses. Some years ago I set to work con amore to collect and 
describe such of the willows of this island as looked really indigenous, 
eschewing all acquaintance with the pliant denizens of osier grounds,* 
which custom has strangely permitted to pass as habitats for the spe- 
cies of this genus, with about as much propriety as if the garden or 
shrubbery were held to be genuine stations from whence to draw the 
materials for a British flora. Anticipating great trouble and little sa- 
tisfaction in the execution of my task, I was not sorry to find Nature 
herself in a mood to lighten my labours and abridge their duration 
by giving me but scanty materials to work upon, yet somewhat cha- 
grined at her parsimony in withholding from the Vectian flora the more 
beautiful of the willow tribe, leaving us little else than the compara- 
tively worthless and uninteresting family of sallows to call truly our 
own. For the mainland section of the county I have no additional 
species to record on personal observation, though many more, real or 
fictitious, must be supposed to exist in so well watered and well 
wooded a region as Hampshire. This deficiency I shall endeavour 
to make up in future, which before my attention was turned to the 


* The term “ withy bed” sometimes made use of by me is not always synonymous 
with “osier bed,” “ willow plot,” “ willow ground,” implying a piece of land planted 
with osiers for the basket-makers, but simply a boggy tract covered with willows 
(usually of the sallow tribe) of spontaneous growth, of which we have many in the 
Isle of Wight, occupying the little valleys or hollows between the hills, and filled 
with such truly native kinds as S. caprea, aquatica, aurita, Xe. 


839 


botany of the larger section of the county I had no means of effecting. 
T am convinced that hybridity is at the root of a vast deal of the dif- 
ficulty and obscurity that envelope the study of the willows. The 
peculiarly exposed position of the ovaries in the pistillate catkins, 
the copiousness of the ‘pollen in the staminate ones, and the facility 
with which the fertilizing globules are conveyed by bees from the lat- 
ter to the former, or wafted thither by the wind, are strong arguments 
in favour of this hypothesis. In the subjoined list the range, fre- 
quency and localities of the species are mostly omitted, to avoid giv- 
ing erroneous information where my knowledge on these points is as 
defective as that regarding the plants themselves. 

The beautiful and fragrant S. pentandra, mostly confined to the 
north of England and Scotland, may nevertheless be found in Hants, 
as Mr. Watson is disposed to hold it indigenous to Surrey, and per- 
haps to Sussex and Devon. 

Salix decipiens. Near Fontley Iron mills (Fareham) ; Mr. W. L. 
Notcutt ! 

Sragilis. Wet meadows, banks of streams, &c.; I believe 
frequent in the Isle of Wight. | Some very large trees by a pool in a 
pasture field near Nunwell answered to the description of S. Russel- 
liana, but of this, having seen only staminate plants, I am not well 
assured. Is it really distinct from S. fragilis ? 

alba. Very common in a planted state along ditches in moist 
meadows, &c.; less so in its natural localities of wet woods, pastures 
and sides of streams. A noble tree in many parts of the county and 
island. y. vitellina, S. vitellina, Auct. Anglican. Wet thickets, &c., 
occasionally. Westridge, Ashey, Yaverland. Fontley (near Fare- 
ham); Mr. W. L. Notcutt. 

triandra. In wet thickets, by stream-sides, &c.; apparently 
native and not unfrequent in several parts of the island; more fre- 
quently still in a planted condition. The staminate plant is far more 
common here than the pistillate. 

undulata. Titchfield Bridge; Mr. W. L. Notcutt! 

S. Helix and purpurea most likely exist in the county, but I have 
not seen any willow belonging to this section (purpurez) wild in the 
Isle of Wight. Mr. Notcutt in his list of plants of the neighbourhood 
of Fareham (Phytol. ii. 212) gives S. rubra as growing at Titchfield 
Common. 
viminalis. In low swampy woods and thickets; not, I think 
unfrequent in its wild state, though more usually seen in cultivation. 

—— Smithiana. Wet woods; rare? Ina wet bushy part of the 


> 


840 


wood nearly opposite the entrance gate to Roughborough farm, be- 
twixt Ryde and Brading; Dr. Bell Salter!!! By the bridge that 
crosses the road near Shanklin Church, on the left hand side; Jd. 
My only specimens of this are flowering ones of both sexes; the 
leaves I have not yet seen. I adopt this species as a native on Dr. 
Salter’s authority, who has paid some attention to the willows in 
times past, and speaks with confidence on the correctness of the one 
before us. 

Salix acuminata. In damp hedges and thickets, &c.; I believe 
not very uncommon in this island In Northwood Park; Dr. Salter 
and Miss G. E. Kilderbee. In a low wet meadow nearly opposite Red- 
hill farm, Appuldurcombe, 1843. I have only seen the pistillate plant 
of this species here asyet. An apparently well marked willow. Be- 
tween the tunnel and Fontley ; Mr. W. L. Notcutt. 
cinerea. Very frequent, at least its now constituted var. 8. 
aquatica, in wet woods, thickets, hedges, and other damp situations. 
About Ryde, by a little pond near Westridge farm, &c. Titchfield 
Common; Mr. W. L. Notcutt. 
aurita. In wet woods, thickets and bogs; in various parts 
of the Isle of Wight, most abundantly. Plentiful in New Copse, be- 
tween Ryde and Wootton Bridge. Abundant on the Wilderness; 
Undercliff, not uncommon. Between the tunnel and Fontley; Mr. 
W.L. Notcutt. As Sir Wm. Hooker remarks, “One of the least 
equivocal species, although its leaves vary in length and roundness.” 
caprea. In woods, hedges, thickets and bushy pastures, 
&e., everywhere; the most abundant of all our sallows. 

Dr. Salter found some years ago what he considers S. Forsteriana, 
in Northwood Park, W. Cowes. As this appears to be quite a north- 
ern species, and only a single tree was detected, it was most probably 
introduced by some accident into the plantations there, in which wil- 
lows of several kinds have been propagated. 
laurina. Woods, &c. By a little pool close to Newtown, 
on the right of the road from Shalfleet, between the town-hall and 
Fretlands farm, pointed out to me as this species by Mr. Borrer, a 
few years ago. 
fusca. In sandy, heathy, or moory ground, both moist and 
dry, in various parts of the island. Abundant along the road-side 
and heathy ground adjoining it on the northern skirt of Parkhurst 
Forest. Var. 0. ascendens, S. parvifolia, Sm., E. B. t. 1961. Moist 
thicket near Ryde, towards Newport. Other forms of this variable 


841 


little shrub doubtless occur here, but I am not yet prepared to state 
them. 

tPopulus alba. In damp woods, hedges, moist meadows, and on 
the banks of rivers in various parts of the county and Isle of Wight, 
but in most cases I find myself unable to distinguish it with certainty 
from the following, of which I am strongly disposed to regard it as a 
cultivated variety, being, indeed, unable to cite a single station for 
this tree in its most characteristic and best marked form, where it has 
an undeniably wild appearance. 
canescens. In similar places with the last, also on hilly, 
heathy, and dry situations, as commons, &c.; not very frequent, but 
perhaps truly indigenous to the county. Very common about Pag- 
ham farm in hedges, and in a small wet wood near the same, plenti- 
fully. In Barton or Bucket’s Copse, and in the wet hollow or valley 
just outside of it, betwixt that wood and Osborne House, are some 
large and old, as well as many young trees, apparently indigenous. 
Hedges about Great Park farm, two miles W. of Newport, a rather 
dubious station; more wild to appearance in a lane leading down to 
the Wilderness from the high road between Newport and Niton, a 
little beyond the Star Inn, but sparingly, I have noticed it also near 
the northern side of Briddlesford Heath, in copses, as well as in se- 
veral other places in the island, but where it would be scarcely pos- 
sible to pronounce whether native or introduced. Noble trees of this 
species grow in a field hedge near Landguard farm, by Shanklin, but 
pretty evidently, I think, planted, as this and P. alba certainly often 
are with us on newly made hedge-banks and along fences. There is 
a magnificent tree of the gray poplar a few miles south of Newport, 
near a farm, but the name has escaped my memory. Hedges in Hay- 
ling Island. About King’s Worthy, near Winchester. In Durley 
Wood, near Bishop’s Waltham, by the millstream, and splendid spe- 
cimens around the great pond at New Alresford, of vast size and 
height, but I am not certain that the trees (which some might call P. 
alba) are truly wild in either place. These two species, if they be 
really distinct, are given in all our leading floras, both local and ge- 
neral, as if unquestionably indigenous, at least to England. Neither 
Smith, Hooker or Babington hint a suspicion to the contrary. Wat- 
son says of the Abele, “ P. alba is clearly indigenous to the southern 
provinces of England” (Cyb. Brit. ii. p. 883). Ray (Hist. Plant. and 
Synopsis), Gerarde and Parkinson* cast no doubt on its nativity, but 


* ‘The smaller leaved white Poplar tree” of Parkinson (Theat. Bot. p. 1410, fig, 
2) accords with my idea of P, canescens, as does his fig, 1, same page, “ The white 


Vob: Yi. 5 Q 


842 


sgeak of the Abele as somewhat rarer in their time than our other 
species; it is plain, however, from their figures of each, that our gray 
and white poplar were well known and even discriminated by those 
old herbalists. Turner, whose Herbal was published in 1568, has 
these words, “As touching the whyte Aspe, I remember not that I 
ever saw it in any place of England. If it be found in England, it 
may be called a whyte Asp or a whyte Popler, because the underside 
of the lefe is as white as any paper,” (Herb. black letter edit. Cologne, 
1568, part 2, p. 99). From this we may gather that P. alba and ca- 
nescens must at least have been very rare when Turner wrote, which, 
though not conclusive on the question, makes in some measure 
against the aboriginality of these trees in Britain, for Turner was a 
very careful observer of our native plants, and seems to have travelled 
much over his own country as well as abroad. I do not question the 
opinion of those botanists who receive as indigenous the white and 
gray poplars, because my own doubts are but slight, and my expe- 
rience probably less than theirs; but as far as my opportunities have 
gone, I could never perfectly satisfy myself that these trees, especially 
the Abele, were unequivocally wild in any station in which I have 
yet seen them in Hants or elsewhere in Britain. It has never hap- 
pened to me to see either these or the black poplar occupying the re- 
cesses of our marshy woods, or fringing the banks of a woodland or 
forest stream, at great distances from the cultivated enclosed country, 
accompanying the aspen (P. tremula) into its sylvan wildernesses. 
On the contrary, I seldom see the Abele but along the streams and 
ditches intersecting water-meadows, the margins of ponds, and in 
hedgerows contiguous to houses, whilst the gray poplar wanders into 
wet thickets, copses and hedges, keeping about the borders chiefly of 
small woods, and open, damp, or heathy pastures, but I cannot call 
to mind having met with either this or the Abele on any of our forest 
bogs or streams, where it might be supposed likely to grow if they 
were really natives to the soil. Perhaps some who read this can 
point out such unexceptionable stations for one or both of these spe- 
cies. Again, P. alba and canescens are very commonly planted in all 
the places I have described; their roots creep to an amazing distance, 
and throw up suckers in every direction from the parent trees, and in 


Poplar tree,” with my conception of the true Abele in its most characteristic cultivated 
form. 


843 


this way convert a low meadow or pasture into a poplar grove. That 
such is the origin of many of our gray and white poplars in this island 
I cannot doubt; but as the trees would have the same tendency to 
increase by suckers from the widely-creeping roots, whether aboriginal 
or not, this mode of propagation affords no argument one way or the 
other, excepting so far as it readily accounts for the spreading of the 
species in spots where it has been certainly introduced. With regard 
to P. nigra, I confess to doubts somewhat more decided ; no station 
in which I have ever seen the black poplar appeared to my eyes 
above suspicion. 

The question now comes to be considered, are P. alba and P. ca- 
nescens distinct, or are they varieties of one and the same species ? 
My own opinion inclines strongly to the belief of their being identical, 
and that the former is but a state of the latter originating from culti- 
vation or quality of soil inducing a greater development in the leaves; 
that they are in fact analogous to Tilia europea and T. parvifolia, 
which are pretty generally admitted to differ only in the size of their 
leaves and a few minor points of no specific importance. Hence both 
these poplars may grow equally wild, but the Abele will oftener be 
seen in suspicious stations than the gray aspen, and this accords with 
observation. What lends countenance to the opinion just expressed 
is, that I find people not always agreed as to what is P. alba or what 
P. canescens, and in fact I am sometimes at a loss how to name cer- 
tain individuals of these species, so nearly intermediate betwixt both 
do they present themselves occasionally. By P. alba or Abele I un- 
derstand a great tree very common in plantations about houses, or in 
water-meadows, having large triangular or trowel-shaped leaves, all 
deeply and conspicuously angular, toothed and lobed, the under sur- 
face snow-white ; by P. canescens a tree sometimes of equal height 
and bulk with the Abele, but with usually smaller leaves, for the most 
part of a roundish rather than triangular figure, much less deeply an- 
gular, and mostly obscurely lobed, excepting those on the youngest 
trees or the suckers, which are hardly distinguishable from the leaves 
of the Abele in size or shape, and pretty clearly prove how much an 
excess of moisture or nourishment has to do with determining these 
differences in the foliage. The leaves, indeed, of P. canescens are 
extremely variable in form on the same tree, and in general approach 
those of the common aspen (P. tremula) in outline, that is, they are 
often rounded and but slightly pointed at the apex, and instead of being 
angular and lobed are merely sinuate, or sinuate-dentate. Under- 
neath, the leaves of P. canescens are as white sometimes as in P. alba, 


844 


in general they are less hoary, excepting, as we have just seen, in the 
suckers or very young seedlings, they are even sometimes smooth and 
glabrous, as above, or hoary in patches, as if with mildew. Sucha 
glabrous form, of which I find a moderately large but perfectly bar- 
ren tree in a heathy pasture near Pagham farm, in this island, I sup- 
pose may be the P. canescens, var. 8. intermedia of Mérat (Nouv. Fl. 
des Env. de Paris, p. 400), and which he thought, not improbably, 
might be a hybrid of this species with P. tremula,* but like myself, 
the fructification was unknown to him. Lejeune (FI. de Spa, p. 260) 
thinks it more allied to P. tremula than to P. canescens, and although 
believing it to be a variety of the aspen, makes it a species (P. inter- 
media, Mer.), in order, as he says, to draw attention to its characters; 
a bad principle to go upon in botany as in ethics. It is also, accord- 
ing to Gaudin (Fl. Helv. vi. p. 289), the P. alba, y. denudata of 
Spenner, FI. Frib. ii. p. 274, and I think it probable to be likewise 
the P. hybrida of M. Bieberstein, Fl. Tau. Caucas. ii. p. 422, as 
drawn at least by Reichenbach (Icones Fl. Germ. tab. 615), for the 
description of Bieberstein does not quite agree with the figure. For 
my own part, not having seen fructification, I know not whether to 
look on the Pagham tree as a hybrid or a subglabrous variety or ra- 
ther state of P. canescens, but am more disposed to the latter opinion. 

The next point to be considered is the alleged difference in the 
form and number of the stigmas in our two poplars, and here I am 
unfortunately not in a condition to offer any opinion from personal 
research, having hitherto failed in all my efforts to obtain pistillate 
catkins of P. alba and P. canescens. These trees do not flower here 
till they have reached a very considerable height, when the catkins 
are for the most part quite out of reach, and produced chiefly on the 
highest boughs. The few catkins of P. alba I have been able to pro- 
cure have been staminate ones, and I suspect the pistillate plants are 
much rarer than those of the other sex, as I think is the case with P. 
tremula as well. I can therefore at present only collect the observa- 
tions of others, and consult plates of the species, from which, and 
from what I have seen of the same organs in P. tremula, I am forced 
to infer that no reliance can be placed on the number or even shape 


* The great affinity in structure between Salix and Populus renders it highly pro- 
bable that hybrids are occasionally produced betwixt species belonging to the latter 
genus, but the stigmas in Populus are less exposed and the pollen less attractive to 
bees than in the willows, mules would therefore naturally be less common amongst the 
poplars than the willows. 


845 


of the stigmas in any of our British poplars. In Guimpel and 
Hayne’s ‘ Abbildung der Deutschen Holtzarten,’ ii. t. 201, 202, are 
good figures of P. alba and canescens, the branch of the latter appa- 
rently from a young tree or shoot; in this the stigmas are drawn as 
small, upright, green, decurrent, and apparently two-cleft (seen in 
perspective), not as in E. B., large, spreading, reddish, and palmately 
four-cleft (nor as eight separate stigmas, as Smith assigns the species). 
In Fl. Danica the figures of these species in vol. xiii. t. 2182—83, 
though finely engraved, represent the stigmas as precisely the same 
in each, namely, four, simple, filiform and spreading; the former 
plate intending to represent P. alba, so far agreeing with the charac- 
ter laid down by Smith, but the leafy branch is more like what I 
should have called P. canescens, having roundish, sinuate, unlobed 
leaves, of small size, and like those of P. tremula in t. 2184. The 
plate 2183, professing to give the true canescens, has leaves of a very 
ambiguous character, quite deltoid or triangular, like the smaller ones 
of P. alba, but the stigmas, as before stated, are the same in both, and 
quite unlike those in EK. Botany or in the German work just quoted. 
This remarkable discrepancy in the form of the stigmas in three works 
of such repute for accuracy, coupled with my own observations on the 
same organ in P. tremula, to be noticed presently, lead to the infe- 
rence that the stigmas are liable to great variation in size, shape and 
colour, and therefore cannot be safely trusted as discriminative of the 
species in this genus. From all that has been said I think it more 
than probable that P. alba and canescens are but forms of one spe- 
cies,* of which P. canescens may be considered as the typical state, 
as oftenest found wild, and P. alba as a variety with larger leaves, re- 
sulting from cultivation or a moister and richer soil. 

Populus tremula. In low, damp, also in dry upland woods and 
thickets, especially on stiff clay soils; a truly, and perhaps the only 
really, indigenous poplar in this ‘county and island. Abundant in 
Quarr Copse, and on the wet, slipped land along the shore betwixt 
Ryde and the Priory, &c. In Shanklin Chine. Frequent in woods 
about Cowes. In Stapler’s Copse, Nunswood Copse and elsewhere 
about Yarmouth, abundantly. In Barton or Bucket’s Copse, between 
Osborne and Barton farm (the property of her Majesty) are some very 
fine aspens of great height and size. Woods at Selborne and in 


* Les caractéres du P. canescens se nuancent tellement avec ceux de P. alba, quil 
serait peutétre plus avantageux de les reunir. — Lestiboudois Botanog. Belgique, ii. 
p. 460. 


846 


other parts of mainland Hants, but having omitted to note down the 
stations, I forbear to give them from memory merely. Stigmas four, 
bright crimson, nearly erect, slightly diverging only in two pairs; 
each (in all the specimens I can collect in this island) expanded into 
a broad, irregular, waved and crenate lobe, in shape resembling a 
cock’s comb, or the fleshy inflorescence of Celosia cristata. The great 
differences in the shape of the stigmas, as I find from that given them 
in E. Botany and the authors quoted under the two preceding species, 
only prove how variable are these organs as regards form and per- 
haps number also. In my specimens the stigmas are constantly four, 
but in place of being linear or awl-shaped, as Smith describes and 
Sowerby figures them, they are invariably lobed and notched in the 
manner above stated. In the plate of this species in ‘ Flora Danica’ 
(t. 2184) the stigmas approach those of my specimens in form, but are - 
much more simple or regular, widely spreading, or even reflexed, 
scarcely at all lobed, and much smaller, nor are they, any more than 
in mine, furnished with a basal auricle, as mentioned by Smith, and 
so drawn in E. Botany.* Guimpel and Hayne (Abbild. der Deutsch. 
Holtzart. ii. t. 203) come much nearer in their delineation of the stig- 
mas to my own examples in size, shape and colour, from whence I 
conclude these organs vary according to age and development, if not 
in each individual from other causes. I found in a staminate catkin 
from Bucket’s Copse in 1843, several hermaphrodite flowers, the stig- 
mas of which were fully formed and of the usual size. I have re- 
marked the brown, glutinous flower-buds of the Aspen to smell 
strongly of malt. 

t+ Populus nigra. In wet woods, meadows and by river-sides, &c. ; 
a very doubtful native, I fear, of Hants, and rarely seen with us in 
any apparently wild situation. On Watchouse Point, near the Priory, 
probably planted, and on wet slipped clay along the shore between 
Sea View and the mouth of Brading harbour. Near Steephill, appa- 
rently wild, and a tree or two betwixt Ninham farm and the Newport 
road, in the wooded ground along the brook, as also on wet land near 
the shore a little west of Cowes. A tree or two near Medham, and 
three or four in a wood near Cliff farm, by Shanklin, but very doubt- 
fully indigenous, as I found a solitary Horse-chestnut in the same 
wood. Ihave sometimes thought that exotic tree occasionally pro- 
pagates itself spontaneously in this country, as I believe I remember 


* In this last work the floral bracts (scales) are in the separate figure represented 
as glabrous, doubtless through omission of the engraver. 


847 


to have heard Mr. Borrer say it frequently does in Sussex. My rea- 
sons for thinking the black poplar not indigenous with us are the 
same as those given under P. alba and canescens, namely, its absence 
in the heart of remote woodlands or on our old forest ground, and 
stream-sides that flow through them, as well as from its rare and spo- 
radic occurrence in all those localities least open to suspicion of its 
having been purposely introduced thereto. It is, however, to all ap- 
pearance so far naturalized in Hampshire, that a place could not con- 
sistently be refused it in the county flora, without excluding some 
other plants whose pretensions are no better than its own. 

Myrica Gale. In wet thickets, bogs and on moory ground. In 
several parts of the Isle of Wight, abundantly. In boggy, peaty 
meadows along the Medina (above Newport) and East Yar, in many 
places abundant, as about Rookley Wilderness, &c. Plentiful in 
Apse Heath withy bed, also at the upper end of Sandown Level, and 
on the boggy skirts of Lake and Blackpan commons. At the foot of 
Hill Heath or Hill-side, and in Bordwood Lynch, both near New- 
church. Willow thickets by Budbridge farm, and profusely on a tract 
of peat bog not half a mile north of Godshill, a little beyond Munsley 
Hill. Sometimes in this island rising to a height of six feet. A pro- 
fusely abundant plant in mainland Hants, particularly in the forest 
districts, where it covers acres of moorland bog. In various parts of 
the New Forest, as remarked by Mr. J. S. Mill (Phytol. i. 92). 
Abundant in a bog below Boldre church; near the Roman camp 
called Buckbarrow Rings, and elsewhere in the parish. Bog on the 
right hand below the road about three miles from Lymington towards 
Brockenhurst. Abundant along the line of railway between Brocken- 
hurst and Ringwood. In the moory ground about Sowley Pond and 
on its boggy margins, in the utmost profusion. At Bournemouth and 
near the Christchurch Station. Abundant on the boggy parts of 
Titchfield Common and in the marshes near Grange farm, by Alver- 
stoke. Parley Heath; Mr. Curtis in litt. and Brit. Entom. xvii. t. 
763 (ex loca). I think I have seen it in plenty on Wolmer Forest, 
near Bishopstoke and elsewhere, but find no notes to that effect, nor 
have I any station as yet to record for it in North Hants, although I 
believe it to be very generally distributed over the county. This 
shrub is called, in the Isle of Wight, Golden Withy, Sweet Withy, 
Golden Osier, and is, if I remember rightly, used by our forest popu- 
lation as fuel, being from its resinous nature highly inflammable. The 
delightful fragrance of the leaves partakes of the combined aroma of 
cloves and ginger. 


848 


Betula alba. In low wet or boggy, and in elevated sandy, heathy 
or turfy, woods; frequent throughout the county and Isle of Wight. 
Marvel Wood, near Newport, is mainly composed of this tree. At 
Apse Castle, plentiful. Common in the New Forest, where the trees 
reach a very respectable height, but greatly inferior to the magnitude 
the species attains in the north of Britain. Boggy parts of Wolmer 
Forest, as well as in upland woods in most parts of Hampshire. I do 
not know if we have both the species or varieties (B. alba and B. glu- 
tinosa) given in the ‘ Manual.’ 

Alnus glutinosa. Common in wet swampy ground, water mea- 
dows, banks of rivers, streams, &c. throughout Hampshire. Often 
forming groves or thickets by itself, called Alder swamps or Alder 
cars, as at Alverston and elsewhere in this island. 

Fagus sylvatica. In dry, and more especially steep upland woods; 
less abundant in the low flat grounds or along the sea coast; profusely 
on almost all the chalk ridges of the mainland, on the precipitous 
flanks of which it constitutes vast natural woods, called in the county 
“ hangers,” sometimes composed solely of beeches without any under- 
growth whatever, at other times filled up with a dense thicket of 
brush, or intermixed with yew, ash, oak and other forest trees. The 
profound silence and solitude of these woods, standing betwixt con- 
verging hills, which they clothe to their summits, and descend on 
their opposite side into valleys as lonely and devoid of life and 
sound,—where the eye cannot pierce the interminable vista of tall, 
straight and smooth boles shooting up high over head ere they ex- 
pand into the leafy canopy that half excludes the day, shedding a 
twilight gloom on the pale brown flowerless ground, bestrewn with 
many generations of fallen leaves, crisp and crackling under the tread 
of the sylvan wanderer,—inspire a strange feeling of awe, half akin to 
fear, and the words of Dante in the opening canto of the ‘ Inferno’ 
unconsciously recur to memory :— 


E quanto a dir qual era é cosa dura 
Questa selva selvaggia, ed aspra e forte, 
Che nel pensier riunuova la paura! 
Tanto € amara che poco é piu morte. 


Such is the character of our beech woods in their inmost recesses and 
in their most exclusively unmixed features, but on the sunny slopes 
of the chalk hills, where the beeches stand detached and interspersed 
with other trees and a rich undergrowth of shrubs, beauty and verdure 
take the place of gloom and monotony. In the dark deep valleys or 


849 


ravines before alluded to, an occasional holly, yew or juniper, rising 
betwixt the bare trunks, breaks with its black melancholy green the 
sombre continuity of shade, only to make it more sombre and lifeless 
still; but on emerging from these pent-in valleys, and gaining the 
outer escarpments, a scene of sylvan softness and variety succeeds, 
and the beechen woodland, now open. to the light of day and 
animated with the song of birds and the hum of insects, no longer 
oppresses the mind with a sense of loneliness and desertion as before. 
The steepness of these hangers is such as in some places hardly to 
afford footing to the explorer, and down the angles formed between 
the smaller crests and ridges, the rains plough gullies in the chalky 
ground called in the county “ slidders,” from their excessive slippery- 
ness, and which it behoves him to descend with caution should he 
choose them for his path to the plain below. These beechen uplands 
abound with a variety of interesting plants and shrubs, some of them 
rare and local, others common to them and _ the low country, as Mo- 
notropa Hypopitys, Cephalanthera grandiflora and ensifolia, Her- 
minium Monorchis, Helleborus viridis and foetidus, Daphne Laureola 
and Mezereum, Pyrus Aria, Aquilegia vulgaris, Listera Nidus-Avis, 
Convallaria multiflora, Ophrys apifera and muscifera, Epilobium an- 
gustifolium, Taxus baccata, Rhamnus catharticus, &c. 

In the Isle of Wight the beech is far less abundant than on the 
mainland near the coast, and the beautiful hanging woods of this tree 
that form the pride of Hants and the adjoining counties of Surrey, 
Wilts and Dorset, are quite wanting on our side of the Solent. Here 
the beech occurs sporadically, and I have sometimes even thought it 
might not be aboriginal in the island; it appears, however, as if 
quite wild in some of our rocky woods, as in Cowpit Cliff Wood, 
near Shanklin, and elsewhere, but rarely, and never attains here to 
any remarkable size except where it has been planted, as in Appul- 
durcombe Park, which abounds with fine beech timber. In the New 
Forest the beech grows detached and intermixed with oak, birch and 
holly in open glades, and although attaining a large size, seldom, if 
ever, forms woods of itself in the lower flat country, but only on the 
hills. 

I shall not here enter upon the discussion of the question that has 
been raised by a few of those classical objectors who measure every 
opinion by the standard of antiquity, and who would rather think 
wrong with the ancients than be set right by Nature; namely, that 
the beech cannot be an aboriginal native of Britain, because Julius 
Cesar tells us he found neither pine nor beech in this country at his 

Vou." Ut. 5 R 


850 


invasion of these islands. I have elsewhere in this paper re- 
marked on the absurdity of pinning one’s faith to any ancient text, 
with all its liability to corruption or misconstruction from time and 
the ignorance or carelessness of transcribers, before printing gave 
thought power to fly about the world on a hundred wings in unim- 
paired originality of expression as of conception. I suppose a bota- 
nist could scarcely be found at the present day hardy enough to risk 
being laughed at for quoting Cesar’s ‘Commentaries’ to prove that 
the beech was no true Briton: the prestige of classical authority, 
like the Aristotelian philosophy once and so long paramount in the 
schools, has vanished before the practical and inquiring spirit of our 
age, and we learn to know Nature by her own teachings, not from the 
dicta of her disciples or the wording of a musty record. Yet I con- 
fess, the objections that have been taken against admitting the nati- 
vity of several British plants whose claims have been discussed in 
these Notes, appear to myself not a whit more reasonable than in the 
case we have been just considering, since we have here the sanction 
at least of a great name of antiquity, be its authority in botanical 
matters what it may; in the other instances we have little but bare 
conjecture or unproved assertion as the foundation of doubt. I have 
often, like Mr. Watson, felt desirous to ascertain the real or natural 
limits of the beech in Britain, which we may hope to see accom- 
plished through careful observations by northern botanists. On the 
continent of Europe this tree ranges to a latitude as high as the ex- 
tremest north of Scotland, but there can be no doubt it fails in Bri- 
tain several degrees lower than in Sweden, the southern part of which 
country is quite within the true beech region, which occupies the 
greater part of central and western Europe, in the plains or at mode- 
rate elevations. It is rare or wanting in the extreme eastern countries 
of the continent, as Poland and Russia, being comparatively a tender 
tree, and according to Fischer (Versuch einer Naturgeschichte von 
Livland, 2te Auflage, s. 631) apt to suffer from the cold of winter at 
Riga, lat. 56° 57’, when not sheltered by its neighbours of a hardier 
kind. 

+Castanea vesca. In woods and hedges; not uncommon in the 
Isle of Wight and county generally; perhaps really naturalized in 
the strictest sense by spontaneous dissemination in many places, but 
rarely; more frequently planted, and certainly, I conceive, very 
doubtfully indigenous to any part of this realm. In Lorden Copse, 
near Shorwell, are several trees of considerable girth and evidently 
great age, which in certain seasons produce small but well-flavoured 


851 


fruit, as I learn from the country people, whilst in other years the 
nuts do not fill in the shell. Climate, however, would seem not to 
be the cause of failure in the fruit of the chestnut in this part of Eng- 
land, since even that of the beech is apt to be abortive in a similar 
manner, becoming as it were atrophied by absorption, the nuts ap- 
pearing to the eye as large and well filled as usual, but on being 
broken are found to be hollow, with no trace of any part of the seed 
visible excepting the hairy funiculus. The practice of planting 
young chestnuts in the copses, amongst the brushwood, is so frequent 
with us on account of the value of the wood of a few years’ growth for 
hop poles, that itis next to impossible to say where this tree is of 
spontaneous origin: I am inclined to believe that the few old chest- 
nuts that are to be found scattered here and there in our woods and 
hill-side copses may be of Nature’s planting, in so far as they were 
seedlings from trees originally introduced. I have found the chest- 
nut apparently wild in this sporadic condition near Petersfield and 
elsewhere, both here and on the mainland, but have never remarked 
it in any considerable numbers where I could persuade myself that it 
was not introduced by human agency. Compared with the beech its 
power of occupancy with us is very feeble, which is not the case in 
those countries where the chestnut is truly indigenous, as few trees 
are more gregarious than both this and the beech where the climate 
and soil are suitable; witness the vast chestnut groves that clothe the 
lower mountain ranges in the south of Europe. Mr. Watson (Cyb. 
Brit. ii. p. 377) very justly remarks that the chestnut “ does not spon- 
taneously spread and multiply so as to obtain a hold over the wastes 
and neglected places, after the manner in which we see the Quercus 
or the Pinus establish itself without human agency, or even in defi- 
ance of human processes which oppose and impede the natural ten- 
dency to spontaneous increase.” ‘True it is, that such power of 
occupancy is not in all cases needed to prove a tree indigenous, as 
some species are in their nature sporadic, and enter but sparingly 
into the general constituents of the forest, as Pyrus torminalis, Ulmus 
montana, Prunus avium, &c. Neither is the tendency to spread and 
multiply abroad and take possession of the waste places of the 
earth confined to such trees as are aboriginal to the soil they usurp, 
a notable instance of which I shall soon have to bring before the rea- 
der ere dismissing the Dicotyledonous plants of the county. But we 
may well expect to see trees that are naturally gregarious equally so- 
cial, or nearly so, in all climates fitted for their spontaneous growth, 
and unless we find them obviously multiplying by seed and maintain- 


852 


ing their position with unquestioned natives, may reasonably enter- 
tain distrust of their aboriginality. As regards the chestnut, I cannot 
actually prove its spontaneous dissemination in our woods by natural 
means, although disposed to admit the fact from certain appearances 
which favour the conclusion; my objections to receive it as a native 
tree are founded, however, upon other considerations, of which the 
principal is its geographical distribution. From careful comparison 
of the accounts given by botanical investigators in both hemispheres, 
I come to the conclusion that the chestnut ceases to grow wild in 
Asia, Europe and America on or about the 44th degree of latitude, al- 
though in Europe at least it may be carried much further north by 
cultivation, and may even continue to propagate itself spontaneously 
in favourable situations in France, Switzerland, Germany and Eng- 
land. It has indeed been doubted whether the chestnut be aboriginal 
to any part of western Europe, even the most southerly, because its 
name in all European languages comes from one root, and intimates 
its alleged dispersion over our continent from Castanea, a city of 
Thessaly.* | Without entering on the discussion of the truth of such 


* Many of the plants in common cultivation in the south of Europe for use or 
ornament, as the Vine, the Fig, the Olive and the Judas-tree, have been supposed of 
Asiatic origin, and to have been introduced into our quarter of the globe as civiliza- 
tion advanced westward. Having myself seen all these plants in places where they 
had a perfectly native aspect, I am grown very sceptical on this point, and believe 
that Vitis vinifera, Olea europea, and Cercis Siliquastrum are the truly indigenous 
representatives in Europe of their corresponding genera in the New World, where un- 
der similar latitudes or nearly so Cercis Siliquastrum is replaced by C. canadensis, 
Olea europxa by O. caroliniana, and Vitis vinifera by V. Labrusea and its congeners, 
it often happening that a genus of which there exists but a solitary European species 
has two or more American representatives under the same parallel of latitude in both 
hemispheres. The great similarity of type in the vegetation of Europe and America 
strongly favours this idea of community of genera and even of species, so that as re- 
gards the chestnut, since it is an acknowledged native of the Old World, its absence 
from the flora of Europe up to the parallel it attains in the New would rather be a 
matter of surprise, considering how extremely common it is in the latter, and that the 
species differs little or nothing as it presents itself in either hemisphere. Lindley has 
indeed gone so far as to rob the “ littora myrtetis letissima ” of Italy of their chiefest 
glory, for he tells us in his ‘ Vegetable Kingdom’ (second edition, p. 736) “ Myrtus 
communis, the most northern species of the order (Myrtacez), is a native of (Persia, 
but has become naturalized in) the south of Europe.” I am not aware from what 
source the Doctor got this information: the introduction of the myrtle into our quar- 
ter of the world from Asia must have been from the remotest antiquity, which in 
itself would be a reasonable cause for doubting the fact, did not the vast profusion 
and wide dispersion of the myrtle over every part of the Mediterranean shores and 
much of the Atlantic coasts of Spain and Portugal pretty plainly refute that tradition. 


853 


refined speculative reasoning (to be always admitted with caution 
when opposed to the evidences which nature presents), I may remark 
that probability is very greatly against the chestnut being indigenous 
to any part of Europe north of the Alps, or (with perhaps some par- 
tial inflections) beyond 44 or 45 degrees of latitude. It is wanting 
over the greater part of Germany, and only occurs in a cultivated con- 
dition in Hungary, Lower Austria and the Tyrol. It is unknown in 
Russia proper, and first appears in the conquered Caucasian provinces 
of that empire according to Pallas and M. von Bieberstein. Koch 
says of it (Syn. Fl. Germ. et Helv. 2nd edit. p. 736), “ Colitur, et in 
regionibus calidioribus sylvas format sola cultura ortas.” Such I 
have little doubt was the origin of the chestnut woods that formerly 
existed in the south of England, as the gigantic trees of this species 
still in being prove it to have been introduced at a very early period 
into Britain. Turner, writing in 1568, says, “ Chestnut trees grow 
plentuously in Kent abroad in the fieldes and in manye gardins in 
England,” (Herb. p. 114). Gerarde still later affirms, “ There be sun- 
dry woods of Chestnuts in England, as a mile and a half from Feur- 
sham in Kent, and in sundry other places.” I believe these old woods 
are now destroyed, but the tree is abundantly cultivated in the present 
day for hop-poles, a use it could not have been put to in Turner’s 
time, since hops were not then grown in England, as we have seen 
under that plant. In America the beech and the chestnut flourish to- 
gether at the sea level ; I found them so growing in Canada West as 
far north as the parallel of Niagara or lat. 43° 27', where it is still 
very common in the woods.* Jn the south of Europe below the li- 
mits assigned as the true natural boundary of the chestnut, this and 
the beech inhabit zones of different elevation, and are seldom, if ever, 
seen associated, though both very gregarious by nature, showing 
clearly that a different climate and temperature is required for each. 
Now since the beech finds, even in the south of England, a climate 


* The American beech, F. ferruginea, although long regarded as a variety of the 
European F. sylvatica, is unquestionably a most distinct species, and much the hand- 
somer tree of the two, the leaves greatly larger, distinctly serrated, and so nearly ap- 
proaching those of the chestnut as in very young trees to be scarcely distinguishable 
from them at first sight. F. ferruginea grows wild sporadically in the low country of 
Carolina and Georgia. I have seen it in the forests near Savannah in company with 
Magnolia grandiflora, Gordonia lesianthus and Palmettos under a mean temperature 
of 66 Fah. and 32 degrees of latitude. In the south of Europe F. sylvatica is never 
found spontaneous at the sea level or descending on the mountains into or below the 
region of the chestnut. 


854 


congenial to its spontaneous growth at very slight elevations above 
the sea, or at the level of the ocean itself, is it likely that the same 
temperature so appropriate to the well being of the beech would 
equally suit the chestnut, which on the mountains of Italy and Spain 
is always found inhabiting a zone of elevation quite distinct from and 
subordinate to that occupied by the beech? ‘The proper region of 
these trees is essentially different, and furnishes, I think, a good ad- 
ditional argument for rejecting the claim of the chestnut to aborigi- 
nality in Britain. 
Wm. A. BROMFIELD. 
Eastmount, Ryde, Isle of Wight. 


(To be continued.) 


On the Locality for Tulipa sylvestris at Bitton, Gloucestershire. 
By T. B. Fiower, Esq., F.L.S. 


I THINK it necessary to mention in the pages of this journal, that 
the locality given for Tulipa sylvestris at Bitton, on the authority of 
the Rev. H. T. Ellacombe, is an error, as I have been informed by 
that gentleman,—the plant having been traced from his garden into 
the meadows near the church. The locality being now destroyed, but 
mentioned in the last edition of Withering’s ‘ Arrangement of British 
Plants,’ I have been induced to send the present communication, for 
scarcely a season passes without some botanist being disappointed in 
not finding it, and also to prevent the propagation of the error. 


T. B. FLowER. 
Seend, Melksham, Wilts, 


March 6, 1850. 


Contents of the ‘ Botanical Gazette, No. 15, March, 1850. 


On Proliferous Heads of Trifolium repens. By Robert C. Austen, 
Esq. With a lithographic plate. 

Description of a New Botanical Drying Apparatus. By T. Twin- 
ing, Jun., Esq. [A sort of trellis-work or open railing is substituted 
in place of the usual boards, both externally and between the strata 
of paper internally ; thus insuring a free circulation of air; although 
at the sacrifice of that more complete uniformity of pressure which is 


855 


given by aplane board. The apparatus is well adapted for use where 
the process of desiccation can be expedited by a current of hot air. 
The clear description is rendered still more clear and descriptive by 
the aid of two wood-cuts. | 

On the Definition of Species, Sub-species, Races and Simple Va- 
rieties. By M. Chevreul. [Translation from the ‘ Annales des Sci- 
ences Naturelles,’ 1846. | 

On the Fructification and Germination of the higher Cryptogamia. 
By W. Hofmeister. [Translation from the ‘ Botanische Zeitung,’ 
Noy. 9, 1849.] 

A list of Plants growing in or near Farnham, Surrey. By Walter 
W. Reeves. 

Literature: Contents of various botanical periodicals. Proceed- 
ings of Societies. 

Miscellanea: Records of Localities; M. Alphonse De Candolle’s 
resignation as Professor in the Academy, and Director of the Garden, 
at Geneva ; Culture of Madder in Greece ; Obituary, Count J. C. von 
Hoffmansegge. 


Contents of * Hooker’s Journal of Botany, No. 15, March, 1850. 


Botanical Excursion on the Amazon, S. America. By R. Spruce, 
Ksq. 

Decades of Fungi. By the Rev. M. J. Berkeley. 

Extracts from Dr. J. D. Hooker’s Letters. Continued. 

Botanical Information: Professor De Candolle; Dr. Asa Gray ; 
Bourgeau’s new journey to Spain, as botanical collector; Death of 
Dr. Koch, and of John Nuttall, Esq. 


Botanical Society of London. 


Friday, February 1, 1850. Arthur Henfrey, Esq., V.P., in the 
chair. 

The Secretary read a letter from the President nominating the 
chairman Vice-President, in the room of the late Edward Doubleday, 
Esq. 

Donations of British plants were announced from Mr. Borrer, the 


856 


Rev. W. A. Leighton, Mr. J. D. Salmon, Dr. Mitchell, Mr. C. Pren- 
tice, Mr. F. J. A. Hort, Mr. J. A. Brewer, Mr. P. Gray, the Rev. W. 
N. Hind, Mr. E. Brown and Mrs. Atkins. 

_ The continuation of Mr. W. H. Coleman’s paper ‘ On the Plants 
indigenous to the Neighbourhood of Horsham, Sussex, was read. 


Friday, March 1, 1850. John Reynolds, Esq., Treasurer, in the 
chair. 

Donations of British plants were announced from Dr. Southby, Dr. 
Joseph Dickson, Mr. R. Ranking, Dr. Mitchell, and Mr. Wing. 

Mr. F. Townshend presented specimens of the supposed new species 
of Glyceria, G. pedicellata, intermediate between G. fluitans and G. 
plicata, described in the ‘ Annals of Natural History’ for February, 
1850.—G. E. D. 


Discovery of Epipactis ovalis in Herefordshire, with Notes of the 
more interesting Plants found in a Days Excursion on the 
Great and Little Dowards. By WitLtsM BENNETT, Esq. 


On the 22nd of 8th month (August) last, we started for Whitchurch, 
six miles from Ross, on the Monmouth road. The Dowards are two 
of a series of rough limestone hills, the steep sides and picturesque 
outlines of which contribute so much to the far-famed beauty of the 
banks of the Wye, in these parts. The Great Doward immediately 
overlooks this village. Under the guidance of a friend of one of our 
party resident there, we took a steep pathway. just opposite the Crown 
Inn, terracing at first amongst cottages, directly up the hill. By the 
sides of a brook, on leaving the road, grows Epilobium roseum, a 
plant not uncommon in this district. A little higher, Hypericum ma- 
culatum is found sparingly, and Hypericum montanum in great abun- 
dance. On a dry, sandy spot, close to a neat little school-house, 
lately erected in a most romantic position near the summit of the hill, 
Plantago Coronopus was plentifully growing. The views of the valley 
below from the various points which this elevation affords, are de- 
lightful. It commands one of the broadest parts of the vale of the 
Wye; and at this season of the year we looked down upon farms 
and cottages, and happy corn-fields, some being cut, some carried, 


857 


and some still waving with the golden promise of a beautiful autumn. 
Upwards, the river winds away behind the bold buttresses of Hunt- 
sham Hill, with its singular crest or coronet of noble rocks, and 
downwards is lost among the finely-wooded bases of the hills towards 
Monmouth. The rich plain opening out in the former direction, is 
ornamented with many genteel villas; among which Goodrich spire 
peeps out conspicuously, while the distant prospect comprehends the 
flat tops of a portion of the chain of the Black Mountain, in Breck- 
nockshire, the Clee Hills, in Shropshire, and other promontories, 
wearing an aspect such as one may imagine to belong to the ancient 
land-marks of the post-Silurian or Devonian sea. In the open spaces 
among the brushwood on these heights, Gnaphalium rectum was ga- 
thered in some plenty. We sought in vain for Cuscuta epithymum 
on the Calluna, which, including the delicate white variety, grows 
here, in great beauty and profusion. It is curious that not one of this 
family of parasites should, as far as we know, occur in this district 
spontaneously. Cuscuta Epilinum appeared upon crops of flax in 
1847, the only occasion of its culture being attempted in this neigh- 
bourhood ; but that species has no farther claim to nativity, since its 
victim, so far from being wild, can hardly maintain its ground as a 
garden escape. Along the summit of the hill, Gentiana amarella, by 
no means a common plant in these parts, grows exceedingly fine. A 
little further is a beautiful patch of Campanula rotundifolia, purely 
white, which has maintained its permanence for several years. Atropa 
Belladonna, then past flower, has spread itself by numerous healthy 
young plants coming up on the broken, rough ground, or among the 
debris, wherever there was an excavation. Viola hirta is here abun- 
dant. 

Proceeding along the crest of the hill, and bending southwards, the 
views, which now include the further windings of the Wye in that 
direction, and the town of Monmouth, are rich and beautiful in the 
extreme. The opposite hills, forming the immediate bank of the 
river, are clothed with fine oak woods coming down to the water’s 
edge. Among them is to be seen the celebrated druidical remain,— 
a portion of the wood being cut away in order to exhibit it at a dis- 
tance,—known as the “ Buckstone.” On descending into the valley 
between the two Dowards, we come upon an extensive cavern, with 
several chambers and passages, known as “‘ King Arthur’s Hall.” It 
is profusely ornamented with ferns, but all of the commoner species. 

Continuing along the pathway towards the river, Cardamine impa- 
tiens is found in plenty, principally in spaces on both sides, where 

VOL. II. 5s 


858 


the wood had been cut down. And here we first came upon Rubia . 
peregrina, scrambling in the thickest places, over almost every bush. 
It was past flower and covered with its berries in these lower parts of 
the river; but about some rocks higher up, we afterwards found it in 
full flower. Here, too, was Hippocrepis comosa, a rare plant in this 
district. The captain of our party, William H. Purchas, of Ross, had 
likewise the good fortune to light upon Carex montana, though but 
sparingly; the second locality in which he has found it, and the third 
only at present authenticated. It is here, as in the Wyndcliff woods, 
accompanied by C. digitata. The latter plant occurs in the steep 
woods on the other side of the river at the foot of Symon’s Yat, and 
he has often searched for the former in that spot, expecting some day 
to find it, from the similarity to the Wyndcliff station. Its discovery 
on this occasion was an agreeable surprise, but it will very probably 
turn up in many other localities. 

We now directed our course to the Little Doward, so named, 
though scarcely inferior to its elder brother, and more conspicuous in 
position. It is crowned by a spiral observatory, forming a landmark 
for the country round. One object of our excursion was Lactuca vi- 
rosa, which we had been informed had lately been found here. After 
some steep climbing, nearly in the direction of a new stone wall, 
which has been run very needlessly in the eyes of a botanist in such 
a rough and little frequented portion of the country, from the very 
summit of the hill to the river’s brink, by way of a recent inclosure of 
the Little Doward, we came to a large, rough quarry about half way 
up the hill. We had noticed Artemisia Absinthium among the loose 
rubbish cast out in constructing this wall. From a point overlooking 
the quarry, W. H. Purchas espied on a ledge a plant too distant to 
make out, with branches ascending, not accessible from above, and 
somewhat difficultly from below. On going round, and mounting 
steadily from ledge to ledge, the lightest of our party soon got at it, 
and returned in triumph, dragging a magnificent specimen of the said 
Lactuca, measuring very nearly eight feet from the root-leaves to the 
extremity of the corymbose head. We sat down to carve up the 
mammoth into manageable portions for the various botany-boxes, 
unanimously agreeing that the perfect specimen, if brought home, 
was too large for any Bentall that has yet been manufactured. We 
afterwards found plenty of plants of smaller and more portable pre- 
tensions ; and observed that it was abundantly self-sown, higher up 
about the rocks. 

The summit of the rocks that crown this shoulder of the Little 


859 


Doward, commands another enchanting view of the river scenery. 
The rocks themselves are covered with a good sprinkling of Asple- 
nium Ruta-muraria, not a very common habitat for this fern, more 
usually addicted to old walls, bridges, and other more or less artificial 
localities. Several zigzag pathways conduct down the hill; and in 
many parts they were completely fringed with Geranium sanguineum. 
It was now all but past flower, but in the season must present a gor- 
geous sight. Here and there were interspersed the pretty tassels of 
Serratula tinctoria. About one-third down, at a point so precipitous 
that the successive ledges of rock beside the pathway were brought 
on a level with the eye in the descent, the youngest of the party 
checked his career, and drew up suddenly to a dead stand at a plant 
which those who were in advance must just before have passed. 
“ Hureka—back again— come and see before it is plucked—Epipac- 
tis non-scriptus |” — were the successive shouts, as the one who was 
immediately following spied two more of the same plant on another 
ledge among the bushes. “It must be ovalis, what a glorious find !” 
pronounced the best botanist of our party, after due examination. 
One specimen was gathered with the root, those of the others we were 
careful to leave uninjured, as well as two smaller plants, that did not 
look as if they would flower this year, which were all we were able to 
find. 

The plant is smaller, of a much less robust habit, and more grace- 
ful, with the spike far less profusely flowered, than Epipactis latifolia. 
The foliage is somewhat scanty, the leaves alternate, semi-amplexi- 
caul, almost perfectly oval, exclusive of the point (which is uniformly 
eaten off in the single specimen with me), and of nearly equal size, 
excepting the upper one, which is attenuated to the bracteal form. 
On comparing our specimens in the evening at home, with a dried 
example of Epipactis ovalis, in the possession of W. H. Purchas, and 
with the figure and description of that plant in the ‘ English Botany, 
Supplement,’ vol. iv. 2884, we found that though agreeing sufficiently 
in general appearance and character, and exactly in the kind of loca- 
lity, our plant, notwithstanding its identity in the outline of the ter- 
minal lobe of the lip, did not possess the rugose, triangular, elevated 
crenate space in the centre. A single flower was therefore detached, 
and sent by post to Charles C. Babington, for his opinion, but being 
absent from home at the time, he did not obtain it in a fresh state. 
One of the three complete specimens was subsequently forwarded to 
that gentleman by W. H. Purchas, who in due course received from 
him the following obliging reply: ‘The Epipactis has interested me 


860 


greatly, and should be looked after next summer, and the permanency 
of its structure determined. It is very like indeed to E. ovalis, and I 
fancy will prove identical with that plant, notwithstanding the termi- 
nal lobe wanting the rugose space. I presume that the tip of this 
lobe, when laid flat, made the lip as long as the petals and sepals. 
There is still much to be made out concerning the forms combined 
under the E. latifolia of authors. A plant which I found several years 
since near Keswick, and of which my friend Mr. Hort has now ob- 
tained more advanced specimens, has a lobe to its lip nearly of the 
shape of your plant, but then the lip is much shorter than the sepals, 
&c. I fancy that I sent this Keswick plant to Copenhagen lately, 
and it is decided by Danish botanists to be new to them.” The plant 
has since been seen by several good botanists in London, and pro- 
nounced to be ovalis. 

We spent considerable time in the hopes of detecting Poterium 
muricatum, which had recently been first announced as a British 
plant by G. S. Gibson, but without success. All the examples we 
could find with the fruit were undoubtedly referrible to P. Sanguisorba. 

Hutchinsia petrzea grows on the rocks above; Daphne Laureola is 
scattered among the woods, and Aquilegia vulgaris was observed oc- 
casionally along their margin, but all of course long past flower. 
Mentha rotundifolia is a plant that grows by the road-sides and path- 
ways and in many spots in this district in the greatest profusion. On 
the other side the river Campanula latifolia is a great ornament. Co- 
nium maculatum forms a perfect forest in one part, of plants from ten 
to twelve feet high, and is scattered about everywhere. Ona stony 
bank Glyceria distans was found, and in the woods Triticum caninum 
sparingly. In the river itself Ranunculus fluitans was still floating a 
few flowers. On the margin a gigantic form of Valeriana officinalis 
with unusually divided leaves, and the handsome spikes of Lythrum 
Salicaria and Lysimachia vulgaris were conspicuous. 

Turning up the river, we met with Dipsacus pilosus in great size 
and plenty, both within the wood, and in the hedges on both sides 
the pathway. Before coming to the boat-house, where pleasure par- 
ties on the Wye mostly stop for rest and refreshment, the rocks and 
woods retreat, leaving a fine smooth open meadow. Here we could 
not help reclining a little on the green bank by the river side to watch 
the progress of several boat parties then passing, and listen for a short 
time to the sweet music and sweeter voices that arose therefrom. We 
were precisely opposite a fagade of high rocks on the other side, 
which faithfully returned both the softer and the harsher notes that 


861 


were directed against them. Near a barn on that side the river is 
a station for Inula Helenium, where we had gathered it a short time 
before. Further along the bank, near the new weir, we came upon a 
magnificent patch of Epilobium angustifolium, along with Saponaria 
officinalis and Hypericum Androsemum, not uncommon. Numerous 
plants of Helleborus foetidus were seen within the edges of the wood, 
but how far from any former habitation it is difficult to say, though at 
present certainly more than half a mile; for somewhat further we 
came to some old, abandoned iron-works, among which were growing 
Mentha sativa, several varieties, M. sylvestris and M. viridis inter- 
spersed, and in large beds, probably the site of the former cottage- 
garden of the overseer of the works. 

Exactly opposite this spot is the station for Polypodium calcareum, 
mentioned in Newman’s ‘British Ferns,’ p. 132, where it has probably 
much extended itself, by means of its creeping rhizoma readily pene- 
trating among the loose moss and decaying leaves, and coming up 
often at a considerable distance from the parent plant. It now com- 
pletely occupies the ground among the bushes for a considerable 
space, and extends up the steep side of the hill, from the bank that 
bounds the footpath along the river, over the greensward road that 
leads to Symon’s Yat, and mounting the broken, rough ground to- 
wards the perpendicular wall of rocks that breast the summit, further 
than we have had time to trace it. It occurs also under the tall, ro- 
mantic rocks on the other side of the bend, known as the Caldwell 
Rocks. 

We were now within a mile of Whitchurch again, after a most de- 
lightful, and, as we thought, successful day, and reached that village 
on our return, escaping the fascination of a neat little public house, 
with the attractive sign of the “Symon’s Yat,” and the following 
tempting lines conspicuously inscribed :— 


“The weather is very hot, 
The roads are very dusty, 
Do step in and take a pot, 
I’m sure you must be thirsty.” 


WILLIAM BENNETT. 
3rd mo., 1850. 


862 


Additional Note on the Ovule of Viscum album. 
By Witi1am Witson, Esq. 


(Continued from vol. ii. p. 986). 


In Dr. Lindley’s ‘ Vegetable Kingdom,’ article Loranthacez, it is 
stated, ““as a most curious phenomenon,” that the ovule of Viscum 
does not appear till three months after the pollen has exercised its 
influence. In February last, on dissecting some unexpanded flowers, 
I ascertained that the three claviform sacs (nuclez), represented at 
fig. 8, p. 985, exist previous to the period of fecundation. On the 
2nd of March, the flowers having opened, I again examined the 
ovules, and traced the pollen-tubes very distinctly from the surface of 
the stigma to the region of the nuclei, but could not find any instance 
of actual contact. At this period each nucleus appears as a pellucid 
membranous sac, containing almost unorganized fluid, with faint 
traces of an embryonary sac at the top, where it is rounded and ob- 
tuse, and the pollen-tubes themselves are rounded and somewhat 
swollen at the extremity. At a later period it is probable that the 
pollen-tubes will be found united to the nuclei. 


WILLIAM WILSON. 
Warrington, March 8, 1850. 


Note on the Ovary of Cucurbitacee. By WiLtIAM WILson, Esq. 


STRANGE as it may at first sight appear to those who have not at- 
tentively studied the subject, it will be found that Dr. Lindley’s view 
of the placentation of this order is not so correct as the one long since 
published by Dr. Arnott. That of Dr. Wight is founded on a mis- 
taken opinion that the stigmas are opposite to the placentz, whereas 
they are placed opposite to the rays of stigmatic tissue. In fact, the 
ovary of Cucurbits chiefly differs from that of Begoniads in having the 
margin of each carpellary leaf still more strongly involute, and its 
whole substance very tumid and pulpy; so that the three dissepi- 
ments, though they really exist, are rendered quite inconspicuous. 
Hence, the placente are not truly parietal, although they stand very 
near to the walls of the ovary in consequence of the inflexion of the 


863 


carpellary leaves; and it is incorrect to say that the ovary is one- 


celled. 
WILLIAM WILSON. 
Warrington, March 12, 1850. 


Remarks upon a few of the Rarer Plants found in Cheshire. 
By Rosert Ho.ianp, Esq. 


Wuitst botanizing last year in Cheshire, I made a few remarks 
upon some of the rarer plants that I found. I send you my notes, 
that you may make use of them, if you think them worth a page in 
the ‘ Phytologist.’ 

Corydalis claviculata. This elegant plant is by no means uncom- 
mon in Cheshire, being found on most of the peaty soils, covering the 
hedge-banks, and clinging to the hedges, in masses so tangled and 
matted together as almost to choke up the plants over which it trails. 
I have seen it literally hiding the ground in woods planted on a peaty 
soil. The localities where I have found it the finest, and growing in 
the greatest abundance, are woods around Holford Moss, near North- 
wich, and on the hedges in various parts of the parish of Mobberley. 

Cardamine amara. ‘This grows on the banks of the brook that 
flows through Marthall, and it is to be found by the side of most of 
the streamlets in the neighbourhood. 

Tilia parvifolia. Of this I have seen many fine trees in the woods 
around Tabley, Knutsford, but I should be cautious in recording this 
as a true locality, as in all probability they have been planted there. 

Arenaria marina. I have never botanized on the Cheshire coast, 
and cannot say whether this plant is to be found in the county grow- 
ing in its natural localities, but I have gathered it in a perfectly inland 
situation, on the margins of the reservoirs in which the rock-salt is 
dissolved, at the salt works, Northwich, where it grows, not sparingly, 
here and there a plant, as if the seeds had by some chance been scat- 
tered there, but plentifully, shooting up in every crevice of the stone- 
work. Indeed, I should think that the distance from the sea is too 
great to allow of the seeds having been brought there by either birds, 
the wind, or by canal boats, and therefore it is fair to look upon these 
plants as existing evidences of a sea having covered Cheshire at some 
(geologically speaking) recent period. An idea beautifully followed 
out by Professor Buckman, F.L.S., in a most interesting little work 


864 


entitled ‘The Ancient Straits of Malvern.’ The seeds of these plants 
were left when the waters dried up, they remained buried in the earth 
till salt works were commenced, then, the circumstances necessary 
for their growth being present, they sprang up, and now are to be 
seen flourishing upon the edge of every brine-pit. At the same place, 
and growing still more plentifully than the sandwort, are the Poa ma- 
ritima and Glyceria distans. 

Rhamnus Frangula. This shrub grows in the hedges and thickets, 
on light, peaty soils. Many plants of it are to be found in Mobberley. 

Andromeda polifolia. Cheshire seems to be quite a favourite 
county with this beautiful little plant. It may be seen on most of the 
peat bogs, and in some places in the greatest profusion. I gathered 
specimens last year on Lindow Moss, Mobberley, at the latter end of 
June, at which time they appeared to be going out of flower; and 
though I found many specimens beautifully fruited, I had some little 
difficulty in obtaining many flowering plants. I was rather astonished 
to find them going out of flower so early, as I remembered having ga- 
thered them in 1848 in August. But upon revisiting the spot at the 
beginning of that month last year, I was agreeably surprised to find 
my plants coming into flower a second time, nearly all the plants now 
bearing flowers or flower-buds. 

I do not know whether this fact of the Andromeda flowering twice 
during the year has ever been observed by botanists; but at any rate 
the knowledge of it may be interesting to some, who, like myself, have 
never heard of or noticed the fact before. 

Lindow Moss deserves a passing notice. It is an extensive peat 
bog, reaching from Wilmslow to Mobberley, a distance of about four 
miles; the breadth is somewhat less. 

From Manchester the botanist can arrive at the Moss by stopping 
at either the Wilmslow or Alderley station, on the Manchester and 
Birmingham line, from each of which places the walk to the Moss is 
about amile. The place possesses great charms for the botanist. 
Round one side grow rich plantations of Osmunda regalis, many of 
the fronds of which measure upwards of six feet in length, Blechnum 
boreale and Lastrea dilatata, with many of its varieties, common 
plants, it is true, yet plants of extreme beauty, and always admired 
by botanists. 

On the Moss itself are the Vaccinium Oxycoccos and Narthecium 
ossifragum in vast profusion. Drosera rotundifolia and D. anglica, 
Rhynchospora alba, and of mosses several species of Sphagnum. 
To the collector of Carices, perhaps no county will furnish so great a 


865 


variety of species as Cheshire. This is doubtless owing to the un- 
drained state of the land, and to the consequent number of marshes 
and damp spots that are to be met with on all sides. The edges of 
these wet places are fringed with Carices of many species, but espe- 
cially with that most beautiful plant, the Carex pseudo-Cyperus. 


RoBert Houuanp. 
Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester. 


Figures and Description of Scirpus Savit, 8. & M.; (3. monostachys, 
Hook; and Scirpus setaceus, L. By R. WituErs, Esq. 


Hill | | 


Fig. 1. Vig. 2. 


Fig. 1. Scirpus Savii (S. & M.), Isolepis (R. Br.) Fig. 2. B. monostachys (Hook.), I. pyemea (Kunth). 
VOL. It. am 


866 


Fig. 1. Scirpus Savit (S. & M.)\—TIsolepis (R. Br.) 

a. Plant, natural size. 

b. Magnified nut. 

C. A section of ditto. 

d. 4 glume, showing the greenish glume with the brownish 
spot upon each side of it, covering sometimes a large, but more fre- 
quently only a small portion of the upper part. 

Hab. Under Pennard Castle, Gower; Mr. R. Withers, 1848. 


Fig. 3. Scirpus setaceus (L.), Isolepis (R. Br.) 


Fig. 2. Scirpus Savii—B. monostachys (Hook.) 
a.* Plant, natural size. 
Hab. Linton, North Devon; Mr. R. Withers, 1848. 
Obs. The same magnified diagrams are as applicable to this plant 


867 


as the above, the only difference being in the greater size and num- 
ber of spikes, the longer bractea, and in the more stunted growth of 
S. Savi. : 

It is worth mentioning that the nuts of these two plants are as 
fully entitled to be termed trigonous, or at the least subtrigonous, as 
those of S. setaceus, but Mr. Babington, in ‘ British Manual,’ ed. 2, 
says “nuts subglobose ;” these nuts are also longitudinally ribbed or 
striated with the elevated points he mentions. 


Fig. 3. Scirpus setaceus (L.). 

a. Plant, natural size. 

b. Magnified glume, showing the brownish spots upon either side 
(which spots often differ in size), and the greenish keel and margins. 

c. Magnified nut. 

d. 5 section of ditto. 

Hab. Hampton bogs, Bath, Somerset ; Mr. 'T. Dutton, 1847. 

Obs. This locality appears to me to afford plants with the spikes 
more pedunculated than any I have ever before examined. 


R. WITHERS. 
Bath, February 6, 1850. 


Contents of the ‘ Botanical Gazette, No. 16, April, 1850. 


Abstract of Fries’s ‘Symbole ad Historiam Hieraciorum.’ [Abridged 
translation from the ‘ Flora.’] 

Mr. Borrer’s Notes on Plants mentioned in the ‘ Cybele Britannica.’ 

On the Duration of certain Herbaceous Plants. By T. Irmisch. 
[Translation from the ‘ Botanische Zeitung.’ | 

Literature: Muller’s ‘ Synopsis Muscorum Frondosorum,’ fase. v. 
Contents of various botanical journals. 

Proceedings of Societies: [Chiefly a long report of a Monthly 
Meeting of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh ; in reference to 
which we would observe on the unnecessary puerility of their report- 
er, in reporting over again things that have been printed and re- 
printed divers times in the last quarter or half century. It would 
seem as if the reporter for that Society, if not himself a juvenile stu- 
dent, was at least impressed with the notion that the appropriate pro- 
ceedings and reports of scientific Societies were to be found in 
repetitions for the use of students. | 

Miscellanea: Herbarium of Dr. Barneoud. Uses of the Borassus 
gomutus, 


868 


Contents of ‘ Hooker's Journal of Botany, No. 16, April, 1850. 


Graminez Herbarii Lindleyani; auctore Nees ab Esenbeck. [List 
of a few species contained in Dr. Lindley’s Herbarium. | 

Decades of Fungi. By the Rev. M. J. Berkeley. Continued. 

Extracts from Dr. J. D. Hooker’s Letters. Continued. 

Botanical Information : Notices concerning J. C. D. von Schreber. 
Translated by Dr. Willich. 

Notices of Books: Drawings of South-African Plants, by a Lady. 


On the Occurrence of Asarum europeum in Wiltshire. 
By T. B. Flower, Esq., F.L.S. 


For several years past the Asarum europeum has been observed 
growing at Redlynch, near Salisbury, and having been desirous of 
ascertaining in what manner its introduction could be accounted for, 
or whether it might be considered truly indigenous in its present lo- 
cality, I applied to my friend Mr. James Hussey, who has paid some 
attention to the botany of the neighbourhood, for information on the 
subject, when that gentleman most kindly procured for me the follow- 
ing particulars from its original observer, Mr. Popham, who formerly 
lived at Clarendon, but is now residing at Bagborough, near Taunton. 

“It is now, I fear, nearly thirty years ago, when on my way from 
Clarendon, to call at Newhouse, in passing up the lane that leads 
from Strandlynch Down to the large chalk-pit at Redlynch, I observed 
a considerable quantity of a plant growing in the left hand hedge ad- 
joining the lane. As I had never seen it before I gathered some of 
it, and on turning to a botanical book, I found it was the Asarabacca. 
I afterwards, to the best of my recollection, pointed it out to Matcham, 
and I think I have heard him say he mentioned it to Dr. Maton. 
There was a large mass of it, growing in one place only; there was 
no house near, and the plant had every appearance of growing there 
naturally. I never recollect seeing it growing wild anywhere else.” 

From the above statements it will be seen that the Asarabacca has 
now been established in the county for many years, and Mr. Hussey 
informs me that there is nothing in the locality to make its designed 
introduction there likely, except its being one of the medicinal plants. 
It is just possible that by some chance or other it may formerly have 
struck root there and established itself. 


869 


And I will now add that the late Mr. Sole makes a memorandum 
in his MSS. Flora, dated 1782, that he found the Asarabacca in the 
Duke of Queensborough’s woods,* near Amesbury, and should the 
plant be still growing in this locality, which I hope to verify for my- 
self this spring, I think it will go far towards the probability of its 


being indigenous in this county. 


T. B. FLoweEr. 
Seend, Melksham, Wilts, 


March 28, 1850. 


On the Botanical Features of the Great Orme’s Head; with Notices 
of some Plants observed in other parts of North Wales during 
the Summer of 1849. By Epwin Legs, Esq., F.L.S. 


Mr. A. W. BENNETT having recently contributed some “ Notes on 
the more interesting Flowering Plants gathered in North Wales” dur- 
ing a trip in 1849, it may be convenient for me to add a few which 
that gentleman has not noticed in his tour. We appear to have gone 
over nearly the same ground, and like cometary wanderers, must, I 
think, have crossed each other’s orbit, if not actually come in contact 
at some point between Caernarvon and Barmouth. But according to 
the leaning of botanists towards certain favourite genera, influencing 
in some degree the spots they look out for, so will be the plants they 
come in contact with. Mr. Bennett seems to have sought commu- 
nion with the ferns, and I pushed among the bramble-bushes, seeking 
instead of avoiding thorns; not perhaps the wisest course in this 
world, since, walk carefully as one may, some symbolical bramble may 
catch one’s coat at a corner, a more irritable detention than that of a 
button-holder! But leaving the enumeration of the Welsh Rubi to 
a more convenient season, I will just put myself down at Conway, 
where a tremendously rainy evening found me at the latter end of 
July last year. 

Strolling into a bookseller’s shop after securing quarters at the 
Harp, (which, by the bye, better deserved the name of Harpy), I 
found a ‘ Tourist’s Guide to the romantic beauties, &c., of the rising 
and fashionable Watering-places of Llandudno and Great Orme’s 
Head,’ which, strangely enough, was to be given away. I snapped 
at this gratuitous bait, but soon perceived that the pretended “guide” 


* Now called the Duke of Queensberry’s woods. 


870 


was but a trap to catch the unwary, and induce them to buy the bar- 
ren sand of Llandudno, there to sink capital in the shape of bricks 
and mortar, under the idea that “ hundreds” of botanists and ornitho- 
logists annually resorted to the rocks of the Orme’s Head for the sake 
of its rare plants, birds, &c. 1 was rather struck with botany being 
brought forward in this utilitarian way as a bait to tempt speculators; 
and not to bely the book, and being willing to run with the stream, 
determined to form one of the army of Llandudno explorators who 
were to recompence the speculators in sand; so forthwith ordered a 
car for the next morning to what Mr. Bennett as well as the “guide” 
calls the “rapidly rising watering-place” of Llandudno. I would, 
however, beg to express my hope that it may not rise any higher in 
one sense, as it is very up-hill work at present there, and indeed the 
new houses or crescent are proposed to be built, if ever, upon the 
level, sandy beach. 

I need not narrate my adventures at Llandudno otherwise than as 
respects botanical matters, but as a warning to the “ hundreds of vi- 
sitors” resorting here according to the “guide,” I may mention that 
having been induced to take lodgings, I found as much difficulty in 
obtaining subsistence as in a beleagured town, and one day, after a 
weary hunt through the place, had the utmost difficulty to obtain 
even arasher of bacon! As for fish, they were only obtainable at 
Conway, and it really seemed as if the natives lived on wormewood, 
such quantities covered every waste spot to their very doors. Or it 
might have been supposed, could an old Roman have looked in from 
Caer Rhun, whose ruins are not very far distant, that a band of gla- 
diators were in practice here, for such a rank growth of fennel (Fanz- 
culum officinale) on the cliffs and acclivities about the village, and 
on almost every spot about a disused mining-work just above the 
beach, I never saw before. It might well bring the lines of the Ame- 
rican poet Longfellow to mind— 


** Above the lowly plants it towers, 

The fennel, with its yellow flowers, 

And in an earlier age than ours, 

Was gifted with the wondrous powers 
Lost vision to restore. 

It gave new strength and fearless mood, 

And gladiators fierce and rude, 

Mingled it in their daily food ; 

And he who battled and subdued 
The wreath of fennel wore.” 


871 


The use of fennel would seem to suggest the introduction of so 
lofty and conspicuous a plant, and I should doubt its introduction by 
the hand of Nature here originally, though I admit that it appeared 
quite as wild as I have seen it on the chalky cliffs of Kent, yet in all 
cases not very far removed from houses. It may be’possibly a very 
early colonist, since unquestionably some plants have been intro- 
duced by the hand of man earlier than others, and none will dispute 
the extraneous origin of such attendants upon cultivation as Chrysan- 
themum segetum or Ranunculus arvensis, though no one can now say 
when they were not apparent in the furrow: But when a place like 
Llandudno is in a transition state, it may appear uncertain whether 
houses have crept up to the original station of the plant, or the plant 
has escaped from the gardens of the houses. With regard to the 
common wormwood, no doubt that has clung to the Welsh from the 
very oldest times, and they still cling to z7¢#, as I saw some old women 
carrying off bundles to their huts, no doubt to make decoctions and 
infusions, perhaps very good in their way, as a shrewd miner assured 
me as his belief that “old woman’s was better than any doctor;” and 
indeed I found out that no surgeon or even apothecary lived in the 
place. The Welsh, indeed, still trust as much in and pin their faith 
to the powers of herbs as the English commonly did two centuries 
ago, and they always fly, when indisposed, to these traditional wound- 
worts and all-heals. A respectable Welshman of Llandudno, who 
has seen a good deal of the world, told me seriously that he believed 
his countrymen would rather die than call in a doctor, that is, a regu- 
lar practitioner. The old miner I before alluded to (all are miners at 
Llandudno), when I questioned him on the subject, simply said, yes, 
indeed, their herbs “was good for everything,” and snatching up a 
plant or two of Linum catharticum, that grew near the path, “ that, 
now, good as Epsom salt.” 

First and foremost of the plants growing on the Great Orme’s Head, 
is the Cotoneaster vulgaris. This Mr. Bennett altogether omits, and 
perhaps could not find, for it grows just in the last place a stranger 
might expect—on a limestone ledge descending in easy steps just be- 
hind a farm house called Ty-na-Coed, some distance above Llandudno 
village, but looking inland: it may be between 400 and 500 feet high, 
but the western part of the head is higher. The easy descent of this 
ledge causes numerous shrubs to grow there, as privet, holly, spindle- 
tree, and even much hazel. There is some quantity of the Cotoneas- 
ter, though growing dwarf out of the cracks of the rock: it bore ripe 
fruit at the time of my visit, and some of the older leaves were beauti- 


872 


fully scarlet. This cliff, almost hemmed in by cultivation and flanked 
by houses, looks so tame when compared with other parts of the 
Orme’s Head, that I had neglected it, and hunted over the northern 
and western precipices in vain. Returning, however, one morning 
from the Little Orme’s Head, carelessly dangling some plants in my 
hand, a man rather seedily attired, though respectable in look, ac- 
costed me, and taking me, he presumed, for a botanist, asked me if I 
had found the Cotoneaster; as I had not, he volunteered his guidance, 
which I of course accepted. Besides the ledge of limestone men- 
tioned above, he took me to another, where the plant grew, but this 
was also close to the back of a cottage, the cliff indeed bounding the 
cottage garden. I only state the fact, without making any inference, 
but it struck me that birds had probably many years ago planted the 
Cotoneaster on these rocks by transporting their berries. The late 
Mr. Griffiths, it appears, first gathered the plant here in 1783, but 
did not name it, which was left for Mr. Wilson, of Warrington, to} do 
many years after. 

I can recommend Phillips, the person who took me to the locality 
of the Cotoneaster, as a very good guide a1ywhere in the vicinity of 
Llandudno, and, poor fellow, he needs a little countenance from visi- 
tors in a place where anyone connected with the healing art has lit- 
tle chance either to live or die. Phillips has been a chemist, but is 
now a Cattle-doctor, and also waits upon a surgeon who once a week 
comes over from Conway to see patients, should there luckily be any; 
and it is Phillips’s business “if any’s sick and like to die,” to keep 
life in them until the doctor’s hebdomadal visit comes round ! 

I ought in candour to remark that the ‘ Tourist’s Guide,’ adverted 
to as baited with botanists and ornithologists enough to pay for build- 
ing an hotel at Llandudno, contained a list of “rare plants,”—rather 
a new feature in a bill of sale, though I should hardly think got up 
by the Liverpool auctioneer who was to sell the embryo crescent. 
Perhaps some local herbalist was called in, whose researches I found 
useful, as directing me to local points, though many of his names were 
errroneous, and therefore though refering to his list when he mentions 
an additionol locality, I shall not record what I did not myself see. 

Thalictrum minus. Very plentiful and luxuriant among broken 
limestone in numerous spots. 

Ranunculus Lenormandi. Near Barmouth, on the Harlech road. 

Papaver dubium. Abundant about Llandudno on waste spots, but 
no other poppy. 

Glaucium luteum. Very profuse upon the shore of the bay. 


873 


Stsymbrium Sophia. Near Duffin Mill, one mile from Conway to- 
wards Llanrwst. 

Lepidium Smithii. I can corroborate Mr. Bennett as to the pre- 
sent abundance of this plant in Caernarvonshire, but I am inclined to 
think it a late immigrator. Plentiful on the embankment by the side 
of the new road to Conway, equally so between Conway and Aber ; 
between Barmouth, Merionethshire, and some farm-houses on the 
hills; also in Anglesea, near the Bangor Ferry, but Davies has no 
mention of it in his ‘ Welsh Botanology,’ published in 1813, nor have 
I any previous note of the frequency with which it now presented 
itself. 

Crambe maritima. Finely in fruit on the stony beach near Rhiw- 
leden. 

Helianthemum canum. On the upper limestone rocks above Ty 
Draw. This was in fruit in August, while H. vulgare was abundantly 
in flower. 

Dianthus plumarius. Prettily adorning a part of the old walls of 
Conway. 

deltoides. Interesting and numerous on the slopes of 
Craig Diganwy. | 

Silene nutans. Not scattered about plentifully, but only in a few 
favoured localities, as the Cotoneaster ledges, Little Orme’s Head and 
Craig Diganwy. 

Alsine (Arenaria) verna. Among the rocks about the Old Copper 
Mine. 

Lavatera arborea. Several together on the waste bank of the Con- 
way river below Diganwy, but planted probably, or got out of bounds. 

Hypericum maculatum. Not uncommon in Caenarvonshire. Very 
fine and tall among bushes below Pont Aberglasslyn; also numerous 
near Llyn Gwynant, on the road between Beddgelert and Capel Curig. 
A well developed species, the floral leaves and sepals only having 
“pellucid dots.” The petals abound with glandular matter running in 
streaks and accumulating at the ends of them, and this scorched by the 
sun’s rays makes the dark streaks and black dots so conspicuous on the 
petals. On the sepals there are scarcely any black dots. The capsule is 
reticulate with glandular lines forming ribs upon it. Mr. Babington 
gives H. dubium of Leers as different from this, but except in the entire 
and broader sepals, there seems no character to distinguish it, and I 
should consider it as merely a variety, if entitled to even that distinc- 
tion. I gathered an Hypericum on the mountains behind Barmouth 
smaller and more delicate in aspect than the general form of macula- 

VOL A0r. 5 vu 


874 F 
tum, and which might well agree with dubium as described ; but after 
attentive examination I could trace no permanent distinction. Both . 
had the stem with a membranous border, here and there dotted with 
black from the glandular matter within it; both had the upper leaves 
and sepals “with afew pellucid dots,” and both had their petals 
streaked with pellucid glandular lines, much blackened or scorched 
beneath: the sepals, too, of both had pellucid streaks at their base. 
The “ minutely denticulate ” sepals, relied on by Babington as a dis- 
tinctive character for maculatum, arises merely from the membranous 
border being occasionally broken in outline, and though this is not 
so obvious in the smaller mountain form, a lens shows the same cha- 
racter more or less obviously. Babington describes the sepals as “re- 
flexed” in both plants, but I find them always patent in flower, and 
very loosely or carelessly reflex even in fruit. 

Hypericum montanum. On the shrubby part of the Orme’s Head, 
and at Bryn Maelgwyn. 

Geranium sanguineum. A conspicuous feature of the Orme’s Head 
flora, and beautifying all the adjacent limestone hills till late in Sep- 
tember. 

columbinum. Rather plentiful on the stony declivities. 

Erodium maritimum. On stone walls about Gloddaeth, and in a 
lane leading from the beach to Cadir-y-Nain, or “ My Grandmother’s 
Chair,” an isolated limestone hill east of the Little Orme’s Head, 
crowned with stone fragments like the base of a tower. 

Linum usitatissimum. An instance of immigration. Apparently 
wild among stones on the beach, but I afterwards met with a flax- 
field at Eglws Rhos. 

Rhamnus catharticus. In Gloddaeth Woods. 

Medicago lupulina. A small variety of this, the pods, leaves and 
stem covered with very long hairs, occurred on the turf near Llan- 
dudno Bay. 

Trifolium medium. On the turf of the Head. 

Anthyllis Vulneraria. True, as usual, to the limestone; especially 
numerous at Bryn Maelgwyn. 

Spirea Filipendula. Abundant on the turf of the rocks, but very 
dwarf. 

Potentilla verna. In crevices of the same ledge where the Coto- 
neaster grows. 

Prunus Cerasus. Ina hedge on the south side of Bryn Gosol, and 
between Conway and Llanrwst: perhaps planted by birds. 

Potentilla Tormentilla, 8. procumbens (Tormentilla reptans, Linn.) 


o 875 
Spreading profusely in a flagelliform manner, with stems two feet in 
. length, on the embankment along the Conway road, but never rooting 
at the joints. Leaflets very deeply cut, covered on both sides with 
long, adpressed hairs. I see no good reason for not admitting this a 
species, as is done by Linneus and Sir J. E. Smith. 

Rosa spinosissima. ‘This ubiquitous coast rose not only covers the 
Conway sands in dwarf thickets, but ascends to the very summit of 
the Orme’s Head. 

Sabint, 8. Doniana (R. Doniana, Sm.). Surely most distinct 
from R. villosa and its varieties, indeed almost as spinose as the 
preceding, but with a fruit very different in aspect that can never be 
mistaken. I am well acquainted with this rose from having sent a 
living plant to the late Mr. Sabine, at his request, for the Horticultu- 
ral Society’s Garden, many years ago, from Worcestershire. I found 
it in August this year, growing in a bushy field in Anglesea, by the 
side of a lane leading up the hill from Bangor Ferry. Davies, who 
notices many roses in his ‘ Welsh Botanology,’ has no record of this 
species, and I believe that it has never before been observed in Wales 
—certainly not so far west as this. 

micrantha. <A variety I would call humilis. This is a cu- 
rious little rose, with excessively glandulose, doubly-serrated, sharply- 
pointed leaflets, but with the flower-stalks and calyx-tube quite 
smooth, as in R. canina. Dwarf, with sweet-scented foliage and 
very small flowers. On the bare limestone ribs of the Little Orme’s 
Head and Cadir-y-Nain. 

sepium. This well-marked rose I observed very fine and vi- 
gorous at a spot more than a mile from Caernarvon, beyond Pont 
Seiont, on the Pwlheli road. _Petioles and midribs of leaflets exces- 
sively crowded with glands, leaflets broadly-ovate, hairy beneath. 
Calyx persistent, and reclining on the half-ripe, almost globular, se- 
tose fruit, the sepals elongated, with leafy points. The broad leaflets 
crowded together and numerous flower-stalks give it a very different 
aspect to rubiginosa, its nearest affinity. Foliage sweet-scented. 
villosa and tomentosa are not uncommon in Anglesea and 
throughout Wales. 

Pyrus Aria, 8. intermedia. The usual form adorns with its silvery 
foliage the face of many of the most precipitous cliffs of the Orme’s 
Head. A dwarf specimen near “St. Tudno’s Cradle,” or the Rock- 
ing Stone, had its leaves lobed quite as much as the celebrated plant 
on Castle Dinas Bran, near Llangollen, to which so many authors 
refer. 


876 


Sedum anglicum. Plentiful on Craig Diganwy, indeed general on 
the rocks of the Welsh Coast. 
rupestre. On Little Orme’s Head, but not abundant. 
reflexum. A favourite adjunct to cottages in Wales, and at 
Aber whole roofs were mantled with it most singularly, but I have 
never noticed it wild in such a luxuriant state. 

Cotyledon Umbilicus. On Craig Diganwy, but rather sparingly. 
“Stone walls at Llandudno.” 

Apium graveolens. On the coast near Gogarth Abbey. 

Crithmum maritimum. Great and Little Orme’s Heads. 

Torilis nodosa. Side of the new road to Conway. 

Smyrnium Olusatrum. One of those “ domestic plants,” which, 
whether first carried by man or not, mark where his feet have trod, 
and pertinaciously linger there. At Gogarth Abbey, and most abun- 
dant among the shattered ruins on the top of Craig Diganwy, said to 
be an ancient palace of the Welsh princes, and where Hugh Lupus, 
Earl of Chester, afterwards built a castle, at last taken and ruined, 
and not again occupied after the building of Conway Castle:hy Ed- 
ward I. This fortress well deserves a visit:from the botanisbwhd can 
take it on foot on his route from Conway to Lies‘dudno. 

Rubia peregrina. Rioting in the hedges about Gogarth. 

Sambucus Ebulus. At Pont Dolgarrog, on the Llanrwst road. 

Inula Conyza. About Bryn Maelgwn and Gloddaeth. 

Achillea Millefolium. A pretty dwarf variety only two or three 
inches high, the leaves, stem, and even the scales of the involucre co- 
vered with long, woolly hairs, occurred on the singular trappoid hill 
of Bryn Gosol, north of Diganwy. If varieties are to be noted, this 
deserves equal mention with the variety Cambrica of Solidago Vir- 
gaurea. 

Antennaria dioica. Plentiful on turf of the limestone ridges above 
Tydraw farm, south of the Cotoneaster ledge. 

Senecio viscosus. Among stones on the beach between Llandudno 
and the Little Orme’s Head. I only observed it in one spot where 
there were many plants truly characteristic from their viscidity, being 
so encrusted with sand and black mould blown upon them by the 
winds, that they seemed at first view like some strange African Me- 
sembryanthemum, the florets spreading out and much more specious 
than in S.sylvaticus. This is not mentioned by Davies in his ‘ Plants 
of Anglesea.’ 

Carduus tenuiflorus. Covering the embankment by the Conway 
road, close to Llandudno, in the greatest profusion. It generally oc- 


877 


curs as a weak, unbranched plant, but here it had assumed a height 
and magnitude rivalling that of Onopordum Acanthium. Equally 
plentiful and luxuriant on the side of the road between Conway and 
Aber, parallel with the railway. In both cases doubtless seeds lying 
dormant beneath the ground had been turned up by the road opera- 
tions, and on the fresh, rank soil had grown gigantic accordingly. 

Silybum marianum. A colony of the “holy thistle,” tall and rank, 
was flourishing on the rubbish of the lower abandoned mine at Llan- 
dudno ; one of those gypsey plants that never stay long in a place. 

Cychorium Intybus. On the borders of new cultivated ground ex- 
cessively abundant at Llandudno, but not, I think, indicating a lime- 
stone soil, as Mr. Bennett suggests, for on the limestone itself I did 
not observe a single plant. 

Tragopogon minor. On the turf near the beach ; and I notice this 
to remark that the pratensis, as characterized, does not occur. 

Helminthia echioides. Plentiful about Eglws Rhos. 

Lactuca muralis. On the shady side of Cadir-y-Nain. Unnoticed 
by Dar'es. 

Ere, sium borea’e. in a moist dingle of the Orme’s Head, and 
more plentiful in a u_ :p lane leading from Bryn Gosol farm. 

Ligustrum vulgare. On the same limestone ledges as the Cotone- 
aster. Mr. Babington in his Manual only gives “ 'Thickets in the 
south of England,” as if its range was thus restricted ; but I have ob- 
served it as generally occurring on the sea cliffs both of North and 
South Wales. Yet, like other berried shrubs, it is no doubt much 
dispersed by birds. 

Chlora perfoliata. More abundant than I ever before observed it 
all about the sides and base of Bryn Maelgwyn, where the limestone 
is disturbed by the intrusion of igneous rocks. Not in Anglesea. 

Erythrea pulchella and latifolia. The former both at Llandudno 
and Barmouth, the latter at Barmouth only. 

Gentiana Amarella. Abundant on the declivities of the Orme’s 
Head and Bryn Maelgwyn. Equally plentiful at Barmouth. Yet 
Davies says “ very rare” in Anglesea. 

Convolvulus Soldanella. Shores of Conway Bay. 

Echium vulgare. Excessively abundant on the edge of Llandudno 
beach. 

Solanum Dulcamara. Shore of the Conway—perhaps the y. ma- 
rinum referred to in Mr. Babington’s Manual. 

Hyoscyamus niger. Plentiful about the base of the Little Orme’s 
Head. Phillips told me he had gathered quantities of it here for a 


878 


Conway druggist in former years, but the demand for it was not so 
great now. 

Orobanche Hedere? Ona patch of ivy midway up an inacces- 
sible cliff on the north side of the Head, I observed some tall speci- 
mens of an Orobanche very conspicuous, certainly this or O. minor ; 
but though I summoned the garrison, and both Phillips and myself 
cannonaded the fort from above and below, not without risk to our- 
selves, it was all in vain. We indeed disabled a few prominent indi- 
viduals, but could make no prisoners. A friend, however, showed 
me from Conway Castle what appered to be O. barbata of E. B.S., 
and now considered by Babington the same as O. Hedere, and this 
was most probably the plant among the ivy on the cliff. This same 
barbata I have gathered from among ivy on St. Catherine’s Isle, 
Tenby, and (however the nomenclature may be at last) it occurs ge- 
nerally throughout North and South Wales and Monmouthshire, es- 
pecially among ivied ruins. The list in the ‘Guide’ mentions O. 
minor (?) as growing on the ruins of Conway, Diganwy and Marl. 

Digitalis purpurea. I mention this to remark the partiality some 
plants evince to certain soils, and their repugnance to others. Nota 
specimen of Digitalis appeared anywhere on the limestone hills or 
about their bases; but when I began to ascend the trappoid rock of 
Diganwy, there at once appeared my old friend, reminding me of its 
similar position on the sides of the eruptive Malvern Hills. 

Veronica spicata. On the Orme’s Head sparingly, but especially 
plentiful on the limestone ridges extending from the Little Orme’s 
Head to beyond Bodscallan, opposite Conway, including Cadir-y- 
nain and Bryn Maelgwyn. A portion of these heights is included 
within Mr. Mostyn’s Park, and thus protected is “intensely blue” 
with the Veronica. 

Salvia verbenaca. Rather numerous on the declivities about Llan- 
dudno. 

Origanum vulgare. Abundant everywhere on the limestone. 

Calamintha officinalis. On dry banks about the Lower Mine. 

Scutellaria galericulata. In Conway Marsh. 

Marrubium vulgare. On the dry declivities of Great and Little 
Orme’s Head. 

Verbena officinalis. Another of those dogged plants that can 
hardly be said to be wild at all, so closely do they stick to the skirts 
of mankind, as if determined to be domesticated. This has druidical 
fame, and here it still stops on the slopes below the stone of power. 
But it is yet valued medicinally, and 1 possess a pamphlet detailing 


879 


hosts of cures of various diseases from the alleged wonderful properties 
of the vervain. 

Primula veris. 1 mention this as plentiful in various places on 
the Orme’s Head, where no primrose was apparent, and I have no- 
ticed the same thing on St. David’s Head, in Pembrokeshire. 

Samolus Valerandi. In watery ditches on Llandudno Common. 
Abundant near Barmouth, towards Cors Gochno. 

Statice spathulata. Plentiful on the shore of the Conway river. 

Polygonum Rai. On the sands below Craig Diganwy. 

Mercurialis annua. Dr. Bromfield, in his interesting remarks on 
the Hampshire plants, suggests this as “ more deserving of the aster- 
isk” than many others that have it. J have noticed it, however, on 
various parts of the coast both of North and South Wales. At Bar- 
mouth, Merionethshire, it is plentiful on the sands edging the marshes 
inland in spots where no gardens could ever have been, and where it 
is unlikely it could have been introduced any more than the other 
littoral weeds with which it grows. Certainly, like Solanum nigrum, 
with which it is often in company, it is fond of intruding, if it can, 
upon olitory ground. 

Parietaria officinalis. Excessively plentiful about the Orme’s 
Head at present, but I would not feel certain that it was always so ; 
as pellitory-of-the-wall, time-honoured still, was one of the category 
that the herbalist would have been sorry not to have had easily within 
reach. 

Salix fusca, var. argentea. In one place on the Orme’s Head, 
where, in a broken ravine, a spring lazily weeps down among masses 
of Kupatorium cannabinum, and other rank aquatics, to the sea. 

Taxus baccata. An indigenous mass on Bryn Maelgwyn, and nu- 
merous isolated trees pushed obliquely by the wind from the sea about 
Eglws Rhos. 

Juniperus communis. On many of the rocks of the Orme’s Head 
to the very summit westward, but procumbent on the limestone, the 
boisterous gales not permitting it to rise upward. Yet as most of the 
roots are large and of great age, it is easy to imagine that the now 
“‘ white pow” of the promontory had in earlier times a more verdant if 
not grove-like aspect. ‘The original upright junipers have evidently 
been cut down, but when scattered in verdant masses, as in druidi- 
cal times, must have rendered the upper stories and stone circles on 
the cliffs far more sheltered places of observation than they are at 
present. On “my Grandmother’s Chair,” an isolated limestone hill 
near Gloddaeth, some upright clumps of juniper still remain on the 


880 


N.E. side, rising to a considerable height. Davies could find no ju- 
niper in Anglesea when his Catalogue of the plants of that island was 
published in 1813, and he only says “TI venture this as once an inha- 
bitant, from the name of a place, Cefn-y-Terywen, the juniper bank.” 

Tamus communis. At Bodscallan, near Eglwys Rhos, but by no 
means of common occurrence in North Wales. 

Orchis pyramidalis. In Gloddaeth Wood, among bushes within 
Mr. Mostyn’s grounds, not far from the statue of Hercules. 

Sptranthes autumnalis. Quite profuse in the moist sand edging 
the inland marshes at Barmouth, loading the morning air with fra- 
grance. 

Epipactis ovalis, Bab. In crevices of the limestone rocks above 
Tydraw, on the Orme’s Head, southward of the Cotoneaster ledges ; 
also under similar circumstances in the cracks of ‘ my Grandmother's 
Chair,” near Gloddaeth. Some of the plants were hardly more than 
four inches in height, and many scorched and abortive from their pe- 
culiarly exposed position on the bare rocks, but rooting very deeply, 
and the withered stems of former years still remaining. Stem, ger- 
men and bases of the bracts excessively scaly. 

I must here close my list, as I was rather too late in the summer to 
be able to attend much to the grasses, and merely remarked that 
Triodia decumbens formed a great portion of the turf on the declivities 
of the Head, while Avena pubescens appeared on almost every rock. 
I observed Arundo Epigejos, too, very abundant and fine in Glodda- 
eth Woods. Of ferns, except Asplenium Trichomanes and A. Ruta- 
muraria, I really saw none on the Orme’s Head, and the only Equise- 
tum that occurred was E. palustre, 8. polystachion, growing among 
masses of Rubus czsius on the Conway sands. 

If in the above enumeration I have duplicated observations already 
made, or noticed plants of frequent occcurrence or supposed to be so, 
that the rarity-hunting botanist would pass with disdain, still I hope 
that in so remote a corner, which in general botanists only dash across 
in their summer cometic career, the mention of what I saw growing 
at the time I was there in residence may not be quite useless. In- 
deed, it appears to me that a periodical report of the present existence 
of plants in a remarkable locality, like the peninsula of the Great 
Orme’s Head, is advantageous in a referential point of view. Could 
my record be compared with one made a century ago, I doubt not 
that some plants would be found to have disappeared, and some in 
my list would appear as new inhabitants. Hence trustworthy record 
of plants within allotted bounds and seen at particular periods, must 


881 


be ever useful. In fact, just at the time I was at Llandudno great 
changes were making in the neighbourhood, and further contemplated. 
The whole of the marshy flat called Llandudno Common was being 
enclosed and drained, pools dried up, deep ditches made, piles of 
turf were burning, and at night the long lines of lurid flame gave the 
idea of an hostile army ravaging the country. And truly it was so as 
regarded the botanist. Phillips told me that the bog-bean (Menyan- 
thes trifoliata), that he had so often gathered for medicinal purposes, 
was gone, and every marsh plant had got notice to quit. One solitary 
Osmunda regalis I saw, and that appeared to be the last remnant of 
boggish times. Nature was being sternly expelled at the fork’s point, 
and if the threatened crescent should rise on the sands, and young 
Liverpool crown the old Head with villas, perhaps at last even the 
fennel, the vervain and the wormwood may disappear with the old 
houses and Celtic inhabitants. 


Epwin LEEs, 


Henwick, near Worcester, 
April 10, 1850. 


Curious Species of Cypripedium. 


At the March Meeting of the Horticultural Society, Mrs. Lawrence 
exhibited a specimen of Cypripedium caudatum, the first that had 
flowered in cultivation. The colour of the flower is a sickly yellow, 
but the lateral petals are brown and enormously elongated, forming a 
long narrow pendant tail on each side: from the first opening of the 
flower these tails had continually and rapidly increased in length, and 
no opinion can be formed as to the length they will ultimately acquire: 
at the time of exhibition they were eighteen inches long. Professor 
Lindley remarked that other species of Orchidacee possessed similar 
appendages, and that those of a species found on the Cordilleras, 
near Lake Maracaybo, were still longer than in C. caudatum. 


VOL. III. 5 xX 


$82 


A Catalogue of the Plants growing wild in Hampshire, with occa- 
stonal Notes and Observations on some of the more remarkable 
Species. By Witu1amM ARNOLD BromFieELp, M.D., F.L.S., &c. 


(Continued from page 854). 


Quercus Robur. In woods, thickets, copses and hedges throughout 
the county and Isle of Wight; most abundantly. This is the com- 
mon oak, not only in Hants, but I believe in most of the southern 
and eastern parts of England. 

sesstlifiora. In similar places with the last, but much 
more rarely, although I fear scarcely distinct as a species from the 
foregoing. In the sandy soil of Bordwood Copse, near Newchurch, 
where it was pointed out to me by Mr. Borrer during an excursion 
with that gentleman and Dr. T. Bell Salter, in August, 1844, growing 
with Q. Robur in about equal proportion. Since observed by myself 
in other parts of this island. A tree or two on the margin of Quarr 
Copse, by the side of the Newport road. In East Standen Copse, 
near Newport. A very fine round-topped tree in Elm Copse, betwixt 
Calbourne and Shalfleet. In a small hilly wood of scrubby oak 
bushes belonging apparently for the most part to Q. sessiliflora, close 
to Fareham, on the north side, overlooking the town, and where I 
also found Pyrus torminalis, but not in any abundance, July, 1849. 
Observed near Empshot, and in other parts of the county this year. 
Var. 8. Leaves downy underneath. Durmast (quasi dunmast) oak, 
the acorns being sometimes of a reddish or dun colour, as I have 
found them in this island near Shalfleet. In the New Forest; Mar- 
tyn. A puzzling species, if such it be, not always very well marked, 
but distinguishable in its most defined form from Q. Robur by its 
usually larger and broader, flatter and more regularly spreading or 
imbricated leaves, which are distinctly petiolate (the petioles yellow- 
ish or reddish), in general of a brighter, more shining green, some- 
times, however, dark green, for the most part obovate rather than 
oblong, more regularly and evenly sinuate, the sinuses more exactly 
opposite and inclined to acuteness at bottom rather than to be round- 
ed or obtuse ; by a greater massiveness of foliage and compactness 
of the whole tree, which is, I think, more disposed than Q. Robur to 
assume a rounded head; by its more horizontally spreading, less tor- 
tuous branches and spray, larger-sized leaf-buds, and essentially by 
bearing acorns that are either quite sessile, or wholly or in part on 
short, erect, stout peduncles, and in general more numerously clus- 


883 


tered. The bark is thought to be lighter coloured, and the leaves 
more apt to be persistent through the winter; I think I have re- 
marked the former to be smoother on young trees, at least than in Q. 
Robur.* The acorns of the present species are rather ovoid than ob- 
long, the cup approaching to one half the entire length of the gland ; 
they are stated, moreover, when ripe, to have very generally a red or 
pinkish colour. All these characters are liable to great exception, 
fluctuating so variously between those laid down for the two species 
as fairly to induce suspicion of their being really distinct as such. 
Sull, as Mr. Bree (Loud. Arbor. Brit. iii. p. 1738) truly observes, 
“ though there are sessile oaks bearing fruit on peduncles, and pedun- 
culated oaks bearing almost sessile fruit, there is yet a certain inde- 
scribable something about the trees, by means of which I can always 
distinguish each, without minutely examining either the acorns or the 
leaf-stalks.” The present is undoubtedly the handsomer tree of the 
two, with a certain approach to the sweet or Spanish Chestnut in as- 
pect, and it is said in the grain and quality of the wood likewise, 
having, it would appear, been commonly mistaken for that of the 
chestnut in some of our oldest edifices. This species approaches in 
the regularity of its growth, flatness and even sinuation of the leaves 
to the American White Oak (Q. alba), the nearest representative on 
that continent of our British oak, and scarcely inferior to it in the 
value of the timber it yields. The characters distinguishing Q. sessi- 
liflora which I have found most constant, are those of the fruit and 
leaf-stalks ; for although the acorns are often elevated on a very dis- 
tinct peduncle, I have never seen the latter anything like so slender 
and elongated as in Q. Robur, notwithstanding that this last some- 
times bears its acorns on an abbreviated stalk, very similar to the oc- 
casional one of Q. sessiliflora. The leaves in Q. Robur are most 
commonly very unequal at the base, with so deep a notch or sinus on 
one or both sides of the petiole as to appear auricled; in Q. sessili- 
flora the base of the leaf is more equal, and the notch, if any exists, 
very shallow. The leaves in Q. Robur usually lie in planes variously 
inclined to one another, and this, together with their wavy surface, 
convexity, and irregular sinuation, combine to give an air of scrubbi- 


* The woodmen here talk of two kinds of oak, which they call the black and the 
white oak, but the only intelligible difference I could extract from their accounts is, 
that the twigs of one float, whilst those of the other sink, when thrown into water! 
Some of the more observant, however, amongst them distinguish more clearly our two 
species, the Q. sessiliflora they call White Oak and Maiden Oak, as I have repeatedly 
ascertained. 


884 


ness to the foliage as contrasted with the neater appearance in this 
respect of Q. sessiliflora, in which the leaves are remarkably flat, ra- 
diating, and lying over each other in a horizontal position and in 
parallel planes, by which it may be distinguished at a great distance 
from its congener. Whether Q. Robur and Q. sessiliflora be accounted 
distinct or not, I can by no means agree with Fries (Corp. Flor. Pro- 
vin. Suec. p. 144) in thinking that the differences between the two 
are owing to poverty of soil, as he confidently affirms.* From what 
we know of the mutability of character in Tilia and Ulmus, as also 
in Salix, Populus and other Amentiferee,t we should be cautious in 
admitting to specific distinction a tree which in many of its states 
does not always present very definite limits to the marks separating it 
from Q. Robur. 


* Q. sessiliflora seems to abound mostin the hilly districts of the north of England 
and in Wales, and there to reach its fullest dimensions. At Boultibrooke, near Pres- 
teign, Radnorshire, the seat of Sir H. J. Brydges, Bart., are the finest, most charac- 
teristic trees of the sessile oak I have ever seen, almost rivalling the Spanish Chestnut 
in beauty of foliage, and of noble magnitude and height. 

+ The word Amentacee employed to designate the natural order of ament-bearing 
plants is manifestly incorrect, and nearly as bad as Graminacee for Gramina. The 
termination in acee (which it would be highly desirable, for the sake of that neatness, 
precision and uniformity, at once useful and ornamental in scientific nomenclature, 
should be unanimously adopted instead of the vague, arbitrary and often ungramma- 
tically-constructed and mixed terminations of De Candolle, still in partial use amongst 
botanists) does, or ought to express, the relations which certain groups of plants bear 
to some typical genus concentrating in itself the leading or most prominent characters 
distinguishing such groups in the aggregate. Thus, Violacee implies a group, family 
or order of violaceous or violet-like plants, not violets themselves, but allied to or 
closely resembling them, having most of the peculiarities of form, structure, appear- 
ance, and properties of the genus Viola, which serves as a type or standard of compa- 
rison to judge all its allies by. But to apply the term Graminacez to designate the 
order or family of Grasses, or Palmacee that of Palms, as has been inconsiderately 
done in some instances, at once destroys the entire force and meaning of the Latin 
adjective termination in acee, which has a comparing efficacy, that an incorrect ap- 
plication of it wholly stultifies. For as there is no such genus as Gramen or Palma, 
these two natural orders represent themselves, and are not typified by any one genus 
of Grasses or Palms, to which all the remaining genera composing these orders may 
be referred as a standard of comparison. To compare a thing to itself is obviously 
absurd, because every comparison necessitates the existence of two objects to be com- 
pared ; to call the Grasses and Palms, therefore, Graminacee and Palmacez, is only 
to declare them to be grass-like and palm-like plants, or in other words, like them- 
selves, that is, Grasses and Palms, which is in fact a comparison only in sound. The 
proper designation of these orders should be Gramina and Palme; for Graminee 
(plante graminee) and Palmee (plant palmez) are only preferable to Graminacee 
and Palmacez as being better Latinity. In like manner Amentacee is highly objec- 


885 


Corylus Avellana. In woods, copses and hedges everywhere most 
abundantly ; often constituting the main part of the undergrowth in 
our hilly copses, flowering here usually in February and sometimes in 
January. 

?Carpinus Betulus. In woods, thickets and hedges, mostly in damp 
clay soils; very rare? Not found wild in the Isle of Wight, where it 
is only seen in plantations. In a wood abutting on Titchfield Com: 
mon and in a copse by Down Lane, near Fareham; Mr. W. L. Not- 
cutt. I can hardly believe the Hornbeam not indigenous in Hants, 
although I have as yet only the above stations to record for it in the 
county, and regarding which Mr. Notcutt speaks with some hesitation 
in a letter I lately had from him. The tree abounds in some parts of 
Sussex, as near Hurstperpoint, and in woods at the Old Roar, near 
Hastings. Its absence as a native production in this island is not 
explicable on the ground of deficiency of suitable soil, as we abound 
with the stiff clay in which it delights. It will probably be found in 
several parts of the county if searched for in damp, tenacious ground. 

Taxus baccata. In woods, hedges, rocky places, borders of fields, 
and on open chalky downs, very abundantly over a great part of main- 
land Hants, mostly in elevated situations in the interior; rarer in the 
lower and flatter country or along the coast. Scarcely indigenous to 
the Isle of Wight. A few small trees occur on the slope of the down 


tionable, inasmuch as it implies an order of plants like aments or catkins, which is 
equally far from the truth and the sense intended to be conveyed in the word, whereas 
Amentifere at once declares its own meaning and the true nature of the order, which 
is composed of ament or catkin-bearing plants, just as Conifere is of trees bearing 
cones. In adopting Amentifere, too, we secure correctness and uniformity at the 
same time, as the termination now accords with Conifere, Crucifere and Umbellifere, 
which, had consistency anything to do with the barbarous, mixed nomenclature of the 
natural orders still used by many, should have been Amentacee, Conacee, Cruciacee! 
Umbellacex, or Amentee, Conex, Cruciex, Umbellez ! words, it must be owned, that 
would have been a disgrace to botany. But the fact is, that the termination in acee 
adapts itself with singular felicity to all the natural orders deriving their names from 
a typical genus, whilst to the few that take their appellations from the form or structure 
of certain parts, the ending in fere, implying bearing or producing, attaches with 
equal gracefulness and perspicuity. Rigid grammatical correctness is not to be ex- 
pected in modern scientific nomenclature, but the uniform adoption (with the above 
exceptions) of the ordinal termination in acee would secure it oftener than the arbi- 
trary and capricious substitution of the endings in ee, nie, &c., which are only a bur- 
den on the memory to recollect, and are often wholly unsuited to the structure of the 
root to which they are attached, as Violarte, where the r is quite out of place and ex- 
traneous. 


886 


above Nunwell, the only spot in the island where I have seen the yew 
even apparently in a state of nature, but 1 suspect from their limited 
number and vicinity to the house that they were planted there long 
ago. Everywhere for miles around Winchester, on the downs and in 
woods, at Compton, Hursley, Farley, &c. Extremely common on the 
high downs along the London and Portsmouth road. Very frequent 
in Froxfield Hangers and other elevated and steep woods about Pe- 
tersfield, with its common associate the beech. Very large trees, 
some evidently of high antiquity, occur in the woods and chalky 
slopes about Hambledon. Extremely frequent in most of the north- 
ern parts of the county, but I think much less so, if not decidedly 
rare, in the south-western part, in the New Forest, and Christchurch 
hundreds. The yew is a tree so frequent as to be a beautiful and dis- 
linguishing feature in the upland scenery of Hants, and some of the 
adjacent counties, as Sussex, Surrey and Wilts, its deep green, nearly 
black foliage finely contrasting with the brighter verdure of the beech, 
oak, and other deciduous trees, whilst in the picturesque form of its 
wide-spreading, depressed head, and short, gnarled, sturdy, cinnamon- 
red trunk, it may vie with the cedar of Lebanon itself. The yew is 
commonly seen with us as single trees, irregularly dotting the land- 
scape, sprinkled over the open downs, or rising amid the hedge-rows 
or from the precipitous face of some hanging wood, but it occasionally 
forms groves by itself of small extent, the most remarkable of which 
that I am acquainted with is the yew wood at Kingley Bottom, near 
Chichester, much resorted to in the summer by parties of pleasure for 
its picturesque beauty and singularity. The yews on our downs and 
in the woods are mostly permitted to flourish unscathed by the axe, 
notwithstanding the value of the timber to the cabinet maker, and 
hence many noble specimens may be seen in the wild state, whilst on 
the main land of the county there is hardly a parish church of ancient 
date without its venerable yew in front of the door or porch, some of 
which churchyard trees are of extreme age and colossal dimensions. 
The great yew in Selborne churchyard, one by no means of very un- 
usual size, was found to measure a year or two back 24} feet in cir- 
cumference at four feet from the ground. The very ancient yew in 
the churchyard of South Hayling, in Hayling Island, is, to the best 
of my recollection, a still larger tree than the one at Selborne, and 
doubtless others may be found in the county exceeding both these in 
dimensions. It is not a little remarkable, that whilst we find a yew 
planted and religiously preserved in front of nearly every ancient pa- 
rish church in the county, I cannot call to mind the existence of this 


887 


tree in any one of the churchyards belonging to the thirty parishes 
into which the Isle of Wight is divided. The antiquarian reader may 
possibly be able to account for this fact. 

Juniperus communis. On dry hilly places, chalk downs, also in 
woods and copses; frequent in various parts of the county, but 
scarcely wild in the Isle of Wight. I found, March 20th, 1845, a 
solitary, very dwarf bush of the common juniper on the slope of the 
down above Nunwell, which, like the yew it accompanies, may possi- 
bly be native there, but until discovered elsewhere in greater quantity 
I do not feel justified in considering it as indigenous to the island on 
the strength of a single specimen. In Bordean Hanger and about 
Bordean Hill, where I have found this shrub rising to ten or twelve 
feet on the chalky slopes. Common on the downs about Petersfield, 
on Oxenbourne Down, &c. About the Farley (Horse) monument, 
in Parnell’s or Parnholt Wood, and in most woods in that vicinity. 
Abundant in the higher, more open parts of Froxfield Hangers, and 
in woods at Hambledon.  Plentiful at Highclere, in the park, on 
Beacon Hill and chalk downs about it. Popham Beacon, near An- 
dover Road station, abundantly; Dr. T. Bell Salter! On Abbotston 
Down; Mr. J. Forder!!! I find it profusely on that beautiful ele- 
vated tract, along with large bushes of Rhamnus catharticus, Ligus- 
trum vulgare, &c. Warnford; Rev. E. M. Sladen. On the down 
at Up Hurstbourne; Mr. Wm. Whale. On Danesbury Hill, near 
Testcombe Bridge, and Forest of Bere; Jd. Unquestionably in in- 
numerable other places in the county. The absence of this plant 
and the yew from the Isle of Wight, abounding, as it does, with tracts 
perfectly similar to those of the mainland, so productive of both these 
trees, is a singular feature in its flora. 

{Pinus sylvestris. Naturalized extensively in the south-west of 
the county, and probably in other parts, from plantations, chiefly on 
sandy or boggy heaths and moors. In plantations of immense extent 
about Ringwood, and betwixt Poole and Christchurch, as at Bourne- 
mouth, over tens of thousands of acres of moor, heath and bog, so as 
perfectly to present the aspect of the pine forests of Scotland. The 
species now maintains itself by self-sown seeds, which come up abun- 
dantly everywhere, even in the wettest morasses, and are gradually 
spreading the trees over the county, so that were the plantations to 
be left to themselves, and the original firs allowed to die out, the ex- 
istence of the species would be perpetuated by purely natural means. 
It seems therefore absurd any longer to exclude the Scoth fir from 
the catalogue of Hampshire plants, as, although unquestionably intra- 


888 


duced at the beginning, the tree is as completely naturalized as any 
aboriginal of the county, fully as much so as are those species to 
which we never hesitate assigning a place in our general and local 
floras, as Acer Pseudo-platanus, for example. Besides in the enrol- 
ment of the Scotch fir amongst the species of our existing flora, we 
are perhaps only reinstating a primeval but extinct inhabitant of South 
Britain in what was once probably its native soil, as North Britain in- 
disputably is at the present day; since I believe trunks and cones of 
this species have been dug up in the bogs of the south of England, 
as well as in those of Ireland, the vestiges of anciently existing pine 
forests. 

Pinus Pinaster, Ait.? P. maritima, D.C.?  Naturalized abun- 
dantly with P. sylvestris in the dry, sandy soil of Bournmouth, and 
on the turfy heaths and peaty, boggy moors betwixt Christchurch and 
Poole. The immediate vicinity of Bournmouth is at this time a per- 
fect pine forest, both species forming in some places on the crests of 
the sandy cliffs above the beach, low, dense thickets, in others rising 
into groves of taller trees, exactly recalling to mind the natural pine 
woods of the European and American continents. ‘There is little 
doubt that if left to themselves these two trees will establish them- 
selves throughout the heath district of the Poole basin, as it is not 
only in the immediate vicinity of the original plantations that the 
species occur spontaneously, but they are beginning to dot the moor- 
lands and bogs with vigorous young pines of both sorts at wider 
distances from their artificial places of growth. The cones of the pi- 
nasters when ripe discharge their seeds elastically with great force, 
and the seedlings that spring from them are called by the woodman 
at Bourne “ self-setters.” The wood, they say, of P. Pinaster is infe- 
rior to that of the Scotch fir, which in this part of England is used 
only for temporary railing, fencing, and other coarse purposes. With 
Mr. Woods (Phytol. iii. p. 261) I do not see how a place can be con- 
sistently refused to P. sylvestris and P. Pinaster, whilst many other 
plants, even less perfectly naturalized, are admitted without hesitation 
into our British flora. The plantations are of nearly fifty years stand- 
ing, so that there has been time enough to test the self-propagating 
and self-preserving power of both these pines. I am not sure that I 
am correct in quoting P. maritima, D. C., as a synonym of P. Pinas- 
ter, Ait.; if I am, the latter must doubtless have a prior claim to 
adoption; neither am I certain that our pinaster and the P. maritima 
so abundant.in the Landes, or sandy maritime plains betwixt Bordeaux 
and Bayonne, are the same species, although they appear to me from 


889 


recollection of the latter to be identical, but the different species of 
Pinus are very difficult to recognize apart from each other, and there 
are several long-leaved pines in Europe and America inhabiting the 
low grounds closely allied to one another. I have heard or read that 
the maritime pine of the Landes is not indigenous there, but was 
planted in the first instance for the purpose of binding the loose sand 
of that singular region, where the peasantry walk about upon stilts, 
and has since become naturalized. In this part of the south coast we 
are on the meridian of the Landes, and assuming our pinaster and the 
P. maritima of Bordeaux to be identical, we may well conceive it pos- 
sible for the tree to be so far able to accommodate itself to a diffe- 
rence of latitude amounting to about six degrees, as to establish itself 
spontaneously here as there, when introduced into a soil equally 
adapted to its nature. 

Paris quadrifolia. In shady woods and copses; not found in the 
Isle of Wight, but apparently of frequent occurrence in mainland 
Hants, at least on the chalk and in the interior of the county ; seem- 
ingly rare, if found at all, near the sea, which is perhaps the cause of 
its absence from the island, the climate of which is too maritime for 
this rather continental or Germanic plant. Wood at Bordean Hill; 
the Misses Sibley!!! Langrish; Miss G. E. Kilderbee !!!_ Parnell 
or Parnholt Wood, near Farley, a few miles from Winton; Miss A. 
Yonge and Dr. A. D. White!!! Abundantly in woods on the chalk, 
as about West Meon, Winchester, &c.; Mr. Wm. Pamplin. Wher- 
well Wood, near Andover; Mr. Wm. Whale! Wonston; Miss L. 
Legge! Henwood, W. Meon, and wood near Rotherfield; Miss L. 
Sibley. In the Church-litten Coppice, Selborne; Rev. G. White. 
In the sloping wood nearly facing the church, at Appleshaw, in which 
Lonicera Caprifolium grows; W. A. B. Very many more stations 
doubtless exist for the Paris besides these just enumerated. With 
us this plant rather affects the uplands than the lower flat country, 
and where it sometimes has the wild Columbine (Aquilegia vulgaris) 
for its associate in the more elevated of its localities. 

Tamus communis. In woods, groves, thickets, hedges and borders 
of fields, extremely common throughout the county. Abundant in 
the Isle of Wight, and in nearly all parts of mainland Hants, but I 
think of diminished frequency in the south-western or New-Forest 
district, as about Lymington, Lyndhurst, Ringwood, Christchurch, 
&c., owing, perhaps, to the nature of the soil, which is chiefly the 
diluvial of the Poole basin, on which some other species, as Acer 


VOL. IIT. 5 Y 


890 


campestre and Bryonia dioica become comparatively unfrequent.* 
Assuredly one of the most beautiful and graceful of British plants, 
looking like some tender native of a warmer clime that has wandered 
to our less genial shores courting their colder breezes. Most ofthe . 
devotees of Flora confess to an exclusive partiality for some one pro- 
duction of her creative hand indigenous to the country of their birth. 
Linneus was fascinated with the symmetry (mother of all beauty as 
he styles it) ever present to his vivid perception of loveliness in form, 
in the blossoms of the little northern Trientalis, that “ flos gratissi- 
mus” whose praises he has celebrated (I had nearly said sung) in his 
truly poetical work the ‘ Lapland Flora. Smith describes the Water 
Avens (Geum rivale) in terms of glowing admiration, which lead me 
to conclude that pretty plant to have been a prime favourite with the 
amiable editor of ‘ English Botany’: and if it be allowable in the au- 
thor of these humble Notes to avow a predilection felt by such master 
minds for one native plant above the rest, he would point to the Ta- 
mus as the object of his especial preference. No other indigenous 
vegetable comes up, I think, in elegance of habit to the Black Bryony, 
as it displays itself on many a tall hedge-row, or along the margin of 
some way-side thicket; its twining stems concealed beneath the 
closely overlapping, prone directed or shelving, brightly varnished 
leaves of firm texture and translucent green, their long, tapering 
points, wavy margins and finely rounded bases, seeming to undulate 
and curl and glide upon each other with simulated motion, as of a 
swift and eddying stream descending in an easy, graceful curve from 


* In this part of England the Tamus is commonly called Bryony, sometimes Isle- 
of-Wight Vine, and confounded with the true and almost equally abundant plant of 
that name, Bryonia dioica, whilst to many it is a nameless, though familiar object. 
Its pretty designation of Our Lady’s Seal, given it in a more poetic age, has become 
universally obsolete except in books, and was perhaps never a vernacular one in this 
land, nor can we, in these matter-of-fact, prosaic times, hope to see that name revived, 
or a bard arise to give it currency in song. Possessing neither fragrance nor the flo- 
rid charm of colouring, the simplicity of its starry flowers and the grace and elegance 
of its polished foliage, unrivalled by that of any other native plant, can win the admi- 
ration of such alone for whom form has equal or superior attractions over scent or 
brilliancy of hue. My friend the dowager Lady Erskine tells me that the Black 
Bryony is called in Wales Afal Adda, that is, serpent’s meat, and that it is a preva- 
lent idea in the principality that those reptiles are always lurking near the spot where 
the plant grows. 

+‘ Nescio, quenam gratia floris (Trient. europ.) adeo percellat oculos, ut fere effas- 
cinare videatur visu contemplatorem suum; forte a symmetria, pulchritudinis omnis 
matre!” Fl]. Lappon. p. 104. 


891 


its source, and widening by degrees along its downward course. 
From the great beauty of the broad, rich green foliage, which, being 
slightly fleshy or succulent, has a peculiarly cool, refreshing effect, 
few plants are better suited for trellis-work or covering arbours than 
Tamus communis, as it climbs to a considerable length, and affords a 
good shade. The staminate plant, as being more elegant in flower, 
should be chosen in preference to the pistillate, or both grown toge- — 
ther for variety, and were it not a native, and therefore despised and 
disregarded, it would probably have been long since as much a fa- 
vourite in British gardens as its near relative the Hottentot Bread 
(Testudinaria elephantipes, Tamus elephant. L’ Her.) of the Cape, is 
in our conservatories, since it is quite as handsome as that, with the 
additional advantage of being perfectly hardy. I once recollect to 
have seen in America, in a part of that continent where the species 
was not found wild, our common Bittersweet (Solanum Dulcamara) 
used for covering a dead wall, and very gracefully it fulfilled the com- 
mission imposed on it by the planter. Were this species not to be 
seen in almost every hedge, and had it but come to us like the Box- 
thorn (Lycium barbarum), absurdly called Tea tree, from a foreign 
land, it would have supplanted that formal shrub, to which it is so 
closely allied, by the greater freedom of its growth and much hand- 
somer foliage. 

The order Tamacez is quite superfluous, not admissible even as a 
sub-order or tribe (Tame) of Dioscoreacez. Tamus is in fact an 
intermediate genus connecting the latter order with Smilacezx, but 
more closely allied to the yams than to the Sarsaparillas, differing 
from Dioscorea chiefly in its baccate fruit, and globose, not com- 
pressed seeds destitute of a wing or border. But Testudinaria, which 
has the most intimate relation possible to Tamus, and was even once 
referred to that genus, has the fructification of Dioscorea; and the 
pulpy pericarp of Tamus covers a thin membranous capsule of three 
cells with, imperfect dissepiments from the middle of each cell, quite 
unconnected, or but very slightly attached to the pericarp, from which 
it may readily be squeezed out entire when ripe, or dissected out 
when green. Our Tamus might indeed be properly called wild or 
English yam (for to the Bryony it has no botanical relation whatever), 
so much does it resemble that tropical esculent in its root, leaves, and 
general structure, and I have every reason to believe in its edible and 
nutritive qualities were they fairly put to the test of experiment. The 
root is very large and thick, consisting, like the yam, of irregular fusi- 
form or digitate tubers, beset with wiry fibres ; externally light brown 


892 


or ash-gray and wrinkled, very white, soft and fleshy within, as easily 
sliced as a turnip, and abounding with an acrid, clammy juice. 
Apart from this acrimony, which cannot compare for intensity with 
that of Cassava and the various esculent Aracez, the root has neither 
bitterness nor any other unpleasant taste, nor, though so large and en- 
during, is it at all tough, woody or stringy in texture, being apparently 
purely farinaceous, and composed chiefly of starch, with probably a 
portion of gluten. I have the best reason for believing that were the 
roots dressed like yams, by roasting them in hot wood-ashes a suffi- 
cient time to dissipate their acrimony, as in the latter, they would 
prove no way inferior to that vegetable.* Had I the facilities for 
trying the experiment I should certainly do so, but partial failures 
must be anticipated before the exact degree and duration of heat to 
be applied could be ascertained, and the experience necessary to en- 
sure uniform success in the operation acquired. That there is reason 
in roasting a yam as well as an egg there can be no doubt, and we all 
know how much the simple process of boiling potatoes demands for 
its successful issue some exercise of man’s noblest attribute. The 
tubers of the Tamus dug up from the hedge-rows in autumn, when 
the berries are ripening, would probably furnish as good yams as if 
cultivated expressly for use, because in the West Indies the “ ruinate 
vams,” or those that have become wild on old forsaken or ruined 
plantations, are esteemed the best. 

The beautiful large scarlet berries, hanging in festoons on the 
bushes, ripen too late (with the decaying leaves) to add much to the 
ornamental aspect of the plant in autumn, yet are not without their 
use. ‘These berries abound with a nearly insipid, watery juice, which 


* On turning over several old authors to learn what may have been said by them 
on the subject, I find by reference to Matthiolus that my idea of converting Black 
Bryony roots into home-grown yams is not altogether a new one. That learned com- 
mentator on Dioscorides tells us, on the authority of one Martin Guidotti, a perfumer 
(myropola) of Trent, and a most diligent herbalist, that the roots of Tamus roasted 
in hot ashes are no contemptible dish (haud ingratum sit edulium), Matth. edit. Valgr. 
1565, p. 1287. It is, however, but fair to add that Guidotti attributes medical virtues 
(probably imaginary) to these yams, which would make them unfit food for some tem- 
peraments. It is well known that the young shoots of the Black Bryony when they 
first appear above ground in the spring are eaten in some countries like asparagus, 
although by no means devoid of active properties, which it requires long boiling to 
render inert; why, therefore, should the root be less susceptible of conversion into 
good and wholesome aliment? Matthiolus’s figure of his Vitis nigra is one of Smilax 
aspera, but his description applies to Tamus, which was the true Vitis nigra of ancient 
authors. 


893 


leaves a scarcely perceptible sense of acrimony behind on the tongue 
and fauces when swallowed; but on being rubbed in a fresh state 
upon any sensible part of the surface, as the back of the hand, they 
raise, in less than a quarter of an hour, a faint cuticular eruption, at- 
tended with a slight itching and pricking, that soon subsides, leaving 
the part as before. Hence an embrocation prepared by steeping 
“murrain berries,” as they are here called, in gin or brandy, is a so- 
vereign remedy with the peasantry of the island for chilblains, and I 
believe a most efficacious one; the ripe berries alone, without the 
spirit, will answer nearly as well, but the latter is employed chiefly to 
preserve them in for use during the winter. Mr. Borrer lately told 
me that when a boy he became aware of the rubefacient property of 
black bryony berries, but had not heard of their application for the 
infantine complaint above mentioned. 

The geographical distribution of Tamus communis in this country 
and on the continent has something worthy of remark. From the 
contiguous parts of Asia it advances through Europe in a line gra- 
dually ascending from south-east to north-west, appearing in the 
Crimea, and keeping nearly on the parallel of 45°—46°, through 
Transylvania and the southernmost provinces of Austria into Switzer- 
land, where it rises northward, following the course of the Rhine into 
Germany as far as Carlsruhe and Strasburg, thence spreading over 
the whole of France, it reaches Belgium, where, however, it is rare 
and local; then crossing the Channel it disperses itself throughout 
England nearly to its northernmost extremity, advancing to 553° of la- 
titude, many degrees beyond its polar limits on the continent, and 
abounding over all the southern and midland counties in equal pro- 
portion on the eastern and western sides of the island. Yet with this 
marked tendency to a north-west progression, and with as much of 
the Atlantic as the Germanic distribution, it is not a little singular 
that the Black Bryony should never have been found passing over into 
either Scotland or Ireland, although these countries are both within 
its limitrophe parallels in England. With such strongly-marked 
western distribution, one might in theory have confidently predicated 
its occurrence in nearly every part of the sister island, and have rea- 
sonably looked for it in the Scottish counties of Dumfries, Kirkcud- 
bright and Wigtown, where it may yet possibly be discovered, since 
these counties all lie due west of its natural localities in Durham and 
Northumberland. As Tamus communis belongs to a decidedly south- 
ern and indeed mostly tropical natural order, we may plausibly ac- 


894 


count for the great deflexion of its line of distribution in a south- 
easterly course, by supposing the root unable to resist the winters of 
eastern Europe above a certain parallel, whilst its sudden and total 
suppression westward in Scotland and Jreland may be owing to its 
not finding there the requisite degree of summer heat for its sponta- 
neous maintenance. The common Butcher’s-broom (Ruscus aculea- 
tus) has a very similar distribution with Tamus, and like it, is not a 
species of even central Europe, excepting towards the west of our 
continent, where the winters are not too rigorous forit. Like Tamus, 
it fails totally or is doubtfully wild in Ireland, but advances a little 
beyond the former towards the north-west, being found in several 
parts of Scotland. 

After all, should not Tamus communis have the * or at least the + 
appended to it? I wonder its claim has never before been called in 
question! We have just seen that it is quite a southern plant, un- 
known over the greater part of Europe under British parallels; of 
eminently exotic aspect and relationship, and has no one well ascer- 
tained British or Saxon name, for that of Our Lady’s Seal must have 
been given it in catholic times, and as before remarked, seems never 
to have been its popular one with us; indeed Parkinson expressly 
tells it was only called so abroad by the apothecaries of France, Italy 
and Germany.* As to the name of Bryony, which it shares with the 
true plant so denominated, that word is altogether Greek, and there- 
fore quite sufficient to implicate both species in the suspicion of fo- 
reign descent. Moreover, both Tamus and Bryonia are known solely 
as “wild vines” to a great proportion of our rustic population; a 
phrase very redolent this of the sunny south from whence it must 
have come with the plants themselves; nay, further, the Tamus is 
sometimes called here Black Vine, in contradistinction to the Bryonia, 
which is occasionally termed White Vine, from its paler colour. 
Here we actually have the genuine classical names of antiquity for 
the Tamus, the vitis nigra and ausreacs weraiva of the Greeks and Ro- 
mans, done into English for the benefit of country bumpkins ; what 
more can be needed to prove both the plants foreigners? No, de- 
pend upon it that Tamus, like the Arbutus, the Hop, the Cherry, the 
Lime and the Beech, is a convicted alien; who knows but it might 
have been introduced by the monks in the train of the pious mission- 
ary St. Augustine, to rub their chilblains with, a complaint to which 


* Theatrum Bot. pp. 180, 181. 


895 
those holy fathers were probably martyrs, if to nothing worse, for the 
first few winters after their arrival on our heathenish shores in the 
sixth century.* 

In the garden at St. John’s, Ryde, is a plant of Smilax aspera, 
which was originally found by Mr. John Laurence, the gardener, grow- 
ing under one of the ruined walls of Quarr Abbey, about a mile from 
the town. 1 presume it must have been set there by some one wish- 
ing to try whether this native of south and south-eastern Europe could 
be naturalized in the island, and acquit the good Cistercians in this 
instance at all events of having had anything to do with its introduc- 
tion within their ancient precincts. 

Hydrocharis Morsus-rane. In pools, ditches, drains, and other 
still water; apparently rare, or at least not common in Hants, al- 
though probably much more frequent than ] have the means of show- 
ing it to be at present. Not indigenous to the Isle of Wight, but 
abundant in a naturalized state in a small pool at Barretts, about two 
miles from Ryde, on the Brading road, introduced there a few years 
since with Stratiotes aloides and Villarsia nympheoides by Dr. 
Salter!!! On the shallow margin of Sowley Pond, at its south-west 
end, in two places, September 26th, 1849. ‘Grows, I believe, at 
Christchurch, in the water bordering the lower road to Ringwood ;” 
Mr. James Hussey in litt.!!!  Plentiful at Sopley on the Avon; Pul- 


* Under the heads of Ligustrum and Taxus I should have been tempted, had I 
known them at the time, to have inserted the two following passages from Pulteney’s 
Catalogue of the rarer Plants of Dorsetshire in his remarks on those species, as fur- 
ther exemplifying the ridiculous tendency to doubt the native origin of almost every 
tree and shrub of British growth, which it has been my unceasing endeavour in these 
“ Notes” to expose and combat in each instance that has presented itself for discus- 
sion. In his remarks on the privet, Pulteney shows that he himself was not uninfected 
with the gratuitous scepticism so often animadverted on in these contributions, for he 
observes, “ From the oriental (7. e. specious or exotic) habit of this shrub, such as in- 
dulge in speculations relating to the distinction between the native and naturalized 
vegetables of England, might be allowed to suppose that the Privet was introduced 
into this island during the crusades, or at some remoter period of time.” Admirable 
supposition! and quite on a par with that which would impute to our Holly a Japan- 
ese origin (Phytol. ii. p. 518, note). But there is no end to such vagaries, venial, 
perhaps, in Pulteney’s time, but inexcusable in botanists of our own day, some of 
whom, nevertheless, hold opinions quite as absurd and gratuitous on the same subject. 
When he comes to speak of the Yew, however, Pulteney defends its claim to nativity 
against his fellow sceptics. ‘The title of this tree to the appellation of a native has 
been much disputed. Such as have denied it would probably hesitate in their opinion 
on seeing the scattered and unequivocal manner in which it is seen growing in Dor- 
set, Wilts and Hants.” 


896 


teney’s Cat. of the rarer Plants of Dorset. I found it in October last 
extremely abundant in ditches and pools on the road out of Christ- 
church towards Sopley and Ringwood, beginning a short distance 
from Christchurch, and continuing nearly to Winkton ; some of the 
ditches and drains in that low-lying and swampy district being quite 
filled with it. I may take this occasion to mention that I found Stel- 
laria glauca (a plant I had down on hearsay only in the Hampshire 
catalogue till then), growing abundantly in marshy ground on the 
same road, on the left hand going towards Sopley, a short mile out of 
Christchurch, and still very partially in flower, October 6th, 1849. I 
have never remarked the Frog-bit in any other quarter of Hants, but 
can scarcely doubt of its occurrence in various parts of the county, as 
it is frequent in Sussex in the levels, on low grounds along the coast, 
as at Eastbourne, Pevensey, Arundel, &c. 

The curious Water Aloe or Water Soldier (Stratiotes aloides) may 
be found in Hants, although for the most part restricted in its genuine 
wild state to the easternmost midland counties of England. It is na- 
turalized in this island, as above mentioned, and it is only a wonder 
it is not more generally dispersed over the realm, since, when thrown 
into almost any pond or ditch, it seldom fails to take entire posses- 
sion, hardly permitting a rival to flourish in peace by its side. 

+? Udora canadensis (Anacharis Alsinastrum, Bab. Man.). In 
rivers, streams, snd stagnant waters; very rare, and possibly not in- 
digenous to the only Hampshire station yet known for this plant. In 
an artificial piece of water in Leigh Park, near Havant, the seat of 
Sir George Staunton, Bart.; Mr. Borrer, 1847!! Mr. B. informs me 
that the species was remarked by the gardener at Leigh Park only 
within a year or two of the above date, and after the introduction to 
the pond of some American aquatics, with which it was concluded to 
have been conveyed thither. The same year, a very similar, if not 
identical plant, was discovered growing abundantly in the reservoirs 
at Foxton Locks, near Market Harborough, Leicestershire, by Miss 
Kirby, and since then it has been detected in a multitude of most 
unexceptionable localities (rivers and streams) in England and Scot- 
land, placing its indigenous origin beyond all doubt; although as 
usual its claim to nativity was immediately questioned, it must be al- 
lowed with far more reason than is commonly brought forward in ex- 
cuse for scepticism on like occasions. For being known exclusively 
till that time as a transatlantic plant (unless the Lithuanian species 
be the same), there was ground for demurring to its reception amongst 
our true natives, so long as the stations it was found in partook of an 


897 


artificial character ; but now that it is ascertained to inhabit abun- 
dantly many of our natural waters, continuance of disbelief in its 
aboriginality would be ridiculous. Nevertheless, our only known 
Hampshire station is still open to suspicion in no trifling degree, in- 
_asmuch as the circumstances of the plant’s appearance at Leigh Park 
strongly favours the probability of its having been imported with 
Nymphea odorata direct from America. I say a probability only, 
because there is no direct proof of its introduction to the pond at 
Leigh Park beyond its having been unnoticed previous to planting the 
said aquatics, for I understand the pond in which it grows was an ar- 
tificial enlargement merely of a natural spring or basin, in which the 
Udora may have pre-existed and have escaped observation, as it must 
have done in so many of its subsequently detected habitats, I am 
indebted to my friend Dr. T. Bell Salter for living specimens from 
Leigh Park, but these have not yet flowered with me, nor have I vi- 
sited the station, deterred, as I was, from doing so, by the impression 
that the Udora had no real claim to insertion in the Hampshire flora. 
The subsequent discovery of this plant in so many distant and truly 
natural localities in England and Scotland has considerably lessened 
my unwillingness to receive it into the Hampshire Catalogue, and has 
induced me no longer to withhold from it the benefit of the doubt, 
which may fairly be raised as well in its favour as against it. But 
this reluctance to admit its claim to enrolment amongst our county 
plants, has hitherto prevented me from examining its characters and 
ascertaining its undoubted identity with the American Udora cana- 
densis. Yet feeling pretty well satisfied that this is the case, I here 
enter it provisionally as such, until future observations on the Leigh 
Park plant by myself or others shall confirm or disprove the fact. 
The very highly curious and closely-related Vallisneria spiralis, found 
in similar places with our Udora nearly throughout Europe, will one 
day probably occupy a place in the British Flora, together with Na- 
jas marina and Caulinia fragilis, plants allied to the two former in 
habit, but belonging to another, though not very widely remote natu- 
ral order. 

Orchis Morio. In dry meadows and short turfy or heathy pastures; 
very common throughout the county and Isle of Wight, being, in fact, 
the most abundant of the Orchidacee in spring and early summer 
with us. Fields at Quarr Abbey and elsewhere about Ryde. Abun- 
dant about Cowes, Newport, Yarmouth, and most other parts of the 
island. Occurs here occasionally, though rarely, with pure white 
flowers ; and in May, 1845, I noticed in a meadow betwixt Pigslegs 

VoL. It. 5 Z 


898. 


and Rosemary Lane Copses, the following varieties: a. Flowers de- 
licate pink, verging on flesh red. @. Lip white, destitute of spots ; 
sepals and superior petals violet without, greenish white within. — . 
Flowers violet; disk of lip whitish, shading off into violet on the mar- 
gin, its centre thickly dotted. This is ceitainly one of the most beau- 
tiful of British Orchises, whether we consider the soft lustre of its deep 
purple blossoms, emulating the richest velvet, or the diversity of 
shades and variegated colours they assume. The character of having 
single nerved bracts, which is made the foundation for a sectional di- 
vision in the Manual, applies only to the highest in the spike, if even 
always to them, for the lower and middle bracts in all the specimens 
of O. Morio I have examined, are from 3 to 5 or even 7-nerved, but 
the lateral nerves are often obscure, at least in the living plant, for in. 
the dried state they are extremely conspicuous. 

Orchis mascula. Very common in most parts of the county and 
Isle of Wight in moist woods, meadows, pastures, and other damp 
and shaded situations. Var.8. Flowers pure white. I have gathered 
it at St. John’s and near Appuldurcombe. Near Ryde; Miss Lucas!!! 
Near Westridge; Mr. Robert Hudson! The long spikes of bright 
purple flowers and finely spotted leaves of the “ Kettlecases,” by 
which unintelligible name they are called in this island, are hailed 
with delight by young and old in April’s fickle prime, 


‘“‘When wheat is green and hawthorn buds appear.” 


This species begins to flower a little in advance of the last, which is 
always in blossom with us in the earlier half of May, and usually par- 
tially so at the close of April. O. fusca, militaris and macra are all 
or severally not unlikely to enrich the Hampshire Flora. The first 
has, according to Mr. Watson, been found by the Rey. G. E. Smith 
in west Sussex, the two last occur in the conterminous county of 
Berks and the not much more distant ones of Oxon and Bucks; 
hence these species may be expected along our northern and eastern 
boundary. 


ustulata. On dry chalky hills, downs, banks and pastures; 
mostly in elevated situations, not very frequent, though I believe 
widely diffused over the county. Tolerably abundant on St. Boni- 
face Down, between Ventnor and the Pulpit Rock, and in chalky 
meadows at Bonchurch occasionally. Steephill; Mr. Albert Ham- 
borough! Freshwater, near the cliff (on High Down, &c.); Mr. 


899 


Dawson Turner in Snooke’s Fl. Vect.!!!*  Plentiful on the sloping 
sides of the valley by Calbourne New Barn; the late Lady Simeon!!! 
Sloping pasture at Apes Down; Mr. Charles D. Snooke. Littleton 
or Flower Down, near Winton; Rev. Messrs. Garnier and Poulter in 
Hamp. Repos. and Dr. A. D. White!!! Pinks Hill (near Warnford) ; 
Rev. E. M. Sladen. Bordean; Miss L. Sibley. Hardly to be met 
with in the lower and level country. The name of ustulata is very 
appropriate to the burned or singed aspect given to the summit of the 
spike by the purple brown colour of the flower-buds. 

Oss. Orchislaxifiora, a species common in the Channel Islands and 
on the continent of Europe, will probably ere long be discovered in 
Britain.t Dr. Salter found June 5th, 1845, at Spring Vale, near 
Ryde, a variety of O. Morio “ with the upper (lateral) sepals reflexed 
in the advanced flowers.” The specimens he kindly gave me are 
taller than is usual in this species, and have many (3—5) nerved 
bracts, but so, we have seen, has O. Morio, from which they differ in 
no other particular than that above stated. I should guess the figure 
of O. laxiflora in E. B. to be an indifferent one, and it looks much as 
if drawn and coloured from a dried specimen. 

maculata. In dry or damp, and even wet meadows, 
woods, thickets, pastures, and on heaths; abundantly throughout 
Hants. Assuredly very closely allied to O. latifolia, but distinguished 
by its (always?) solid, not hollow stem,t pyramidal, somewhat acute 
spike, by the much smaller and shorter bracts, more slender and 
pointed spur, and by the broader and shorter lip, the central lobe of 
which is about equal to the two lateral lobes, that are notched on 
their margins, and usually, but not invariably, flat or spreading, some- 
times deflexed. The plant is commonly shorter and far less robust 
than O. latifolia, but is extremely variable in the colour and markings 
of the flowers and in the form and proportions of the lip. “ A variety 
with blood-red flowers was found in this island by the Rev. R. Price, 
of Lyminge, Kent, and is now growing in his garden.” Rev. G. E. 
Smith (in litt.). 

* Several stations for plants were communicated to Mr. S. by that accomplished 
botanist and antiquary. 

+ Mr. Borrer informs me that O. palustris is reported to have occurred in the Isle 
of Wight; what this may be I do not know, since I am told it is not the same thing 
as O. laxiflora, to which the O. palustris of Jacquin is referred as a synonym in Steu- 
del’s Nomenclator, in which work no other species is mentioned bearing the latter 
name. 


{ The cavity in the stem is filled up with loose cellular tissue, but is not truly 
solid. 


900 


Orchis latifolia. In low, damp pastures, wet or boggy meadows 
and thickets, rarely in dry and elevated situations ; pretty frequent, 
though much less common than the last. - In Sandown marshes, near 
Shanklin and Appuldurcombe. Very fine at Colwell Bay ; common 
‘in meadows at Thorley and in boggy ground below Calbourne Mill. 
Abundant in boggy meadows at Easton, Freshwater Gate. Common 
in the great fir and beech plantation on the down above Westover. 
Wet meadows about Newchurch, &c. Wet meadow betwixt West 
Mill and Carisbrook; Mr. Charles D. Snooke. Var. 8. incarnata, 
Bab. Man. p. 310. Boggy ground by the Wilderness, June, 1844. 
I happen not to have made any notes of the occurrence of this spe- 
cies in mainland Hants, but feel convinced of having seen it there, 
and cannot suppose it to be less common in that part of the county 
than in this or in other parts of England. Distinguished from O. 
maculata by its much stouter habit, hollow stem, cylindrical and ra- 
ther obtuse than acute spike of flowers, by the much smaller middle 
segment of the 3-lobed lip, which is distinctly produced beyond the 
two lateral, rounded, nearly entire or slightly crenate lobes, that are 
deflexed, not plane or spreading, as in the other; by the less attenu- 
ated, subcylindrical or conical, bluntish spur, always much shorter 
than the germen, and lastly, by the much larger, longer, more conspi- 
cuous bracts. Leaves not usually spotted; flowers here sometimes 
white. 


pyramidalis. In dry, and particularly hilly meadows, pas- 
tures, and in grassy woods on the chalk, as also on argillaceous soils 
containing any notable proportion of calcareous earth ; growing at a 
lower elevation than O. ustulata, even at the sea-level, but more com- 
monly in the higher grounds. In many parts of the Isle of Wight 
abundantly. Not common about Ryde. Plentiful in Binstead stone- 
pits; and in the fields by the road from that village to Ryde, spar- 
ingly. Plentiful in grass fields at Egypt, by West Cowes (the 
extremest north point of the island), and on the slipped land along 
the shore to the westward of Cowes. More common on the chalk 
downs than elsewhere. Abundant on the down (High Down) W. of 
Freshwater Gate; near Compton farm and near Yarmouth. Down 
above the Culver Cliff. Abundant on Carisbrooke Castle Hill, but 
of small size. Common on grassy slopes at Ventnor. In Calbourne 
New Barn Hummet, and in the great fir and beech wood along the 
flank of the down above Westover. On Bembridge Down and in 
various other places. Some plants gathered in the chalk-pit opposite 


901 


the Mountjoy bastion (Carisbrook Castle) had the protuberances of 
the lip much elongated and leaf-like, July 18th, 1849; Mr. Charles 
D. Snooke (in litt.). I presume this species to be frequent over the 
county, but I have few data for showing its distribution on the main 
land, not happening to have noticed it there myself, excepting, if I 
remember right, about Bordean Hill. Otterbourne; Miss A. M. 
Yonge. Bordean; Miss L. Sibley, and (with white flowers) Rev. 
Messrs. Garnier and Poulter in Hamp. Repos. Maindell chalk-pit 
(Fareham); Mr. W. L. Notcutt. The flowers of this beautiful spe- 
cies vary with us from the deepest rose red to white. 

The Lizard Orchis (Satyriuwm hircinum), it is far from improbable 
may eventually be found in Hants, since it grows in the adjoining 
county of Surrey, if not now extirpated by the rapacity of botanical 
collectors and the cupidity of orchis-rearing nursery-men. In our 
more retired and less explored county it might long vegetate unno- 
ticed and undisturbed, and should be looked for on dry, bushy, chalky 
banks and hills. It has lately been found (a single specimen I be- 
lieve only) at Great Glenham, in Suffolk, and although not indicated 
as a native of Ireland in the Manual, is mentioned as such in the 
‘Plante Rariores Hibernize’ of Dr. Wade; and when last in Dublin 
Mr. D. Moore, of the Glasnevin Botanic Garden, told me he had 
himself met with it in that country, and communicated the redisco- 
very of this rare species to Dr. J. T. Mackay, in whose ‘ Flora Hiber- 
nica, however, it does not appear. It is clear, therefore, that O. 
hircina has a very wide distribution in Britain, but is extremely local, 
and usually very sporadic; and since we are here but little removed 
from the part of England where it occurs with greatest frequency, the 
prospect is the fairer of ultimately detecting it within the limits of 
this county. 

Gymnadenia conopsea. In dry heathy or chalky pastures, or in 
wet, peaty, boggy or clayey ground, not common, though found in 
several parts of the county and ‘Isle of Wight. Extremely fine and 
plentiful on very wet banks of slipped clay in Colwell Bay, Fresh- 
water, and in boggy ground at the upper end of Colwell Heath; first 
remarked there by the Rev. G. E. Smith, who justly observes that 
the plant has a mixed odour of the hyacinth with that more proper to 
the species, which much resembles the fragrance of the clove pink. 
On Freshwater Down; common, 1841. On chalky slopes at Apes 
Down, June, 1846. Bank opposite Madeira Villa, Ventnor; Miss 
Hadfield !! (it grows also in the Chicken pits and elsewhere in that 
place). Carisbrook Castle, S. and E. moats and ramparts, and heath 


902 


between Staplers and Briddlesford; Mr. Charles D. Snooke. ~It 
seems not less frequent on mainland Hants. About Petersfield, West 
Meon, &c., not rare; Miss L. Sibley!!! Otterbourne; Miss A. M. 
Yonge (in litt.), Plantation behind Wheely Cottage (near Warnford) ; 
Oliver’s Battery, near Winton; Rev. E. M. Sladen. Abundant on 
Littleton or Flower Down, near Winton; Dr. A. D. White. Pro- 
bably in very many other parts of the county; most likely frequent 
in the forest tracts, as I think it is in Sussex. The plant as it grows 
on bog at Colwell is often very large, eighteen to twenty inches high 
or upwards, with very densely-flowered spikes, and leaves an inch or 
nearly so in width, but sometimes in equally wet soil extremely nar- 
row and erect. This form may possibly be the G. densiflora of 
Dietrich’s ‘ Flora Marchica, p. 164, whilst another variety with ex- 
cessively narrow leaves, and a somewhat lax or open spike, and of 
humbler stature, growing on dry chalk soil at Ventnor, may be what 
he intends by the true G. conopsea of that work, and: which I sup- 
posed might prove identical with the true G. odoratissima, Rich. 
(Orchis odoratissima, Linn.), but that species, if it be not a mere va- 
riety of G. conopsea, is distinguished by its much shorter spur, and 
narrower, cylindrical, not conical spikes of very minute flowers. The 
delightful fragrance of this plant is most powerful towards evening, 
and in those plants that grow in damp situations, for on dry soils it is 
nearly inodorous. G. albida (Habenaria albida, &. Br.) is reported 
in ‘Cybele Britannica’ as found in Hants on the authority of the Rev. 
S. Palmer, and has indubitably occurred in one locality in Sussex.* 
I have never seen Hampshire specimens of this rather northern than 
southern and mountain-loving species, but there is good ground for 
hoping it will some day reward the investigator of our county flora 
on hilly heaths. The curious Green Man Orchis (Aceras anthropo- 
phora) is a still more likely plant to occur, and I have indeed heard 
from Miss E. Sibley that it has been found at East Woodhay, in the 
north of the county, which, although on unconfirmed and anonymous 
authority, is very probably correct, seeing that it grows abundantly 
in certain parts of Surrey and in Berks, and may therefore be ex- 
pected with the greatest reason in such districts of Hants at least as 
adjoin on those two counties. 
Habenaria viridis. In hilly, heathy and grassy pastures, or in low 
meadows; very rare in the Isle of Wight, and not at all common in 
the rest of the county. A single specimen picked in a rough pasture 


* Jenner’s F). of Tunbridge Wells, p. 45. 


903 


field at the end of the fir plantation by Long Lane, near Newport, 
1841; Mr. R. G. Kirkpatrick! A second specimen gathered in 
June of the same year by Miss Woodroofe, of Calbourne, near the 
“high summer-house” at Swainston! both which examples I possess 
through the kindness of the finders, and are the only ones I have seen 
from this island, where it has not once occurred to myself in more 
than twelve years’ investigation of its floral productions. On Beacon 
Hill, near Highclere, in tolerable plenty, and still in flower, August 
9th, 1849. I have received it from Miss Lovell, 1848, gathered, I 
believe, at Catherington, near Clanfield! Searjeant’s. Meadow, 
Warnford; Mr. Vickery. Field by the Winchester road, near Che- 
riton; Miss L. Sibley. Flower Down, near Winton; Miss L. 
Legge! Near Lodge Bere Forest; Messrs. Garnier and Poulter in 
Hamp. Repos. A more frequent species in the north than in the 
south of England, but Mr, G. E. Smith tells me it is not uncommon 
in Sussex in damp meadows at the foot of the downs. 

Habenaria bifolia. In woods, copses, and in open, heathy places; 
rare in the Isle of Wight, and not yet seen or received by me from 
mainland Hants, where it must doubtless grow in many of the forest 
districts, &c.* In Stroud Wood, near Aldermoor, by Ryde, not spar- 
ingly, June 11th, 1838. Two specimens picked on Colwell Heath, 
June, 1841. In the former station it may, I believe, be found yearly 
in considerable plenty. Heath between Staplers and Briddlesford, 
near Newport; Mr. C.D. Snooke. ‘This is rather a puzzling plant, 
about the value of which as a species apart from H. chlorantha I have 
ever entertained considerable, doubt. It unquestionably presents 
some good and apparently permanent characters, and has long been 
distinguished by Ray and other of the earlier botanists at home and 
abroad from the larger and commoner H. chlorantha, yet I think the 
differences betwixt them are such as might be inferred to result from soil 
and situation. It must be allowed, however, that their distribution is 
different, H. bifolia being the plant of Sweden, Denmark, and other 
boreal countries of Europe, as is evident from the figures and descrip- 
tions of the northern botanists, whilst H. chlorantha inhabits central 
and southern Europe, and is infinitely more abundant in this part of 
England than the smaller species. The differences between them 
have been ably illustrated by Mr. Babington, in the 17th volume of 


* Whether the H. bifolia of Mr. W. L. Notcutt’s ‘ List of Fareham Plants’ (Phy- 
tol. ii. p. 213) be this species or not, I am uncertain; if it be the true plant, then is 
Titchfield Common a mainland station, and a very likely one for the lesser Butterfly 
Orchis. 


904 ; ae 


the ‘Linnean Transactions, and in the Supplement to E. B., and 
who was the first to disentangle them from the neglect and confusion 
into which they had fallen in Britain, although sufficiently recognized 
on the continent. Besides the figure in E. B. Supplement, t. 2806, 1 
may cite for H. bifolia that of Fl. Danica, ii. t. 235, as good, and the 
beautiful one of Mr. Curtis in ‘ British Entomology,’ v. t. 233, as still 
better. The figures of H. (Platanthera) solstitialis, Drejer, Fl. Dan. 
fasc. xl. t. 20360, and t. 20361, are excellent representations of our 
H. bifolia. 

The great characteristic of th eplant before us is the parallelism of 
the anther-cells, more closely approximated at their base, than those 
of H. chlorantha at the summit of theirs; hence the flowers of H. 
bifolia are much narrower than in H. chlorantha, and far less hand- 
some and conspicuous. The anther is shorter, the petals narrower, 
the two lateral connivent petals, with the lip, spur and summit of the 
anthers, are of a greenish or herbaceous colour, scarcely observable 
in the almost pure white flowers of H. chlorantha ; the spur is more 
slender, filiform and cylindrical, being scarcely at all compressed as 
in H. chlorantha, neither is it sensibly enlarged or clavate at the ex- — 
tremity as is so remarkably the case in the latter, and is hardly 
thicker than a packthread throughout, besides which it is usually 
straighter, and often horizontally porrected as well as prone or de- 
flexed. I observed in all my specimens of H. bifolia from Stroud 
Wood that the lateral sepals are simply spreading, and rather curved 
forwards or slightly connivent than reflexed, which is their general 
tendency in H. chlorantha when fully expanded. The scent of the 
lesser and greater Butterfly Orchis is highly and delicately fragrant, 
particularly towards evening and at night. To myself the odour. is 
like that of the Tuberose (Polianthes tuberosa), to others like that of 
orange flowers or scented soap. It is to be regretted that the con- 
fusion in which the synonyms of these two presumed species were so 
long involved should have settled the name chlorantha (greenish yel- 
low flower) upon the species the least meriting the appellation. The 
concluding remarks of Sir James Smith on Orchis bifolia in his ‘Eng- 
lish Flora’ evince the very little attention he paid to our present plant 
even as a variety, distinctly noticed by so many of the older botanists. 

Habenaria chlorantha. Yn moist open places in woods, thickets, 
groves, and on grassy slopes; very frequent in-the Isle of Wight, 
particularly on stiff clay soils. Very common about Ryde, at St. 
John’s, in Quarr Copse, woods at Sea Grove, the Priory, Westridge, 
&ec. Abundant in the grounds at Norris Castle, and in Mrs. Good- 


905 


win’s grounds at West Cowes. Woods and pastures about Combley, 
Duxmore, and all that vicinity, frequent. Woods on the west side of 
the Wootton River, at its mouth, plentifully. Common in woods 
about Swainston, Calbourne, Thorley and various other places. 
Having accidentally omitted to observe and record the stations for 
this species in mainland Hants, I can only state my belief that it is 
in all probability equally frequent there as in the island. Var. 8. 
Flowers regular, without a spur. Grounds at Norris Castle, very 
rare. This beautiful and fragrant species is well distinguished from 
the last, by its generally greater height (often eighteen to twenty 
inches) and robustness; much larger and broader leaves, of a purer 
white; thicker, more compressed and somewhat club-shaped spur ; 
and especially by the great divergence of the anther-cells, whose 
bases are so far apart, that were the apex of each cell produced till 
they met, a nearly equilateral triangle would be described by their 
union. The variety, or rather monstrosity, 6. is very remarkable, as 
having flowers in five nearly equal divisions, quite scentless and 
tinged with green, the lateral petals not connivent but spreading, 
lower one or lip, broad, plane, and the spur entirely wanting. Of this 
monstrosity I had previously seen a dried specimen from the same 
station, in the possession of Miss E. Kilderbee, and was at a loss 
what to consider it. Mr. D. Stock, of Bungay, has remarked a simi- 
lar alteration of structure in the flowers of Orchis pyramidalis. 
Besides the figure of H. chlorantha in E. B. i. t. 22 (Orchis bifolia), 
and the elegant full length one of Curtis, Fl. Londin. ii. fasc. 6, t. 65, 
that in ‘Flora Danica,’ fasc. 40, t. 20362, is hardly inferior to the 
others as a representation of our common greater Butterfly Orchis. 
Reichenbach’s three figures, Iconogr. Bot. ix. Nos. 1143, 1144 and 
1145, are, like too many more of that hair-splitting author's, exag- 
gerated portraits in form and colouring of H. bifolia and its varieties, 
H. brachyglossa and chlorantha. I have never found H. bifolia with 
such ell-long spurs, nor H. chlorantha so outrageously green, and 
cannot but suspect the figures of each were made from dried speci- 
mens, and coloured from the ideal examples of a vivid imagination or 
perhaps a treacherous memory. However that may be, they are not, 
I am convinced, normal states of the species they profess to represent, 
and unworthy of citation in the room of the elegant and faithful deli- 
neations in the ‘ Flora Londinensis’ and ‘ Flora Danica’ lately ad- 
verted to. Justice, nevertheless, requires that due praise be given to 
the many correct and sometimes admirable figures in the Iconographia 
of Reichenbach; a work which, with all its faults of perplexed 
V Ole 010. 6A 


906 


arrangement and minute specific divisions, is still a most valuable and 
sumptuous repertory of botanical illustrations. 

Ophrys apifera. In dry meadows, pastures, woods and thickets, 
on chalky banks, downs, and on wet slipped land, mostly on loamy or 
limestone soils, or where calcareous earth is a principal constituent ; 
by no means uncommon, and in particular years even abundant, over 
a great part of the Isle of Wight and mainland Hants. Being ex- 
tremely uncertain and capricious in its habitats, often appearing 
abundantly one season where it was scarce or failed altogether to 
show itself the year before, it is unnecessary to give more than a ge- 
neral view of its distribution, without recording its almost numberless 
special localities. Sometimes quite common about Ryde, at Quarr, 
Binstead, in Pelham fields, &c. About Cowes, at Egypt, Norris 
Castle, &c., and about Yarmouth. About Newport, at Carisbrooke 
(on the castle hill, &c.), Calbourne and elsewhere. Frequent on 
most of the downs about Freshwater, often in great abundance, as it 
was last year (1849). At Bonchurch, Ventnor, Steephill, Blackgang 
and most other parts of the Undercliff, on the chalky banks and pas- 
tures, often plentifully. Im Bembridge Island, about the Culver Cliff, 
Whitecliff Bay, &c. On the banks of slipped land (green sand and 
clay) under the cliffs at Shankin. Abundantly on Kennerley Heath, 
near Godshill, in sandy loam amongst the furze, and very fine; June, 
1843, in which year it was very universal in the island: but it is need- 
less multiplying stations for this ubiquitous but not always plentiful 
species, as it may be found in most parts of the island and in most 
years by a little seeking, especially on the chalk and slopes of the 
downs. A specimen with the flowers nearly white, the lip only being 
greenish, was found by Mrs. Martin at Ventnor some years ago. On 
the mainland of the county O. apifera is about equally frequent. At 
West Meon in various places; the Miss Sibleys: and where a variety 
with white flowers has occurred, and a similar one is recorded by the 
authors of the catalogue in the ‘Hampshire Repository’ as having 
been found at Bordean. Warnford; Mr. Vickery. Bullington; Rev. 
D. Cockerton. Beacon Hill, Highclere Park; Cat. of Plants of 
Newbury!!! Nore Hill and Selbourne Park; Professor Bell. This 
beautiful and singular plant is well known here as the Bee-flower, and 
although no uncommon species over a great part of England, is made 
as much account of as though it were a great rarity, and the Isle of 
Wight had the exclusive happiness of producing it. The Bee-flower 
figures in all the guide-books, flourishes on the vegetation of the is- 
land, and isa staple article in every enumeration of Vectic memorabilia 


907 


and amenities. In certain but indeterminate seasons it may be ga- 
thered in quantities, and sometimes attains here a height of two feet. 
Reichenbach’s figure (Iconogr. ix. no. 1159) is very indifferent, and if 
representing this species at all, depicts a variety such as I have never 
met with. The exquisite one of Curtis in the ‘ Flora Londinensis’ 
perfectly exhibits the species in its normal condition with us. 

Ophrys aranifera. In chalky, clayey or limestone pastures; very 
rare? The var. 8. fucifera (O. fucifera, Sm.) is the only form yet col- 
lected in Hants, and the Isle of Wight the only part of the county 
where it is certainly known to grow. First found May 10, 1841, by 
Albert Hambrough, Esq., on St. Boniface Down, above St. Boniface 
Cottage (several specimens). Behind Upper Mount, Bonchurch ; 
Miss Dick and J. Saxby, Esq.!!! Several specimens gathered in 
Luccombe Landslip, by the side of the main path, May, 1843, by a 
servant of Miss Roper, of Ventnor!! On a sloping bank on the left 
hand side of the Cowleaze going from Ventnor to Bonchurch, just 
below the Madeira Vale Villas, May, 1843; Mrs. Clarkson !!! Ga- 
thered in this last station by Miss Tompson in 1846, and since by 
Mr. A. Hambrough and myself in 1848-49, at the end of April and be- 
ginning of May, in tolerable plenty. It has not been discovered else- 
where in the island, but will probably be found on the chalk in other 
parts of it if carefully sought for at the proper season; but being a 
smaller, and from its colour less conspicuous and attractive plant than 
O. apifera, and flowering many weeks sooner than that species, it may 
elude observation at any time. Bullington, abundantly; Rev. D. 
Cockerton: is this correct, and, if so, what form does the species put 
on? Our Hants stations are interesting, as being the most westerly 
ones known for this eminently eastern Ophrys, and furnish another 
proof of the assertion before made, that the floras of the east and west 
of England become fused into each other in this county. Smith 
quotes the beautiful figure of Curtis, Fl. Lond. ii. fasc. 6, t. 67, for his 
O. aranifera ; to me that plate decidedly represents our variety, the O. 
fucifera of the ‘ English Flora,’ and very admirably too. It is pos- 
sible that O. arachnites, the only British species of the genus wanting 
to our county, may hereafter be detected in Hants. 
muscifera. In chalky or clayey, usually hilly pastures, 
- woods and thickets; less frequent than O. apifera, but far from un- 
common in the Isle of Wight and county generally, although, like the 
Bee- flower, uncertain in its stations and variable in quantity in diffe- 
rent years; flowering with us from the commencement of May to the 
beginning or even the middle of July. At the farther part of Cal- 


908 


bourne New Barn Hummet, plentifully ; May 9, 1846: and since ga- 
thered in some abundance in the same wood, of which it seems to be 
a pretty constant inhabitant. Plentifully on a rough, sloping, stony 
field nearly at the back of the Tolt Copse, Gatcombe, June 10, 1846. 
In the great fir and beech plantation on the down near Westover, se- 
veral specimens upwards of two feet high, July 3, 1843. In a chalky 
hollow on the north side of Messly or Mersley Down, sparingly ; 
May 28, 1844. Quarr Copse, in some plenty ; Miss Theodora Price, 
June, 1838!!! Field at Egypt, W. Cowes; Rev. Mr. Mann. Cliff 
above Gurnet Bay; Miss G.E. Kilderbee! Shady lane under Caris- 
brook Castle, and on the borders of a lane leading from Roughborough 
farm up the down; Mr. G. Kirkpatrick. At Norris Castle; Id. In 
considerable abundance in the copse of low brushwood (chiefly hazel) 
on the down at the top of Alvington chalk-pit, about half a mile from 
Carisbrooke, on the Yarmouth road; Miss Dennett (vidi icon). Soli- 
tary specimens I have picked in several other places, and it occurs 
sporadically, I think, in nearly all parts of the island, but I hardly 
know if it be found on the green sand. Woods, &c., about W. Meon, 
as Hall Place, Westbury, Warnford, Chappets and elsewhere, com- 
mon; the Miss Sibleys. Bordean Hill, frequent; Id.!!! Bordean 
Hill, Hambledon ; Rev. Messrs. Garnier and Poulter in Hamp. Repos. 
Parnell or Parholt Wood, near Farley, by Winton; Miss A. M. 
Yonge!!! Highclere; Dr. A. D. White. Highclere Park and Bar- 
ton’s Copse, by Sidmonton House; Cat. of Plants of Newbury. Nore 
Hill, Selborne ; Professor Bell! Doubtless widely and generally dis- 
persed throughout the county, but probably rare in the western or 
New-Forest district. Its geographical distribution is remarkable, as, 
although found in Norway at least as far north as Trondiem (Dron- 
theim) in lat. 633, and, it is said, in the Loffoden Islands 68—69°, it 
scarcely enters Scotland in lat. 55—56°. The same sudden termina- 
tion far to the south of its polar limit on the continent holds true of 
the next plant. 

Herminium Monorchis. On chalky banks and pastures, rare? and 
not yet observed in the Isle of Wight. Bordean Hill; Rev. Messrs. 
Garnier and Poulter in Hamp. Repos. !!! [am indebted to Miss L. 
Sibley for pointing out to me the station for this little plant, which is 
on short pasture ground on the way to the ascent of the hill from - 
Langrish, on the right hand near the lime-kilns. Miss G. E. Kilder- 
bee has kindly supplied me with numerous fine specimens gathered 
there in July last. Fir plantation under Wheely Down, near Warn- 
ford; Mr. Vickery. These are the only stations I find recorded for 


909 


the Musk Orchis, but a plant so slender and inconspicuous may well 
be supposed far less rare than it appears to be. 

Spiranthes autumnalis. On dry, open, turf pastures, lawns and 
heaths; by no means unfrequent in the Isle of Wight, nor, as I 
believe, throughout the county, but scarcer in some years than in 
others. So generally dispersed, and withal so uncertain in its sta- 
tions, that a long enumeration of special localities would be unneces- 
sary and often lead to disappointment, since it is continually making 
its appearance abundantly in new or unobserved habitats and disap- 
pearing as suddenly in old ones. Sometimes plentiful about Ryde 
and places in the vicinity, as at St. John’s, Seagrove, Nettlestone, St. 
Helen’s, &c. Fields and pastures in various places along the Under- 
cliff, frequent. Near Hardingshoot farm, and on the turf near San- 
down Fort. Fields about Chale; Miss Lucas. Northwood Park; 
Miss G. E. Kilderbee. Mount Cleve, Niton; the Miss Sims’s!!! 
Near Carisbrook Castle, Colwell and Freshwater, Sir Nash Grose’s 
(the Priory) grounds, near Ryde; Mr. W. D. Snooke. On St. George’s 
Down (near Newport). Field opposite Alverton farm, Whippingham 
parish. Pastures west of Fishbourne Creek, through which a new 
road (leading nowhere) has been lately made; Mr. Charles D. 
Snooke. Occurs here and there in most other parts of the island. 
Picked in Hayling Island, September, 1849. In great abundance in 
Cranbury Park, near Winton; Miss A. M. Yonge (in litt.). Wheely 
Down, Old Winchester Hill (near Petersfield); Rev. E. M. Sladen. 
In the Long Lith, and towards the south corner of the (Selborne) 
Common; Rev. G. White. Woodcote, Sutton Common, near Alton; 
Miss L. Sibley. Lawn at Mr. Osborne’s (Fareham); Mr. W. L. 
Noteutt. Magdalene Hill, St. Giles’s Hill, grass plats in the warden’s 
garden (Winton) ; Dr. A. D. White. To the majority of persons this 
plant smells delightfully fragrant, but to myself it is nearly inodorous, 
as is also the following, and all the exotic species, as S. gracilis, 
tortilis, &c., I have gathered in other countries. 

estivalis. In boggy places, by streams and ponds; 
very rare. Discovered just ten years ago by Mr. Branch* in the New 
Forest, along a stream on a small tract of sphagnous bog close by the 
high road, about two miles and a half from Lyndhurst, towards 
Christchurch, and where it was gathered by Mr. Borrer and myself 
in considerable plenty, August 6th and 7th, 1841, growing with My- 
rica, Narthecium, Drosera longifolia and Rhynchospora alba, &c. 


* Or by Mr. Jansen, according to Watson, Cyb. Brit. ii. p. 414. 


910 


The only station yet known for this fine species in Britain (exclud- 
ing, of course, the Jersey locality), but it will probably be soon de- 
tected in other parts of the county and beyond its limits.* Some of 
my specimens are a foot in height. Dr. Gray seems to consider the 
S. latifolia of Torrey as identical with our S. estivalis, but the former 
I do not remember ever to have seen. I have gathered a species 
very like our own in the mountains of Jamaica. Richard’s generic 
name Spiranthes is admirably characteristic of the twisted or spiral 
arrangement of the flowers, and would have been worthy of adoption 
had not still stronger reasons called for its employment in place of 
Neottia, now restricted to the true Bird’s-nest, N. Nidus-avis, origi- 
nally so named by Linnzus. 

Listera ovata. In dampish woods, thickets, copses and under 
trees in shady pastures; very frequent in the Isle of Wight, and I 
believe throughout Hampshire. Plentiful in Quarr Copse, Apley 
Wood, and most other woods about Ryde. Woods about Cowes. 
Abundant in Tolt Copse, Gatcombe. In Appuldurcombe Park. 
About Carisbrooke Castle, and in woods and shady places in most 
other parts of the island. Pasture field at Boldre Hill. Frequent in 
the beech woods of the mainland. Maindell chalk-pit (Fareham) ; 
Mr. W. L. Notcutt. Betwixt Hursley and Otterbourne; Dr. A. D. 
White. N. B.—Listera cordata, a species frequent in the north of 
England, has been found near Culbone, in Devonshire, and in Somer- 
setshire, and may possibly be some day discovered on our highest 
Hampshire Hills. 

Neottia Nidus-avis. Mostly sporadical in moist shady woods and 
copses, usually amongst dead leaves; not very common, although 
pretty generally dispersed over the island and county. In. Quarr 
Copse occasionally, where I have repeatedly found it in a hollow (old 
stone pit), on the left of the entrance at Binstead, as well as in other 
parts of the wood, but rarely. Wood near East Cowes Castle. 
Hungerberry Copse, near Shanklin. Swainston Woods. Calbourne 
New Barn Hummet. Cleveland Wood, Appuldurcombe. Woods at 
the Priory, occasionally. Cothey bottom Copse, by Westridge. Se- 
veral specimens in the large plantation of Scotch fir in Bordwood 
Copse, June ist, 1845. In Northlands Copse, Yaverland, July, 1848. 
At Fernhill, but not seen there of late; Mrs. Sanders. In great 
Whitcomb Wood, near Gatcombe; Mr. G. Kirkpatrick! A speci- 


*T learn from Mr. Borrer that it is found in other spots in the neighbourhood of 
Lyndhurst, and that it is still abundant in the original station (March, 1850). 


SE 


men found on the lawn at St. John’s, Ryde, June, 1843, by Mr. J. 
Lawrence, jun. Equally, if not more frequent on mainland Hants, 
so far as my observation has extended. Hampnage Wood, Avington, 
near Winton, 1848. Ina high wood at Bordean, apparently frequent, 
July, 1848. Akenden Wood, near Alton, 1849. Westbury, Brook- 
wood, Selborne; Miss E. Sibley!!! About West Meon, Beacon Hill 
Wood; Rev. E. M. Sladen. Holt and Wickham Woods; Rev. 
Messrs. Garnier and Poulter in Hamp. Repos. Selborne, “in the 
Long Lith, under the shady beeches amongst the dead leaves; in 
Great Dorton, among the bushes, and on the Hanger plentifully ; 
Rev. G. White and Professor Bell!!! Highclere Park; Cat. of Pls. 
of Newbury. This plant is readily detected at all seasons, as the 
dry stems and firm subligneous capsules are persistent in the woods 
for a year or two after flowering. To myself the flowers of this sin- 
gular species have the odour of Adoxa Moschatellina mingled with 
that of primroses, but fainter. From the researches of the late Hon. 
and very Rev. W. Herbert, there is no reason for holding this plant 
to be parasitical, much as its structure and habit appear to counte- 
nance such a propensity. The singular leafless Limodorum.abortivum | 
conceive extremely likely to be discovered in England eventually, as 
it appears to be by no means very rare in the northern departments 
of France, and is also native to Belgium and other parts of central 
Europe. 

Epipactis latifolia. In moist, shady and rocky woods and thickets, 
not confined to hilly places, but found at the sea level both on the 
chalk and clay, as well as on the uplands. By no means uncommon 
either in the Isle of Wight or on the mainland of the county, but 
rarely in any great plenty. All the plants found by me in the island 
are, I think, referrible to the true E. latifolia of the Manual, and to no 
other, at least I could never distinguish satisfactorily any form exactly 
corresponding to the E. media of Fries, although the leaves vary much 
in shape and breadth with us. In Quarr Copse, Binstead, here and 
there, but sparingly. Quite frequent, it may almost be called plenti- 
ful, in the wooded ground skirting the shore betwixt Ryde and Bin- 
stead, exactly the E. latifolia of the Manual, the flowers here variously 
suffused with purple, sometimes wholly of a pale green. Not unfre- 
quent in the rocky, woody landslip between Luccombe and Bon- 
church. Woods at Swainston occasionally, Kingston Copse, Tolt 
Copse, near Gatcombe. Rather plentiful in the great plantation on 
the down above Westover. A single specimen in a wood at Rowledge, 
and another seen in Sluccombe Copse, 1845. Westwood, and in 


912 


other woods about W. Meon; the Miss Sibleys!!! Abundantly 
in Selborne Hanger, and in the High wood under the shady 
beeches; Rev. G. White!!! I am quite unable to say to which of the 
three supposed species or varieties of the original E. latifolia the 
plants from these stations are to be referred. |. Wood at Brookwood ; 
Miss L. Legge! Under the firs on the downy slope of the hill S. of 
Chilcombe (near Winton); Dr. A. D. White. Otterbourne; Miss A. 
M. Yonge. Woods about Bordean, West Meon, shady parts of Frox- 
field Hangers, frequent; common about Selborne; W. A. B., 1849. 
The upper edge of the anterior face of the stigma bears a small, 
porrected gland, secreting a frothy globule of an extremely viscid, 
milky fluid. This fluid, which is perfectly distinct from the nectari- 
ferous secretion of the stigmatic disk, has apparently for its object the 
retention of the pollen masses on their falling forward upon the pos- 
terior hollow of the stigma, and which masses, being destitute of the 
adhesive glands common to other genera of Orchidacez, could 
scarcely without such a provision be retained long enough on that or- 
gan to effect the fertilizing -process. In the present genus the form 
of the anther-cells and pollen masses is reversed, the smaller ends of 
both being uppermost; in this inverted condition the usual appen- 
dages of stalks and glands could serve no other purpose than to keep 
the pollen masses suspended over but not in contact with the stigma, 
as by the above simple contrivance they most effectually are. 
Epipactis media? My friend Professor Bell finds occasionally in 
Selborne Park and in the Hanger, a plan twhich he believes to accord 
with the description of this species in Babington’s Manual; the 
flowers are very small and remarkably distant, the leaves much nar- 
rower than in E. latifolia, and gradually passing into the very attenu- 
ated bracts. I have seen only a single dried specimen, and cannot, 
therefore, venture to pronounce an opinion on its identity with the 
above presumed, but I fear problematical species.  E. ovalis of Ba- 
bington seems to possess far better pretensions to specific distinction, 
but is perhaps an unlikely plant to be found in this county. 
palustris. In low marshy or boggy meadows, on wet 
slipped land and in other watery situations, but not common. Very 
plentiful on the banks of slipped land in Colwell Bay, associated with 
Gymnadenia conopsea, and at the upper end of Colwell Heath. 
Marshy meadows at Easton; frequent. Shore about Chine Head, 
and in various places in the landslip between Luccombe and Bon- 
church. Abundant in the half dried up clay pits near Cranmore farm, 
near Ningwood, with Sparganium natans and Typha angustifolia, 
July 14th, 1844. Marsh near Compton; Mr. W, D. Snooke (FI. 


913 


Vect.). Between Shanklin and Godshill? Mr. J. Woods, jun. in 
Bot. Guide, but whether this plant be intended or rather E. (Cepha- 
lanthera) grandiflora or E. ensifolia, all of which have successively 
borne the name of Serapis longifolia, under which it is there men- 
tioned, I am unable to say. Sowley Pond, near Lymington; Mr. R. 
Jefford!! Otterborne, in plenty; Miss A. M. Yonge. Warnford 
Moor; Rev. E. M. Sladen. These are the only stations known to 
me as yet for this very pretty species in our county. 

Cephalanthera grandiflora (Epipactis grandiflora). Common in 
woods, groves, and bushy, shady places, in various parts of the hilly 
and chalky districts of mainland Hants, in the eastern and central 
portion of the county ; extremely rare in the Isle of Wight. A soli- 
tary specimen in flower, June 8th, 1844, in the thickest part of the 
wood called the Hummet, at Calborne New Barn; all attempts to 
find more have been fruitless, though often made since. Several spe- 
cimens found in full flower, June 8th, 1848, under hazels and beeches 
in a small hollow or ravine on the east side of Carisbrooke Castle 
Hill; Miss Dennett!!! This fine species doubtless exists in other 
parts of the island, but must still be, like Habenaria viridis, an ex- 
tremely rare inhabitant here. In Bordean Hanger, with the follow- 
ing, in considerable plenty, and in woods about Langrish and Bordean 
generally. Abundant in Avington Woods (in the long southern ride, 
&e.). Murdon Woods, as well as in other woods in that vicinity 
(Winton); Dr. A. D. White!!! who tells me it is common in the 
great belts and clumps of fir plantation so frequent on the downs 
around Winchester. Wood near Upham (by Bishop’s Waltham) with 
C. ensifolia; Jd. and Miss L. Minchin. Warford; Rev. E. M. 
Sladen. Holt Wood; Rev. Messrs. Garnier and Poulter in Hamp. 
Repos. (Serapias grandiflora). Highclere Park; Anon. Cat. of the 
Pls. of Newbury. Woods at the Grange, near Ringwood; Mr. 
Ingram. Selborne Hanger and Selborne Park, common in the latter; 
Professor Bell!!! In great abundance and of magnificent growth in 
a young plantation at Westbury House, West Meon; the Miss Sib- 
leys ; some of the specimens here are nearly two feet in height, form- 
ing clumps, many stems springing from one root (a rare thing in 
British Orchidacex), making a beautiful appearance !!!_ I found it ap- 
parently frequent in Parnell or Parnholt Wood, near Farley, May 
26th, 1849. Miss G. E. Kilderbee finds the flowers of this and C. 
ensifolia powerfully fragrant, like tuberose.* I once thought I per- 

* Sir J. E. Smith says they are “ perfectly inodorous at all times.”—Engl. FI. iv. 


p. 44. 
V Obst: 6B 


914 

ceived some such odour in a large number of specimens of each en- 
closed in a tin box at night, but could never be made sensible of it in 
individual plants, any more than in Spiranthes autumnalis, so grateful 
to many people, or in Linaria repens, odorous to some, although quite 
as sensible as the generality of persons to the perfume of Gymnadenia 
conopsea, Habenaria chlorantha, violets, roses, and other garden 
scents. 

Cephalanthera ensifolia. In precisely similar places with the last, 
of which it is often the associate, but much less general than that. 
Not certainly known to inhabit the Isle of Wight, unless the Serapias 
longifolia of Mr. J. Woods, jun., in B. G. were this species and not 
EKpipactis palustris.* | Abundant at Westbury in the same place, and 
intermixed with C. grandiflora; the Miss Sibleys!!! Plentiful in 
Bordean Hanger; Miss G. E. Kilderbee !!!| Stoner Hill; Mr. Borrer. 
Wood near Upham (by Bishop’s Waltham) ; Dr. A. D. White and 
Miss L. Minchin. Pink’s Hill, near Warnford; Rev. E. M. Sladen. 
Wonston; Miss Legge! In the long southern ride in Avington 
Wood; Dr. A. D. White. 

Mr. Watson (Cyb. Brit. ii. p. 419) intimates a doubt in his mind of 
the specific identity of C. grandiflora and ensifolia, but surely few 
plants can be better marked than these, nor have I ever observed the 
least disposition in them to intermingle their respective characters. 
C. grandiflora is a taller and far more robust species, often emitting 
two or several stems from the same root, the flowers larger, more dis- 
tant, and extremely erect, often very numerous, beginning quite low 
down on the stem, and constituting a kind of leafy raceme; rather 
cream-coloured than white; sepals and lateral petals obtuse, the lip 
very blunt, leaves widely different in shape, far broader, thicker, not 
acuminate or (in appearance) distichous. C. ensifolia, on the other 
hand, is a smaller, more delicate and slender plant, seldom emitting 
more than a single stem from the root, with far narrower leaves of a 


* The great confusion formerly existing betwixt our two Cephalanthere and Epi- 
pactis palustris, all of which had Serapias longifolia for one of their synonyms, make 
it impossible to determine which of the three Mr. Woods had in view. Since C. en- 
sifolia grows with C. grandiflora in the woods of Hampshire, that may po8sibly have 
been the species intended by Mr. W. Yet I am inclined to the belief that C. grandi- 
flora (called Serapias longifolia by Hudson) was rather the plant meant by that gen- 
tleman, which is known to inhabit this island, and I conjecture that the station be- 
tween Shanklin and Godshill was in all likelihood the rocky copses known as Cowpit 
Cliff and Hatchett Close, where, although I have never seen either kind, these Helle- 
borines are both likely to occur. 


915 


thinner and drier texture, like those of a grass, which, however, vary 
much in breadth, the lowermost being sometimes very broadly lan- 
ceolate, but the upper always narrower and considerably tapering at 
the points, and from being in general more closely set, present a sort 
of distichous arrangement in appearance only. The bracts, even be- 
neath the undermost flowers, are extremely small, short and narrow, 
and in those at the top of the stem very minute indeed. The flowers 
are confined to quite the higher portion of the stem, are much closer 
together or approximate, and are not found in the axils of any but the 
greatly reduced leaves or bracts, hence they appear subspicate, like 
those of Epilobium angustifolium for example, whereas in C. gran- 
difolia, the flowers originate at or even below the middle of the stem, 
and accompany the larger leaves, whence they assume a sort of race- 
mose arrangement. In C. ensifolia the flowers are smaller, of a purer 
white (not cream-coloured), and less erect, the ovary diverging more 
or less considerably (sometimes nearly at a right angle) from the stem. 
The perianth segments do not close so completely over the lip, and 
the sepals are in this species narrower than the lateral petals, and so 
acutely pointed as to be almost acuminate. The lateral petals them- 
selves are also slightly pointed, and much broader in proportion than 
in C. grandiflora. Moreover, the anterior margin of the lip is usually 
slightly triangular and pointed, but this character I find liable to ex- 
ception. Finally, C. ensifolia lasts a shorter time in flower, if it does 
not begin to flower earlier than C. grandiflora, which continues in 
blossom through a great part of June, whereas the other has all its 
terminal buds open by the close of May in this part of England, and 
was beginning to fade and look shabby on the 27th of that month, 
when my last specimens were collected. Indeed, the flowers of this 
species, from their more delicate texture, fade with singular rapidity 
on being gathered, whilst those of C. grandiflora merely turn partially 
brown. The specific characters of these species may be thus stated: 
Cephalanthera grandifiora. Leaves ovato-elliptical to elliptic- 
lanceolate; bracts longer than the glabrous germen; flowers distant, 
subracemose, sessile, quite erect; sepals and lateral petals obtuse, 
connivent on the included, very blunt and rounded lip. 
ensifolia. Leaves somewhat two-ranked, the lower 
lanceolate, the superior very narrow, ensiform; bracts much shorter than 
the glabrous ovary, the highest extremely minute; flowers approxi- 
mate, subspicate, sessile, more or less diverging ; sepals narrower than 
the acute lateral petals, subacuminate, connivent; lip included, ob- 
tuse or slightly pointed. 


916 


C. ensifolia is perhaps more decidedly a plant of hilly elevated 
woods than the other, and ranges apparently farther to the northward, 
both in Britain and on the continent. The flowers in each, but more 
particularly in the larger species, look like buds just about to open, 
and in form remind one of miniature tulips or the blossoms of Chelone 
glabra. C.rubra, avery rare English plant, might nevertheless be 
found with its congeners in this county. 

Malaxis paludosa. In spongy bogs (parasitic ?), on Sphagnum and 
other mosses; rare. The present Dean of Winchester, the very Rev. 
Dr. Garnier, told me he believed he once found the Malaxis in this 
island, and it is included in a short anonymous list of Isle-of-Wight 
plants found in 1818, sent me by my friend Miss E. Sibley, but the 
authenticity of which is discredited by the mention therein of Echi- 
nophora spinosa, Hieracium (Crepis) paludosum, and Polemonium 
ceruleum. We have few places here suited to the production of Ma- 
laxis paludosa, but the following are those where the search for it 
would have the fairest chance of success :—The Cranberry swamp in 
the valley of the Medina, and on Rookly Moors; the marsh at Easton, 
boggy parts of Colwell Heath, and the bog at Cockleton, near Cowes; 
also on parts of Blackpan and Lake Commons. Bere Forest, near 
Wickham; Rev. Messrs. Garnier and Poulter in Hamp. Repos. On 
bogs betwixt Southampton and Rownam; Merrett. Southwick, be- 
hind Portsdown, 1840; Mr. Jansen! Very fine and abundant by a 
stream in a boggy valley near Bournemouth ; Mr. Borrer (in litt.). 
I searched long and carefully last autumn for this plant in what, from 
his always accurate and minute directions, I have no doubt was the 
exact spot intended by my kind friend, but could not find a specimen. 
Is the Malaxis fugacious, or periodical like others of its order? 
Sturmia Leeselii (Liparis, Hook. Lindl. $c.) is coupled doubtfully with 
Malaxis paludosa under the older names of Ophrys paludosa and 
liliifolia in the anonymous catalogue above referred to, as found in 
this island, and the Dean of Winchester has intimated to me a simi- 
lar report. Although this rare species, yearly becoming rarer by 
draining, has hitherto been found exclusively in the eastern midland 
counties, I know not any reason why it should be confined to that 
part of England. The absence of bogs of any extent in the island 
certainly militates in some measure against the probability of its oc- 
currence in this division of the county. Miss E. Sibley writes me: 
“ Cypripedium Calceolus, I am told, grows at Bordean ; I have often 
looked for it, and doubt its existence.”* My doubts are not less than 


* Amongst such plants as Rosa alpina, Veratrum album and other startling novelties 


917 


my friend’s as to the truth of the statement, and yet I know not why 
the discovery of the Cypripedium in Hants or any other southern 
county should be deemed improbable, beyond the fact that it has 
hitherto occurred only in the north of England. But the species is 
not essentially a northern one, being sparingly distributed over the 
greater part of central Europe, in the north of France, Belgium and 
Germany, chiefly in hilly situations and on calcareous rocks, condi- 
tions abundantly fulfilled in this part of the kingdom. The discovery 
of such plants as Habenaria albida, Listera cordata and Campanula 
latifolia in the south of England, all of which we have accustomed 
ourselves to look upon as appertaining to the north of our island 
alone, should encourage us to hope that many of the plants of York- 
shire, and even of Durham and Northumberland, may eventually be 
detected in these southerly parts; of course in diminished frequency 
and abundance. I have before remarked (Phytol. ii. 1000) that Ses- 
leria cerulea, banished in Britain to the limestone hills of Yorkshire, 
is found on dry chalk banks at Rouen, and may therefore be reason- 
ably looked for on those of Hants and other counties where the 
cretaceous system prevails. JI may cite Saxifraga Hirculus and 
Scheuchzeria palustris amongst species whose equatorial limits in 
Britain late researches have shown to be less contracted than for a 
long time they appeared to be: so in like manner we may predicate 
of many other northern plants a more extended range southward, in 
accordance with the botanical axiom alluded to in speaking of Epi- 
lobium angustifolium, at p. 365 of the present volume, that the equa- 
torial boundary of plants is less exactly defined than their polar 
limits. 
Ws. A. BRoMFIELD. 
Eastmount, Ryde, Isle of Wight. 


(To be continued.) 


to the Hampshire Flora that have been communicated to me from time to time by 
correspondents, known or unknown, the Dog’s-tooth Violet (Erithronium Dens-canis) 
T have been assured grows in certain of our woods, but where, I have at this moment 
forgotten, and am content to remain in ignorance of the station, until conducted 
thither and shown the plant iz situ. 


918 


Relations of Plants to Subjacent Rocks, in the Chain of the Jura, &c. 
Translated from Mons. JuLes THurRMANN’s ‘Essai de Phyto- 
staque appliqué a la chaine du Jura,’ &c. 


THE principal agents in determining the vegetation and the flora, 
that is to say, the distribution of the species, are the following :— 
Climate, depending chiefly on latitude and elevation; then, climate 
being equal, the physical characters of the subjacent rocks, with the 
effects which result from them in reference to the hygroscopicity, the 
quality, and the division of soils. 

The subjacent rocks, with reference to their mode of disintegration, 
their power of absorption, and their permeability, are divisible essen- 
tially into ewgeogenous and dysgeogenous. 

The eugeogenous rocks produce an abundant detritus. When it is 
of aclayey (pélique) nature, it makes humid stations that are often 
inundated. When it is of a sandy (psammique) nature, it makes loose 
soils that are almost always cool. When it is sandy and clayey (pé- 
lopsammique), that is to say, partaking of both natures, it makes sta- 
tions with intermediate qualities. 

The dysgeogenous rocks produce a scanty detritus, sometimes sandy, 
usually clayey, and always making stations more dry than those of 
the eugeogenous rocks. 

To the eugeogenous subjacent rocks corresponds essentially the 
presence of a group of plants which prefer humidity, or the hygrophiles. 
To the subjacent eugeogenous clayey rocks correspond the hygrophiles 
péliques, which particularly prefer cool stations. To the eugeogenous 
sandy rocks correspond the hygrophiles psammiques, which particu- 
larly prefer loose soils. 

To the dysgeogenous subjacent rocks correspond essentially a 
group of species which prefer a certain degree dryness, or the 
awérophiles. 

The hygrophiles péliques accommodate themselves on the dysgeo- 
genous soils in certain cases, and are sometimes scattered over these. 
The hygrophiles psammiques cannot usually live on dysgeogenous 
soils, and are suddenly arrested on meeting them. The xérophiles 
are scattered upon the eugeogenous soils in all points where these 
soils afford a suitable dryness. 

The greatest contrasts in distribution are found among the hygro- 
philes psammiques and the dysgeogenous soils. 

In proportion as we advance northward the hygrophiles accommo- 


919 


date themselves to the soils more dysgeogenous, whilst the wérophiles 
shun more the eugeogenous. In proportion as we advance southward 
the hygrophiles require soils more eugeogenous, whilst the wérophiles 
accommodate themselves to soils less dysgeogenous. 

The extreme limits of the physical characters of soils induce vege- 
table sterility by three different conditions. Hard rocks absolutely 
dysgeogenous are sterile in consequence of their unchangeability, 
which is opposed to the production of detritus. The soft rocks of an 
eugeogenous and very clayey nature are sterile occasionally in con- 
sequence of their compactness and impermeability. ‘The eugeogenous 
and very sandy rocks absolutely moveable may be and really are often 
sterile, not in consequence of their extreme separation, but in conse- 
quence of their mobility. The first become an element of the soil 
and contribute to establish at their surface fertility by disintegration, 
the second by division, the third by fixedness. The first are essen- 
tially dry ; the second essentially humid; the third essentially divided, 
more or less dry according as they are more or less mobile, and, when 
fixed, necessarily more humid than the first, much less so than the 
second. 

All things equal in respect of latitude and elevation, a district of 
subjacent eugeogenous rocks is more cool (frais), more humid, more 
watery, and probably more cold (/roid) than a dysgeogenous district. 
Its vegetation is less dependent on levels, more common, more boreal, 
more social, usually more rich in species, and particularly more rich 
in plants of the lower families, more herbaceous, with roots deeper 
and branched, more numerous, &c. It presents characters opposite 
to the dysgeogenous soil. 

The more aquatic the vegetation, the more is it independent of 
latitude and levels; the more terrestrial it is, and the more is it under 
the influence of those conditions. The rupestral (sazicoles) species 
of the dysgeogenous rocks are essentially the best climatological 
characteristic. 

In a country of moderate extent, the mean annual temperature of 
the air, although an incomplete expression of the climate, is however 
an element sufficiently predominant to be in constant and appreciable 
relation with the principal facts of phyto-statistics, such as the locali- 
zation (cantonnement) of groups of species the most southern, the 
most northern, the most alpine. 

The same regions of elevation will not offer the same character of 
vegetation, except so far as they belong to zones almost equally eu- 
geogenous or dysgeogenous. These regions are not then to be com- 


920 


pared together, with respect to the influence of levels, unless equal in 
regard to soil. The region of the plains can almost never be legiti- 
mately assimilated to the superior regions established for the mountains. 

Independently of the three principal agents of distribution indicated 
above, there are divers conditions that circumscribe the area of species 
in general or of certain species in particular, as the casual limit, every 
plant ceasing partially,—the topographical limit, notably the chains 
of mountains,—the limit imposed by the extreme sociability of certain 
species, &c. On the contrary, other conditions extend the area of 
distribution, such as certain facilities of mechanical transport at con- 
temporary epochs, historical or even geological. These divers con- 
ditions, singly or in combination, produce certain facts of distribution 
that, in obeying the requirements of-latitude, of levels and of soils, are 
not however in exclusive dependence upon them. These facts, ina 
limited country, may be salient, and over-ride in some measure the 
phyto-statistical generalities attributable to the three chief agents 
above mentioned. But they are most usually too few to alter mate- 
rially the aspect of the generalities, 

The flora and the vegetation are then two essentially different 
things. The flora may be rich and the vegetation scanty, or the re- 
verse. The number of species of each order is a bad comparative 
test between two neighbouring countries. The census (rdle) of each 
species, regarded in its quantity of distribution, ought to be the chief 
element of that comparison. One characteristic and widely-spread 
species modifies more the vegetable landscape than numerous rare 
species. Groups of species characteristic of a region of altitude may 
represent or rather characterize sufficiently the relative composition 
of the vegetable landscape in different districts. These species should 
be selected among those that contrast by their presence, their absence, 
or their degree of distribution, between different soils and levels. 

All the facts of distribution presented in our field of study are ex- 
plicable on the principles thus summed up. They are all essentially 
dependent on the united influence of latitude, of levels, and of the 
mechanical qualities of the subjacent rocks. ‘There is no exception 
in this last respect, unless for certain salts soluble in water, whether 
of mineral or of animal origin. 


N.B.—The preceding summary is translated from a very elaborate 
and important work, in two volumes, published at the end of 1849, by 
Mons. Jules Thurmann, entitled ‘Essai de Phytostatique appliqué a 
la chaine du Jura et aux contrées voisines ; ou Etude de la dispersion 


921 


des Plantes Vasculaires envisagée principalement quant a I’ influence 
des Roches Soujacentes.’ We have preferred to retain a few of the 
Greco-Gallic terms untranslated. C. 


Remarks on a Narcissus found near Malvern. 
By Joun Rosy, Esq. 


I BEG to forward for your notice a double Narcissus, quite new, I 
fancy, to English Botany. It grew along with more in a meadow, far 
from any house or garden, near this place; but nevertheless I was 
apprehensive it might have escaped from cultivation. Making in- 
quiry, however, I find that in a pasture or meadow near Lord Somers’ 
park, at Kastnor, a few miles hence, it occurs in tolerable plenty and 
indubitably wild, inasmuch as it has been known there many years, 
and the ground unbroken within the memory of man. Here also are 
specimens of N. poeticus, I understand. I am informed, too, of 
another locality for the very same description of flower near North- 
ampton, by a brook running through a low meadow; and again, if I 
mistake not, near Southampton, where double varieties of the N. 
biflorus do unquestionably grow wild. 1am puzzled about the name, 
as I do not remember it in gardens, nor can I find a figure in what 
books I have. I should feel much obliged by any remarks or infor- 
mation on the subject. 


JouHN Rosy. 
Great Malvern, May 1, 1850. 


{The plant is Narcissus incomparabilis. In Dillwyn’s ‘ Materials 
for a Fauna and Flora of Swansea’ the following notice of it occurs : 
“Grows in the little park at Margam, and Mrs. D. Llewellyn has 
shown me good ground to believe that it has continued to do so for 
at least two centuries—p. 36.” I cite this from Watson’s ‘ Cybele 
Britannica, ii. 446, a reference to which will show that seven exotic 
species of Narcissus have been recorded as growing in Britain. The 
flower sent by Mr. Roby is double, or, as the cultivators have it flore 
pleno: it is very common in gardens: children know it by the name 
of “ butter and eggs.”—Epwarp NEwMaN. | 


(or) 
Q 


VOL. IT. 


922 


Warwickshire Habitat for Gagea lutea. By the 
Rev. W. T. Bree, M.A. 


THE yellow Ornithogalum (as it used to be called) may be considered, 
I suppose, a plant of sufficient rarity to justify the record of a new lo- 
cality in the ‘ Phytologist.’ It is not mentioned by Withering, who 
resided at Birmingham or in the neighbourhood, as a Warwickshire 
plant; nor is it enumerated by Purton as occurring in any of the mid- 
land counties. Early in the present month I had the pleasure of ga- 
thering roots of Gagea lutea abundantly in a meadow in the parish of 
Sheldon, about six or seven miles from Birmingham, on the Coventry 
road. The plants had been so grazed down by cattle, that little more 
than the stumps of the leaves were to be found, except where they 
had been protected by the bushes; and a friend of mine who had 
visited the spot a short time before, could meet with only two weak- 
flowering specimens. The merit of the discovery of the plant in this 
locality is due, I believe, to the Rev. Mr. Gorle, who mentioned it to 
the friend who directed me to it. The Gagea grows under bushes on 
the margin of a little brook about a quarter of a mile from the turn- 
pike road, on the right hand side, going from Coventry towards 
Birmingham. About a mile from the ‘Cock’ at Elmdon, the brook 
crosses the road, having come down from the grounds of Elmdon 
Hall (also about a mile distant), the hospitable mansion of W. C. 
Alston, Esq., who kindly accompanied myself and friend to the spot. 
I regret to add that, in all probability, after the present year the 
Gagea will be entirely destroyed from this locality ; a new brook 
course, rivalling a Roman road for straightness and uniformity, has 
been cut, and the old circuitous one, in spite of its natural beauties 
and botanical treasures, is of course doomed to be filled up and its 
banks stocked and leveled. Iam informed, however, within these 
few days that the Gagea occurs also in other spots lower down the 
stream, where, let us hope, it may meet with a better fate, and long 
remain for the gratification of botanists who may wish to see it growing 
wild in Warwickshire. 


W. T. BREE. 
Allesley Rectory, May 18, 1850. 


923 


Notice of ‘A Flora of Leicestershire, comprising the Flowering 
Plants and Ferns indigenous to the County. By Mary Kirsy, 
with Notes by her Sister. 1850.’ 


WE are glad to have the opportunity of announcing the publication 
of another county Flora; useful by itself to botanists within the county, 
but also increasing the usefulness and interest of those previously 
published, by affording the data for comparisons in local and geo- 
graphical botany. 

The small volume before us, however, is essentially two works in one. 
First, we find a list of species for the county of Leicester, with a pretty 
copious collection of localities for the less common ; the list arranged 
according to natural orders, and adapted to the second edition (1848) 
of the ‘ London Catalogue of British Plants. Secondly, at the end 
of the list of species under each order in the series, are various notes 
on the derivation of names, the medical and other uses of plants, their 
countries, &c. These notes are of course compilations or repetitions 
from other works, and have no special reference to Leicestershire or 
to the plants of Leicestershire. We think it would have been better 
to have printed them asa second part or an appendix to the true 
Flora of the county; and thus to have avoided the many awkward 
breaches of continuity in the list of species. 

With some few exceptions we judge the list of species to be accu- 
rate, and perhaps nearly complete for the county. Few of the species 
enumerated are those decidedly unlikely to occur in that part of Eng- 
land; and among the likely species there are not many absentees. 
As an instance, however, on both sides, we may mention that Tofieldia 
palustris is entered positively as a Leicestershire plant, while Narthe- 
cium ossifragum is omitted. Now, judging by their known distribu- 
tion in England, we should say that the Narthecium is very far more 
likely to be found in Leicestershire than is the Tofieldia; and, more- 
over, we fully anticipate that further investigation will show the name 
of the latter misapplied to the former in this case, although the 
authoress informs her readers that she has seen a specimen collected 
“near Moira, in 1828,” by Mr. John Moore, a surgeon in Leicester. 
Callitriche autumnalis and Circza alpina may also be entered in the 
dubious category, although somewhat less improbable than the To- 
fieldia. 

We regret to see the Sempervivum tectorum, Sedum album, Armo- 
racia rusticana, and other garden plants, entered among those “ indi- 


924 


genous” in Leicestershire, without distinction or qualification. This 
promiscuous inclusiveness seriously detracts from the authority of the 
Flora, as a county list of native plants, for all the doubtful or suspected 
species. 

The authoress has been aided by several distinguished botanists, as 
the Rev. Andrew Bloxam, the Rev. W. H. Coleman, the Rev. Church- 
hill Babington, the Rev. T. Butler, &c. Mr. Bloxam gives a descrip- 


tive list of the Rubi found in the county. 
C. 


Botanical Society of London. 


Friday, April 5. George Cooper, Esq., in the chair. 
The following donations were announced :—Parts 1, 2 and 3 of the 
Gardener’s Magazine of Botany,’ conducted by Messrs. Moore and 
Ayres; presented by the editors. ‘Journal of the Royal Agricultural 
Society of England; presented by that Society. ‘ Journal of the 
Statistical Society of London; presented by that Society. ‘Proceed- 
ings of the American Philosophical Society ;) presented by that So- 
ciety. ‘Twenty-ninth Report of the Council of the Leeds Philoso- 
phical and Literary Society ;’ presented by that Society. ‘A Collection 
of Dried Specimens of the Flowering Plants and Ferns growing na- 
tive within a district of the County of Norfolk, embracing an extent 
of about Forty Square Miles, having for its centre the Town of Faken- 
ham ;’ presented by W. L. Notcutt, Esq. 

Robert Hudson, Esq., F.R.S., &c., of Clapham Common; Dr. Cas- 
pary, of Cringleford, near Norwich; W. H. Purchas, Esq., of Ross, 
Herefordshire; and Mrs. Lloyd Watkins, of Pennoyre, Brecknock, 
were elected members. 

The conclusion of Mr. Coleman’s paper ‘ On the Plants indigenous 
to the Neighbourhood of Horsham, Sussex,’ was read.—G. E. D. 


925 


Notice of ‘ Entwickelungs-Geschichte der Farrnkréuter. Von J. 
GRraFEN LEszczyc-SuMINSKI.’ Berlin, 1848. 


In the August number of the ‘ Phytologist’ (Phytol. ii. 613) we 
announced the publication of this remarkable work, and gave an out- 
line of the theory promulged by the author, reserving for a future 
occasion a more complete and extended notice. The subject was 
considered so interesting, that every contemporary journal which 
could possibly bring Botany within the scope of its contents followed 
in our wake, and before the close of the year we had articles all but 
innumerable on Suminski’s discoveries. The time has now arrived 
for us to fulfil the promise we first held out, and to take a careful and 
impartial review of a theory so important to science. We conceive, 
however, that it will be desirable, as well as acceptable to our readers, to 
trace the records of fern-reproduction ab znitio, so that each successive 
author may enjoy exactly that share in the ultimate conclusios to which 
his labours have entitled him: we shall then give verbatim exactly 
so much of Suminski’s work as may be considered new to science; 
next we purpose briefly to recapitulate the objections urged by 
botanists, together with our view of those objections; and, lastly, to 
state the results of our personal investigation of the pro-embryo, 
and to compare such results with those obtained by Suminski. 
This portion of our observations must of course be accompanied 
by illustrative outline figures. And here it may as well be observed, 
that whereas Count Suminski professes to have confined his ob- 
servations to the pro-embryo of a single species,— Pteris serrulata,— 
ours have no such limit, our specimens having been selected solely from 
their fitness for examination, and the species or even genus to which 
they belong not having been considered a matter of importance. To 
the general botanist this may appear a somewhat slovenly and careless 
method of investigation ; but to those who have experienced the un- 
certainty attending the raising of ferns from the sporules it will be 
rather regarded as an advantage, seeing that the pro-embryo may, and 
we believe does, afford characters for generic and specific distinction, 
and that an error in nomenclature is likely to do more injury and 
create more confusion than can arise from the absence of nomenclature. 

The reproductive organs of ferns have long obtained the notice of 
botanists, but it is surprising to find how very meagre was the infor- 
mation obtained respecting them. The ‘ Encyclopedia Britannica, 
a work considered at the time as one of authority, and which obtained 


926 


a circulation positively enormous, has touched briefly and obscurely 
on the subject: it contains the following vague and unsatisfactory 
passage, under the head*Filices, in the article Botany. 

“The flowers, whatever be their nature, are, in the greater number 
of genera, fastened, and, as it were, glued, to the back of the leaves; 
in others, they are supported on a stem which rises above the leaves, 
but in some they are supported on a flower-stalk, as already men- 
tioned. The stamina are placed apart from the seed-bud in a genus 
termed by Mr. Adanson palma filix ; in the other ferns, where we 
have been able to discover the stamina, they are found within the 
same covers with the seed-bud.”—iii. 470. Here, then, is an absolute 
mention of ascertained male and female organs; but it is impossible 
to form the least idea of what the writer really intends to convey ;” 
indeed, the subject is scarcely worth an inquiry, seeing that we cannot 
suppose the author of so loose and vague a definition to have dis- 
vered any organs that have escaped the more careful investigation of 
botanists during the fifty years that have elapsed since the publication 
of the volumes in question. 

Subsequent publications show that the subject of reproduction has 
also obtained the notice of cultivators. The following passage, pub- 
lished almost simultaneously with the foregoing, will be found at page 
93 of the second volume of the ‘ Transactions of the Linnean Society 
of London.’ 

“ Account of the Germination and Raising of Ferns from the Seed, 
by Mr. John Lindsay, Surgeon in Jamaica.—To enable me to ob- 
serve the germination of the seeds with ease and certainty, I mixed 
some of the powder with some of the mould it was to be sown in, and 
by the help of the microscope was soon able to distinguish readily 
the different parts of the powder or fructification from the particles of 
mould in which it was sown. Having collected the dust of some of 
those ferns which, from the number of their young ones rising every- 
where, promised to grow readily, and sown it in a pot, &c. * * * * * 
I observed no alteration till about the 12th day after sowing, when 
many of the small seeds had put on a greenish colour, and some were 
pushing out their little germ, like a small protuberance, the rudiment 
of a new fern. This little protuberance gradually enlarged, and they 
had acquired small roots, and the remains of the little seeds were still 
discernible where the roots of the infant plant commenced. Although 
the young ferns were now very conspicuous by the microscope, the 
naked eye could see nothing but a green appearance on the surface 
of the mould, as if it were covered with some very small moss: this 


927 


was the numberless young plants from the quantity of the seed 
sown. In some weeks this moss began to appear to the naked eye 
like small scales, which gradually enlarged: they were generally of a 
roundish figure, somewhat bilobate, but sometimes more irregular ; 
they were of a membranous substance, like some of the small lichens 
or liverworts, for which they might readily be mistaken, and of a dark 
green colour. At last there arises from this membrane a small leaf, 
different from it in colour and appearance, and shortly after another 
still more different. Now each succeeding leaf grows larger than the 
last, till they attain the full size, and are complete in all their parts 
and discriminating characters of their respective species.” 

Several figures accompany the paper, showing the marchantimor- 
phous pro-embryo, and the mode in which the first circinate frond 
arises from it. We can say but little in commendation of these illus- 
trations. Knowing what they propose to represent, we at once recog- 
nize them, but we doubt their affording any clear idea to those who 
were not previously perfectly familiar with the objects themselves. 

The tenth volume of the ‘Transactions of the Royal Society of 
Edinburgh,’ dated 1826, contains a paper on the germination of ferns, 
very much more elaborate and precise than either of the preceding. It is 
from the pen of the Rev. John Macvicar, of Dundee, and correctly 
figures and describes the pro-embryo in its earliest stages. 

The first volume of the ‘ Magazine of Botany and Zoology,’ dated 
1837, contains a paper intituled ‘ Observations on the Germination of 
Ferns, by Mr. J. Henderson. This is somewhat more diffuse and 
more explanatory than that last mentioned: it is however principally 
horticultural, containing ample directions for the cultivation of these 
minute vegetations. The description of the first germination and 
also the figures are better than any previously noticed: the former we 
now extract. 

“ The first trace of germination is indicated by the appearance of 
a number of exceedingly minute green specks on the surface of the 
mould: if one of these is placed under a microscope, it will be 
found that the sporule has burst open into two nearly equal halves, 
and a small greenish body occupies the lacerated orifice. This is, as 
far as I can ascertain, a single cellule, the inert body which was con- 
tained in the sporule called into life. The sporule is therefore com- 
posed of two parts, namely, the external integument and the internal 
cellule. The latter swelling beyond the capacity of the former bursts 
it open, and is then elongated a little beyond the ruptured edges of 
the integument. From the anterior apex of this primordial cellule 


9 28 


another is emitted, generally of a spheroidal form, and about the same 
time an exceedingly minute pellucid fibril is emitted from its posterior 
end. 

“The first indication of the formation of a new cellule is the 
emission of a small ovate body from the anterior end of the previously 
formed one: at first it is almost colourless, and appears like a mere 
exudation of sap; as it advances, its almost liquid surface is gradually 
changed into a greenish pellicle, and the cellule then swells into a 
spheroidal form; but this form is very soon altered when in its turn 
it has protruded a new cellule. This last, originating on the convex 
apex of the preceding (from which it appears to draw the liquid ne- 
cessary for its own formation), is during its enlargement gradually 
drawn closer and closer to the other, the convex end of which finally 
becomes concave as the two surfaces approximate and form the par- 
tition between one cellule and another. 

“The manner in which the cellules increase varies in different 
species. In some a single cellule is emitted from the primordial one, 
and from the end of that another, and so on to the amount of four or 
five, before any lateral increase takes place. They then begin to in- 
crease rapidly to the right and left, ultimately forming two roundish 
lobes, with a deep intermediate sinus. As the cellules are added, 
delicate fibrils issue here and there from their lower surfaces at or 
or near their union with one another, taking a downward direction, 
and finally insinuating themselves into the pores of the soil. The 
lobes continue to increase externally until they have attained a cer- 
tain size, when all external increase ceases: the primary frond is then 
composed of a single lamina of cellules, which diminish in size from 
the centre to the circumference, and in appearance very much 
resemble the thallus or lobed frond of some Hepatice. 

“But this is only one of the forms which the primary frond assumes. 
Some increase more rapidly at first, and soon acquire a circular or 
reniform shape, increasing by the addition of cellules at the circum- 
ference ; others divide into a number of lobes, standing nearly upright; 
while some produce one lobe after another, the lobes being recumbent, 
one lapping over the other. Some again have both surfaces covered 
with minute pedicellate glands; while in others the glands are only 
found on one side of the frond; and some, as the different species of 
Adiantum, are perfectly smooth and naked. 

“‘ When the lobes have attained a certain size, external increase 
ceases. A slight swelling may sometimes be perceived of the cellules 
lying at the bottom of the sinus, and between the bases of the two 


929 


lobes, which are of a large size: from the lower surface of the space 
composed of these cellules a number of small fibrils are sent out, 
which penetrate a short distance into the soil, and supply the whole 
cellular body with nourishment. They are most numerous under what 
may be termed the base of the primary frond, namely, where the 
lamina first begins to widen; and between this and the bottom of the 
sinus is the space on which the little knot of cellular matter is 
elaborated, in which the first gyrate frond and the radicle originate. 

“The process by which this is produced consists, in the first 
instance, in the emission, from the lower surface of the above-men- 
tioned cellules, of a number of others, generally much larger im size, 
of an hemispherical form, and proceeding at right angles to the plane 
of the cellules on which they originate. These arise very near to 
one another, and some unite into a confluent mass, forming a thick 
coating on the surface of the other cellules. From this coating 
others are protruded, which in like manner become confluent, arid 
this cellular mass, tapering as it accumulates, terminates in a blunt 
or rounded point. 

“ Previous to the development of the frond and radicle, a further 
accumulation takes place at the summit of the cellular knot, which 
now begins to swell out at two opposite points. The form of the 
knots varies in different species. In some it is round or hemispheri- 
cal; in others nearly flat or even hollow, in which case the cellular 
swelling is on the upper surface (sometimes, but very rarely, the knot 
itself is produced on the upper surface) ; some, again, are surrounded 
by short detached filamentous processes, originating on their surface, 
and composed of elongated, almost colourless cellules. These are 
the incipient palee or scales which surround the caudex of some 
ferns in a more advanced state; in some species, indeed, they assume 
the characters of flat, tapering, incurvate, membranous palez even 
before the gyrate frond is developed. 

“ There is a remarkable similarity in the appearance of the cellular 
knot at this stage of its growth to the formation of the gemme or buds 
produced in the axille of the leaflets, and on the surface and the mar- 
gin of the fronds of some ferns, such as Polypodium proliferum, 
Asplenium viviparum, &c. In the latter case, however, several fronds 
are developed before any root appears, but in the former the first 
gyrate frond is almost uniformly preceded by a root. 

“'The production of the important body above alluded to, is the 
ultimate end and effort of the primary frond, and as it is the point at 
which gyrate development commences, it may be regarded in the light 

Vou, s021- 6 D 


930 


of an incipient caudex. When it is matured according to some one 
of the forms it assumes in different species, a root is protruded from 
one side of it, and soon after a small gyrate frond emerges from its 
summit, which, when developed, occupies the edge of the cellular 
knot, having the base of its stipe placed directly over the base of the 
radicle. The last immediately descends into the earth, while the 
former, rising from under the primary frond, opens out into a small 
simple or lobed leaflet. When this is matured another is sent out, 
and the same process is repeated, a new root being in general added 
with each successive frond. The cellular mass in the meantime ac- 
cumulates, and is gradually converted into a central caudex. The 
primary frond having completed its office withers and decays, while 
the characters of the perfect fern become more and more apparent, 
as one frond succeeds to another.”—p. 335. 

It is no part of our design to investigate with a view to criticism 
these preliminary quotations: our readers will not, therefore, draw 
the conclusion that we assent to Mr. Henderson’s suggestions because 
we make no attempt to refute them: we wish merely to trace the his- 
tory of these observations up to the present time; and, as we have 
already stated, shall express our own views hereafter. 

On the continent the subject has received more careful investigation 
than with us. Agardh has figured the pro-embryo and the develop- 
ment of the first circinate frond more faithfully than either of the au- 
thors we have cited (see Lehrbuch der Botanik, pl. 3, figs. 40—42). 

We now arrive at that discovery which originates the question to 
be considered. In the year 1844, Nageli found on the under surface 
of the pro-embryo of ferns bodies which he considered absolutely 
analogous to what are termed the antheridia of the Musci, Hepatice 
and Characee. In the ‘ Zeitschrift fiir Wissenschaftliche Botanik 
von M. J. Schleiden und Carl Nigeli,” published in Zurich, he de- 
scribed these organs with great minuteness and accuracy; but his 
conclusions differ from those of the author whose work is the subject 
of these remarks, inasmuch as he regarded the larger organs or pistil- 
lidia of Suminski to be absolutely identical with the antheridia, but 
to have attained a more advanced stage, and exhibited a more perfect 
development. Suminski, criticising this view, asserts that “ Nageli 
was guided by a false principle in his researches, since the bodies in 
question are readily distinguishable as two separate classes of organs, 
whether we regard their actual structure or the physiological func- 
tions they are destined to perform.” The soundness of this criticism 
we again leave to the judgment of others, and proceed to a literal 


931 


transcript of Suminski’s views, premising however that we omit 
entirely his detailed account of the germination of the sporules of 
Pteris serrulata, on which he informs us all his observations have been 
made, because his descriptions do not differ sufficiently from those of 
Henderson, above cited, to render them of general interest, or of im- 
portance in the present inquiry. 

“On placing the pro-embryo of a fern under the microscope, cer- 
tain gland-like, globular cells will be seen projecting from its under 
surface, and occasionally, but not so commonly, from its margin. As 
the pro-embryo advances towards maturity, these bodies increase in 
number, and principally occupy that basal portion of the under surface 
from whence the rootlets may be observed to issue. Some species of 
ferns, and especially Pteris serrulata, are remarkable for the great 
number of these bodies. These globular protuberances originate in a 
sack-like elongation of particular cells of the pro-embryo, but a free 
cell is soon formed in their interior containing a homogeneous muci- 
lage, and within this, transparent globules or distinct nuclei with 
nucleoli. As soon as this interior cell has so far increased in size as to 
fill the original projecting sac, it is divided by a septum from the sur- 
face of the pro-embryo, and thus attains the character of an indepen- 
dent organ. A third cell is often formed beneath this septum, and 
being flattened above and below, serves as a support to the upper 
cell, which frequently, at a very early period of its existence, displays 
in its interior new and very minute cellules, filled with a granular 
substance; these are various in number, but are often arranged with 
great regularity ; they gradually become more distinct, at last filling 
up the parent cell, which has the appearance of a sac distended with 
granules, the granules themselves from mutual pressure receiving a 
parenchymatous appearance. When the parent cell has attained ma- 
turity, it bursts open at the top, and discharges a number of small 
round bodies enveloped in mucilage. I have observed in some cases 
a rythmical motion uniformly pervading the whole of the discharged 
mass: the discharged bodies very shortly after their escape from the 
parent cell usually exhibit a rotatory motion on their own axes; each 
of them unfolds a spiral filament, which however remains attached to 
the delicate cellule [in which it was contained], and performs a rapid 
revolution round its axis. 

“As Nigeli has described with great accuracy the various motions 
of these spiral filaments, it appears to me unnecessary in this place 
to reiterate his observations: I must, however, remark that I have 
discovered on the clavate anterior extremity of the spiral filament very 


932 


delicate cilia, of considerable length; a strong artificial light is re- 
quired to make them out distinctly, and they are best observed when 
the rotatory motion of the spiral filament has somewhat abated. 
About six of such cilia appear on each filament, and after this ceases 
to move they also gradually become quiescent, and are then so closely 
applied to it as almost to elude observation: still the movements of the 
cilia endure longer than those of the filament, and not unfrequently re- 
commence after having once entirely ceased. Neither when in full 
motion, nor yet after motion has entirely ceased, can the figure of the 
spiral filament be clearly made out, and this is owing to two causes: 
first, its own convolutions and the movements of its attached cilia; 
and secondly, because after its motions cease its figure entirely alters, 
and it becomes a collapsed amorphous mass. It is, therefore, most 
essential that a moment for observation be selected when, although 
mature, it still remains within its cellule, or occupies a good and ex- 
posed position in the field of view. Under such circumstances it will 
be seen to exhibit two or three convolutions, the clavate extremity 
being pressed agaiust the wall of the cellule. It should here be re- 
marked that the clavate extremity of the filament contains a length- 
ened vesicle in its interior, and also that the other extremity tapers 
into a filiform tail, and terminates in a minute knot.” 

The author regards the parent cells above described as male 
organs, or antheridia; the filaments which they contain as sperma- 
tozoa, granules of pollen, or as the analogues of pollen-granules: and 
he forthwith proceeds with a description of the female organs or pis- 
tillidia, in the following words. 

“Tn addition to the cells containing the spiral filaments above de- 
scribed, we find on the under surface of the pro-embryo, and located 
nearly in its marginal sinus, other bodies of greater magnitude and no 
less important functions. These are hollow oval bodies, and consist 
of a papilla composed of ten or twelve cells ; while the first-mentioned 
[the antheridia] rarely contains more than one. The number of these 
[pistillidia] is very various, sometimes only three and sometimes as 
many as eight. They also differ from the preceding [the antheridia] 
in their mode of origin, and in their structure. That they are not 
identical with them, is proved by their mode of development.” 

Here we must again pause for a moment to invite the reader’s 
earnest attention to what follows, because of all writers on this sub- 
ject Suminski alone insists on this difference ; Nageli, Schleiden and 
others maintaining that the supposed pistillidia are merely antheridia 
in a more advanced stage. Sceing, then, that we are dealing with a 


933 


controverted point, and one on which we may have much hereafter to 
say, we have endeavoured to render the author’s words as exactly as 
possible. 

“In the origin of such an organ the cellular layer [of the pro- 
embryo] becomes thickened by the formation of new cells. By this 
process a large, globular, intercellular space is formed, having a con- 
tracted orifice at the exterior extremity. The latter is generally six- 
sided, and is closely surrounded by green and usually quadrangular 
cells. The larger and more remote cells contain but little chlorophyll. 
From the margins of the cup-like orifice arise four rather large cells, 
arranged in a circle, containing a transparent fluid and being without 
nuclei: between these is a square intercellular space, which varies in 
size: from each of them three more are developed, virtually one 
above another; so that the square space becomes elongated into a 
canal, which leads to the interior of the organ. The cells at the apex 
are usually so closely approximate as to close the orifice. On ac- 
count of the early origin of the canal the cavity seldom appears un- 
covered. 

“These bodies, so different in structural characters, possess also a 
different physiological function, although [by some observers] re- 
garded as antheridia in a more advanced state of development. By 
continual observation I have succeeded in discovering in them the 
sexual apparatus of ferns, hitherto regarded as cryptogamic. In the 
hollow oval bodies last described I recognize the female apparatus.” 

The passage immediately following we do not exactly comprehend, 
unless its meaning be to argue that the relative position of the male 
and female organs points out the true office of both. The author de- 
scribes the ovule, which he finds within the pistillidium and near its 
base, as without envelopes, and as being a simple, naked nucleus, 
divided into two parts; the larger upper portion, or nuclear papilla, 
projecting from the surface of the pro-embryo, and the lower smaller 
portion, or cavity for the embryo-sac, buried in its substance. In the 
first there is again to be distinguished—jirst, the apical orifice or 
opening of the nuclear papilla; and, secondly, the continuation 
thereof, or canal of the nuclear papilla, leading to the cavity from the 
embryo-sac. The orifice is directed towards the base of the pro- 
embryo. 

“ Before the formation of the nuclear papilla, the embryo-sac arises 
at the bottom of the cavity already described, in the form of a minute 
transparent cell: this is seated on a small tubercle, which serves as a 
point for its attachment. Even at this early period we may detect 


934 


within the cavity containing the embryo-sac certain of the spiral 
filaments which I have already described; these are from two to 
five or even more in number, and are perfectly free and never enclosed 
in their respective cellules: for at this period the said filaments travel, 
by the aid of their cilia, from the burst antheridium to the orifice 
of the pistillidium, and entering its apical orifice, pass down the canal 
to the embryo-sac. In this migration they are assisted by the muci- 
lage in which they are enveloped, and by the moisture always present 
on the under surface of the pro-embryo. It requires a practical 
acquaintance with the figure and position of these filaments to detect 
them after having entered the cavity: the wide apical opening of the 
pistillidium, which as yet scarcely projects above the surface of the 
pro-embryo, tends greatly to facilitate their entrance. 

“It sometimes happens at this period of the impregnation that we 
notice a great quantity of dead spiral filaments around the cavity of 
the nucleus; they appear wound like an §, or like a circle or a spiral 
figure. However, I have but seldom observed this appearance. As 
the embryo-sac grows, and thus displaces the spiral filaments, the 
canal of the papilla of the nucleus is formed in the manner above de- 
scribed, and receives into it one or two, but seldom more of them; 
the rest fall to the bottom of the cavity of the embryo-sac. Before 
their entrance into it they exhibit with advancing growth a distinct 
swelling, which occurs especially in those subsequently received into 
the canal. In the meantime the embryo-sac filled with blastema has 
formed in its interior a parenchyma composed of several cells (endo- 
sperm), appears green, and has so increased in size that it almost fills 
the cavity of the embryo-sac. One of the spiral filaments penetrates 
by one of its extremities into the part of the embryo-sac turned to- 
wards the canal. The penetrating end is that at which the smaller 
enlargement is situated, which at the same time exhibits a green tint; 
the larger, club-shaped, granular end projects out into the canal of 
the papilla of the nucleus: this usually encloses a little pear-shaped 
cellule. Here an obstacle of no slight importance interferes with the 
observation: the delicate filiform connexion of the two ends of the 
spiral filament is usually torn by the pressure of the glass covering the 
preparation, and thus we see only the separated ends, on in the ca- 
nal, the other in the cavity for the embryo-sac. As soon as the first 
swelling has reached the middle of the embryo-sac, it separates itself 
from the spiral filament, and now forms in the embryo-sac a closed 
globule, the germinal vesicle. The other end projecting into the 
canal dies away. This appearance must not be confounded with the 


935 


forcible tearing of the spiral filaments to which I have just alluded. 
The embryonary globule is produced by the union of the germinal 
vesicle with the embryo, and it is only attached below to the base of 
the cavity containing the embryo-sac by a very delicate filiform em- 
bryo-support. The colourless nuclear papilla dies away and dries up 
as the embryonary globule grows, and the canal assumes a brown co- 
lour. In this state it continues for a long time upon the now expand- 
ing cavity of the nucleus. Usually only one of the numerous naked 
ovules formed upon the pro-embryo developes its embryo. This 
does not appear extraordinary, since similar examples are not wanting 
in the vegetable world, and in many palms one only of the three 
original compartments is perfectly formed. An especial cause may 
be sought for here in the small size of the pro-embryo, which does 
not supply sufficient nourishment for several embryos. With the 
further development of one embryo, the others (the other rudimentary 
ovules) die. In these the mouth of the papilla of the nucleus opens, 
and allows the dead spiral filaments and the rest of the contents to 
escape. The canal, and especially the cavity for the embryo-sac, 
then exhibits a brown colour. In this state the latter may be most 
distinctly recognized. On the contrary, this part in vegetating ovules 
can only be observed by a most careful extract of the single organ. 
For while on the one hand it is covered by the still erect nuclear pa- 
pilla, the want on the other hand of any peculiar colour, or of other- 
wise distinguishing outlines, renders the detection of it impossible. 
Polypodium aureum is, next to Pteris serrulata, the best adapted of 
all the species which I have examined. The impregnation of all the 
families, genera and species is just according to the above-described 
type; an exception occurs in the appearance on the border of the 
pro-embryo, even in its earliest stage, of a spiral filament-organ, dif- 
fering somewhat in structure as it loses its uni-cellular aspect. Five 
or six parietal cells are formed, which enclose in the middle a space 
either filled with spiral filament-cells or hollow spaces. These struc- 
tures must be regarded as monstrosities of the spiral filament-organs, 
since they only occur in diseased conditions, and in individuals which 
never produce an embryo. Such a barren pro-embryo either decays 
soon after its origin, or, passing into a succulent state of growth, ap- 
pears much larger than is natural. In this state it resembles a Mar- 
chantia, and usually produces a great number of abortive ovules.” 
Almost immediately after the entrance of the spiral filament into 
the canal of the pistillidium, and its supposed contact with the ovule 


936 


at its base,—or, in other words, after the contact of the contents of 
the sperm-cell and the germ-cell,—a new cell is to be seen within the 
latter: we have thus two concentric cells, one enclosed within the 
other. In the progress of growth, which at this early stage is pecu- 
liarly rapid, a period arrives when the covering of the germinal vesicle 
can no longer be distinguished: up to this period the exterior of the 
two concentric globules is more deeply coloured with green than the 
interior one,—a difference which disappears simultaneously with the 
disappearance of their limits. The formation of cells now proceeds 
at both extremities of the embryo, by what our author calls “ bipolari- 
zation.” The embryo gradually assumes an elliptical form, its longest 
diameter being placed transversely to the plane of the. pro-embryo, 
and of course comprising the axis of the future plant; its anterior ex- 
tremity being finally developed as the first gyrate frond, the analogue 
of a plumule; and the posterior extremity or radicle tending towards 
the ground. The formation of new cells now goes on at the tip in a 
twofold manner: there is a feeble growth producing the stipes, and a 
more vigorous growth destined eventually for the production of the 
leafy portions of the frond. The author considers this elliptical em- 
bryonic body the direct result of the contact above described, such 
contact being a “ true act of generation.” The description of the 
mode in which the first gyrate frond is developed, and the figures 
which illustrate this part of the subject, are worthy of all praise: the 
execution of the latter leaves nothing to be desired, unless it be the 
confirmation of their accuracy by further observations. And here we 
would remark that a contributor to the ‘ British and Foreign Medico- 
Chirurgical Review’ for October, 1849, speaks of finding Suminski’s 
delineations to be so completely borne out by personal observation, 
in certain instances, that he gives the Count full credit for their ac- 
curacy, even where the opportunity of testing them was wanting. 
The paper in question is intituled ‘ Physiological Botany,’ and dis- 
plays an acquaintance with recent researches that is as creditable to 
its author as it is uncommon in journals of a semi-scientific character. 

After completing his observations on the ascending extremity of the 
embryo, Suminski describes with considerable minuteness the forma- 
tion of the root; but as this presents nothing remarkable or novel, we 
purposely refrain from introducing it into an inquiry of which it con- 
stitutes no essential element. The addition made by this learned au- 
thor to our prior observations may be thus summed up: the discovery 
of a female apparatus or pistillidium as distinct from the male appa- 


937 


ratus or antheridium, and its fertilization by the entrance of spiral 
filaments, spermatozoa or pollen-granules, which escape on the burst- 
ing of the latter. His observations on the marchantimorphous pro-em- 
bryo, and the origin of the first gyrate frond, were completely fore- 
stalled by Mac Vicar and Henderson, as were those on the antheridium 


and its spiral filaments by Nigeli. 
K. 


(To be continued.) 


On the Allium Holmense of Ray. By P. B. Wess, Esq.* 


WHEN treating of the geographical distribution of the Allium Por- 
rum and A. Ampeloprasum, L. (Phyt. Can. sect. 3, p. 344), the ques- 
tion arose,—to which of these species should we refer the Allium 
Holmense, &c., of Ray? Published in a work of such importance as 
the ‘ Historia Plantarum’ of that author, this plant naturally attracted 
the attention of Linneus. In the first edition of the ‘ Species Plan- 
tarum,’ as well as in the two subsequent editions, he alludes to it 
under A. Ampeloprasum, of which he says, “habitat in Oriente et 
in insula Holms Angliz,” without however citing Ray amongst his sy- 
nonyms. Ray first described this plant in his ‘ Historia Plantarum,’ 
1688, as “ Allium montanum majus, Newtoni: Radix nucleis aliquot 
majusculis constat Allii vulgaris in modum, tunica duntaxat suffusca 
tecta, quam facile exuit; de reliquo integra est et candida, multas, ob- 
longas, validas fibras demittens: caules 4 pedes altus, et cet. Aug. 
floret; in parva insula Holms dicta supra Bristolium in Sabrine 
estuario copiose provenit.” A few years later he introduces this 
plant, with corrections, into his ‘Synopsis Plantarum Britannicarum’ 

s “ Allium Holmense spherico capite. Great round-headed Garlick 
of Holms Island. Hujus descriptionem vide Hist. nostr. p. 1125, 
ubi radix ejus nucleis aliquot majusculis constare falso asseritur, est 
enim simplex et tunicata, duntaxat, cepe in modum. In insula parva 
quadam Holms dicta in Sabrine zstuario copiose provenientem obser- 
vavit D. Newton. Rai. Syn. 1696, et ed. 3, 1724, p. 370.” Neither 
of these descriptions coincides with A. Ampeloprasum, Z., seeming 
rather to refer to A. Porrum, since almost the only tangible character 


* Extract of a letter to Hewett C. Watson, Esq. 
VoL. It. 6 E 


938 


which distinguishes this latter from its congener is the absence or 
paucity of bulbills. All the British botanists seem to have accepted 
the decision of Linneus, and from Hudson downwards describe this 
plant as A. Ampeloprasum, some* adding from books or inspection 
of foreign specimens the characters of the southern species, particu- 
larly that of the botryoidal sack of bulbills, which assures the rapid 
propagation of the species, and renders it so troublesome a weed in 
the vineyards and fields of the east. Mr. Babington seems to have 
seen the plant, and to have made his description from native speci- 
mens: he says (Man. of Brit. Bot. p. 305), “ Bulb forming 2—4 large 
offsets within its coats ;” the rest of his description likewise coincides 
with A. Porrum. I am therefore inclined to believe that this plant 
cannot be referred to A. Ampeloprasum, Z., but is merely the A. Por- 
rum escaped from gardens. That very accurate observer, Mr. Borrer, 
likewise supposes that the presence of this plant in the Holms or 
islands of the Severn is the result of former cultivation; but our fore- 
fathers were much more likely to have cultivated leeks there than the 
acrid and useless Ampeloprasum. Iam aware that many botanists 
are disposed to consider the leek as a mere variety of Ampeloprasum: 
it is difficult to ascertain this with certainty, but my own observations 
lead me to place it amongst those numerous esculent plants whose 
origin is unknown to us. Should any of your correspondents be able 
to visit the “Steep Holms Island,” and send you from thence speci- 
mens of this plant, the question might perhaps be elucidated: you 
should, however, recommend to those who may undertake the task to 
be sparing in the collection of specimens, so as to leave for posterity 
sufficient remains of a species which has probably occupied its pre- 
sent site for more than two centuries, and which was first described 
by the greatest of our ancient botanists. The investigation of the 
other habitat of A. Ampeloprasum given by Mr. Babington,—“ Cliffs 
in Guernsey,”—would be also interesting, as I do not find the species 
enumerated in any of the floras of the western departments of France. 


P. B. WEBB. 


* See Smith’s ‘ English Flora,’ vol. ii. p. 134. f 


939 


Contents of the ‘ Botanical Gazette, No. 17, May, 1850. 


A Descriptive Table of British Brambles. By T. B. Salter, M.D. 
[“ Increased observation,” writes Dr. Salter, “on the multiplied forms 
of these variable plants, both in the wild state and under cultivation, 
has enabled me in numerous instances to associate several forms to- 
gether, as varieties of a single species, which before were described as 
distinct ; thus in many cases confirming my previous suspicions, and 
in other cases affording results which I had not anticipated.”...... 
“In plants so varying as the Brambles it is easy to divide, but by no 
means so easy to discriminate or associate correctly. These results 
can only be accomplished by careful observation.” .... .. “ In plants 
so varying, if the characters be too minutely given, few plants will 
agree with the description: the species must either be multiplied 
contrary to fact and truth; or varieties, inconveniently numerous, be 
introduced ; for it is found that even in the descriptions of varieties 
some considerable latitude must be allowed, or they become-endlessly 
numerous.” Dr. Salter enumerates twenty-one species, exclusively of 
the: Raspberry and herbaceous Brambles. ] 

Literature : Contents of various botanical journals. 

Proceedings of Societies: Botanical Society of Edinburgh. 

Miscellanea: Press for drying plants. Victoria regia... Obituary. 


Ditto, No. 18, June, 1850. 


On Viola canina and its allies. By Charles C. Babington, M.A. 
[“ So much has been written in English journals concerning Viola 
canina, that it may seem altogether unnecessary to add to what has 
been well stated by others; but the unsatisfactory account of that 
plant and its allies which is contained in my ‘ Manual’ (ed. 2, p. 36) 
having necessarily directed my attention to the subject, it may perhaps 
not be considered as intruding upon the notice of English botanists 
if I point out the characters by which I propose to define the species, 
and make a few remarks upon each of them.” Thus writes Mr. Ba- 
bington ; but we believe that he deceives himself in the reason that 
he alleges. His attention was doubtless “ directed to the subject” by 
the announcement of his own and the late Mr. E. Forster’s printed 
errors respecting these plants, and by something very like a denounce- 
ment of their persistence in errors that had been publicly poimted out 


940 

in the ‘ Phytologist’ and elsewhere. Mr. Babington now distinguishes 
three species; namely, 1, V. sylvatica; 2, V. canina; and 3, V. stag- 
nina. The first of these three includes the V. canina of Smith and 
other English authors, and the V. flavicornis of Forster in ‘ Supple- 
ment to English Botany’: it is the “‘ Gerarde’s Violet” of Mr. Watson 
in the present volume of the ‘ Phytologist.’ The second includes the 
V. flavicornis of Smith, and also the V. lactea of Smith united there- 
with as a variety: it thus corresponds with the “ Dillenius’s Violet ” 
and “ Smith’s Violet” of Mr. Watson in the ‘ Phytologist’ (Phytol. i. 
635). The third name is applied to a larger and longer-leaved spe- 
cies, occasionally mistaken for or mingled with Smith’s V. lactea, and 
first alluded to, we believe, under name of V. stagnina, in the ‘ Cybele 
Britannica,’ nearly four years ago. Although it may require some lit- 
tle alteration still, Mr. Babington’s present account of these Violets is 
clear and satisfactory, and is now very near the truth or Nature’s 
realities. To take up a remark from Dr. Salter, supra, he has at 
length almost discriminated them into real species, instead of divid- 
ing them into book-species, as heretofore. ] 

On Scrophularia nodosa, Z., and S. aquatica, Auct. (S. Ehrharti, 
Stev.) By T. Irmisch. [Translation from the ‘ Botanische Zeitung’ 
A short paper on their mode of growth. ] 

Critical Notes on British Brambles. By T. Bell Salter, M.D. 

Literature: Andersson’s Plante Scandinavie descripte et delineate. 
Reports and Papers on Botany, printed for the Ray Society, 1849. 
Contents of journals. 

Proceedings of Societies: Linnean Socieiy. Botanical Society of 
London. Botanical Society of Edinburgh. 

Miscellanea: Letter of inquiry from Mr. Borrer. Unarmed va- 
riety of Ulex Europeus. Botanical promotions in Paris. 


Contents of ‘ Hooker’s Journal of Botany, No. 17, May, 1850. 


On the Structure of the Ovary of Marlea, and Affinities of Alangiez. 
By Benjamin Clarke, Esq. 

Contributions to the Botany of Western India. By N.A. Dalziel, Esq. 

Extracts from Dr. J. D. Hooker’s letters. Continued. 

Botanical Information: Letter from Berthold Seemann. Mr. Spruce’s 
journey. North-American Plants for the Herbarium. 

Notices of Books: Paxton’s Flower-garden. 


941 


Ditto, No. 18, June, 1850. 


Extracts from Dr. J. D. Hooker's letters. Continued. 

Mr. Spruce’s Voyage up the Amazon River. Extract from a letter. 

Botanical Information: Letter from Berthold Seemann. African 
Oak or Teak (Oldfieldia Africana). 

Notices of Books: Thurmann’s ‘ Essai Phytostatique du Jura.’ 
Cactez in Horto Dyckensi. 


Inquiry for the Celtic or other ancient names of the doubtfully na- 
tive Trees and Shrubs. By Hewett C. Watson, Esq. 


Nort previously aware of his arrival in England, for only a few 
days’ sojourn, I was agreeably surprized by a call here from Mons. 
Alphonse De Candolle last week. In course of conversation relative 
to some questions in geographical botany, he spoke of the desirability 
of seeking out any evidence to be afforded by old Celtic names, in 
support of the genuine British nativity of those plants, particularly 
trees and conspicuous shrubs, which are now regarded with distrust. 
The inquiry would be one of considerable interest, but attended with 
difficulties. Sufficient acquaintance with Botany to prevent any con- 
fusion between different species would be requisite, together with a 
very ample knowledge of the old language or languages of our 
islands. 

Hugh Davies’s ‘ Welsh Botanology’ professes to give the old Bri- 
tish or Welsh names of several hundred species occurring in Angle- 
sea; and the author adds also an Appendix to show “ the British 
generic names of those phzenogamous plants in ‘ Flora Britannica, 
which are not of spontaneous growth in Anglesey.” But among the 
plants of Anglesea, he includes the Beech and Chestnut; giving to 
them the “ British” names of Castanwydden and Ffawydden, pro- 
bably both derived from the Latin, or Castanea and Fagus. In the 
Appendix, too, the author has appropriated Welsh names to the 
Stipa and Vella, the Eriocanlon and Holosteum,—plants very little 
likely to have had any genuine Welsh names at all. Moreover, he 
states expressly that he admitted British names such as evidently 
were corruptions of the classic names, or taken from other languages. 
And when we find the “ British” name of Tiwwlip entered for the tu- 
lip, that of Pysen for the pea, that of Linnea for the Linnea, there 


942 
can be no doubt that the true British or Welsh nomenclature is 
diluted by Davies with names made up from those of other languages. 
This unavoidably detracts from the trustiness of his work in many 
cases, although it may likely be correct enough in the main. 

Now, if a botanist could show that certain genuine Irish, Welsh, 
Scottish, or even old English names clearly applied to any of the 
trees and shrubs whose nativity is disputed at the present day, and 
were not applicable to any other resembling trees or shrubs, this sort 
of evidence would go far towards removing those doubtfully indige- 
nous into the category of true native species ; and it might also assist 
in showing how far the species were naturally spread in the British 


Islands. 
Hewett C. WATSON. 
Thames Ditton, June 7, 1850. 


New Habitat for Thlaspi perfoliatum. 
By James Buckman, Esq. 


Ar Sapperton, near Stroud, the Great Western Railway passes 
along a tunnel named after the village. At the top of this, towards 
the north end, are some old quarryings, about which the plant grows 
in profusion: it also occurs towards the southern end of the top of 
the same tunnel, about old quarryings. Found by Mr. Ball. The 
occurrence of this plant in or about stone quarries is curious: it is 
found about Eyeford, near Stow, and at the Seven-springs, near 
Bourton-on-the-Water, in the northern Cotteswold district, and in each 


in and about old quarries. 
J. BUCKMAN. 
June, 1850. 


Discovery of Orchis hircina in Suffolk. 
By E. N. BLoomrie.p, Esq. 


Mr. Watson in his ‘ Cybele Britannica’ expresses a doubt whether 
the Orchis hircina still exists in the British Islands, and mentions 
that in the case of several habitats which had been communicated to 
him as belonging to this plant, Habenaria bifolia or H. chlorantha had 
been mistaken for it. I think therefore that it may be interesting to 


943 


give some further particulars respecting the Suffolk station of O. hir- 
cina which I had the good fortune to discover in July, 1847. I found 
but one specimen. The principal doubts which may arise are,— 
whether the plant was the true O. hircina; whether it grew in the lo- 
cality given; and whether it was introduced. There can be no doubt 
that the plant was the true one, as it agrees with Smith’s description 
in the ‘English Flora,’ and with a specimen in the Cambridge Bota- 
nical Museum ; and indeed it is so different from any other English 
plant, that it is surprizing that any other could be mistaken for it. I 
showed it while growing and after it was gathered to several friends, 
and we all agreed, with Sir J. Smith, that the scent was “not plea- 
sant,” but very pecunar. There can be no doubt on the second head, 
because I found it myself, quite by accident. I can suggest no means 
sby which it could have been introduced, at least from any great dis- 
tance, and have no reason to doubt that it is a native. Perhaps it 
may be as well to mention that the meadow was laid down about fifty 
years ago, with seed brought from a village called Dennington, about 


six miles distant. 
EK. N. BLooMFIELD. 
Clare Hall, Cambridge. 


Note on the Ovule of Orchis Morio. 
By W. Witson, Esq. 


Havine had my attention directed to this subject by the notice of 
Mr. Henfrey’s paper in the ‘ Phytologist’ for March last, I have care- 
fully and minutely examined numerous ovules, in various stages of 
growth, with the following results. 

When the ovule becomes completely anatropous, it is somewhat 
less than 54>th of an inch in length, the primine being then shorter 
than the secundine, though it afterwards far exceeds it in length. 
Soon after fecundation, the ovary having swelled, the pollen-tubes 
are found in very great abundance, passing down under the placentz, 
in six dense fasciculi, to the base of the ovary. When these hori- 
zontal sections of the ovary are placed under the microscope, the 
masses of pollen-tubes are seen to fill up the channels formed by the 
incurved edges of the carpellary leaves. The diameter of the pollen- 
tube is somewhat more than ,;-4>th of an inch. By careful dissec- 
tion of the ovule the pollen-tube can be satisfactorily traced into the 


944 


orifice of the secundine as far as the nucleus; but the mode of con- 
nexion with that organ is very difficult to determine, as may be easily 
supposed when it is understood that the nucleus is a roundish vesicle 
of about ~1,th of an inch in length, and that it is immersed nearly 
that depth in the secundine. After careful and repeated observation, 
I am of opinion that the extremity of the pollen-tube coalesces with 
the apex of the nucleus, but does not penetrate it: I have seen seve- 
ral cases of such connexion where the nucleus has remained uncovered, 
in consequence of the abnormal suppression of the growth of the 
primine and secundine, on parts of the same placenta which had the 
ovules in a normal state. The course of the pollen-tube may be 

traced with tolerable precision through the highly pellucid coats of 
the ovule, without dissection; but as it is always unsafe to depend 
on appearances until they have been verified by the removal of all 
intervening membranes, I have chosen to ascertain every fact by dis- 
section, when practicable. I object to the expression, “ nucleus co- 
vered by its own cellular coat,” regarding, as I do, this cellular coat 
as an integral portion of the nucleus. The phrase, “ embryo-sac had 
lost its proper cellular coat,” also seems to me ambiguous. This cel- 
lular coat I suppose to be the external membrane of the nucleus, 
and if so, I consider that it is not obliterated, though it appears to be 
at length ruptured at the apex by the prolongation of the contained 
ovoid embryonic body (whether it be embryo or albumen, or both, is not 
quite clear) to afford egress to the articulated filament. While in its 
ovoid shape it is less than ~4,th of an inch in length, with one or 
two horizontal septa. To detach it at this stage uninjured, it is re- 
quisite to employ very careful dissection ; but immediately after it has 
begun to prolong its apex, it can be very easily made to slide up the 
secundine by gently pressing at its base, proving that the means of 
egress by that passage are already provided. The production of the 
confervoid filament is most certainly a normal process, and is easily 
observable. At the time when it begins to grow, the ovule is about 
sth of an inch in length, having the base of the primine somewhat 
inflated, leaving a hollow space below the base of the secundine, of 
about the same length as the secundine, or 55th of an inch. 

That the “ pistillary cords” consist wholly of pollen-tubes with nu- 
merous abrupt sinuosities, is sufficiently evident; for they can be 
traced to the pollen-granules, and are absent before fecundation. 

The “minute black atoms” of the nucleus appear to be small 
eranules of starch: they are somewhat larger than active molecules, 
and have pellucid centres. 


G45 


it seems to me a begging of the question to say that the “ two or 
three vesicles” in the interior of the embryo-sac, or embryonic body, 
“undoubtedly existed before the pollen-tubes entered the foramina of 
the ovules ;” at least, I can find no actual proof of this fact; nor is it 
at all clear to me that the unimpregnated nucleus of itself constitutes 
or contains any “germinal vesicle,” if by that term is meant some- 
thing which may develop into an embryo without any transfusion or 
addition of matter from the pollen-tube. It has still to be proved 
whether this vesicle does itself undergo such development, or whether 
it is merely the matrix within which the “ pollinic fluid passing 
through the intervening membrane” is transformed into an embryo. 
Moreover, it is still possible that further scrutiny may show that there 
is an actual penetration of the nucleus by the pollen-tube. 

It may be useful to contrast the ovule of this plant with the very 
singular one of Veronica hederefolia, where, almost immediately after 
fecundation, the neck of the nucleus is protruded, and its forked 
glandular extremity firmly embraces the funiculus, forming in every 
sense of the word a suspensor to the body of the nucleus, which 
bursts out from its integuments and becomes a perfectly naked and 
much enlarged mass of albumen, in shape not very unlike that of a 
cowry shell, having the suspensor and the chalaza attached to the 
hollow part of the cup. The change of the ovule is so rapid that the 
mode of access of the pollen-tube cannot be observed. 


W. WILson. 
Warrington, June 7, 1850. 


A Visit to the Lily Field, or Narcissus poeticus in Warwickshire ; 
and a Note on Narcissus lobularis. By, the, Rev. W..0) 
Bree, M.A. 


SomE years have now passed over since I was informed, on authority 
that I could not doubt, that Narcissus poeticus grew wild in great 
abundance in a certain field in the adjoining parish of Fillongley ; and 
in proof of the correctness of such information, roots were sent to me 
from this locality, which have flourished in my garden ever since. 
Though often intending to go and see the “ Lily Field ”— for such is 
the appellation by which it is familiarly known in the neighbourhood— 
it, somehow or other, has so happened, that I never did pay a visit to 
it till the 5th of the present month of June, when the Narcissuses were 

VOL. It. 6 F 


946 
in full bloom and beauty. And though very many of the flowers had 
been previously gathered by children and other persons who had been 
before me (for great numbers of people come every year to see the 
sight), I was truly gratified and astonished at the magnificent display 
of pure white blossoms which presented itself to view. A large por- 
tion of the field was one sheet of white,—an extensive snowdrift, so to 
say, in June! One might have thought that all the Narcissuses out 
of all the gardens in the county had been mustered together into this 
spot in order to make one grand exhibition. They grew in large 
dense masses; so much so as to overpower, and apparently almost 
obliterate, the grass and other herbage. I remarked to Mr. Smith, 
the occupier of the land, that beautiful as these flowers were, 
they must nevertheless be very prejudicial to his crop; but he assured 
me, he thought not, for he always observed, that at mowing-time he 
had as much grass where the Narcissuses were thickest, as In any 
other part of the field. I should describe the field as being a sort of 
upland meadow, and it is situated near — tvo near to please a botanist 
—to an ancient farm-house called Glaber’s, or Glaver’s Hall, about 
two miles west of the village of Fillongley. Botanists of the present 
day, I believe, are disposed to look upon Narcissus poeticus im 
the light of a naturalized species only, and to exclude it from the list 
of genuine natives. Iam not going to controvert that opinion. In- 
deed, there are several suspicious circumstances, which, to my mind, 
militate against the notion of the Narcissus being indigenous in this 
particular locality, whatever it may be in other places. First, who 
knows but the “ Lily Field” may be the site of a former garden or 
pleasure-ground attached to Glaver’s Hall when that was a place of 
more consideration than it may seem to be at present? But this is 
only begging the question ; at any rate, however, the field (as already 
hinted) is rather too near to the ancient farm-house, to be free from all 
suspicion on that score, being separated from the present garden only 
by an occupation road and an intervening portion of the farm-yard. 
Secondly, the Narcissus is confined to this one field, with the excep- 
tion, however, of one or two small patches in the orchard, which 
nobody would take to be wild. It does not occur in other suitable 
situations in the neighbourhood, as a true native would be likely to do. 
And thirdly, a large portion, perhaps uearly half of the Narcissuses at 
Glaver’s Hall, produce double or semi-double flowers, ¢.e., flowers 
with one or more imperfect petals issuing out of the cup. At the same 
time there is no record or tradition of the field ever having been a gar- 
den, or of the Narcissuses having been planted where they are now 


947 


found. But there they are, in surprising profusion, and have been 
time out of mind, and nobody knows how they got there. We may 
say with Antigone on a different occasion, 


* * * ©-* “ these are not of to-day, 
Or yesterday, but through all ages live, 
And none knows whence they sprung.” 


Being on the subject of Narcissus, I feel inclined to call attention, 
through the pages of the ‘ Phytologist,’ to another little-known species, 
which appears to me to have a fairer claim to be considered native. 
I allude to a perfectly distinct daffodil found wild more than twenty 
years ago near Tenby, in Pembrokeshire, by the late Joseph Boultbee, 
Ksq., from whom I received roots which I have long cultivated in the 
garden. I have given this plant to many botanists and horticulturists, 
none of whom had any previous acquaintance with the species; nor 
have I ever seen it in any garden, nursery, or collection, except as de- 
rived from the above source. Not being, therefore, like Narcissus 
poeticus, an old and favourite inhabitant of our gardens, it cannot 
very well be a garden-stray or outcast, seeing it is quite unknown to 
our gardens till of late years, unless indeed it occurs in a cultivated 
state around Tenby; on which point I cannot speak. In 1830 I sent 
the Tenby daffodil to the late Mr. Haworth, who pronounced it a new 
and undescribed species, and recorded it in the ‘ Philosophical 
Magazine’ for May of that year, and in his ‘ Narcissmearum Mono- 
graphia, under the name of Narcissus (Ajax) “ lobularis ;” and so far 
as I know, it is nowhere else described. I also sent fresh specimens 
to Mr. Sowerby, who afterwards showed me an admirable drawing 
which he had made of the plant, with a view, as I understood, to 
its publication in the ‘Supplement to English Botany ;’ and why it 
has not appeared in that publication, Iam unable to state. From 
Narcissus Pseudo-narcissus it differs in being a taller and more robust 
plant, the petals and cup being of an uniform bright yellow, and the 
latter divided into six lobes, whence its specific name of “ lobularis.” 
In its time of flowering, it ranks among the earliest of the tribe, ex- 
panding its blossoms sometimes in February, though more usually, 
perhaps, it corresponds with Shakspeare’s 


“ Daffodils, 


That come before the swallow dares, and take 
The winds of March with beauty.” 


948 


I strongly recommend the Tenby daffodil to the notice of all lovers of 
floriculture, as a highly ornamental species, of free and hardy growth, 
and well worthy of cultivation, were it for its beauty alone, to say 


nothing of its rarity. 
W. T. BREE. 


Allesley Rectory, June 14, 1850. 


Botanical Society of London. 


Friday, June 14. Arthur Henfrey, Esq., V.P., in the chair. 

The following donations were announced : — ‘ The Tourist’s Flora,’ 
by Joseph Woods, Esq., F.L.S., &c.; presented by the author. 
‘Fourteenth Annual Report of the Warwickshire Natural History So- 
ciety’; presented by that Society. ‘Proceedings of the American 
Philosophical Society’; presented by that Society. ‘A Collection of 
Leicestershire Rubi,’ to illustrate Miss Kirby’s ‘Flora of Leicester- 
shire’; presented by the Rev. Andrew Bloxam. British Plants from 
Mr. J. Carroll, Mr. R. G. Holland, and Mr. R. Withers. 

The Chairman read a paper “ On Sagina apetala(Z.), and§&. ciliata, 
(Fries), with some remarks on the mode of discriminating species.” 
After alluding to a paper by M. Beneken, published in the ‘ Botanical 
Gazette’ for April, 1849, and another by Mr. Babington on the same 
subject, which appeared in that journal in July, 1849, the author 
stated that he had investigated many specimens of the plants, 
English and French, derived from his own collections and from the 
herbarium of Dr. Cosson, of Paris, together with an English example 
of S. ciliata named by Mr. Babington, and authentic specimens of S. 
patula (Jord.), from that author. The conclusion he had arrived at 
was that the S. ciliata, with which S. patula (Jord.) appears to be 
identical, as stated by MM. Grenier and Godron, is buta variety of 8S. 
apetala (Z.).. He had found the mucro on the sepals inconstant on 
the same plant, occurring on specimens with all the other characters 
of the form taken on the true apetala. The degree of divergence of 
the sepals in the fruit, he was inclined to attribute to the existence 
and size of the petals, which are persistent. The form apetala 
(which has petals and is usually ciliated) grows on drier and more ex- 
posed spots; the form ciliata generally in the shade, or damper 
situations. The author then drew attention to a plan for determining 
critical species which are at present so perplexing to European bota- 


949 


nists, as he thought that by the aid of some of its country members 
the Botanical Society might do much towards settling the question in 
many cases. Regarding condition, such as aspect, climate, soil, &c., 
as the usual cause of variation, he did not look upon cultivation of a 
plant in artificially prepared land, in one place alone, as a satisfactory 
test of the value of characters, as artificial culture has rather a ten- 
dency to perpetuate varieties than to reduce them to their types. He 
suggested that a few, say six to twelve, botanists residing in as distant 
parts of the country as possible, should form an association for culti- 
vating critical plants, all corresponding with a metropolitan botanist, 
who might cultivate here also, and who should receive from any 
source specimens of plants to be carefully preserved, together with 
seeds to be distributed to all the cultivators ; these should make a re- 
turn annually of specimens of the plants they have raised, with their 
remarks, and when a change has taken place seeds also to be re-dis- 
tributed. By the help of a certain number of co-operators, one resid- 
ing in the West of England, another in the East, another in the 
midland counties, others in the North and in the different climatal 
regions of Scotland, or if it were possible, by the help of a member re- 
siding in every one of the districts given in Mr. Watson's ‘ Cybele, 
the doubtful forms might be exposed to every variety of condition, 
while the preservation of the original type specimens would render all 
the observations at once applicable as exact scientific evidence. Ifa 
number of provincial botanists will agree to carry on these observa- 
tions, Mr. Henfrey stated that he was willing to take charge of the 
metropolitan part of the work, to receive and distribute the specimens 
and seeds, and also to cultivate them for the London climate in 
the garden of the Royal Botanic Society.—G. E. D. 


Note on the return of Corollas normally Irregular to a Regular 
Form. By James Hussey, Esq. 


Be.tevine the return of the corolla of irregular flowers to a regular 
form, though occasionally observed, to be rare, the following instance 
may not perhaps be unworthy of being recorded in the pages of the 
‘ Phytologist, especially as the subject to which it relates, namely, the 
normal state of the floral whorls, is one of very great interest and im- 
portance in Botany. In a crimson and white garden variety, then, of 
Antirrhinum majus, I observe the two uppermost flowers upon one of 


950 

the racemes to take the form known as “ Peloria,” the rest retaining 
their usual character. In both of these uppermost flowers the fifth 
stamen, which is usually rudimentary only and abortive in this genus, 
is, with its anther, fully developed, and in consequence apparently of 
its presence their corolla loses the ringent shape, and assumes a regu- 
lar form, in one flower with five, and in the other with six lips, pro- 
vided with their downy palates, leaving an open, central space 
in which lie the large, full-grown anthers. In what state of devel- 
opment the pistils may be, Iam unable at present to determine, being 
unwilling to destroy these singular blossoms. 

‘This remarkable condition of flowers, which are commonly irregu- 
lar, was long believed to be peculiar to Linaria vulgaris, but according 
to DeCandolle (Organographie Végétale, i. 519), has been noticed 
not only in other species of Linaria, but also in the genera Antirrhi- 
num, Digitalis, Sesamum, Galeopsis, Viola, and Orchis. It would be 
interesting and instructive, should any of your readers meet with in- 
stances of this kind in those or other irregular genera, were they to 
note them and make them known in your valuable periodical. 


JAMES HUSSEY. 
Salisbury, June 18, 1850. 


Note on an Aberration in the Floral Envelopes of a Fuchsia. 
By Epwarp Newman. 


In this instance the organs present were as follows :— 

1. Sepals four, of normal size and figure. 

2. Stamens eight; four of them, greatly exceeding the sepals in 
length, arise from the exact centre of the base of the sepals, one to 
each, the other four exactly equalling the sepals in length, alternate 
with the first, and arise from the notches between the sepals. The 
stamens, indeed, are quite normal; the filaments white, untinged by 


any colour; the anthers of normal size, and pollinigerous. 
3. Pistil of normal form and length. 


The noticeable character is the entire absence of the interior floral 
envelope; not the slightest trace of this is visible. The plant pro- 
duced no flowers differing from the one described. 

A few queries arise for the morphologist to solve. First, How are 
the petals represented in this instance? Secondly, Supposing them 
converted either into the four shorter stamens or the four longer sta- 


951 


mens, will there not then be a diminution of the aggregate number of 
parts? ‘Thirdly, Is it a doctrine of morphology that in a species or 
genus in which all the parts of the flower are normally present, one 
series of parts may be totally absent and unrepresented ? 

Clarkia pulchella frequently has the same aberration; and Lindley 
says that in Skinnera, an allied genus, the petals are always wanting. 


Epwarp NEWMAN. 
Devonshire St., City, June, 1850. 


A Catalogue of the Plants growing wild in Hampshire, with occa- 
sional Notes and Observations on some of the more remarkable 
Species. By WiLLiAM ARNOLD BromfieE_p, M.D., F.L.S., &c. 


(Continued from page 917). 


Tris Pseud-acorus. By river-sides, in shallow ditches, ponds, and 
low marshy or moory meadows; abundantly in all parts of the county 
and Isle of Wight. ! 
fetidissima. In groves, thickets, pastures, along hedges and 
borders of fields; extremely common in most parts of the Isle of 
Wight, but very rare on the mainland, excepting on or near the coast. 
Everywhere about Ryde, in Quarr Copse, Apse wood, &c. Profusely all 
over the Undercliff, to the verdant aspect of which in winter the tufts 
_of dark evergreen leaves most materially contribute. Woods, &c., 
about Cowes, Yarmouth, Freshwater and elsewhere, abundantly. 
Frequent, if I recollect right, about Southampton, towards Netley, 
_ but I have not paid much attention to its distribution in mainland 
Hants, where it is far less plentiful than on this side the Solent, even 
on the coast. Not unfrequent in Hayling Island. About Porchester 
and Porchester Castle. Bitterne (near Southton), Rev. Messrs. Gar- 
nier and Poulter in Hamp. Repos. Fontley, Mr. W. L. Notcutt. 
Extremely rare about Winchester, Dr. A. D. White. Ina lane be- 
twixt West Meon and Privet, Miss Sibley. I do not remember to 
have seen it in the west of the county, as at Lymington, Christchurch, 
or in any part of the New Forest; nor have I any station to record 
for the northern or eastern quarters, although doubtless it occurs 
here and there in all parts of Hants. Var. 8. citrina. Flowers of 
a uniform pale yellow. Of this most remarkable variety I met with 
a few plants in a wood near Yarmouth, in July, 1837, since which 
time I have never fallen in with it there or elsewhere. I long sup- 


952 


posed my specimens to be unique, but the same variety has been 
found in Dorsetshire by Mr. Joseph Woods the year before last, and 
in greater plenty (Phytol. iii. 264). In my specimens the flowers 
were of a uniform lemon yellow, verging upon white on the segments 
of the perianth, without the least of the usual purple colouring, or 
any trace of the dark pencilling, except a few faint veins of a some- 
what deeper colour than the ground. The still unopened buds were 
equally pale, but the plant possessed the smell and other characters 
of the species unaltered. ‘This singular variety much resembled the 
yellow-flowered one of I. spuria, 0. halophila of Curtis, Bot. Mag. vol. 
xlviii. t. 1131. I. foetidissima is a handsome species, less on account 
of the elegantly pencilled but rather small blossoms, than through the 
contrast of its rich evergreen leaves, of the deepest verdure, with the 
brilliant orange or scarlet, globose seeds, that remain very long 
attached to the widely spreading valves of the capsule, and together 
constitute a conspicuous ornament of our woods and hedgerows in 
autumn and early winter. The smell of the bruised leaves has been 
thought to resemble that of roast beef, and the plant has been com- 
plimented accordingly with the name of that national dish; by others 
the odour has been compared to rancid bacon,—dissimilar ones cer- 
tainly, and indicative of the ambiguity of impressions received through 
the weakest and most deceptive of the senses: the fact is, that both 
are so far analogous as they are animal nidor. To myself the smell is 
by no means unpleasant, recalling merely that of milk heated till a 
pellicle has formed on the surface, or has been slightly burnt. 

Crocus vernus and C. nudiflorus may possibly be found here, as 
well as in the meadows of central England: I believe from what I 
have seen of them there, that both are truly indigenous British 
species. 

?+Narcissus biflorus. In woods, thickets, meadows and pastures, 
on hedge-banks and in orchards, on clayey, sandy or chalky soil, in 
several parts of the Isle of Wight and mainland Hants, but whether 
indigenous or naturalized I am almost equally at a loss what opinion 
to form; certainly introduced in some at least of its stations. On 
clay in a meadow near Hardingshoot farm, in some plenty, along 
with N. Pseudo-narcissus and Tulipa sylvestris ; fully in flower, May 
2.1849. In fields on the west side of Gurnet Bay, near Cowes, in 
several places, but particularly about Hornhill Copse, where it grows 
in very considerable plenty on the grassy banks and borders of the 
fields, as also in the wood itself; in full flower, April 21, 1846. In 
several fields betwixt Wootton bridge and the church, but very spar- 


953 


ringly scattered, 1842. A single very large tuft in a marsh meadow 
behind Gurnet Bay, 1243. A solitary plant in a sandy arable field 
by Marvel Copse, near Newport, 1845. A specimen or two found in 
Marina Wood at Apley, by Ryde; the late A. T. S. Dodd, Esq. !! 
In a little copse near Place farm, W. Cowes, May, 1846; Miss G. E. 
Kilderbee. Field by Debborne farm, W. Cowes, in some plenty ; 
Ead.'!!—-(a suspicious station). Gurnet Wood, EHad.! In a field 
near Wilmingham, scarcely wild; Rev. James Penfold. On a hedge- 
bank near Thorley, far from any garden, but in very moderate quan- 
tity; Zd.!!! TI understand from Miss Clarke, of Yarmouth, that it 
grows very abundantly in a small field by the Yar, at the north-east 
angle of Thorley Copse, opposite Yarmouth Mill, as well as in the 
copse itself, 1846. Sparingly naturalized in a meadow nearly facing 
the stables at Steephill, Dr. G. A. Martin!!! On a sandy bank be- 
twixt Rookley and Pidford, Mrs. Jones. In orchards near West 
Meon, Mr. Wm. Pamplin. In several meadows about Hensting and 
Owslebury, apparently wild (Mr. Earwaker) ; /d. in New. Bot. Guide. 

How far the present species is indigenous to England it is very 
hard to say. It certainly occurs with us in places where it would be 
difficult to account for its introduction, and where it has perfectly the 
appearance of a native plant. The chief objections to receiving it as 
such are, its usually small quantity in any one station, frequently only 
two or three, or even a solitary tuft; and secondly, its not producing 
capsules, at least I have never seen them in any of the localities 
‘above recorded. The non-production of seed-vessels may, however, 
be habitual with this, as with many other plants of its order (Amaryl- 
lidacez), and even the following species, although an indubitable na- 
tive, fails to produce capsules wholly or partially in many of its 
localities, whilst in others nearly every individual ripens seed. N. 
biflorus is evidently propagated by bulbs, as is seen by the clusters of 
them of all sizes on digging up the tufts of leaves and flowering stems, 
whilst the common wild daffodil is but sparingly increased in this 
way, and hence the plants grow singly or but few together, forming 
but small clumps or none at all. Allium vineale abounds in certain 
pastures in this island, and its nativity cannot be questioned, yet in 
no one instance have I been able to find a flowering specimen amongst 
the thousands bearing heads of bulbs alone. Tulipa sylvestris, 
which I hold to be a true native in many parts of England, rarely 
flowers even, and still seldomer seeds, if indeed it ever does; and I be- 
lieve Fritillaria Meleagris, although a free flowerer, never, or very 
rarely, ripens seed in its native meadows. The same happens with 

VoL. It. 6G 


954 


Ornithogalum and various other bulbs, and hence the objection 
is more apparent than real. The Primrose peerless is a common in- 
habitant of gardens, and unquestionably often escapes, or is carried 
out from them with manure or refuse into the fields, where, as might 
be expected in an indigenous species, it obstinately maintains its 
ground, but this will not account so well for its appearance in woods 
and places remote from cultivation, for like the following this is a 
sylvestral as well as a pratal and septal plant. We may indeed sup- 
pose the bulbs to have been somehow carried into such sequestered 
Spots, or we may assume such spots to have been the sites of gardens 
in by-gone times, but in reasoning after this fashion we may refine 
away the claims of any species we please to consider an alien; such 
loose and illogical argument has done infinite harm already, being 
eagerly employed or acquiesced in by indolent or careless minds, 
that shrink from the labour of collecting and weighing evidence. 
But whilst we urge every fact that can in fairness be brought forward 
in support of the right of this or any other plant to be considered in- 
digenous, we are bound honestly to state anything that makes against 
our advocacy. N. biflorus possesses nothing approaching to the 
power of occupancy in this county displayed by the wild daffodil, 
neither have I ever seen it like that in our remote woodlands, but 
only in thickets or copses in the more enclosed or champaign dis- 
tricts, and there, as before observed, for the most part sparingly, never 
carpeting the ground like the other. These differences may indeed 
be innate and habitual to the species; still it cannot be denied that 
they form grounds for objecting, not unreasonably, to the reception of 
the two-flowered Narcissus into the list of our undisputed natives. I 
think, however, that Mr. Watson has not done well in branding it as 
an alien in his valuable ‘Cybele,’ and omitting the comital census, for 
if not an aboriginal few plants are more thoroughly naturalized than 
the Primrose peerless, and the rank of denizen should at least, I ap- 
prehend, have been assigned it as nothing more than its due. Ge- 
rarde (em. p. 181) observes, “ The common white* daffodil (his Prim- 
rose Pearles, No. 7, fig. p. 124) groweth wilde in fields and sides of 
woods in the west parts of England,” as we know it does at present. 
It is said to abound in meadows around Dublin, and I remember to 


* White is printed wilde in the text, evidently by mistake, since the figure referred 
_ to is our N. biflorus, and is there headed as above, besides which Gerarde alludes to 
our other native species, N. Pseudo-narcissus, further on, as the common yellow daf- 
fodil (p. 133, fig. 2), and says (p. 134) it “groweth almost euerie where through 
England.” 


955 


have observed the peasant children in Italy, when on my way from 
Rome to Florence, with large bouquets of this species, as ours might be 
seen with similar ones of N. Pseudo-narcissus. The smell of the 
Primrose peerless is very powerful, reminding one of the fragrant Mag- 
nolia glauca or grandiflora. The elegant Narcissus of the poets (N. 
poeticus) is partially naturalized on grassy slopes in the grounds of 
Norris Castle, by Cowes, but has been too evidently introduced there 
to find a place in the Hampshire Flora. It is very questionable 
whether this species be really native in any part of England ; its most 
truly natural stations are subalpine meadows and pastures in Italy 
and Switzerland, &c. 

Narcissus Pseudo-narcissus. In moist woods, groves, thickets, 
copses, meadows, pastures, orchards, and on grassy banks; truly indi- 
genous in many parts of the Isle of Wight, and on the mainland. 
Plentiful in Quarr Copse, especially at the end nearest the abbey and 
in the area of the abbey walls. Sparingly in Apley (Marina) Wood, 
and wood along the shore betwixt Ryde and Binstead. With N. bi- 
florus in a field near Hardingshoot farm. Abundant in Firestone 
Copse and Chillingwood Copse. In considerable plenty in one part 
of Puckett’s Copse, between Quarr and Ninham. On this station 
many of the flowers were concolorous, or having the segments of the 
perianth coloured like the crown or cup. In very great profusion un- 
derneath the rookery at Nunwell Field, by Guildford farm, near Haver- 
street; also ina field by Ninham, and another by Coppid Hall. The 
above stations are all near Ryde, and mostly on stiff clay. Wood 
near St. Helen’s, and covers acres of ground in Centurion’s Copse, 
near Bembridge, which is perfectly carpeted with daffodils in spring. 
Covers the grassy slope of the mount on which Gadshill church 
stands on the north and east sides as with a sheet of gold. On 
bushy banks and slopes at Ventnor, behind the Ventnor Hotel, but 
not seen of late years. In Gurnard or Gurnet Copse, near Cowes, 
sparingly. Abundant in a little copse near Woodhouse Farm, Fern- 
hill. Very fine, and in vast profusion* aJl over a wood chiefly of 
beech, known as Bottom Wood, occupying a valley between two 
slopes close to Sandford, near Godshill, on the south side of the vil- 
lage, and in a large pasture-field adjoining; also in several fields 
about Winson Farm. Hedge-banks and borders of fields along 


* Many of the plants here are concolorous or of an uniform golden yellow; the 
greater part, however, retain the whitish hue of the perianth. This is the N. Pseudo- 
narcissus, 8. of Bertoloni, Fl. Ital. iv. p. 18 et 19, or possibly our var. y. 


956 


the road at Sandford and at Appuldurcombe. Plentiful between the 
second and third milestone out of Newport to Godshill, and at Chil- 
lerton, Mr. G. Kirkpatrick!!! Near Swainston, Rev. W. Darwin 
Fox. Near Freshwater, Rev. James Penfold. Occasionally in 
other parts of the island. I have few localities to give for this plant 
on mainland Hants, because my correspondents have not furnished 
me with them, and the species flowers much earlier than I am in the 
habit of being in that part of the county myself; * I am certain, 
nevertheless, that it is quite frequent in Hants, perhaps as common 
over the water asit.is here. I have seen it in fields near Southamp- 
ton, and at Pilley, near Boldre, and found what I have no doubt were 
the leaves in a meadow at Nately, near Basingstoke, in May last, but 
the leaves die down so quickly after the flowers that the plant escapes 
detection by summer herborizers.t| Meadows at Highclere and East 
Woodhay, J. B. in Cat. of Pls. of Newbury. With varieties (what 
varieties?) between Bishop’s Waltham and Botley, left side of the road, 
within a hedge near a farm-house, Rev. E. M. Sladen (perhaps an es- 
cape from gardens only). Plentiful by the river-side near Christ- 
church, Pulteney. Var. 8. flowers double or semi-double. N. Pseudo- 
nar. 0. Bertol. Fl. Ital. iv. p. 18. Here and there occasionally with 
the common single state, but very rarely, and seldom more than a spe- 
cimen or two in the same station. A solitary clump in Centuriocn’s 
Copse, amongst thousands of the single sort, and a very double, but 
certainly wild specimen on a bank near Yaverland, a few years since. 
More frequent in meadows and pastures near habitations, escaped 
from gardens, and then usually of larger size. Field near Bem- 
bridge Farm, in some abundance. Field at Woodvale, W. Cowes, 
and elsewhere, naturalized. In this wild double variety the perianth 
segments are always of a full yellow, like the cup or crown, and in 
this state cannot distinguish it from the common great yellow daffo- 
dil of the gardens, although that is supposed to be a different species, 
the N. major of the ‘ Botanical Magazine, and a native of Spain. 
The leaves of the garden daffodil are greener or less glaucous in gene- 


* In the extraordinary mild season of 1846, the wild daffodil was in full flower 
near Ryde soon after the middle of February, nearly a mou before its accustomed 
time in this part of England. 

+ Clusius informs us that in his time N. Pseudo-narcissus “grew in such abun- 
dance in the meadows close to London, that in that celebrated village (as he calls it) 
of Ceapside (Cheapside) the countrywomen offered the flowers in profusion for sale in 
March, when all the taverns might be seen decked out with those blossoms.” Rar. 
Plant. Hist. p. 164. 


957 


ral than those of the wild kind, but I think I have remarked consider- 
able difference in this respect between individuals of the latter, and 
the character is one too slight to lay much stress upon, being proba- 
bly dependent on circumstances of soil or culture. Var. y. minor. 
concolorous, segments of the perianth nearly flat, but little spreading ; 
plant smaller. N. Pseudo-narcissus, Brot. FI. Lusit. i. p. 549, or N. 
Pseudo-narcissus, 8. Bertol. Fl. Ital. (ut infra)? Plentifully on the 
high, steep and bushy bank behind Apse Farm, overlooking the gar- 
den, in which it also grows plentifully, though appearing rather 
to have descended to the grass plats beneath, than to have escaped 
from the garden in which it has not become double. Differs from 
the common state of the plant in having the perianth segments of 
almost as deep a yellow as the cup, much less spreading, nearly 
plane and scarcely at all twisted, narrower, firmer or less membrana- 
ceous in texture, rounded or somewhat obtuse, with a minute but very 
distinct apiculus. The whole plaut, although variable in size, is 
much smaller than the common form, which last is, I have little 
doubt, the N. bicolor of Brotero, whilst our present variety is the N. 
Pseudo-narcissus of the same author, and, as the late Professor Don 
(to whom I showed it) thought, of Linneus also. It almost seems to 
connect our ordinary wild form with the N. minor of the gardens, but 
that is a very distinct and well-marked species, which is certainly not 
the case with the variety we are now considering. 

The single wild daffodil, sharing the distrust so absurdly evinced 
towards almost all our handsomer native flowers, has been supposed 
of exotic origin, and to have been introduced by the monks in early 
times, from being so often found near the ruins of monasteries; but 
it is unquestionably indigenous to the south and middle of England, 
and to most parts of Europe between the Mediterranean and the 
Baltic, as far north as 54°, but scarcely higher, being wanting all over: 
Scandinavia and (except in a few suspicious places) in Denmark pro- 
per. Here, it occurs profusely in the most sequestered localities, al- 
though in earlier ages, when our gardens could boast of but little 
variety, the more showy productions of our fields and groves would 
naturally attract attention from the horticulturist, and escaping from 
his care, be subsequently found established as often in the vicinity 
of his operations as in their more natural localities. The approaches 
to Ryde may be seen in early spring bestrewn with the simple yet 
elegant blossoms of the daffodil, dropped by chance or flung by 
caprice from the hand of childhood, just as I have seen the streets of 
Nottingham at the same season sprinkled with the lovely spoils of 


958 


the spring crocus, waifs from the empurpled meads below. From their 
flowering about that time, daffodils are called in Hants and other 
parts of the country Lenten lilies, corrupted in some places into Lan- 
tern lilies. Daffodil, or, as Turner writes it, Affodill, is plainly a 
mere corruption of Asphodel, Asphodelus, Acgoénaos, a word applied 
to many plants belonging to this and allied natural orders, the Coro- 
nari of Linneus. The flowers of our common wild daffodil are re- 
ported to be poisonous; the bulbs, as in most of the plants of the 
order, are acrimonious, and it is said emetic. 

The beautiful summer Snowflake (Leucojum estivum) will very 
probably be found to inhabit this county. It grows in the adjacent 
ones of Berks and Dorset; in the former near Reading, and in the 
latter near Kingston Hall, as I have been informed by its finder, J. 
C. Dale, Esq. It should be looked for in moist meadows, by streams, 
&c. I found this species in universal cultivation in the gardens of 
Charleston (U. 8.) as the snowdrop, and had some trouble to persuade 
the people there that it was not the-true plant so called in Europe, 
which cannot endure even the winter of that sultry climate. 

+Galanthus nivalis. In meadows and pastures, on banks, amongst 
brushwood, in groves, thickets, and hedges in close Janes, also (natu- 
ralized) in orchards and on grass-plats, &c. In several parts of the 
Isle of Wight, but scarcely in any where it is quite above suspicion of 
having escaped from cultivation. In great profusion on the steep 
wooded banks of Snowdrop Lane, immediately west of Gatcombe 
Park, between that and Ganson’s or Gaskin’s Barn; and in almost 
equal abundance at Gillman’s, near Champion’s; Mr. G. Kirk- 
patrick!!! Ina little wood by the Yar, near Thorley, and its east 
bank below Freshwater Mill, in plenty; Rev. James Penfold!!! At 
King’s Quay, Id. Banks by the road-side before coming to Chale 
from Blackgang, in great abundance; Dr. A. G. Martin. Field near 
Shorwell, Mr. Mark Taylor. I am told it grows in several places 
about Chillerton, and in various spots adjoining to Gatcombe Park. 
Naturalized under trees beneath the rookery at Nunwell; Mr. J. 
Lawrence !!! At the grove by Adgeton, near Brading (naturalized) ; 
the late Lady Brenton !! I find few memoranda amongst my notes 
of any station for the snowdrop on mainland Hants, yet I can scarcely 
doubt of its growing, either indigenous or naturalized, in many places 
therein. From its early flowering and quick disappearance after- 
wards, its haunts are in general known only to the resident, and not 
to the passing botanist, which in a great degree accounts for my 
ignorance of its distribution out of the island. Not uncommon ap- 


959 


parently about Twyford, near Winchester, but only seen by me there 
in suspicious places, as in the grove opposite Twyford House, and at 
Twyford Lodge, also in plenty all along a hedge adjoining the church- 
yard at Compton. Frequent about Hambledon, Miss L. Minchin. 
The snowdrop may be truly indigenous in some of its Isle-of-Wight 
stations, as that of Snowdrop Lane has greatly the aspect of a native 
locality ; nevertheless, I am inclined to hold it rather as an intro- 
duced but perfectly naturalized species here, because I have never 
seen it in sequestered woods like the wild daffodil, or on old virgin 
turf or pasture land, as in many parts of England, where I believe it 
to be a genuine aboriginal. ‘The parallels of southern and a great 
part of central Europe are the true zone of Galanthus,* or from 35° to 
about 55° of latitude, and therefore I do not see any excuse for those 
who refuse to admit its aboriginality on the score merely of its being 
a common garden plant, and often an escape from cultivation, as it 
would the more naturally and frequently be on that very account. 
In this island the snowdrop forms but does not mature capsules and 
seeds, at least I have never been able to procure them in a ripe con- ~ 
dition: the rapid increase of the plant by bulbs quite accounts for 
this. The flowers have a faint but delicate fragrance not commonly 
noticed. 

Asparagus officinalis. On sandy sea-shores; rare. On loose sand 
of the Spit at Norton, Freshwater, not in very great abundance, but 
much more plentiful now than it was some years back, when there 
were hardly a dozen plants to be seen. It must, however, have ex- 
isted there for a great length of time, if it is the same station intended 


* It will be necessary for me here to explain what I understand by southern, 
central and northern Europe, since these divisions have been used in so loose and ar- 
bitrary a manner, that Britain is by some held to form part of the second, by others 
of the third division. The most obvious and natural partition will be to divide the 
entire latitudinal extent of Europe comprising 36 degrees (including Candia on the 
south), by 3, which gives us as many regions of 12 degrees each in breadth, which may 
be thus defined :— 


Southern Europe 35° to 47° 
Central Europe 47° to 59° 
Northern Europe 59° to 71° 10' N. Cape ; 


the medial line of the whole continent passing through lat. 53° 5’, or a little to the 
south of Dublin and Liverpool, which, if we adopt with some but two divisions into 
north and south Europe, will be the exact parallel of demarcation between the boreal 
and austral regions of our quarter of the globe, each comprising 18° 5’ of latitude, 


960 


by the authors of the Catalogue of Plants in the ‘ Hampshire Reposi- 
tory’ (erroneously attributed to Pulteney) given below. It was sub- 
sequently noticed there by Mr. D. Snooke!!! A single plant on the 
shore at the mouth of the Wooton River, June, 1842. A few plants 
on the shore west of the houses at Ryde, Mr. W. Wilson Saunders !!! 
(Probably a garden outcast). At Christchurch and Freshwater, Isle 
of Wight, Rev. Messrs. Garnier and Poulter, in ‘ Hampshire Reposi- 
tory... ITremember to have once picked a specimen on the muddy 
shore near Southampton. Flowers often imperfect, the styles ob- 
solete. 

Convallaria Polygonatum. In woods and copses; a doubtful in- 
habitant of this county. Chawton Park, near Alton, Mr. J. Woods, 
Jun., in Bot. Guide. In May, 1848, I carefully searched the woods 
at Chawton for a whole day, but could net meet with this rare spe- 
cies. On applying last year to Mr. Woods for further particulars and 
directions to the spot, that gentleman stated that he had an indistinct 
recollection of gathering this species near Chawton, but that at this 
distance of time he could neither recall the locality to mind, or speak 
confidently with regard to the plant itself. Woods at Rotherfield 
Park, Miss Scott. Since, however, this Convallaria grows, it is 
said, in coppices about Alderbury, in the contiguous county of Wilts, 
(and is found in Kent, Somerset, and other southern counties), there 
seems no reason why it should not be equally indigenous to Hants. 
I remarked, whilst looking for the plant about Chawion, that small 
specimens of C. multiflora sometimes put on the aspect of C. Polygo- 
natum, the leaves in such examples being broader and more erect (or 
parallel to the stem) than is usual in the former, where the leaves are 
commonly reflected in pairs from the stems, and stand conjoined like 
wings at a considerable angle to it, uncovering the latter throughout. 
May not this resemblance, which I found very tantalizing, often occa- 
sion C. Polygonatum to be passed by for the above form, or rather 
state, of C. multiflora, which is far from uncommon? I suspect this 
last may be the Polygonatum humile Anglicum of Ray’s Synopsis, 
found by Mr. Philip Moore, gardener of Gray’s Inn, in the woods of 
Wiltshire, according to Bobart, and by the same person in those of 
Hampshire, according to Morison (Hist. Plant. iii. p. 537), who says, 
on a view of specimens received by him from Hants, that it differs 
from the common Solomon’s seal only in its smaller size and 
stature. 

Convallaria multiflora. 1n woods, copses, groves, thickets, and 
shady pastures, both on the dry, chalky uplands, and in low, damp 


961 


clayey or even wet situations; extremely common over a great part 
of the county, but with our other British species wholly absent from 
the Isle of Wight. In West Wood (or Weston Wood ?), by Netley 
Abbey, at Mansbridge and elsewhere about Southampton. Common 
in woods at Langrish, Bordean Hill, Privet, Tigwell and elsewhere 
near Petersfield, also in woods about Bishop’s Waltham, Alresford, 
Botley, Fareham, Shidfield, Boarhunt, Alton (Akender Wood and 
Chawton Park), Winton (at Twyford, Chilcombe, &c.), Pen Wood, 
Highclere, and Appleshaw. Woods about Bramdean, Withering. 
Under the walls of Silchester, Mr. Fordon in B.G. Woods by 
-_ Bramdean, Doody. Generally dispersed, I believe, over the whole of 
-” Hants, with the apparent exception of the south-western or New- 
Forest district, in which I do not remember ever to have noticed it. 
Gigantic specimens occur here and there in our woods, three feet 
high, with stems as thick as swan-quills, and leaves and flowers in 

proportion. 
Convallaria majalis. In woods, thickets and moist shady places ; 
not found in the Isle of Wight, and far from common in mainland 
Hants, although I have good reason to believe that very few of its 
stations only are known to me. In a large hollow in Churcher’s Is- 
land, near Wickham, and at Shidfield, Miss Chapman !!! Near Shid- 
field Common, in a copse east of the parsonage at the upper end 
nearest the road to Droxford, Miss Hawkins. I suspect this station 
and the last are the same. Abundant in Parnell or Parnholt Wood, 
near Farley, Miss A. M. Yonge!!! Dr. A. D. White finds.it in more 
than one spot in this wood, where the flowers have stains of dull red 
or crimson at the bottom, as noticed by Mr. R. W. Smith, of Winton. 
Wherwell Wood, near Andover, Mr. Wm. Whale. Lord’s Wood, 
between Southton and Romsey, in plenty, Miss L. Minchin. Pen 
wood (Highclere Park ?), Cat. of Pls. of Newbury. Stony places on 
the common under Cesar’s Camp, 1844, Mr. W. W. Reeves (in litt.). 
I am told it grows in a wood near Holywell House, in the vicinity of 
the first station, called in consequence the Lily Wood, but I am not 
sure whether this and the two other localities of Wickham and Shid- 
field are not all one and the same: there is some confusion between 
“them. At Shidfield, about a mile from Wickham, the lily of the 
valley is abundantly scattered over the copse in a damp sandy loam, 
but of very small growth, and hardly above one plant in fifty producing 
flowers. In Parnholt Wood, where it grows chiefly under beeches in 
dark friable soil, I found it still more shy of flowering, not one in a 
hundred producing blossom, but Dr. White finds it in abundant 

VOL. iii. 6 H 


962 


flower in other parts of that most extensive wood!!! Many other sta- 
tions I have no doubt exist in the county, where, 


““Wrapt in verdure, fragrant lilies blow,— 
Lilies that love the vale and hide their bells of snow.” 


Ruscus aculeatus. In woods, thickets, copses, in bushy, heathy 
pastures, on hedge-banks and borders of fields; frequent. Very 
common in many parts of the Isle of Wight; plentiful about Ryde 
in various places, in Quarr Copse, Apley Wood, Shore Copse, woods 
along the Wootton River, &c. Very large and abundant in Gurnard 
Wood, by W. Cowes. Extremely plentiful in dry copses about 
Newchurch, as at Skinner’s Hill, Hill Copse, Alverston Lynch, Bord- 
wood, &c. Woods in the Undercliff occasionally, but not very com- 
mon there, and much more frequent in East than in West Medina, 
preferring apparently the clay of the eocene or tertiary beds to either 
the chalk or greensand. Common in some parts of mainland Hants, 
and I think of universal distribution over the county. Portsea Island, 
and very common in hedges in Hayling Island. About Clayhall and 
Alverstoke, near Grange farm, and elsewhere in Stoke’s Bay. About 
Southampton, not uncommon. Sowley and elsewhere in the New 
Forest; probably abundant in that district. In Anfield Wood (near 

‘Winton), near one of the principal drives, Mr. Wm. Whale. Amongst 
furze near Hasted, by Hursley, and on the Otterbourne road (from 
Hursley ?), nearly opposite the corner where is the waterfall at the 
end of Mr. Chamberlayne’s park, Jd. Hurne (near Christchurch), 
Mr. Curtis in litt. and Brit Entom. xi. t. 489. The Salterns; Puxol 
lane ; Gosport road ; Hill Copse, Mr. W. L. Notcutt. Of this plant 
we have two principal varieties, but connected by intermediate grada- 
tions. Var. a. Leaves (or rather phyllodia), narrow, subelliptic-lan- 
ceolate. Var. @. Leaves broadly ovato-elliptical. Both these forms 
are about equally common, and are analogous to similar ones of the 
common myrtle. I suppose the var. laxus of Smith in Linn. Trans. 
and Engl. Fl. to be some slight deviation from the common narrow- 
leaved form, @., with less erect branches than usual, but I find no- 
thing in the station assigned for it (Stoke’s Bay) at all differing from 
the species in its ordinary phases. The flowers of this species are in 
reality axillary, on peduncles several times their own length, running 
beneath the epidermis of the flattened branchlet or phyllodium, and 
appearing as if sessile on the disk of the latter, at or about its centre. 
Analogy with other species of the genus leads us to regard this sub- 
cuticular peduncle as the common stalk of a raceme, of which only 


963 


one, or at most a pair, of flowers are developed at a time at its free 
extremity, the rest expanding as they are successively protruded, as 
is obvious from their production for a long time together from the 
same point, as well as from the remains of the pedicels and bracts, 
not to mention the nascent buds amongst which the later flowers are 
seated. The flowers are often produced as early as January if the 
weather be tolerably mild, and the large, cherry-like, bright scarlet 
and polished berries remain attached through the winter, making a 
fine appearance in the woods, but readily drop off when handled. 
Butchers are said to make use of it in some parts of England for 
driving away, and perhaps impaling on its excessively acute spines, 
the flies that settle on their meat and chopping-blocks. The more 
gentle of the craft with us are contented to deck their mighty Christ- 
mas sirloins with the berry-bearig sprigs, and it contributes at that 
season, with holly, misseltoe and other evergreens, to the decoration 
of our churches and houses. Its common name in this island is 
Knee Holm. The stems, though so hard and stiff, scarcely, I think, 
survive beyond the second or third year. The common Butcher’s- 
broom is unable to resist a degree of cold much beyond that of our 
English winters, and therefore, like Tamus, its line of distribution is 
deflected towards the south-east upon the continent, where it is rather 
a plant of southern than central Europe. 

+Tulipa sylvestris. In clayey or chalky meadows and pastures ; 
very rare, and perhaps not really indigenous, at least to the only Isle- 
of-Wight station I know for it at present. In a large moist meadow 
on clay a little south-east of Hardingshoot farm, a few miles from 
Ryde, Feb. 25, 1846, just coming into flower. .The plant here is in 
very moderate quantity, although apparently quite wild, occurring 
sparingly scattered over a rather limited area, associated with the 
single wild daffodil (Narcissus Pseudo-narcissus) and tolerable plenty 
of the Primrose peerless (N. biflorus). The meadow is on the (plas- 
tic?) clay, but contiguous to the chalk formation at Nunwell, and 
hence the soil probably contains calcareous earth as a constituent in 
small proportion. One or two only of the plants flower, I believe, 
annually. Mr. Wm. Whale showed me at Andover a specimen of the 
wild tulip, which he had received from a lady who gathered it in the 
Isle of Wight, but no station was given on the label. It probably 
lurks undetected in some of our chalky pastures, pits and hollows, 
from the difficulty of seeing it excepting at a very early season of the 
year, before the leaves have died away, or the rather uncommon 
flowers are past. Plentifully in an orchard at Breamore (near Fording- 


964 


bridge), Mr. J. Hussey (naturalized probably). This is the only 
mainland station I have on record, but others less exceptionable will 
in course of time be discovered. I see no reason to doubt that the 
wild tulip is indigenous to Britain; in some parts of England it 
abounds in chalky pastures, and is the species appropriated to west- 
ern Europe, just as T. biflora, altaica, &c. ave to eastern Europe and 
Siberia, under our parallels. The sole cause for suspecting the Isle- 
of-Wight station is the fact of the meadow in which it grows being 
close to the site of a small farm-house, now many years destroyed, 
called Little Hardingshoot, but I have no evidence of the spot in 
which the tulip is found, or any other part of the field, having ever 
been garden-ground, nor is there the smallest trace of a garden visible 
at this day. I nevertheless consider it incumbent on me to state, in 
cases like the present, the remotest suspicion that may arise on the 
question of the spontaneity of any plant enumerated in our county 
flora: the ends of science can only be promoted by the unreserved 
communication of every doubt, however slight, and by holding with 
strict impartiality the balance of argument in which are weighed the 
claims of species to be called indigenous, not failing to declare when 
the beam inclines ever so little against us. 

Fries tells us that the wild tulip so abounds in innumerable places 
in the Swedish province of Scania, as in early spring to cover the 
ground as if thickly sown with corn (segetis instar stipata), but rarely 
flowering and quickly withering away. He thinks geographical rea- 
sons opposed to its being truly aboriginal in that part of Europe (lat. 
553), but that objection does not apply to the south and middle of 
England, which is quite within the proper zone of Tulipa sylvestris, 
whatever may be the case with Scania. Fries observes that the plant 
was well known to Linneus a century ago, who, according to him, was 
disposed to hold it native there (haud advenam declaravit), Corpus 
Fl. Provin. Suec. Scan. p. 170. But Linneus appears to me to have 
held rather the contrary opinion, for he says (Fl. Suec. edit. 2, 106) 
“ex hortis non pridem aufuga,” an ambiguous wording, since pridem 
means both lately and long ago, but in both senses the escape from 
gardens is directly asserted by him. 

Fritillaria Meleagris. In damp meadows, pastures, woods and 
thickets; rare. Not found hitherto in the Isle of Wight. Sparingly 
in a moist meadow belonging to and opposite the residence of J. K. 
Jonas, Esq., about half a mile out of Bishop’s Waltham, on the road 
to Gosport, Miss L. Minchin!!! Very sparingly in Tangier Park, 
near Basingstoke, Miss Orde, 1848. In all the woods round Strath- 


965 


fieldsaye (the Duke of Wellington’s), on the northern limit of the 
county, but in more abundance in the park, Miss E. Sibley!!! Here 
the Fritillary grows by tens of thousands in the wet pasture and 
meadow land, scattered over a vast acreage of the park, but most 
abundantly towards the north-west end, and in the wet meadows be- 
yond it, on ‘the other side of the road (L believe in Berks, or in an 
outlying portion of Wilts). The varieties with purple and white 
flowers occur in pretty nearly equal proportion, and in a swampy 
thicket at the north end of the park I gathered most luxuriant speci- 
mens eighteen or twenty inches high. It has been long known to 
grow near Reading, in the conterminous county of Berks and only a 
few miles from Strathfieldsaye, and two other stations are given for it 
in that county in the ‘ Catalogue of Newbury Plants’ several times 
referred to in these Notes. I have not ascertained that the species 
grows in all the woods about Strathfieldsaye, and believe my friend 
speaks from the report of others, but it certainly does grow in wet 
thickets there, and from what is recorded of a station further on it 
would seem to be a sylvestral as well as a pratal plant in Hants. At 
Bishop’s Waltham, Mr. Jonas tells me, the children gather the Fritil- 
lary for their May-day garlands, yet, in proof of the incurious nature 
of the Hampshire peasantry, I could not find any one at Strathfield- 
saye who knew its name; some called the plants snowdrops (the 
white variety), others daffodils, whilst the rest pronounced them to 
be cowslips! The station at Droxford given in this journal (Phytol. 
ii. 998) I understand since to be erroneous, or at least doubtful. 
“Said to grow in Marvel Wood (near Winton ?), but I have searched 
more than once for it without success,” Dr. A. D. White (in litt.). 
So elegant a plant as the Fritillary, and one of so unusual an aspect 
and comparative rarity, could not of course escape suspicion of being 
an imported foreigner with that rather numerous class of persons who 
appear to think Cowper’s “ fields without a flower”* no poetic ampli- 
fication of the comparative deficiency of our British soil in the 
choicer productions of the more favoured climates of France and 
Spain. But here, as in other instances, their incredulity is founded 
on misapprehension of the true nature and geographical range of the 
species. Beauty of form and colour are so inseparably connected in 
our minds with warmth of climate, because we see both developed in 
the highest degree where the influence of such climatic condition is 
greatest, that we are apt to assume the latter to be in all cases indis- 


* Task ; thesTime-piece. 


966 


pensable to the production of the former, and to conclude that every 
plant, endowed with those attributes of gracefulness of form or rich- 
ness and variety of hues above its fellows in the field, must have 
migrated from a climate in which alone we fancy plants so attractive 
could have originated spontaneously. We may excuse the non-bota- 
nical world for making that absolute and unexceptional which as a 
general proposition holds true in the main, and only smile at their 
crude speculations and traditions to account for the presence of cer- 
tain southern types of vegetation which mingle in our flora with the 
predominant and more northern forms ;* but it does seem surprizing 
to find botanists who have the means of comparing the vegetation of 
our own with that of adjacent countries continue to suspect or reject, 
because their forefathers suspected or rejected, plants evidently pro- 
per to our zone and climate. Many tropical genera, as Passiflora, 
Dioscorea, and even tropical families, as palms, have one or more 
outlying species that extend far into the temperate zone, and the 
same holds good with plants having their chief seat in the south of 
Europe, species of which extend into central or even northern Europe ; 
such are Narcissus, Muscari, Gladiolus, Iris, Daphne and many more, 
all of which have representatives in the middle parallels of our con- 
tinent, and why not equally in Britain? I do not mean to say that 
every such outlying or northern species when found in Britain must 
forthwith be set down as indigenous, because its natural limits in 
other European countries are under a latitude as high as our own, for 
it is well known that plants have their distribution governed almost 
as much by longitude as by latitude; but this I do mean to assert, 
that when a species is discovered in reasonable abundance in this 
country which is known to inhabit a nearly or equally high latitude 
on the continent, and occurs here in situations perfectly analogous 
with those it affects abroad, unless some good cause can be shown 
why it is not likely to be indigenous, such as the vicinity of gardens, 
or proof of recent importation, &c., it does strike me as an absurd 
and needless refinement in scepticism to refuse such species the full 


* Many plants common in the south and west of England, such as Erica ciliaris, 
Agrostis setacea, Briza minor, Rubia peregrina, Gastridium lendigerum and Tamus 
communis, are in fact more truly southern species than most of those which it is the 
fashion to suspect as aliens, but then they have not the misfortune, like these, to be 
objects of cultivation for their beauty or other qualities, as in the case of such geally 
more northern plants as the hop, mezereon, Martagon lily, our two hellebores, co- 
lumbines, &c., which have all some enemy or other panes! British botanist to inva- 
lidate or deny mee title to citizenship. ® 


967 


acknowledgement of citizenship. I will give what I consider an instance 
in point. The starch hyacinth (Muscart racemosum) is set down by 
Mr. Watson in the ‘ Cybele’ as an alien, without a query expressed, 
and with the omission of the usual comital census. Mr. Babington 
marks it in the ‘Manual’ asa doubtful, and Sir Wm. Hooker as a 
certainly introduced, plant. Now why should this be so ?—Muscari 
racemosum is found in sandy fields and grassy places throughout 
southern and central Europe, in the west as well as the east in Bel- 
gium, France, Germany, &c., being the most common and northern 
species of its genus. I gathered it in April, 1835, in profusion over 
a great extent of sandy ground, and in fallow-fields at Cavenham 
(pronounced Canham), eight miles north-west of Bury, in Suffolk, be- 
tween that town and Mildenhall, where it is certainly native and 
quite a weed in that neighbourhood, and I was told at Pakenham and 
Hengrave likewise. See also E. Gillingham’s ‘ Account of Bury,’ 
1804, p. 288. Now upon what principle do those act who doubt or 
reject this plant as belonging to the British Flora? Upon none that 
I can imagine, except that it is rare, or rather very local, in this 
country ; that being a frequent object of cultivation as an ornamental 
flower in British gardens, it is assumed. to have become naturalized 
from that source, and lastly, from a vague, unquestioned opinion that 
it is a species proper to the south of Europe, and therefore not likely 
or even possible to be indigenous with us. For my own part, I am 
fully persuaded Muscari racemosum is a genuine native of the east of 
England, and that the very long known station on the earthy ledge of 
the old city wall of Norwich isa natural one. As to the objected 
silence of old authors on this and other modern additions to the Bri- 
tish Flora, I have before showu (Phytol. iii. 622) how untenable that 
argument is and irreconcileable with fact, for once admit it, and what 
becomes of the claim of such undenied and undeniable British plants 
as Lobelia urens, Erica ciliaris, Briza minor, Euphorbia hyberna, 
Trichonema Columne, and many besides, that from their local distri- 
bution escaped notice in England up to a late or comparatively late 
period? TI have also shown, under Campanula (Phytol. iti. 129), how 
plants of a continental or eastern distribution become scarce or local 
in westerly and insular countries, or fail there altogether; but that is 
no reason why they should not, as we see they do, occur partially and 
sporadically in such regions, or for our refusing to own them for na- 
tives when found. Now let us see how the case stands with the more 
immediate subject of these remarks, the Fritillaria Meleagris. This 
species needs not so much defence against the sceptics as some others, 


968 


being pretty generally recognized as a native at the present day by 
our leading botanists. Still there are dissentients, or those inclined 
to be so. Mr. Watson, in ‘ Cybele Britannica,’ wavers somewhat yet. 
No one, I think, who has seen the Fritillary in many of its English 
habitats could reasonably doubt its nativity, but we will take up our 
old position and tower of strength in the geographical distribution of 
the genus. The Fritillaries have their chief seat in the northern 
temperate zone, either on high mountains towards the south, or in 
low plains, at or near the sea level, towards their northern limit: they 
are, in fact, plants of cool and even cold climates. We find under 
our own parallels, or between fifty and sixty degrees of latitude, spe- 
cies of the genus appropriated to every part of the world. In Europe 
we possess F. Meleagris all over the west, ranging in Norway and 
Sweden to about lat. 60°, and eastward to the confines of Asia, where, 
in Siberia, it is replaced by F. verticillata and F. minor (Ledeb. FI. 
Altaica), and at the furthest eastern extremity of that continent in 
Kamtschatka, and on the opposite western shores and isles of Ame- 
rica by F. Kamtschatcencis and F. lanceolata (Hook. Fl. Bor. Am.). 
These species, like our own, inhabit the plains and low grounds, and 
are strictly the analogues of F’. Meleagris in their respective countries. 

+? Lilium Martagon. In woods, copses and thickets; very rare. 
Not known in the Isle of Wight. Discovered about fifty-six years 
ago by Capt Charles Robinson, R.N., late of Swanmore Cottage, 
near Bishop’s Waltham, now of Greenwich Hospital, in a wood near 
Durley. Capt. R. obligingly communicated to me the following par- 
ticulars in a letter from himself, dated July 26, 1848 :—“ It is now 
many years since I discovered the Martagon in some abundanee in 
the large wood on the Durley estate, called Durley Wood, through 
which a small rivulet passed and ran into the river running (into ?) 
the pond at Bishop’s Waltham, opposite or nearly so to Calcot House, 
then the residence of — Clewer, Esq., of Botley. Many specimens 
of this plant have since been obtained by others from the same loca- 
lity; whether there are any at present I really cannot (say), since .... * 
it being now full fifty-four years since I first discovered it in the before- 
mentioned wood.” Last summer I searched in Durley Wood for the 
Martagon lily without success, but time did not then permit of more 
than an imperfect examination of the wood, which is very considerable 
in extent and irregular in form: I trust to be able to renew the search 
for this fine plant, and hope others residing near or visiting Bishop’s 


* TI cannot decypher some few words in Capt. R.’s letter. 


969 


Waltham may be induced to assist me in again bringing it to light. 
Its usual place of growth, amongst thick brushwood, often veils it 
from the passer-by even when in flower. Whether the Martagon Lily 
is really indigenous in Durley Wood, or simply naturalized, I cannot 
pretend to say, but in most parts of that wood, were I to meet with 
the lily in any quantity, I should judge it a natural locality, disposed, 
as I am, to contend for its claim to be held a true native of the east 
and south-east of England. In support of this view, I take the pre- 
cise line of argument employed in the case of Daphne Mezereum, and 
therefore need not recapitulate all that has been said by me on that 
and other disputed species. I look on the claims of the Mezereon and 
Martagon to be as nearly the same as can be; the sole objection that 
I have to urge against the admission of both into the list of acknow- 
ledged natives, being the failure of each of these plants towards the 
coast countries of the west of Europe and in the meridians of the Bri- 
tish Isles. Otherwise their distribution accords here with their dis- 
persion on the continent, for both inhabit the same parts of central 
Kurope from the western confines of Germany across the entire con- 
tinent into Siberia. Towards the south, Lilium Martagon is an inha- 
bitant, like most of the genus, of subalpine woods, but descends into 
the plains or to low elevations in the middle parts of Europe and 
Asia, growing in copses and bushy places precisely as with us. It 
seems to be absent from Belgium proper and from the north-west of 
France, but is indicated by Von Hall (Fl. Belg. Sept.) as found in the 
wood of the Hague, and possibly spontaneous there. Fries (Corp. 
Fl. Prov. Suec. Scan. p. 169) gives it as abounding in pratal thickets 
(dumetis pratensibus) at the foot of hills in one or two places in Sca- 
nia, and remarks that in Germany it is truly indigenous wherever there 
are primitive mountains, nor will he deny the possibility of its being 
native to Sweden also. L. Martagon is indeed the most common and 
widely diffused species of the genus in Europe, and if not strictly (as, 
however, I am inclined to believe) an aboriginal Briton, it is yet so 
thoroughly naturalized, and its stations are now so numerous, that it 
is deserving of better treatment than to be put upon the alien list, and, 
as if a casual stray from the garden merely, deprived of its rank of 
denizen and privilege of comital representation in the ‘ Cybele Britan- 
nica.’ This species of lily has been in cultivation universally since 
the year 1596, and in all probability long before that time. Sup- 
posing it to be merely naturalized with us, it is highly improbable 
that it should have become so only at a later day, and hence it must 
have existed, as at present, in many of our woods without being 
VoL. II. 6 1 


970 


observed, for perhaps a couple of centuries or more. Most of the 
recorded stations are of very recent date, but it is said to be mentioned 
as found wild in Yorkshire so long back as 1770, or thereabouts, in 
Hull’s ‘ British Flora, a work I have not myself seen. In the Turk’s- 
cap Shaw at Woodmanston, about one mile from Banstead and four 
from Epsom, in Surrey, where I gathered it in profusion, July 5, 1839, 
and communicated specimens, from which the beautiful figure in 
E. B. Suppl. iii. t. 2799, was made, no plant could have a more per- 
fectly indigenous aspect; and it appears, I am told, equally so in other 
parts of that county, and in Kent and Essex. Gmelin (Fl. Sibirica, 
i. p. 44) says it abounds throughout Siberia to Ochotsk, lat. 593, and 
Kamtschatka. This last peninsula, lying under the same parallels as 
Great Britain, resembles Newfoundland in its climate, and like that 
island is infinitely colder at all seasons than England, the summers 
in both being extremely moist, chilly and variable, snow lying at the 
sea-level in the harbour of St. Peter and St. Paul very commonly till 
the middle or end of June.* 

Obs.—Simethis bicolor, very recently discovered on moory ground 
about two miles west of Bournemouth towards Poole, but within the 
Dorsetshire boundary, it can hardly be doubted, will be discovered ere 
long on the Hampshire side of that vast heathy tract called the Poole 
Basin, which is as remarkably uniform in its botanical as in its geo- 
logical features. I visited the station, which is very close on the 
borders of this county, by Mr. Borrer’s directions, in October last, 
and found the dried remains of the leaves, stems and flower-stalks. 
Its detection still more recently in Ireland fully confirms it as a ge- 
nuine native of Britain, and leads us to hope that it will ultimately 
prove indigenous in many parts of the south-west of England. An- 
thericum ramosum and perhaps A. Liliago ought, one would suppose, 
to grow in England. The former especially is widely spread over 
Europe, and is frequent in the north of France, and in most countries 
of the continent to Denmark and Sweden. 


* The mean heat of the three summer months at St. John’s, Newfoundland (lat. 
47° 34’), is below that of Edinburgh (lat. 55° 57’), and the other seasons are colder in 
a still greater degree. I have myself seen ice in huge masses on the shore of the ex- 
treme south point of Newfoundland in the middle of July; and the climate of St. 
Peter and St. Paul, in Kamtschatka, from its higher latitude (53° 10’) and extreme 
eastern position (long. E. 159° 30’) is still worse than in Newfoundland ; for although 
far less rigorous than that of Siberia in winter, it is miserably deficient in positive 
warmth at all times of the year, like southern Patagonia. Yet does Kamtschatka 
produce many very fine plants of the natural orders we are now treating of, in Lilium, 


971 


+? Ornithogalum umbellatum. In meadows, pastures and thickets; 
rare, but I see no great reason to doubt its being truly indigenous in 
Hampshire, although unquestionably most frequently seen as a gar- 
den outcast, or at least in spots open to suspicion. Meadows about 
Steephill in several places, appearing to be truly wild, Mr. Albert 
Hamborough and Dr. G. A. Martin!!!) A few plants found, June 13, 
1845, in Calbourne New Barn, Hummets, apparently quite wild. In 
a pasture by Afton House, Mr. G. Kirkpatrick (indigenous ?) !! Na- 
turalized on the lawn behind Osborne House, and in all the subjoined 
stations in a very questionable condition as regards nativity. In 
Northwood Park, Miss G. E. Kilderbee, but rarely flowering, and too 
near the shrubbery!!! In an artificial grass field at Newchurch, in 
tolerable abundance, but on the site, some thirty years ago, of cottage 
gardens. I have found it in similar unsatisfactory situations else- 
where in the island. “Found at Bullington,” Rev. D. Cockerton, 
the only station I find amongst my notes for this plant on the main- 
land of the county. Called “ Wake-at-noon” in this island. O. py- 
renaicum probably grows in the woods of this county, since it has 
been found in the adjacent ones of Sussex, Wilts, Berks (Cat. of Pls. 
of Newbury), and I think Dorset. In Somersetshire the Miss Sib- 
leys have found O. pyrenaicum growing five and six feet high! I 
have never seen it much exceeding a foot or two in woods at Bath, 
where, during my residence in that city about sixteen years ago, 
I have seen the young shoots sold in the markét instead of Asparagus. 
O. nutans is likely to be naturalized in some parts, and Gagea lutea 
may occur with us as well as in Oxfordshire. 

Scilla autumnalis. In dry sandy or gravelly pastures, and on 
rocks by the sea; very rare. In great plenty on the sandy pasture- 
ground of the Spit or neck of land below St. Helen’s, that stretches 
across the entrance of Brading Harbour. Priory, Isle of Wight, Mr. 
J. Woods, Jun., in Bot. Guide (possibly the same station as the last). 


Fritillaria, Ornithogalum, &c., proving that there is no inseparable connexion, as 
people are apt to suppose, between beauty of form and colouring, and geniality of cli- 
mate. We should disregard this too prevalent opinion in discussing the indigenous 
origin of plants, and be guided by the type they present, and the geographical distri- 
bution of the orders, genera and species they severally belong to. A most remarkable 
instance of the prevalence of richly-coloured and extremely tropical forms of vegeta- 
tion, under a constantly coul and sunless sky, ever dripping with rain or fog, is 
graphically given by Dr. Hooker in his account of Sikkim Himalaya, in the ‘Journal 
of Botany’ for February, 1850, pp. 58, 59. 


972 


In the former place it seems to have been first noticed by Mr. W. D. 
Snooke, and may be found annually, for the most part in plenty, and 
in some years even profusely. These are the only Hampshire locali- 
ties 1 am at present acquainted with for this rare and pretty little 
Squill. Leaves seldom produced with the flowers or coetaneous, at 
least not fully developed till the latter are past, and sometimes not 
even then. 

?Scilla verna. On rocks, cliffs, pastures and grassy slopes near 
the sea, but extremely rare, if it was ever found at all in Hants. 
“Near Newport, Isle of Wight,” Rev. Messrs. Garnier and Poulter in 
Hamp. Repos. Brading, Dr. Bostock in Withering’s Bot. Arrang., 
7th edit. The authenticity of the latter quotation was kindly con- 
firmed by Dr. Bostock, in answer to an inquiry made on the sub- 
ject by Dr. T. Bell Salter, in 1839. Dr. B., I believe, exhibited spe- 
cimens before the Linnean Society, or at least to some of its members, 
I forget which; still it is possible that between two species so nearly 
resembling one another a mistake may have been committed. Were 
it not that the existence of Scilla vern aas an Isle-of-Wight plant rests 
on such respectable authority, I should be inclined to exclude it from 
the Hampshire Flora, having never succeeded on repeated trials in 
finding it on either station, or heard of its rediscovery by others. 
Although common enough on many parts of the western and north- 
western coasts of Britain, from Cornwall to the Shetland Islands, 
and on a few spots along the north-eastern shores as far south as 
Northumberland, there are no recorded localities .for it on any 
intermediate point of the extensive coast line between the two 
English counties just named, unless the unconfirmed stations in 
this island, and one or more equally doubtful habitats in Devon- 
shire, be excepted. The wide difference in the flowering seasons 
of these Squills is the chief difficulty in the way of supposing a 
mistake to have been made between plants otherwise much alike. It 
may be well to remark, that I do not find S. autumnalis on either sta- 
tion assigned to S. verna, which lessens in some degree the suspicion 
of any such error. I should never be surprized to hear that Scilla bi- 
folia had been rediscovered in England, but should expect it rather in 
the eastern than the western parts. 

Allium vineale. In meadows, pastures, waste grassy places, and 
borders of fields ; not, I think, uncommon, but often, I imagine, over- 
looked, from its seldom or never flowering with us, which may induce 
some doubt at times, even with respect to the species being the same 
in all the subjoined stations. At Steephill and other parts of Under- 


973 


cliff occasionally, as Pelham Woods, &c. Abundantly in Northwood 
Park, where, in one place, the turf is quite covered with its leaves, but 
no flowers are produced. | Frequent on the east bank of the Medina, 
below Newport, near Fairlee House, Mr. G. Kirkpatrick !!! Culver 
Cliffs, Rev. G. E. Smith !!! (see A. oleraceum). I have found it occa- 
sionally in other parts of the island, but never in flower, and for this 
reason I have omitted noting down the localities, feeling uncertain 
whether some other species might not have been mistaken for it by 
me. We share, of course, in Hants the general poverty of Britain in 
the species of “Allium, which are far more numerous in the south and 
south-east, than in the western parts of central Europe. On the 
mainland A. vineale, or what I guess to be such, abounds on Magda- 
len Hill, near Winchester, and it is probably only this, and not 
A. Schoenoprasum, which has been indicated to me as Chives, growing 
in Hayling Island, by the Rev. Charles Hardy. I do not, however, 
mean to deny the possibility of that very local plant being a native of 
our county, but I have, as yet, seen no specimens from Hayling. 

Alliwm oleraceum. In similar places with the last, but scarcely 
well proved to inhabit this county. The Rev. G. E. Smith believes 
he found this species on the débris of the green sandstone in San- 
down Bay. I have two specimens of an Allium gathered in this bay 
in 1839, by a servant, and sent to Miss E. Kirkpatrick, the leaves of 
which are very narrow, with close cylindrical sheaths, and appear to 
have been plane when fresh ; the head of bulbs is very compact and 
spherical, but the flowers had quite fallen. The crest of the sand- 
stone cliffs near their junction with the chalk of Whitecliff Bay, is 
fringed for some distance with quantities of an Allium which I sup- 
pose to be chiefly A. vineale, but invariably producing only heads of 
bulbs without blossoms ; but both here and on the banks of débris in 
the bay below, specimens occur with semi-cylindrical leaves grooved 
above, but not rough as Smith asserts of A. oleraceum; the want of 
flowers puts it out of my power to decide with certainty to what 
species it belongs, the species of this genus being very difficult of 
discrimination by their leaves alone. 

Allium ursinum. In moist shady woods, groves, thickets, on damp 
hedge-banks and grassy borders of fields ; rarely with us in open mea- 
dows and pastures; far too abundant in many parts of the Isle of 
Wight, and probably not rare in the county generally. Most common 
in woods over the chalk or on the greensand. Plentiful in Centurion’s 
Copse, near Brading, and in enormous quantity over nearly the whole 
of Greatwood Copse, near Shanklin, as well as extremely abundant in 


974 


all the other woods betwixt Shanklin and Bonchurch, in Hatchet 
Close and Cowpit Wood, &c. Excessively rank and profuse in the 
high enclosed wood in Appuldurcombe Park, and equally so about 
Gatcombe, under the trees in the wilderness or rookery. About Shor- 
well, as at North Court, in the dell or hollow in which the mausoleum 
stands; in patches of copse about Cheverton farm, Idlecombe, &c. 
Most profusely in Lorden, Barkhams and Bakerswood Copses, betwixt 
Carisbrook and Shorwell, here, as in many other places, perfectly con- 
cealing the ground to the utter exclusion of every other plant except- 
ing the no less gregarious and usurping Mercurialiss Common in 
Swainston woods and about Calborne, abundant in woods at Row- 
ledge, and in fact in every patch of copse and thicket on the southern 
slope and foot of the central chalk range in Westridge, Sluccombe, * 
Dewcombe Copses, &c., much too plentifully. Grounds at Norris 
Castle, and in Barton Copse, near Osborne, abundantly, as well as in 
other parts of the island occasionally. Hither it is less common on 
the mainland of Hants, or it has escaped my notice from the disap- 
pearance of the leaves early in summer, as I have at present only the 
few following stations to give: Longwood, Miss L. Legge; Warnford, 
Rev. E. M. Sladen; Near Soberton Mill, Longwood, Rev. Messrs. 
Garnier and Poulter in Hamps. Repos.; Fontley ; bank near Wick- 
ham road, Mr. W. L. Notcutt; in Hawkley Hangers, near Selborne, 
June, 1850. 

This plant is an abominable annoyance in our island woods in 
spring and early summer, soon after which the leaves and scapes die 
down, and cease to offend the botanical explorer by the rank odour 
of garlic they exhale. Some of these woods are so completely filled 
with it, that in looking along the ground, beneath the trees, one be- 
holds only a uniform mantle of its leaves, which are often more than 
a foot in length and nearly four inches wide, and so effectually ex- 
clude the light from the soil below them, that nothing springs up to 
relieve the rank monotonous exuberance of the repulsive herbage, the 
odious scent of which, the profuse array of starry blossoms cannot 
make amends for. In close damp weather an insufferable garlic smell 
infects the confined air by direct exhalation from the plant, and 
which is increased as it is trodden down and broken in passing 
through the almost knee-high foliage. Its presence in woods, how- 
ever, is innoxious compared with its intrusion upon pasture Jand, as is 
too often the case in other parts of England, to the great detriment of 
all dairy produce from fields so infested. Fortunately for our farmers 
and graziers, the Bear’s Garlic will only thrive here in damp and per- 


975 

fectly shaded situations, and is a sylvestral, scarcely a pratal species, 
Besides Ramsons, it is here called Gipsy Onion, as forming it is said 
an article in the strong diets of that singular race, whose picturesque 
encampments, once numerous in this forest country, are now compara- 
tively few. Nearly allied to our Ramsons is the A. tricoccum of N. 
America, but in that species the leaves die off before the flowers are 
developed, which is not till June or July. The bulb also appears to 
be ovoid and acuminate, not as in our plant, elliptic oblong, equally 
thick at both ends. Both exhale the same detestable smell when 
drying for the herbarium. 

Agraphis nutans (Hyacinthus non-scriptus). In groves, thickets, 
copses and on hedge-banks, as well as in damp open grassy places, 
meadows, &c., most profusely abundant throughout the county and 
Isle of Wight. Var. 8., flowers white, occurs here and there occa- 
sionally as single specimens, but always very sparingly. In Quarr 
Copse, St. John’s Wood and elsewhere about Ryde, now and then. 
Not unfrequent in woods about Shanklin. An example or two with 
pink or flesh-coloured flowers has occurred to me in this island, but 
is extremely rare. This beautiful and familiar plant, more common in 
Britain than in any other country of Europe, to the western parts of 
which it is exclusively confined, goes here by the name of Blue-bottle, 
doubtless from the ventricose form of the flower contracted and re- 
flexed at summit. : 

Obs. Muscari racemosum, the Starch Hyacinth, may be looked 
for in the sandy fields and pastures of this country with good pro- 
bability of success. It is reported in the adjoining counties of 
Dorset, Surrey and Berks; in the last, near Newbury according to 
Dr. Lamb, a town close upon the Hampshire boundary, and the 
station may even be within our own limits. The sandy tracts 
between Petersfield and Farnham, and about Wolmer Forest, are 
amongst the most likely to yield this species, which I am persuaded 
is a genuine native of eastern England, as I have lately endeavoured 
to show, nor should I be surprised to hear that M. comosum or M. 
botryoides had been found wild in this country, being both coexten- 
sive in their range with the other on the continent. 

Colchicum autumnale. In moist woods and thickets, or in low 
damp meadows; rare: Found some years back by Mr. Daniel 
Clarke of Newport, in a field by the Medina above Shide Bridge 
(close to the town on the south), Mr. G. Kirkpatrick; but subse- 
quent research has not confirmed the: discovery of the Colchicum in 
that or any other part of the Isle of Wight. In a small wood at Ap- 


976 


pleshaw; Mr. Borrer in Bot. Guide. I find it abundant in the large 
sloping wood nearly facing the church, in which Lonicera Caprifo- 
lium has been found, and which produces besides Aquilegia vulgaris 
and Vicia sylvatica. The Colchicum probably grows not uncom- 
monly in the vicinity of the same village, as it has been found abun- 
dantly in a meadow there by the Rev. J. W. Reeves. Near Liphook, 
Mr. H. Barrett in Baxter's Brit. Flow. Pls. In a meadow near Burgh- 
clere parsonage, very plentiful, Cat. of Plants of Newbury. These are 
the only stations I know of at present in Hants for this equally curious 
and valuable but dangerously active plant. It doubtless grows in other 
parts of the county, being found in most of the adjacent ones on the 
west and north. 

Narthecium ossifragun. In spongy, turfy or peaty bogs, wet 
moory heaths and commons ; not frequent in the Isle of Wight. In 
Sandown Marshes on the skirts of Lake Common. Most profusely in 
Alverston Lynch, near Newchurch. Abundant on the Wilderness and 
moors adjoining. On the boggy slope of Bleak Down towards Ronde. 
Moors by Munsley, near Godshill, and Munsley peat-bed. Bog at 
Blackpan, Dr. T. Bell Salter. Wood near Tinker’s Lane (by W. 
Cowes), Miss G. E. Kilderbee! Freshwater Beach, Isle of Wight, 
Rev. Messrs. Garnier and Poulter in Hamps. Repos. (where could 
this plant have grown then where all is now sand and shingle?) Far 
more frequent and abundant in mainland Hants. Boggy parts of 
Tichfield Common in plenty. Exceedingly abundant on heaths and 
bogs about Ringwood, and on boggy moors betwixt Christchurch and 
Poole, at Bournemouth, &c., in profusion. In the bog near Lynd- 
hurst, in which Spiranthes estivalis grows, and indeed common 
throughout the New Forest and Christchurch hundreds, on the vast 
moorland tracts of that boggy and swampy district. Bog at East 
Woodhay. Beautifully in wet ground below, that is south of Shid- 
field Church, Miss Hawkins (in litt.). In bogs, frequent, as about 
Botley, &c., Mr. W. Pamplin (in litt.). A frequent plant, I believe I 
may say, in every part of the county where moors and bogs prevail. 
The brick-red of the ripe capsules gradually bleaches by keeping in 
this and N. Americanum, which last seems scarcely distinct from our 
European Bog Asphodel. 

Juncus maritimus. About salt-marsh ditches, on sandy or muddy 
sea-shores, mouths of tide-rivers and salt-inlets, also on moory pas- 
ture grounds along the coast; very common. On ditch-banks along 
the shore between Springfield and Nettlestone Point. Plentifully by 
creeks of the Medina above West Cowes, and in salt marshes 


977 


at Newtown. Profuse in the salt-marshes along the Yar, betwixt 
Yarmouth and Freshwater Gate. Thorness Bay, in plenty. Norton 
and Brading Harbour, in abundance, Mr. W. D. Snooke, (in FI. 
Vect.!!!) Abundant in salt-marsh and brackish pastures at Ems- 
worth, and thence westward all along the coast. Plentiful in 
Hayling Island. About Christchurch Harbour, plentifully. The 
Salterns, Hill Head, Carm (near Fareham), Mr. W. L. Notcutt; and in 
innumerable other places. The white bases of the scapes are re- 
markably clammy, and possess a peculiar fragrance, resembling that 
of cedar-wood, not I believe noticed by any author. 

Obs. J. acutus grows in tolerable plenty at Emsworth, close to the 
Hampshire border, but on the Sussex side of Emsworth Creek, which 
divides the two counties, where it was discovered by Mr. Borrer 
some years ago. It is there found in a piece of muddy ground, over- 
flowed at high-water, on the eastern side of the creek or harbour, just 
below the quay or embankment and the mill, looking, at a distance, 
from its dark green colour and mode of growth, something like low 
broom-bushes. The station can only be approached at low-water, 
and then across ooze and slime. Some precaution is necessary in 
collecting specimens of this plant, for the barren scapes and leaves 
are as stiff and sharp as porcupines’ quills, and as capable of inflict- 
ing severe punctures. Jt grows mixed with J. maritimus, from which 
it may be distinguished from far by its close heads of large, shining, 
brown capsules, that are very long in ripening, not probably till the 
second year, by its deeper green, and the somewhat radiated or 
spreading growth of the scapes and leaves. I searched carefully on 
the Hants side of the creek, and all along the shore westward beyond 
Havant, in hopes of securing this rare species to our Flora, which I 
cannot very honestly or safely contend for its belonging to at present ; 
for, although Emsworth is in Hampshire, and Juncus acutus grows 
at Emsworth, the concluding proposition of the syllogism, that there- 
fore Juncus acutus is a Hampshire plant, would be demurred to as 
illogical, in point of fact, by its worthy discoverer, accompanied, pro- 
bably, by an awkward demand on me for restitution of what I had un- 
ceremoniously filched from his Flora for the adornment of my own. 
Dr. Salter finds a single tuft of this species on the shores of Poole 
Harbour, (the J. acutus of Pulteney’s Cat. of the Pls. of Dorset. is 
most likely only J. maritimus); it may, therefore, reasonably be 
expected on some intermediate point of the coast-line between these 
eastern and western stations. 

Juncus effusus. Common in most parts of the Isle of Wight 

VoL It. 6 K 


978 


and the rest of the county, on barren, wet, or moory pastures, 
heaths, &c. f 

Juncus conglomeratus. With the last, and the more abundant 
of the two; in sterile, rushy meadows, by road-sides, &c. The var. 
B. effusus is, I think, not uncommon with us. The much darker 
coloured capsules appear to ripen considerably earlier than those of 
J. effusus. 

Juncus glaucus. Less frequent on the whole than the two preced- 
ing species, yet very plentiful on poor, wet, sandy, clayey, or heathy 
pastures, commons and by road-sides. In various places around 
Ryde. At Quarr Abbey, Springfield, Green Lane, near Ashey, &c. 

Juncus diffusus. In similar places with the last, and in the few 
stations in which I have yet observed it in the county associated with 
that and J. conglomeratus, appearing to myself to be a hybrid 
or mule between these two rushes; rare? First noticed as a Hants 
plant by Mr. Borrer, who remarked it growing in 1847 about Hedge 
Corner, on the south side of Parkhurst Forest, along the road from 
Newport to Yarmouth!!! JI find it here in considerable plenty, 
together with abundance of J. glaucus, effusus, and conglomeratus, 
from the two former of which I must own to experiencing a degree of 
difficulty in at all times distinguishing it, at first sight at least. 
I have no doubt of its existence in other parts of the island, but ex- 
cepting when in fruit, its resemblance to some of the greener stem- 
med states of J. glaucus renders its detection less easy. On heathy 
pasture grounds, with J. glaucus, along the road from the “buildings” 
to the Passage House, Hayling Island, August 7th, 1848. 

Juncus capitatus will probably be found ere long in’ Britain, and 
perhaps in this county, being frequent on the continent and in 
some places in Guernsey and Jersey. 

Juncus oblusifiorus. In ditches and wet, boggy, or marshy places, 
often growing in the water, but not very common, either in the Isle of 
Wight or on the mainland. Ditches in the marsh at Easton (Fresh- 
water Gate), and where one or two of the low, boggy meadows are 
quite overrun with it. Near the shore just beyond Norton, towards 
the preventive station; sparingly. Wet banks of slipped land in 
Colwell Bay. Between the Needles (Groves’s) Hotel and Alum Bay. 
On wet, slipped land near the Sandrock Spring, abundantly ; and in 
various places betwixt Niton and Blackgang.  Plentiful in the 
Undercliff, at Blackgang, and in Sandown Bay, Rev. G. E. Smith !!! 
Plentiful in marshy spots by the road-side in Stokes Bay, between 
Alverstoke and Brown Down, July, 1849. By Tichfield River and 


979 


near Hill Head, Mr. W. L. Notcutt. I have no station at any dis- 
tance from the sea-coast to give for this species, so well marked by 
its pale flowers and very decompounded and singularly divaricate 
panicle. 

Juncus acutiflorus. In muddy, boggy, or marshy places, on wet 
heaths, &c.; abundantly. Our low, wet meadows are sometimes 
quite covered with this rush. 

Juncus lamprocarpus. With the last, and perhaps little, if at all, 
less frequent than that. The specific name is now generally, and 
very properly, spelt lamprocarpus instead of lampocarpus, as for- 
merly ; the allusion being to the shining (aauzeos) aspect of the cap- 
sules, and not to any supposed resemblance they bear to a lamp. 

Juncus supinus (J. uliginosus). In ditches, pools and pits, espe- 
cially, I think, on a clay soil; also on wet, sandy heaths and com- 
mons; frequent. Var. 8. Stems procumbent or floating, mostly 
proliferous. 

Juncus subverticillatus. In gravel or clay-pits, &c. In a clay-pit 
near Bouldner. On Parkhurst Forest, &c. 

Juncus squarrosus. On moist, barren, sandy pastures, moors, and 
heathy places. Quite rare in the Isle of Wight. On several parts of 
Black Down, abundantly. Moist pastures immediately about the 
Wilderness and Rookley Farm. Apparently by no means rare in main- 
land Hants. Most abundantly on Petersfield Heath. Heath near 
Steep. Short Heath, near Selborne. Most profusely on Wolmer 
Forest, near the pond, about Holy Water, &c. Profusely on the dry 
sandy heath about Ringwood and Christchurch, and probably com- 
mon throughout the Poole basin and on the forest districts and moor- 
lands of the county. I do not know of any distinctive name for this 
plant in Hants, but Mr. John Laurence tells me that in his native 
county of Aberdeen, where it abounds on the moors, it is called 
Bruckles by the country people, which, whatever may be the import 
of the word, is most expressive of the wire-like hardness and rigidity 
of the species. 

Juncus compressus. Not, I have reason to believe, an uncommon 
plant in low or marshy meadows, especially near the sea; but all the 
stations I find amongst my notes relate to J. Gerardi, certainly the 
prevailing species or form along the coast both of the island and main, 
and which I am disposed to regard as a salt-marsh variety of J. com- 
pressus. 

Juncus Gerardi (J. coenosus). On muddy salt marshes and damp 


980 


sandy sea-shores; frequent. St. Helen’s Spit. Plentiful at the 
mouth of the Wootton River. On the beach a little way out of Yar- 
mouth eastward, and abundant in the first meadow, or that nearest to 
the sea, at Easton Marsh, Freshwater Gate, where it forms a consider- 
able constituent of the coarse herbage of that half-drained bog— 


Limosoque palus obducat pascua junco. 


Very common I think in most places along the coast. Profusely on 
the south side of Portsea Island, near a salt pond by the beach, about 
half a mile east of Southsea Castle, &c. I forbear giving more locali- 
ties from memory, as some may belong to J. compressus. The Sal- 
terns (Fareham), Mr. W. L. Notcutt. J. tenuis, Willd., if the Scottish 
plant be the same, ought to be found in the south of England also, 
being a native of the plains of central Europe, but there is reason to 
doubt if the true J. tenuis was ever seen in N. Britain. 

Juncus bufonius. By the margin of pools; in half-dried ditches 
and places where water has stood in winter, in moist sandy or gravelly 
spots by road-sides, on heaths, &c. ; extremely common in every part 
of the county. J. Tenageia, a species very closely resembling the 
present, with pale brown, nearly globose capsules, should be looked 
for in the same localities, as being extremely likely, I conceive, to in- 
habit the south of England, as it does all the: adjacent countries of 
Europe, both inland and near the coast. 

Luzula sylvatica. Yn dry shady woods, groves, thickets and hilly 
heathy places amongst bushes, but not general. In woods about 
Shanklin and Cook’s Castle, as in Cowpit Cliff and Hungerberry 
copses, near Apse farm, &c. Abundantly in one or two spots at Apse 
Castle. Little Standen Wood, near Newport; plentifully. In the 
. Parsonage Lynch at Newchurch, abundantly, as well as in another - 
wood, near that village. Not rare, and probably frequent in main- 
land Hants. In Amfield Wood, near Romsey ; Cranbury Park woods, 
near Winton, in various places, and in a wood betwixt Otterbourne 
and the old church. In several parts of Akender Wood, near Alton, 
but somewhat sporadical, as it often is with us, although usually abun- 
dant in its several stations. Winchester Wood, by Rotherfield Park, 
and elsewhere in the county. ‘ } 

Luzula Forsteri. In woods, thickets, groves, and on shady hedge- 
banks; very general over the Isle of Wight, and I believe the rest of 
the county, where, as in some of the adjacent ones, as Surrey (and 
Sussex ?), it is even more abundant than L. pilosa, frequent as is that 


981 


plant with us. Extremely common about Ryde, in Quarr Copse, St. 
John’s, Apley, and in almost every other wood and patch of copse in 
the neighbourhood. Abundant in the Chine and elsewhere about 
Shanklin, at Appuldurcombe, and profusely in several parts of Apse 
Castle, in the dry heathy ground by America, and other spots of that 
romantic locality. Common about Cowes, in-Mrs. Goodwin’s grounds, 
in woods at Osborne, Norris Castle, &c. About Newport, in Little 
Standen Wood, &c. Abundant in Bordwood Copse, the Parsonage 
Lynch, and various other places about Newchurch. In the Under- 
cliff, at Steephill, near Swainston, and in innumerable other places in 
the island, preferring a dry, friable, light soil, but often, as about 
Ryde, on stiff clay, or rather perhaps on the vegetable mould that lies 
upon it; it also grows on the chalk, but less commonly. I have not 
specially observed the distribution of L. Forsteri on the mainland, but 
am convinced it is not uncommon there. In a beech-hanger near 
Alton. Hedge-bank a little way out of Bishop’s Waltham, towards 
Droxford. Abundant in a wood by the Newbury road from Andover, 
about a mile beyond Enham. Parnholt or Parnell Wood, near Win- 
ton. Copse near Whitedell, Mr. W. L. Notcutt. New Forest, Chas. 
Lyell, Esq., in Hook. and Graves’s Contin. of Fl. Lond. Doubtless 
in many other places, but being, like the rest of the genus, a very 
early plant, after the flowers and fruit have disappeared in May or 
June, the species cannot, with that certainty required in giving loca- 
lities, be distinguished by the foliage alone from some narrow-leaved 
states of L. pilosa, and hence is often overlooked for that species. 
' A doubt, I believe, exists in the minds of some British botanists 
who have not seen L. Forsteri in a fresh state, but only in the herba- 
rium, as to its distinctness from L. pilosa; no one, however, to whom 
the plant is familiar in its native woods can, I think, reasonably en- 
tertain such an idea. Strong as is its general resemblance to L. pilosa, 
and which, when in the dried state and not in seed, may induce a 
suspicion of its being but a form of that species, there can never be 
the least difficulty in distinguishing L. Forsteri by its seed and 
capsules from that or any other species of the genus. There is a 
remarkable conformity in the aspect of the leaves amongst various 
unquestionably distinct species of Luzula, and the form of the peri- 
anth, and even the disposition of the panicle, afford characters little 
apparent or subject to modification; such, too, from my own experi- 
ence, is the relative proportion in length between the anther and its 
filament, which is yet so far constant as to furnish a very fair subor- 


982 


dinate mark of distinction. Since L. Forsteri has not yet been detected 
in Ireland, and there seems great reason for thinking that some form 
of L. pilosa has been taken for it in Scotland, I may perhaps be doing 
a service to Scotch and Irish botanists by pointing out the characters 
of the former more in detail than has been done in the books most in 
use as field manuals; the more especially as I am unacquainted with 
any good figure of this plant, the one in ‘English Botany’ being 
wretchedly deficient, and the far superior drawing in Hooker and 
Graves’s continuation of the ‘Flora Londinensis, besides that that 
sumptuous work is in still fewer hands than the other, depicts an ex- 
treme narrow-leaved form of L. Forsteri, and not the ordinary or 
normal state of the species, whilst the figures of the seeds and capsules 
both of this and L. pilosa are defective representations of their kind. 
L. Forsteri grows in precisely similar places, and often intermixed 
with L. pilosa, but flowers perhaps rather later than it, or when the 
latter commences to form capsules. The leaves in both are extremely 
similar, forming dense tufts, narrower in general in L. Forsteri than in 
L. pilosa, occasionally very much more so, at other times nearly as 
wide, and equally hairy. The panicle of L. Forsteri is cymose, of 
several compound, mostly erect, or rather patent or diverging branches, 
but of which two or three are usually reflexed or divaricate, espe- 
cially after flowering, and the base of the panicle is subtended by an 
erect, sublinear bract, far narrower or less leaf-like than in L. pilosa, 
whatever may be the breadth of the root-leaves themselves. In the 
height of the stem, there is no constant difference between these plants. 
Flowers paler in general than those of L. pilosa, the segments of the 
perianth more finely taper-pointed or acuminate, very acute; anthers 
shorter than the perianth, about as long or rather longer than the 
compressed, ascending filaments; in L. pilosa the anther is above 
twice the length of the greenish and flattish filament, which propor- 
tions are tolerably constant within certain limits in each species. 
Ovary more acutely trigonate and more gradually tapering into the 
style than in L.pilosa. Capsule reddish-brown and shining, acutely 
triquetrous, the faces nearly plane, simply acute or acuminate, with 
no obtuse and conical contraction at the summit, and (including the 
hard, sharp, mucronate apex) about as long as the nearly erect peri- 
anth-segments. In L. pilosa the capsule is broadly ovoid, trigonous, 
obscurely three-lobed, with as many very blunt angles and convex 
intermediate faces, visibly contracting above into the very rounded 
and obtuse summit, of a subconical figure, sometimes minutely tipped 


983 


with the base of the style, but scarcely mucronate, much longer than 
the spreading and peristent persianth. Seeds* in L. Forsteri roundish, 
ovoid or nearly globose, bright brown, very smooth, polished and 
translucent, crested with a large, oblong, obtuse and oblique, but not 
at all hooked caruncle. The seeds of L. pilosa are precisely like 
those of L. Forsteri in form, size, and colour, but furnished with a 
caruncular appendage of at least twice the length, attenuated into 
a point and uncinately contorted.t The foregoing remarks will, I 
trust, enable our northern and western botanists to distinguish these 
two most indubitably separate, but assuredly closely related species, 
so long confounded, till the late Mr. E. Forster and Mr. Bicheno 
pointed out, the former in the panicle, the latter in the seed, characters 
by which L. Forsteri differed from its more common ally. The geo- 
graphical distribution of the two species is moreover totally different, 
for whilst L. pilosa is dispersed over nearly the whole of Europe, al- 
most to the northernmost extremity of Scandinavia, L. Forsteri is 
strictly a plant of southern and central Europe, even in Germany 
scarcely found, but in the middle and western part from Switzerland 
to Baden and Rhenish Prussia, and thence westward over France and 
a great part of England. _ I may add that the root of L. Forsteri is 
much less creeping or stoloniferous than in the other, a fact remarked 
also by Gaudin in his ‘ Flora Helvetica.’ 

Luzula pilosa. In rather dry groves, thickets, copses and on 
bushy banks, often amongst dead leaves ; very common over the en- 
tire county and Isle of Wight. Profusely in some parts of Apse Castle, 
with the two preceding species and the following. Extremely, per- 
haps usually, plentiful in woods by the Newbury road from Andover, 
a little beyond Enham ; in one place associated with L. Forsteri and 
the following enigmatical species, state or variety. 

Luzula ————— (nova species?) So long back as April, 1841, I 
was struck with the appearance of a Luzula growing plentifully at 
Apse Castle, near Shanklin, closely resembling L. pilosa in appear- 
ance, and having, like it, strongly divaricate and partly deflexed pe- 


* The seeds of Luzula must be examined when quite recent, as they soon become 
dull, wrinkled and opaque by keeping, and the crest shrinks and loses its peculiar form 
and proportions, whilst the form of the capsules cannot be well seen after their dehis- 
cence. From inattention to these points, the figures of the fructification of L. pilosa 
and L. Forsteri, in the exquisite supplementary plates of the edition of the ‘ Flora 
Londinensis’ by Hooker and Graves, are sadly deficient in fidelity, both as to form 
and colour. These parts in L. Forsteri are much better drawn than in L. pilosa. 

+ As much or more bent than the letter S; in other words, doubly hooked. 


984 


duncles. A difference in the size and aspect of the plant led me to 
examine it more carefully, when I found that the seed resembled that 
of L. Forsteri in having the fleshy crest or appendage straight and ob- 
tuse, and wholly without the hook-lke curvature in which the same 
appendage terminates in L. pilosa. I at once set it down for a re- 
markable variety of L. Forsteri with the panicle of L. pilosa, and as 
such preserved specimens in my herbarium, and sent others dried to 
Mr. Borrer, who, from not having seen fresh capsules and seed, was 
induced to pronounce it only L. pilosa, an opinion which led me to 
pay no further attention to the plant at that time, and it was suffered 
to lie unnoticed and almost forgotten, till last year, when the sight of 
the dried specimens, and their striking difference of aspect from L. 
pilosa and Forsteri, again prompted to a renewed investigation of the 
plant in its native haunts. The result of a long and laborious exami- 
nation of some hundreds of specimens, and comparison with as many 
of the two allied species made on the spot at short intervals of time, 
and in every stage of their growth, has gone very far towards showing 
the Apse-Castle Luzula to be a species intermediate betwixt L. pilosa 
and L. Forsteri, yet sufficiently distinct from either, and for reasons 
which I shall adduce presently, by no means a wule production. 

This curious plant grows very abundantly at Apse Castle,* in two 
or three places on sloping banks, under brushwood, in a dry, friable 
sandy mould, sometimes by itself, at other times in company with L. 
pilosa or L. Forsteri, or both, but in quantity much exceeding these 
last.t The following directions will enable any person to find it in 
one of its two principal stations with ease. Entering Apse Castle by 
the footway across the fields from Shanklin and Cliff Farm, or pass- 
ing the gate opening into the dell (Tinker’s Hole), keep the left hand 
green road or turf-walk, and proceed upwards till you come to the 
plantation of pines, skirting which the road continues, leaving the dell 
below on your right. Pursuing this walk, perhaps for a couple 
of hundred yards, a narrow track or footpath emerges from it on the 
right through the brushwood, which brings you in sight of a sloping 
pasture-field nearly surrounded by wood, at the foot of which field a 
brook parts it from the steep, copse-covered bank on its other side. 


* For an account of this retired and picturesque spot, see page 534. 

+ It is worthy of remark, that L. pilosa and Forsteri abound most on that side of 
Apse Castle nearest to America, and furthest from the part where our new plant 
flourishes; yet although the two former grow copiously intermingled, or in patches 
adjacent to each other, I find none of the third kind there at all. 


985 


Crossing this brook, you will find the Luzula in plenty all along the 
foot of the bank and margin of the brook, mingled with a small pro- 
portion of L. Forsteri, and still less of L. pilosa. It also grows plen- 
uifully, and in nearly complete isolation, on the slope of the dell, 
a little below and opposite to the pine plantation before mentioned, 
under hazel and other shrubs, but the spot is less easy to direct 
a stranger to than the other. Ishall now proceed to detail the 
characters of this new Luzula, if such it be.' Plant taller than either 
L. pilosa or Forsteri, eighteen or twenty inches high,* very slender. 
Leaves (root) longer than in L. pilosa, and quite as broad, laxer, 
more drooping or recurved at their extremities from their greater 
length, otherwise similar, excepting that their colour, viewed in the 
aggregate, is somewhat brighter green. Panicle resembling that of 
L. pilosa, but by no means the same, the very strongly reflexed and 
divaricate peduncles fewer and much longer, hence the flowers appear 
very widely scattered, and the outline of the panicle is quite oblong, 
not as in L. pilosa, roundish. The bract at the base of the panicle is 
long, narrow, and acuminate as in L. Forsteri, and the flowers are, as 
in that, pale, but with perianth-segments a little broader and less 
acuminate, or more like the same parts in L. pilosa. Stamens 
similar to those of L. Forsteri, but anthers rather longer, and some- 
what exeeeding the filaments in length. Ovary more obtuse than in 
L. Forsteri, not tapering at the top into the style as in that, with 
much thicker, blunter angles, each angle with a distinct furrow down 
its centre. Capsule much smaller than in either L. pilosa or Forsteri, 
and greatly shorter than the erect or converging perianth, ovoid, some- 
what acute, trigonous, with three thickened, obtuse, furrowed angles. 
Seed always? abortive, a solitary one here and there apparently well- 
grown, but never, so far as I can find, acquiring full colour and matu- 
rity. The few I have been enabled to examine in this seemingly de- 
veloped but unripe’condition, resemble those of L. Forsteri, and like 
them have a straight, blunt appendage or crest, without a trace of any 
tendency to become hooked as in L. pilosa.t It now remains to be 
considered whether the Apse-Castle Luzula be a hybrid betwixt L. 
pilosa and L. Forsteri, or distinct from both. The numerous points 


* L, pilosa and L. Forsteri, when growing near or amongst it, do not exceed their 
usual size, of about ten to twelve inches. 

+ Even here there is a doubt, which only perfectly ripened seeds can dispel. I 
have ascertained that the crest to the seeds of L. pilosa is at first straight, and does 
not elongate and become hooked till they are at least half grown. 


VoL. Itt. 6 L 


986 


of resemblance it bears to each of these species, and the apparently 
uniform sterility of the seed-vessels, strongly favour the idea of its 
being a mule production. But to this view of the matter are opposed 
the great abundance of the plant; its vast predominance in relative 
quantity over its two congeners, and excess of stature above its sup- 
posed parents. Neither are the characters which separate it from 
them purely intermediate ; the panicle, as we have seen, although much 
like that of L. pilosa, is considerably different, and not more like that 
of L. Forsteri, and the shape of the capsule, if it be not modified by 
the abortion or want of maturity of the imbedded seed, has little re- 
semblance to that of either progenitor. Although its pretensions are 
in my mind so equally poised, that I incline one day to hold it distinct, 
on another to regard it as a hybrid, or perhaps a sterile state of L. 
pilosa or L. Forsteri, it is hard to say which; I am yet not without 
hopes of satisfactorily adjusting its claim to specific distinction, but 
until perfectly ripe seed can be obtained, I hold it expedient to regard 
its true nature as undetermined. Plants have been forwarded for cul- 
tivation to Kew, to Mr. Babington for the Cambridge garden, to Mr. 
Borrer and Mr. Watson, whilst Dr. Salter and myself have it under 
our eye in the same state at Ryde. Placed amongst so many ob- 
servers, and doubtless in a diversity of soil and situations, we may 
hope, even before this notice of it goes to press, to be enabled to re- 
port this enigmatical plant as having thrown off the mask, and shown 
itself in its true colours; for if not a distinct species, it cannot surely 
act the dissembler much longer, supposing it to be L. pilosa or L. 
Forsteri in disguise. Should it continue sterile under every kind of 
treatment, and retain its present characters unaltered, the fact of hy- 
bridity may be looked upon as fairly established. Mr. Borrer has re- 
marked our Luzula in Sussex, near Luggershall, under Black Down; 
and Mr. Parchas writes me word he has found the same near Ross, in 
Herefordshire; it is probably not uncommon, ‘therefore, which is 
greatly in favour of its being, if not distinct, at least no hybrid. As 
before observed, the foliage and flowers in this genus exhibit a remark- 
able similarity in nearly related but well defined species, whilst the 
form, size, colour, &c., of the seeds and capsules, are very discrimina- 
tive of each kind ; if, therefore, these last should be found to preserve 
their present characters in our Apse-Castle Luzula when ripe seeds are 
obtained, the plant may fairly rank as a species, differing as much as 
L. Forsteri does from L. pilosa, and intimately allied to both. Were 
it a mere sterile form of L. pilosa, one would expect to find a solitary 


= 


987 


capsule of that species occasionally produced, but such has never once 
occurred in the almost innumerable tufts I have examined in their 
native locality. 
W. A. BROMFIELD. © 
(To be continued). 


Contents of the ‘ Botanical Gazette, No 19, July, 1850. 


On the mode of action of Heat upon Plants, and particularly the 
effect of the Solar Rays. By M. Alphonse De Candolle. [Transla- 
tion from the Bibliothéque Universelle de Genéve, March, 1850. |] 

Note on Viola stagnina. By Charles C. Babington, M.A. [To the 
other characters by which Mr. B. would distinguish this plant from 
V. lactea of Smith, he adds that “ of a slender rhizoma, spreading ra- 
ther extensively through the peaty soil which the plant inhabits, and 
sending up at short intervals what have the appearance of being dis- 
tinct individuals.” } 

Remarks on Mentha sativa and gentilis of Linneus. By Dr. C. J. 
Hartmann. [Translation from the ‘Flora’ of January 28, 1850. 
Dr. Hartmann contends that Fries has misapplied the Linnean 
names of these plants, and that the nomenclature is thus: M. sativa, 
Linn. = M. gentilis, Firies.; M. gentilis, Zinn. = M. rubra, Fries. ; 
M. Aghardiana, Fries. = M. sativa, Fries. | 

On Sagina apetala, L. and S. ciliata, Fries, with some remarks on 
the mode of discriminating species. By Arthur Henfrey, F.L.S., &c. 
[Mr. Henfrey concludes the latter of these to be a variety of S. ape- 
tala, not a species permanently distinct from it. His grounds for this 
conclusion appear to be sound and sufficient, but must be consulted 
in the original. ] 

A Monograph of the Hieracia. [Continuation of the abstract from 
Fries’s ‘Symbole ad Historiam Hieraceorum. | 

Literature : Wigand’s ‘ Principles of Vegetable Teratology.’ Woods’ 
‘Tourist’s Flora.’ Contents of various botanical journals. 

Proceedings of Societies : Botanical Society of London. Botanical 
Society of Edinburgh. 

Miscellanea: Record of Localities. Woods on the genus Oro- 
banche. Itzigsohn on Antheridia in Lichens. Collections of plants 
for sale. 


988 


Contents of ‘ Hooker's Journal of Botany, No. 19, July, 1850. 


Continuation of Mr. Spruce’s Letters from South America. 

Report on the Dried Plants collected by Mr. Spruce in the neigh- 
bourhood of Para. By George Bentham, Esq. 

Continuation of Dr. J. D. Hooker’s Letters from India. 

Botanical Information: Victoria Regia. 

Notices of Books: Martius’s Genera et Species Palmarum. The 
Gardener’s Magazine of Botany, &c. 


Botanical Society of London. 


Friday, July 5, 1850. J. H. Wilson, Esq., F.L.S., in the chair. 

J. P. Norman, Esq., of London, and T. Dutton, Esq., of Bath, 
were elected members. 

Mr. George Maw exhibited specimens of Lilium pyrenaicum, dis- 
covered by him between South Molton and Mollond, Devonshire, in 
June last. 

Dr. Arthur Hassell read a paper “ On the Colouration of the Water 
of the Serpentine.” In this communication it was shown that the 
periodical and vivid green colouration of the water of the Serpentine is 
due to the presence of a minute plant belonging to the tribe of Alge, 
of which the writer gave a detailed and critical description, and which 
he named Corriophytum Thompsoni. The development of this plant 
takes place early in the spring, out of sight and at the bottom of the 
water, and it is only on the approach of the warm weather of summer 
that it diffuses itself through the water, deeply colouring it, and that 
part of it rises to the surface, forming a scum or pellicle of a bright 
zeruginous or coppery-green colour. The whole of the water of the 
Serpentine is not usually coloured at one time, but different portions 
of it at different times, according to the strength and direction of the 
wind which drives the plant before it; at one time it is found col- 
lected at the Hyde Park extremity, at another it is present in the 
Kensington division, sometimes on the north, and at others on the 
south shore, the remaining parts of the Serpentine being entirely free 
from the plant. This. variable distribution, which, unexplained, 
would be apt to occasion surprise, accounts for the fact that the ob- 
server may sometimes visit the Serpentine and not see a trace of the 


989 


plant in question, and hence he might be led to form an erroneous 
conclusion as to the condition of the water. The observer, therefore, 
who wishes to come at its real state, should make the tour of the 
whole of the Serpentine. Considered in a sanitary point of view, Dr. 
Hassall is of opinion that the plant, when actually introduced into 
the system, as when swallowed in bathing, would not be productive 
of effects injurious to health, and regards it as a test of impurity and 
as an evidence of the very bad condition in which the water of the 
Serpentine now undoubtedly is. Dr. Hassall concluded the commu- 
nication by observing that the colouration of large pieces of water 
by means of Confervz is by no means unfrequent, and cited as a re- 
markable instance of it the Red Sea, which owes its name and colour 
io the presence of a minute plant diffused through the water of 
a blood-red colour.—G. E. D. 


Anacharis alsinastrum of Babington.at Watford Locks. 
By Tuomas Kirk, Esq. 


In announcing the discovery of this plant at Watford Locks, I ex- 
pressed an opinion, founded chiefly on the fact that it had only been 
announced from artificial and extremely suspicious localities, of its 
being an introduced plant. The subsequent announcement of its dis- 
covery in natural localities in Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire, and 
Berwickshire, having proved it a true native, I have thought a short 
account of a summer visit to Watford Locks might not be unaccept- 
able to those botanists who have had no opportunity of seeing 
the plant in a living state. 

The Anacharis is abundant in all the reservoirs attached to the 
Locks, the plant growing in such dense masses that it is with diffi- 
culty good-sized single specimens can be detached, owing to its ex- 
treme brittleness. Flowers were only procurable in those places 
where the water was but slightly disturbed, and were most abundant 
in the upper reservoir, the water of which is much less disturbed than 
either of the others; there they were in profusion, looking at a short 
distance like threads of white silk which had been scattered over the 
surface of the water. I, however, searched all the reservoirs in vain 
for the least trace of female flowers; and, I believe, none have yet 
been found in this country. Many large, matted patches of the plant 
occur in the canal itself, both above and below the Locks, but I could 


990 


not detect a single flower on any of these, owing, as I suppose, to their 
being too frequently disturbed by the passing of boats. 

The lockman kindly volunteered his assistance in gathering speci- 
mens, and in the course of conversation, informed me that it was 
quite as abundant when he first came to the Locks five years ago as 
at the present time, although the reservoirs had been cleaned out 
once or twice during that period. He further informed me, that he 
had formerly resided at Foxton Locks, and that the reservoirs there 
were “full of it more than twenty years back,” also that it had been 
plentiful in the Market Harborough Canal during the whole of that 
period. A short time after this conversation took place, two labour- 
ers belonging to the Locks came up; both of them confirmed the state- 
ment of its being plentiful in the Market Harborough Canal, and one 
of them added, that the “ Welford Branch,” a narrow canal, compa- 
ratively little used, was so full of it that the passage of boats was im- 
peded, and the canal necessitated to be cleared out once or twice a 
year, and that it had been so for many years. 

How very remarkable that fur so long a period this plant, by 
no means an inconspicuous one, in widely separated localities, should 
with the single exception of Berwickshire, have totally escaped the 
notice of botanists! 

As it may be a temptation to some botanist to visit the locality, I 
will just add, the Locks are situate little more than half a mile from 
the Crick Station of the London and North Western Railway, on the 
Coventry side. The canal crosses the turnpike-road at a short dis- 
tance from the station-gates, and by following its course for little 
more than half a mile the Locks would be reached. Several patches 
of Anacharis occur in the canal by the waste ground adjoining the 
Railway Station, intermingled with Potamogeton pectinatus and 
others, amongst them the little-known P. zosteraceus, which is also 
abundant between the Locks and Crick Tunnel. P. zostereefolius and 
compressus occur in the upper reservoir; and in a rivulet near it 
grows Ranunculus circinatus, &c. 

The best time for visiting the locality is towards the latter end of 
August; when I visited the spot on the 13th of that month, the plant. 
had not nearly reached its maximum of flowering. 

THomas Kirk. 

Coventry, July 22, 1850. 


991 


Some Remarks on the specific characters of the Greater and Smaller 
Butterfly Orchises (Platanthera chlorantha and bifolia). By 
WILLIAM ARNOLD BRoMFIELD, M.D., F.L.S., &c. 


In a late part of my Catalogue of Hampshire Plants, in this journal 
(Phytol. iii. 903 et seg.), I expressed myself in doubt of the value as 
species of the greater and smaller butterfly orchises, although dis- 
tinguished as such even by the older botanists of this kingdom, and 
in our own day well illustrated by Mr. Babington in the seventeeth 
volume of the ‘ Linnean Transactions.’ A recent and renewed exami- 
nation of these beautiful and fragrant plants, made on an extensive 
series of each ina fresh state, from various parts of this neighbour- 
hood and of Alton, has, I confess, removed much of the doubt I till 
then felt on the question of their specific diversity. Still, it must be 
owned there is too close a resemblance in the aspect, habit and struc- 
ture of these Platanthere not to leave a suspicion behind, that with 
all their apparently constant differences and well-marked characters, 
they may nevertheless be but forms of a single species; yet, since 
it would be equally difficult to prove the negative as the positive pro- 
position in the absence of intermediate states, which I am unable to 
produce, J shall rest satisfied with assuming the truth of the latter, 
and with pointing out, in corroboration of the views of those botanists 
who hold the two plants indubitably distinct, some additional marks 
of difference, together with the characters already laid down for their 
discrimination, placing those of each kind in juxtaposition, in a sy- 
noptic or tabular form, for readier comparison. It may with truth be 
contended that our Platanthere differ from each other quite as widely 
as do Orchis maculata and O. latifolia, which no botanist, so far as I 
am aware, has had the hardihood to reduce to varieties of a single 
species. 

Platanthera bifolia (the smaller butterfly orchis) I now find in 
many of the beechen woodlands so extensively spread over the whole 
neighbourhood of Alton, as in Akender Wood, Chawton Park, at 
Medstead, and notably in woods by Rotherfield Park, as in Win- 
chester Wood and Carter’s Copse, as also in Froxfield Hangers, near 
Petersfield,* from all of which stations, as well as from other places, 
an abundant set of specimens was gathered a few days back, and 


* These beechen uplands produce copiously certain plants rather characteristic of 
the flora of the northern or midland counties, as Hypericum dubium (more common 
even than H. perforatum at Chawton and Rotherfield), and especially Epilobium 
angustifolium, which, frequent though it be in Hants, occurs about Alton in bound- 


992 


rigorously and simultaneously compared with as multitudinous a 
supply of examples of P. chlorantha, from the thickly wooded 
slopes of the chalk range called Hawkley Hangers, a few miles from 
this village, as also from other localities where the greater butterfly 
orchis abounds, which it does far more generally and plentifully in 
this county than the smaller kind. JI have thus assured myself that 
the differences detailed below were not merely accidental or individual 
peculiarities, but were at least common to all the plants of these spe- 
cies in the district within which the examples submitted to examina- 
tion were collected, if they may not hold good in specimens from 
parts of the country more remote, which I must leave to other and 
abler observers than myself to ascertain. 

Besides the leading or most prominent character which serves to 
distinguish our two Platanthere, the parallelism and divergence of 
the cells of the anther, there are several subordinate ones apparently 
no less constant, but which, from having been overlooked or slightly 
alluded to, I now proceed to exhibit, in conjunction with the longer 
recognized and more obvious marks of distinction, in the subjoined 
tabular view. i 


Platanthera chlorantha. Platanthera bifolia. 


Anther much broader than long, Anther about as broad as long, 
very concave anteriorly, the con- or even narrower, connective (co- 
nective (column) with a prominent lumn) plane, or by the approxima- 


less profusion, literally filling the woods at the two last named places, and making a 
glorious appearance in July and August. Another plant more frequent, I think, in 
the midland counties than in those along the south coast—Convallaria multiflora— 
T have now ascertained to be dispersed over nearly every part of Hampshire (the 
Isle of Wight excepted), abounding in most of the central, northern and south-eastern 
parts, and at least as far westward as Harewood Forest, near Andover, where it is 
common in very many parts of that sequestered woodland tract. I do not find men- 
tion made by any author of the strong smell emitted by the Soloman’s seal, which re- 
sides in the root, stem and fleshy bases of the leaves, and exactly resembles the odour 
of Iris fectidissima, but is even more powerful than in that plant. The bruised leaves 
themselves exhale no peculiar smell. Does C. Polygonatum, which I cannot succeed 
in rediscovering this season in Mr. Woods’ old station of Chawton Park, possess the 
same smell? If it does not, the knowledge of the above fact may aid in detecting 
the latter when out of bloom, at which time its great similarity to C. multiflora, the 
stem of which, in the larger plants especially, is often furrowed and subangular, and 
in the smaller commonly compressed and almost two-edged, may occasion it to be 
overlooked for that more abundant and less local species. - 


993 


Platanthera chlorantha. 


ridge in front or between the cells, 
which are widely diverging at 
their lower ends, and obliquely 
ascending inwards and backwards. 


Stigma very broad and concave, 
forming a semicircular, basin-lke 
cavity ; slightly pointed in the 
middle by a thickened glandulose 
projection of its superior margin, 


Lateral petals narrow or at- 
tenuated almost from their round- 
ed bases, curved over the stigma, 
their tips crossing or overlying, 
and forming an arch just above 
the anther, occasionally merely 
approximate or conjoined at their 
summits. Inferior petal (lip) 
longer and narrower than in P. 
bifolia, mostly curved downwards 
and backwards. 


Lateral sepals (usually) more 
deflexed than in P. bifolia. 


Spur very strongly keeled and 
compressed, visibly dilated or sub- 
clavate at the extremity, and most- 
ly much curved downwards; twice 
or thrice as thick as in P. bifolia, 

VOL. 110. 


Platanthera bifolia. 


tion of the cells appearing to form 
a groove in front; cells of the an- 
ther rising almost perpendicularly, 
parallel throughout. 


Stigma scarcely one-third the 
size it is in P. chlorantha, its 
superior posterior margin much 
thickened into a prominent, gland- 
like projection in the centre, oc- 
cupying nearly the whole space 
between the lower ends of the an- 
ther-cells. 


Lateral petals but little di- 
minished in width, or nearly as 
broad throughout as their rounded 
bases, rising alinost perpendicu- 
larly, and converging much above 
the anther, their tips not crossing 
or overlapping, but erect, usually 
conjoined below their summits, the 
latter in that case spreading or 
diverging, sometimes simply ap- 
proximate and erect (not touching 
or conjoined). Inferior petal or 
lip shorter and broader than in 
P. chlorantha, and in general 
straighter, but little (or often not 
at all) decurved. 


Lateral sepals spreading hori- 


- zontally, seldom, or but little de- 


flexed, except at the tips. 


Spur keeled and compressed, 
filiform and subcylindrical, or of 
equal thickness throughout, or 
very nearly so, extremely slender, 
and usually straighter than in P. 

6 M 


994 


* 


Platanthera chlorantha. Platanthera bifolia. 


and rather inclined to take a prone _chlorantha, nor is it in general so 

than a horizontal direction. pronely directed as in that, but 
tends more to a horizontal than a 
vertical position. 


In size, P. bifolia is usually inferior to P. chlorantha, but specimens 
of the former may often be met with as tall as most of the latter. I 
find the degree of greenness or whiteness in the flowers a variable 
and reciprocal character ; neither can I detect any difference in the 
leaves, bracts or other organs, except the floral ones, unless it be that 
in P. bifolia the leaves look commonly as if highly varnished under- 
neath, which is perhaps less frequently and conspicuously seen in P. 
chlorantha. Pollen-grains in both oblong and truncate, pale yellow. 


W. A. BROMFIELD. 
Selborne, Hants, June 14, 1850. 


Note on Agraphis nutans. By GrorcE LuxForp, A.L.S., &e. 


Tuis pretty plant is known by the name of Blue-bottle in many 
parts of Surrey, as well as in the Isle of Wight (Phytol. iii. 973) ; but 
when a boy, I was taught to believe that this name had reference to 
the flask-shaped ovary and style, divested of the floral envelopes, not 
to the form of the flower. Last May I had the pleasure of seeing the 
delicate white variety in considerable abundance in a wood near 
Chislehurst, in Kent. 

G. Luxrorp. 


East Temple Chambers, 
August 1, 1850. 


995 


On the British Species of Hieracium contained in.the ‘ Symbole ad 
Historiam Hieraciorum’ of Fries. By James Buapon, Esq. 


AN abstract of the introductory part of the monograph (containing 
the general observations and the grouping of the species), translated 
from the ‘ Flora,’ having appeared in a contemporary botanical pe- 
riodical, I shall at present chiefly confine myself to the synonymy of 
our species ; as one of the latest, and that in general-use, I shall take the 
second edition of Babington’s ‘ Manual’ for comparison, first exhibiting 
a tabular view of the species as they stand in each work. 


Babington. 
No. No. 
. Pilosella, Linn. 1. Pilosella, Zznn. 
. dubium, Linn. ? 2. stoloniflorum, Waldst. 


Fries. 


. aurantiacum, Linn. 
. alpinum, Linn. 
»  b. Halleri, Hook. 


1 
2 
3. Auricula, Linn. ? 
4 
9) 


8. glaciale, Lachen. 
16. aurantiacum, Linn. 
49. alpinum, Zinn. 

50. sudeticum, Wimm. 


6. nigrescens, Willd. 75. nigrescens, Willd. 
7. villosum, Zinn. ? 

8. murorum, Linn. 80. cesium, Fries 

9. Schmidti, Tausch 67. pallidum, Bivon. 


10. Lawsoni, Sm. nee trichocephalum, Willd. 


37.*anglicum, Fries 


1]. vulgatum, Fries 82. vulgatum, Fries 


12. Lapeyrousii, Freel. 40. Iricum, Fries 

13. cerinthoides, L. ? 38. cerinthoides, Linn. 

14. amplexicaule, Linn. ' 53. amplexicaule, Linn. 

Teac reall stir Si. 124. prenanthoides, var. (Fill.) 
paucifolium 

16. ? prenanthoides, Vil. 126. strictum, Fides 

17. inuloides, Tawsch 140. crocatum, Fries 

18. boreale, Fries 145. boreale, Fries 

19. tridentatum, Fries 132. tridentatum, Fries 

20. rigidum, F77es 133. rigidum, Hartman 

21. umbellatum, Linn. _ 135. umbellatum, Linn. 


Besides the above we have— 
71. oreades, Fries 
72. saxifragum, Fries 


996 
Babington. . Fries. 


75.*atratum, Fries 

78. murorum, Linn. 

79. plumbeum, Fries 

84. gothicum, Fries, and two 
varieties 

89. dovrense, Fries 

146. virescens, Sonder 


The old adage, “ Who shall decide when doctors disagree?” is fully 
exemplified in this troublesome genus; even the original describers 
are in error in some instances; others, with the plant and figure before 
them, are held to have described a different plant: out of twenty-one 
species described in the ‘Manual’ we are to have no less than twelve 
fresh names. 

1. Pilosella, Linn., the variety b. Peleterianum, Gaud., No. 3, 
Frelich in De Candolle’s ‘ Prodromus,’ vol. vii. p. 200, is re-named 
pilosissimum (p. 3, Fries). 

2. dubium, Zinn.? = stoloniflorum, Waldst. and Kit. Pl. Hung. p. 
303, t. 273, optima (No. 7, bifurcum, Frel.1.c¢.), dubium, Huds. ? 
Woodward, and Withering, cum descrip. eximia indeque etiam 
Smith, Brit. p. 828, E. Bot. 2332, at non Smith’s ‘Compendium’ et 
‘English Flora.—Forsan in Anglia Poreali, p. 6, F. 

3. Auricula, Linn. ? EK. Bot. 2368 = glaciale, Lachen. Acta Helv., 
var. angustifolium, Hoppe (No. 22, angustifolium, Freel.), p. 13. 

8. Auricula, Zinv® = dubium, Smith, Eng. Flora, ii. 356, at non 
Linn. nec ipsius Flo. Brit., Eng. Bot. (No. 10, Auricula, Freel.)—p. 14. 

A. aurantiacum, Linn. E. Bot. 1469.— In Britannia adventitium 
creditur, (No. 19, Freel.) 

5. alpinum, L., Smith, E. Bot. 1110. 

- b. Halleri, L. Bot. 2379 = this is cited as well as ? vil- 
losum, Dickson! in ‘Linnean Transactions,’ for sudeticum (No. 35, 
Frel.), p. 73. See below, villosum. 

6. nigrescens, Willd. = Broad dented Hawklung, Petiver, Brit. t. 
13, f. 3, murorum %. Smith, Brit. i. p. 1404 (No. 36, Freel.) 

7. villosum, Z. Quid H. villosum, Babington? valde pilosum 1. 
oreades? dubia de H. Lawsoni, Anglis collectivo, suis locis notavimus. 

8. murorum, ZL. = cesium, Fries, murorum, Linn., pr. p. et Auct. 
plu. Smith, Comp. p. 131 (8. ejusdem, Fl. Brit. p. 830), et Transac. 
ix. p. 236! Eng. Bot. 2082 ! 


997 


*Hypocherides, Bot. Brit. rec.—pro var. H. maculati misit Cel. 
Woods formam singularem. 

Murorum, Linn., var. silvaticum Linn. @., Smith! Engl. Flora, iil. 
p- 359, et Auct.s. laud. (a reliquis male interpretatum !), Pediver, Brit. 
13, f. 3: this is quoted above; see nigrescens. 

9. Schmidtii, Tausch = pallidum, Fries, Lawsoni, Bot. Scot. pr. 
p- Halleri, Curtis, Lond. 215 (H. scapigero accedens). (No. 55, 
Sternbergii, et 116, Schmidtii, Fre.) 

There is no reference under diaphanum to either Schmidtii or Law- 
soni, or to the ‘ Manual.’ 

10. Lawsoni, Sm. E. Bot. 2083 = trichocephalum, Fries (No. 87, 
p- 56), cfr. obs. infra. 

es Babington! Man. 169 (rec 196), Borrer! Woods! 
Balfour ! = H. anglicum, Fries (No. 37* p. 93). 

H. leptocaulon hirsutum folio longiore, Raii Syn. 3, 169, ex icone in 
Eng. Bot. hoc potissimum referendum, sed typus iconis est planta culta, 
et inter numerosissima specimina spontanea H. Lawsoni nulla cum 
precedente prorsus congruunt. Primitivum H. Lawsoni (Villarsii ex- 
clus. tamen synonymo Lawsoni) sistit H. saxatile, plantam cum H. 
trichocephalo eximie analogam H. Lawsoni, Brit. (exclus. syn. Vill.) 
est inter omnia Hieracia mihi difficillimum, cum numerosissima pre- 
sentia specimina inter se maxime differant. | Specimina Irlandica ad 
H. cerinthoides, ad quod H. Lawsoni, Smith, retulit Koch! potissi- 
mum pertinent, sed caulis submonophyllus. Specimina Anglica 
(Teesdale, etc.) a Borrer, Babington, Woods, etc. sistunt H. pilosum, 
8. subnudum, Frael., de quo judicium ferre in presente non ausus 
suin, at subjungam descriptionem ; Caulis scapiformis, nudus ]. mono- 
phyllus, pedalis circiter, simplex 1. szpius in pedunculus 2-4 elonga- 
tos subarcuato-adscendentes bracieis, nec foliis, suffultos. Folia 
radicalia rosulata longe petiolata (petiolo vix alato, plus minus hir- 
suto), exteriora subrotunda, obtusa, integerrima, reliqua ovata 1. ellip- 
tica, acuta, denticulata, caulina nulla, 1. diminuta sessilia. Capitula et 
ligule prioris. Specimina Babingtonii intense glauca et fere glabra ; 
Borreri pallida et hirsuta, ex eodem loco. Foliis omnibus rosulatis, 
caule subnudo, anthela discreta, ad Pulmonareas maxime accedit. 
Alia dein specimina H. Lawsoni e Scotia (Aberdeen! etc.) omnino 
ad Pulmoneareas pertinent. Malo dubia profiteri, quam ex characte- 
ribus |. arbitrio sententiare.—page 57. 

11. vulgatum, Fries. 

a. Varietates angustifolia, subglabre. 


998 


H. vulg.-genuinum. H. maculatum, Smith, Eng. Fl. ii. p. 360, 

Eng. Bot. 2121, haud bona. Var. foliis maculatis, Bab. p. 196. 
c. Varietates latifolie, plus minus hirsute, virides. 

H. nemorosum = murorum, Smith, Brit. ii. 230, a, b. = sylva- 
ticum, Smith, Linn. Trans. ix. p. 239, a. E. Bot. 2031, Eng. Flo. iii. 
p. 361. (Bene quidem monet hoc et cultum et loco constanter differre 
ab H. vulgato-genuino, ¢. e. suo H. maculata, sed notas non inveni 
fidas). The only reference to Freel. is, Frélich, 1. c. p. 214, H. silvati- 
cum, Ejusd., mixta planta, ex magna parte priorum forme nemorose!) 

12. Lapeyrousii, Freel. ? = iricum, Fries, Bab.! ed. 2, p. 196, E. 
2916, Borrer ! Soc. Bot. Ed.! non Freelich. 

H. Lapeyrousii, Freel., apud De C. vii. p. 232, est species omnino 
mixta et delenda, singule vero forme ab H. irico diverse sunt. Var. 
villosa est sequens, flexuosa videtur H. corruscans ; relique et forma 
primaria ad stirpem H. laniferi pertinent. 

13. cerinthoides, Linn. ? = cerinthoides, Linn.! Spec. 1. 1129, 
Smith ! E. FI. iii. p. 365, E. Bot. 2370 (rec. 2378), Bab. ed. 2, p. 196. 
Planta culta!; spontanea ex Anglia sub nomine H. Lawsoni mittitur! 

14. amplexicaule, Linn. = E. Bot.! 2690. Per alpes australes, 
copiose, nec non in Anglia! adventitium in muris vetustis (specimina 
vero indigena Scotica! ad H. dovrense). 

15. denticulatum, Smith = prenanthoides, Vill./ E. Bot. 2122 
(non Smith, Eng. Flo. iti. 8369), Freel./ vii. p. 221 (rec. 211, No. 42), 
Bab.! Man. ed. 1, p. 184 = H. spicatum, Dickson! in Linn. Trans. 

ii. p.288 = var. paucifolium. H.denticulatum, Smith, E. Fl. 1.c. ex 
Borrer ! lusus vegetior, latifolius. 

16. prenanthoides, Vill.? EK. Bot. 2235, an H. prenanthoides, Smzth, 
Eng. Fl. 1. c., E. Bot. 2235, at minime specc. Borreri! etc. ~ H. 
strictum, Fries, var. granulatum. 

Desperandum sepe de synonymis recentiorum extricandis cum 
notz vatiabiles modo indicantur. Hoc vero habeo e locis Smithianis 
sub nom. H. inuloidis, et primarium sub nomine H. ngidi, ad Ochill 
Hills Scotize lectum a Dr. Dewar. There is no reference under either 
of the last two to the second edition of the ‘ Manual.’ 

17. inuloides, Tausch ! = H. crocatum, Fries, var. dilatatum. Croca- 
tum vero = sabaudum, @. Smith, Brit. et Engl. FI. iii. p. 368. 

18. boreale, Fries = sabaudum Smith, Brit. 384, a. E. Bot. 349. 

19. tridentatum, Fries. The only English reference is Bab.! 2, 
199. 

20. rigidum, Fries. The only modern English reference is Bab. ! 
2, 199. 


999 


21. umbellatum, Zinn. E. Bot. 1771. There is no allusion to the 
var. 8. Taylori. 

The following are the species not in the ‘ Manual’ :— 

22. No. 71, oreades, Fries, p. 100 = H. macrocaulon hirsutum fo- 
lio rotundiore Raii Syn. 169, cited by Smith, Eng. FI. iii. 359, for H. 
murorum, (in Anglia boreali ex Dillenio). 

H. oreades, phyllopodum, intense glaucum, caule subramoso folioso, 
foliis oblongis medio denticulatis margine subtusque piloso-crinitis, 
caulinis sessilibus, anthela contigua canofloccosa involucrisque tumi- 
dis utringue truncatis, albocrinitis, squamis oblusis, ligulis eximie 
ciliatis, stylo luteo. 

23. No. 72, saxifragum: in the geography of the genus he gives it 
as a British species with a! butin the account of the species he gives 
no British locality, unless it is included in “in montibus Europe me- 
diz rarius.” 

24. No. 75* atratum: this is in the same predicament as the fore- 
going species. 

25. No. 78, murorum, Zinn.: for the normal form of this species 
there is no English author quoted. See above, No. 10, for the varie- 
ty sylvaticum; the variety pilosissimum has Ben Bulben, Ireland, 
for its locality. 

26. No. 79, plumbeum: this is marked in the geography as British, 
without any locality assigned. 

27. No. 84, gothicum, p. 121: hypophyllopodum, obscure viride, 
caule rigido folioso apice subcorymboso erectove-ramoso, foliis ovatis 
lanceolatisve medio grosse dentatis, radicalibus breve petiolatis, cau- 
linis sessilibus, anthela contigua, involucris nudis atrovirentibus 
siccis atris, carina glandulosa, pilosis, squamis spiraliter imbricatis 
latis plurimis obtusis apice glabris, stylo fusco-hispidulo, pappo ea- 
imie rufescente—maximum. Var. a. “ H.murorum,” Vahl./ e Green- 
landia. 

Var. b, “ H. pulmonarei var.” ! Woods ex Anglia, caule elongato 
paucifolio, foliis caulinis petiolatis basi grosse porrecto-dentatis, capi- 
tulis paucis globosis magnis, squamis cuspidatis, ligulis ciliatis. 
Habitus H. vulgati, at proprius var. c. H. asperifolium, s. “ H. sylva- 
tici var.” a Cel. Leighton, in Shropshire, Angliz, pumilum, caule in- 
ferne folicso, foliis ovatis pilis brevissimis confertis basi bulbosis, 
quasi glandulosis, asperrimis, corymbo multifloro, squamis obtusis, 
ligulis glabris. : 

28. No. 89, dovrense, hypophyllopodum, viridi-pallens, cawle sim- 
plici folioso apice in pedunculos paucos strictos 1, oligocephalos cano- 


1000 


floccosos et nigro-glandulosos diviso, oliis oblongis lanceolatisve denta- 
tis, radicalibus petiolatis minoribus marcescentibus, caulinis sessilibus 
supertoribus basi cordata semiamplexicaulibus, involucris nigrican- 
tibus pilosis squamis latis obtusis ligulis ciliatis, acheniis badio- 
fuscis. 

H. fruticosum alpinum latifolium minus, uno alterove in summo 
flore. Rati Hist. iii. p. 178, Syn. Brit. 170, omnino. 

H. amplexicaule accedens, Smith, Eng. FI. iii.! in obs. _ 

29. No. 146, H. virescens, Sonder, aphyllopodum, caule dense fo- 
lioso, foliis sessilibus ovatis lanceolatisve medio dentatis, subtus cre- 
bre triplinervibus, anthela racemoso-corymbosa paniculataque basi 
foliolosa, znvolucris basi attenuatis nudis sqguamis sursum attenuatis 
apiceque flocculosis margine pallidis, stylo luteo fuscescente. 


In Surrey, Angliz, Woods ! 
JAMES Buapon. 


Pont-y-Pool, July 22, 1850. 


Note on Sagina procumbens with double flowers. 
By the Rey. R. C. Douetas, M.A. 


On the 27th of last June, I found Sagina procumbens with double 
flowers, growing amongst Sphagnum in a small bog by the road-side 
about half way between Stafford and Rugeley. All parts of the 
flower, with the exception of the calyx, being converted into pure 
white petals, it presented a most beautiful appearance when seen 
through a magnfier. The occurrence of double flowers in a plant 
whose petals are usually so inconspicuous seems remarkable ; is it not 
also the smallest known example of the double flower so much 
prized by florists? In Baxter’s ‘ British Phenogamous Botany,’ vol. 
lil. plate 199, there is a figure of this variety, from a plant grown in 
the Oxford Botanic Garden. In the text it is stated to have been 
“first found by the late Rev. H. Davis, author of ‘ Welsh Botano- 
logy,’ on a green near Beaumaris, in the Isle of Anglesey, in July, 


18177 
R. C. Dovetas. 
Forebridge, Stafford, 
August 12, 1850. 


1001 


Contents of the ‘ Botanical Gazette, No 20, August, 1850. 


On the Coloration of the Water of the Serpentine. By A. H. Has- 
sall, M.B. [Mr. Hassall attributes the colouring of the water to a 
confervoid plant, the Anabaina Flos-aque of himself and Dr. Harvey, 
and the Dolichospermum Thompsoni of Mr. Ralfs, but which he now 
describes under a new generic name, Coniophytum Thompsoni. | 

Further Remarks on Fumaria Vaillantii and F. parviflora. By the 
Editor. [It appears that two species of Fumaria occur in the vicinity 
of Saffron Walden, growing intermixed, and both having probably 
been distributed among botanists under one or other of these two 
names; the specimens more or less commingled together, and the 
names therefore equally crossed. | 

A Monograph of the Hieracia; being an abstract of Prof. Fries’s 
‘Symbole ad Historiam Hieraciorum.’ Continued from a former No. 
[The species are here enumerated and partly described, though nei- 
ther in a very clear, nor very satisfactory manner; but whether this 
may be the fault of the English translation, of the German abstract, 
or of the original composition of Fries, would require careful collation 
to decide upon. | 

Literature: Kunth’s ‘Enumeratio Plantarum, Tomus v. Unger’s 
“Genera et Species Plantarum Fossilium.’ Contents of various bota- 
nical journals. 

Proceedings of Societies: Linnean Society. Botanical Society ot 
London. 

Miscellanea: Record of Localities. On the Ciliary Movement of 
the Pollen-grains of certain Phanerogamia. Fedia carinata raised 
true from seed. Collections of Plants for sale. 


Contents of ‘ Hooker’s Journal of Botany, No. 20, August, 1850. 


Continuation of Mr. Spruce’s Letters from South America. 
Report on the Dried Plants collected by Mr. Spruce in the neigh- 
bourhood of Para. By George Bentham, Esq. 
Continuation of Dr. J. D. Hooker’s Letters from India. 
Vou 11. 6 N 


1002 


Botanical Information: Eboé Nut. Chinese Rice-paper. Herba- 
rium of M. Barneoud. Notes on Cleomella, by Dr. Torrey. 

Notices of Books: New edition of the ‘ British Flora... Woods’s 
‘Tourist’s Flora.’ 


A Catalogue of the Plants growing wild in Hampshire, with occa- 
sional Notes and Observations on some of the more remarkable 
Species. By Wittiam ARNOLD Bromri£ELD, M.D., F.LS., &e. 


(Continued from page 987). 


Luzula campestris. In dry meadows, barren fields, pastures, and 
sandy, heathy places on short turf; everywhere extremely common. 
Apse Castle, on the walks, &c. 

Luzula multiflora. In damp, moory ground, turfy bogs, wet 
woods, thickets, and other moist or shady places; frequent. Between 
Ryde and the Priory. Wood by Little Smallbrook. About West 
Cowes. On the skirts of Lake and Blackpan Commons, in and about 
Apse Castle, and most other parts of the Isle of Wight, and doubtless 
equally common over the rest of the county. The var. 8. congesta, 
with the clusters collected into a roundish, lobed head, is also fre- 
quent. Notwithstanding that some-of our best botanists consider this 
plant a variety of the last, I cannot but be of opinion that Mr. Ba- 
bington is right in deeming it, as did Smith, De Candolle and others, 
a good and very distinct species. The oblong, not globose, seeds, far 
greater size and height of the plant, and its different places of growth 
and general habit are all in favour of such a view of its nature. It 
has usually a very gray, and even hoary aspect, and flowers later than 
L. campestris. It is a pity that L. nivea should be retained on the 
list of British plants, if it be well ascertained to have been planted in 
the woods near Dunfermline; it is scarcely a species of western and 
sea-coast countries of Europe, nor does it range so far north as Scot- 
land on the continent. 

Alisma Plantago. In ponds, ditches, and slow streams, &c.; com- 
mon everywhere. Herb quite inodorous. 

Alisma ranunculoides. In ditches, drains and shallow pools. In 
several parts of the Isle of Wight, but by no means common. Abun- 
dant in marsh ditches at Easton, Freshwater Gate, and occasionally 


1003 


in other parts of the parish, and near Yarmouth, but much more spa- 
ringly. In Lashmere Pool, at the foot of Bleak Down, if not now de- 
stroyed by draining. Old clay pits in Hampstead brick-field, near 
Yarmouth, also in a pool between Yarmouth and Ningwood Common, 
in a field between the road and Leigh Wood, and in some old clay 
pits near Cranmore farm, in the same vicinity. Very rare in East 
Medina. In one or two of the marsh ditches in Sandown Level, to- 
wards Alverston, in tolerable plenty, with Polygonum minus, Sept. 
1849. A plant or two at most in a little pool in a rough pasture field 
just beyond Coppid Hall, going towards Firestone Copse. Pond on 
Stapler’s Heath (near Newport), Mr. C. D. Snooke. Very frequent 
on the mainland of the county, at least in South Hants. In the bog 
at the town end of Titchfield Common, sparingly. Margin of Sowley 
Pond, near Lymington. Ringwood. Extremely common in West 
Hants, as about Christchurch and in swampy pools a little south of the 
Christchurch-Road Station. Margin of Fishers Pond, between 
Bishop’s Stoke and Twyford. “In the river (Avon) about Sopley, 
Hants,” Pulteney, Cat. of Pls. of Dorset. !!! Droxford Forest, Rev. ' 
E. M. Sladen. The whole plant when bruised emits an odour like 
that of Eryngium fcetidum or Muscari racemosum, but less powerful, 
and is probably in an inferior degree endowed with the antispasmodic 
properties of the former, which has obtained for it in the West Indies 
the name of Fit-weed. 

Actinocarpus Damasonium. In shallow pools, pits and ditches, 
on a gravelly or clayey soil; very rare. Not found in the Isle of 
Wight. “It used, some years ago, to grow in a pool about two miles 
from Christchurch, on the Lyndhurst road,” Mr. James Hussey (in 
litt.). The neighbourhood of Christchurch, watered by two fine 
streams, the Avon and the Stour, is rich in aquatic plants, the coun- 
try being low and intersected by ditches, enclosing water-meadows 
that extend up to Ringwood and Fordingbridge. The Actinocarpus 
will probably be found in the eastern part of the county, as it occurs 
in several parts of Surrey, in Berks, and in Sussex; it is, in fact, an 
eastern and inland rather than a western and coast plant, and its oc- 
currence near Christchurch is somewhat unexpected, and encourages 
the hope that the species may be found elsewhere in Hants. Little 
pools and plashes on gravelly commons are its most usual Surrey lo- 
calities. Plant destitute of smell. 

Sagittaria sagittifolia. In rivers, streams and ditches; not rare, 
but merely local, in Hants, and only known to me as inhabiting the 
west of the county, nor is it a native of the Isle of Wight. Frequent 


1004 


and abundant in the Avon and Stour; in the former I observed it all 
along its course at Fordingbridge, Harbridge, Ringwood, near Avon 
Cottage, and elsewhere, and in the Stour at St. Leonard’s Bridge, Il- 
ford, and very commonly at Christchurch, as well as in ditches near 
that town, between it and Sopley, &c. At Redbridge and elsewhere be- 
tween that place and Romsey, in the river and canal. A form with very 
narrow, quite linear-lobed leaves is frequent here. The Arrow-head 
no doubt grows in other parts of the county, but is certainly not ge- 
nerally dispersed over it, as all my correspondents are silent respect- 
ing its stations, and I suspect it shuns the chalk wherever that 
formation predominates. This very variable but beautiful aquatic 
has been split up into several false or book species; the common 
American state of the plant, however, has far larger and broader leaves 
than in any European variety I have met with in Britain or on the 
continent, and may possibly prove distinct from ours hereafter. 

Butomus umbellatus. In ditches, ponds and other still waters ; 
very rare in Hants. Discovered, July 11, 1842, in extremely small 
quantity, by the Rev. C. Pritchard, in one of the marsh ditches at 
Easton, Freshwater Gate, where it still grows in this, the only known 
station for it in the Isle of Wight!!! It is said to grow at Twyford, 
near Winchester, but thought to have been introduced there, as I 
have a great suspicion it has been at Freshwater, from the very limited 
quantity and its confinement to a single spot. Pulteney (Cat. of the 
rarer Pls. of Dorset.) says it occurs in the Stour, part of which river 
is in Hants, and I feel pretty certain of having gathered a leaf of this 
plant in a ditch a little way out of Christchurch, on the Ringwood 
road, last autumn. It is stated to grow in streams near Newbury in 
the anonymous catalogue of the plants of that neighbourhood occasi- 
onally referred to in these Notes,* which must therefore be very near 
our limits, and since it is mentioned as inhabiting every county con- 
tiguous to this, its absence from the mainland Hampshire flora is in 
the highest degree improbable. Since the foregoing remarks were 
penned, I have confirmed the existence of this beautiful plant at 
Christchurch, by finding it sparingly under the railing contiguous to 
the second or easternmost bridge over a branch of the Avon, in June 
last, and picking a specimen just out of the town, towards Sopley, in 
flower, June 29. 

Triglochin maritimum. Very abundant in salt-marsh meadows, 
pastures, and on mud-flats along the coast. Meadows behind Ryde 


* See p. 716 for the name of the compiler, and observations by the authoress. 


1005 


Dover. Salt-flats about Yarmouth, &c. Equally common on the 
mainland. 

Triglochin palustre. In wet meadows, pastures, and other marshy 
or boggy situations, but far less. frequent than the last. Not very un- 
common in the Isle of Wight, but from its slender habit, and growing 
generally amongst long grass and other herbage, often overlooked. 
In a meadow a little east of Langbridge, by Newchurch, where Utri- 
cularia minor grows, in plenty. In the meadow below Lower Knigh- 
ton Mill, also in plenty. In the Cyperus meadow at Ape’s Down. 
Moors between Bridge Court and Bow Bridge, near Godshill. Most 
profusely in a very boggy meadow a little above Newbridge, towards 
Calbourne Mill. In wet clay between Thorness Wood and the 
mouth of the Newtown river. Piece of wet, heathy ground close to 
Sheepwash farm, Freshwater, and by one of the marsh ditches at 
Easton, Sandown Level, and elsewhere occasionally. Plentiful on 
the banks of slipped clay along the shore between Whitecliff Bay and 
Bembridge, Mr. Thos. Meehan, jun. Near Newport, Mr. G. Kirk- 
patrick! Equally frequent, I presume, in mainland Hants. I have 
remarked it in a salt marsh near the Lymington River, but find no 
personal notice of it elsewhere amongst my memoranda. Warnford, 
Rev. E. M. Sladen. Andover, Mr. Wm. Whale. Readily distin- 
guished from T. maritima by the suppression of just half the fructifi- 
cation; the rudiments of three of the cells of the combined carpels 
appearing like a hollow, tapering rib in the angles of the three re- 
maining cells. The scent of both species is equally strong and 
odious, exactly like that of bugs. I see no great reason why the cu- 
rious Scheuchzeria palustris should not be found on our Hampshire 
bogs and marshes, having already been detected as far south as 
Shropshire. As remarked when speaking of Cypripedium, at page 
917, this and many other plants, as Pyrola, Trientalis, &c., though 
found only in or towards the northern part of the kingdom in Britain, 
descend on the continent into latitudes considerably lower even than 
our own, proving that they are not essentially very northern species, 
although evincing a boreal tendency in their distribution with us. 
The more recent researches of botanists have greatly extended the 
southern limits of Linnza borealis, Convallaria verticillata, Listera 
cordata, Habenaria albida, Saxifraga Hirculus, and Campanula lati- 
folia,—species known originally in Scotland or the north of England 
only, but some of which are now ascertained to inhabit the midland 
and even the southern counties of England, in exact accordance with 


1006 


the law of indefinite or irregular distribution of plants towards their 
equatorial boundaries adverted to at p. 365 of this volume. 

The name for the order to which the present genus belongs, Jun- 
caginacee, is injudiciously chosen, as liable to be confounded with 
Juncacee. I would propose to substitute Triglochinacee, as being 
at once unequivocal and identical, seeing that Juncago was but an 
old word for Triglochin, and used for it generically by Tournefort 
and others until supplanted by the latter. 

Typha latifolia. In ponds, ditches, pits, sides of rivers, and other 
marshy places; not unfrequent over the county and Isle of Wight. 
Scarce about Ryde; in a little pond near Beaper farm, and sparingly 
in the brook between St. John’s and Little Smallbrook farm. By the 
Medina at Shide Bridge, Newport, abundantly. Marsh below Caris- 
brook Castle. Marsh ditches at Gurnet Bay, with the following spe- 
cies. Very large and plentiful ina pond by Kingston Copse. In the 
stream (East Yar) both above and below Horringford Bridge. Near 
the western arm of the Newtown River, with the next. By the great 
pond near the church in the grounds of Gatcombe House, and in the 
upper pond at Knighton House, abundantly. Little pool between 
Stapler’s Heath and the farm. In clay pits of Squires’s brick-field, at 
Ningwood. About the Medina and Yar, in plenty, Mr. W. D. Snooke 
in Fl. Vect.!!! In a little pool under the cliff at Foreland, Dr. T. 
Bell Salter. Common, I believe, in most parts of mainland Hants. 
Observed in one or two places in Hayling Island, Portsea Island, 
along with the next. Profusely in the Itchen River at King’s Wor- 
thy, near Winton. Langston, near Havant, and generally dispersed. 
Cams, near the shore; Fontley Iron-mills (near Fareham), Mr. W. L. 
Notcutt. The green leaves are collected, and after drying in the sun 
are used in this county instead of bulrushes, for mats, chair-bottoms 
and basket-work, under the name of flags. 

Typha angustifolia. In similar places with the last, and rather 
the more common of the two with us, in the Isle of Wight at least, 
especially in old clay pits. In the marsh-meadow ditches, Gurnet 
Bay, plentiful, but rarely, I believe, flowermg there. Almost 
filling a pool surrounded by woods near Cockleton farm, W. Cowes, 
nearly eight feet high and flowerimg abundantly. Little pool at Pal- 
lance Gate, on the north side of Parkhurst Forest, and flowering freely. 
Pond between Wootton River and King’s Quay, along with T. lati- 
folia. In a wet wood near Alverston, called Bordwood or Borthwick 
Lynch. Pool between Great Thorness and Elmsworth farms, with 


1007 


Myriophyllum alterniflorum. Pool close to the rectory at Shalfleet. 
Extremely common in pools and watery pits on the heathy ground 
about the western side of the Newtown River. I find it on slipped 
land below the cliffs at Luccombe, but, as will be seen from the fore- 
going stations, this species is far more frequent in West than in East 
Medina. Var. 8. Leaves extremely narrow. In vast abundance, and 
flowering freely, in some old clay-pits in a rough, heathy waste a lit- 
tle east of Cranmore farm, near Yarmouth and adjoining Ningwood 
Common, as also on another piece of heathy ground near the western 
arm of the Newtown River, along with T. latifolia. Abundant, but 
not freely flowering, in the clay-pits of the brick-field at Lower Hamp- 
stead, near Yarmouth. This variety differs in no respect from the 
usual state of the species, excepting in the excessive narrowness of 
the leaves, which are scarcely one-third of an inch wide. Frequent, 
probably, over the rest of the county. Abundant in a pool on Hay- 
ling Island. Covers acres in the shallows of Sowley Pond exclusively. 
Besides the more universal names of Cat’s-tail, Reed-mace, and some- 
times (but erroneously) Bulrush, by which this genus is known, the 
pistillate flower-spikes are called in this island Black-puddings, 
Blackamoors, Black-heads and Bacco-bolts, from their likeness to 
rolls of tobacco, and remoter resemblance to the other elegant articles 
just enumerated. The heads of T. latifolia are employed, it is said,* 
by the velvet weavers of Spitalfields for cleaning their work, and are 
also sold to the poor as a cheap but efficient hat-brush. I have heard 
of their being used here occasionally for stuffing mattresses, but the 
property which the pappus possesses of felting, and its want of elas- 
ticity, must make it a very unfit substitute for feathers. 

There seem good grounds for believing that T. minor will ere long 
be confirmed to the English flora. In Hall’s ‘ Flora of Liverpool’ it 
is stated that there are specimens of this plant in the herbarium at the 
Botanic Garden of that town, gathered in 1801, from a large marl pit 
north of Little Crosby. I have myself a distinct recollection of hav- 
ing seen examples some years ago, collected, I believe, in Kent, and 
sent to the late Mr. David Don, in whose possession I feel pretty cer- 
tain they were when I saw them, which must have been at the Lin- 
nean Society.t The species is extremely local in Europe, but 


* Loudon’s Mag. of Nat. Hist. vi. p. 367. 

t+ The Rev. G. E. Smith says that T. minor grows with T. latifolia in a dyke at 
West Hythe, Cat. of Pls. of S. Kent, p.60. If there be no misprint here of T. minor 
for T. angustifolia, this would seem to confirm the reports and accounts of the occur- 
rence of the former in England, as given above. 


1008 


geographical reasons are not greatly opposed to its occurrence in the 
south of England. Parkinson gives three species as native to Eng- 
land, and both his description and very rough figure of his Typha 
minima, Least Reede-mace (Theatra. Bot. p. 1204, furthest fig. on the 
right), leave little doubt of the true plant being the one intended. 
Gerarde also speaks of having found asmaller kind of Cat’s-tailin the 
Isle of Shephy, but it may have been only T. angustifolia, as no figure 
or description accompanies the notice. ‘I’. minor would seem to 
flower at least two months earlier than the other species, namely, in 
April and May. 

Sparganium ramosum. In ditches, pools, slow rivers and streams; 
very common throughout Hants. Abundant in Sandown Level, Gur- 
net Bay, Freshwater Gate, &c. Of immense size in a pond near 
Freshwater farm, four feet high, with very broad leaves. Lowermost 
stalked head of flowers usually in the axil of the undermost leaf. 

Sparganium simplex. In ditches, &c., with the last, but much 
less frequent. In several ditches on Sandown marshes, and frequent 
in ditches between Brading and St. Helen’s. Abundant in Lashmere 
Pond, at the foot of Bleak Down; possibly now destroyed or made 
much rarer by the late drainage. Not uncommon in mainland Hants, 
as about Christchurch, Romsey, Winchester, &c. Near Place House ; 
Side of Titchfield River, Mr. W. L. Notcutt. Warnford, Rev. E. M. 
Sladen. Always much, and often many times smaller than the last, 
and of a paler green. As Dr. Salter has remarked to me, the lower- 
most stalked head of flowers has its peduncle arising from the main 
stem, springing considerably above and not from the axil of the un- 
dermost leaf, but this is not invariably the case. 

Sparganium natans. In slow streams, rivers, ponds and pits; 
plentiful, I believe, in several parts of the Isle of Wight, but very 
rarely flowering, and therefore not identified with this species in that 
condition with absolute certainty. Abundant in the Medina at Shide 
and Blackwater, and in the East Yar above Sandown Level, towards 
Alverston, in various places; very profusely in the stream above Al- 
verston Mill, but never, I think, flowering there or in any of the run- 
ning waters of the island, however slow the current may be. I found 
it in considerable plenty, and flowering freely, August 20, 1840, in 
some little pools (old clay-pits), called, as well as I could catch the 
name, Appey Pools, on a small common a little to the east of Cran- 
more farm, near Ningwood, and which are nearly filled with Typha 
angustifolia. I have not seen the inflorescence in any other spot in 
the island or on the mainland of Hants, where I believe to have 


we 


1009 


remarked the sterile form in the swift streams at Winchester, Bishop’s 
Stoke, and most of the larger rivers and streams throughout the 
county, in great plenty. 

Acorus Calamus. In ponds, ditches, and by river sides; very rare? 
Not found in the Isle of Wight. Winnal water-meadows, by Win- 
chester, Dr. A. D. White!!! I find it in tolerable quantity along the 
banks of the river, beginning about a quarter of a mile above Dean- 
gate Mill, and continuing at intervals for perhaps half a mile up the 
stream, on both sides, but flowering very sparingly. Occurs, in all 
probability, in various parts of the county, but is perhaps overlooked 
for Sparganium ramosum, the leaves of which it greatly resembles, 
but may be distinguished at some distance from them by its remark- 
ably brighter and lighter green, and by the wavy appearance of the 
ensiform leaves and scapes, that look as if crumpled inte plaits or 
puckers along one of their margins, which is very seldom seen in 
the Sparganium, and then only accidentally. But the fine fragrance 
of the whole plant when bruised or broken, like that of fresh orange- 
peel, is the surest test to know it by when not in flower, a state it is 
seldom seen in, but sparingly, as at the station just given. Pulteney 
(Cat. of the rarer Pls. of Dorset.) says it grows in two or three places 
in the Stour between Blandford and Sturminster Newton, and it 
would probably reward a search along the Hampshire part of that 
river and its beautiful rival, the Avon, which both flow through fine 
water-meadows and are richly adorned along their banks with aquatic 
plants. Morison (Hist. Plant. iii. p. 246) says it grows about Headley, 
a village near the Surrey border, a few miles north of Liphook. 

I have a lurking suspicion that the Sweet Flag may not be aborigi- 
nal to Britain. Neither Gerarde nor Parkinson speak of it as known 
to them in a wild state in their time, nor is it once alluded to by Tur- 
ner in his ‘ Herbal.’ Yet had it been ascommon in the days of these 
writers as it is, or was till lately, about Norwich and other chief 
towns of England, it is difficult to imagine that a plant then much es- 
teemed medicinally, and the roots of which were an article of impor- 
tation from the Levant, could have passed unobserved by the earlier 
herbalists and simplers. 

Arum maculatum. In woods, thickets, groves, on hedge-banks, 
grassy borders of fields, often also in meadows and pastures; in pro- 
fuse abundance throughout the Isle of Wight, and not less so in most, 
if not all, parts of the county. Our hedge-banks in the spring and 
early summer are covered with the leaves, which by the middle of 
June have quite disappeared, and as perhaps not one plant in twenty 

e VOL. III. 6 oO 


1010 


flowers and seeds, the species would seem to anybody who had not 
witnessed its superabundance in spring, to be comparatively an unfre- 
quent one. Here the Arum is the earliest and surest harbinger of that 
welcome season, its leaves never failing, except in unusually severe 
weather, to emerge from the ground during the first week in February,* 
and to attain their full dimensions in March, when they are often 
seared by the cutting east winds on exposed hedge-banks. I have 
occasionally found a few specimens in flower in that month in the Un- 
dercliff, although its proper season of inflorescence in this county is 
from the middle of April till the beginning of June. Var. 8. Leaves 
without spots; almost as common as the spotted state. Var. ¥. 
Leaves veined with greenish white; about Bonchurch and Steephill, 
not uncommonly. The varieties with spotted and plain leaves are al- 
most equally common with us, and grow intermixed; yet Reichen- 
bach, with his usual mania for “ splitting,” makes two species of them, 
A.vulgare and A. maculatum, and remarks, after giving the supposed 
characters of each, ‘‘ Utramque jam vivam observo, in eodem loco A. ma- 
culatum per octo dies precocius estimmaculato.”+ In this county I can 
perceive no difference in the time of flowering, and the leaves of both 
are alike variable in size and shape. The spotted form would appear 
to be rarer towards the north, where, asin Sweden and Denmark, this 
variety is nearly an entire stranger. Specimens occur with us occa- 
sionally in which the leaves are broadly veined with greenish white, 
as in the foreign A. italicum, by many botanists regarded as a variety 
merely of our A. maculatum. The former, with which I have been 
long familiar in the south of Europe, is a much larger plant than ours, 
the leaves more perfectly hastate, with very divaricate lobes, that stand 
out at nearly right angles to the midrib, which, as well as the lateral 
veins, are for the most part strongly marked above with white; the 
leaves, too, are more uniform in shape, and do not exhibit the same 
great diversity of outline as in A. maculatum, besides which they are 
habitually evolved at the close of the year, and remain green through 
the winter, which is rarely the case with the other, and then only, as 
it were, accidentally in warm, sheltered situations, by a sort of natu- 
ral forcing. A. italicum is the prevailing species over the south and 
south-west of Europe, where A. maculatum is seldom seen except in 
elevated places. I remarked it, on a journey from Orleans to Bor- 


* T have even remarked them springing up at the close of autumn at Bonchurch, 
where in very sheltered spots, as near the old church, they are persistent the winter 
through, as in Arum italicum. 

+ Fl. Germ. Excurs. i. adden. et corrig. p. 138. 


1011 


deaux, to make its first appearance on approaching Potiers, after 
which it became common, and about Bordeaux is everywhere to be 
met with, ranging all along the western maritime departments of 
France into Britanny as far as 48°, or perhaps higher.* Throughout 
Italy no plant is more abundant than this Arum,t even in the most 
open, sunny exposures, not being the shade and moisture-loving plant 
that A. maculatum is, nor does it, like that, inhabit the more interior 
countries of the European continent under its limitrophe parallels, as 
Switzerland, Hungary, Austria proper, &c., where A. maculatum is 
frequent. Yet I must own to having observed states of A. italicum 
that seemed to connect it pretty closely with A. maculatum, which in 
its turn often approaches its southern congener in size and outline, 
and, as we have seen, in having the leaves occasionally marbled with 
white. It is well known that in Portland Island a large quantity ofa 
beautifully white and highly nutritive farina is prepared from the tu- 
bers of A. maculatum, which chiefly finds a market in London, for 
the use of invalids, under the name of Portland Sago. Were the de- 
mand general, the Isle of Wight could alone furnish an inexhaust- 
able supply of this valuable production, now in a great measure 
neglected, because not conventionally adopted as an article of con- 
sumption by all classes. In ruder states of society, mankind eagerly 
seek out and appropriate those spontaneous gifts of Nature which in 
more civilized communities are overlooked or contemned. The sa- 
vage starves not, for the field and the forest are his granary on which 
he relies for unbought and untoiling subsistence ; the poor of our land 
perish if the hand of bounty be withdrawn, for they must be fed with 
the purchased food which labour prepares for the rich as well as the 
needy. It is probable the young, fresh leaves of our Wake-robin 
might, when boiled, which would dissipate their acrimony, furnish an 
excellent spring Kale, as do those of Caladium esculentum and other 
tropical Aracez in the West Indies. As an object of cultivation, A. 
italicum, from its larger size and therefore greater yield, would doubt- 
less be preferable to our native species. 

Lemna trisulca. In clear, stagnant water of pools and ditches. 
Ditches in Sandown Level, abundantly ; very profusely in those im- 
mediately around the Fort. “ Ditchesin the marsh at Easton (Fresh- 


* T should never be surprized at hearing of its discovery in Devon and Cornwall. 

+ At Rome, for instance, T remarked it on every bit of waste soil within the walls, 
where, from its abundance and luxuriant growth, it forms a most picturesque adjunct 
to the natural foreground, which the artist gladly transfers to his canvas. 


1012 


water Gate) and about Sandown, in abundance,” Mr. W. D. Snooke 
in Fl. Vect. !!! 

Lemna minor. In almost every ditch, pool or plash of stagnant 
water, whether clear or otherwise, throughout the county and Isle of 
Wight. | 

Lemna polyrhiza. Yn clear, stagnant water of pools and ditches, 
&c. Abundant in marsh-ditches between Yarbridge and Yaverland, as 
well as in other parts of Sandown Level. Ditches in Easton Marsh, 
Freshwater Gate. Near Petersfield, and common probably through- 
out the county. 

Lemna gibba. In standing water; rare? In asmall pond near 
Yafford farm, Isle of Wight, with L. minor, Oct. 1845. I found it 
some years ago in a ditch near Lymington, with Hydrodictyon utri- 
culatum. Mantling a pool close to Chapel farm, Oakhanger, near 
Selborne, Sept. 1848. Probably not uncommon in the county. 

The following list of Hampshire Potamogetons falls, I am con- 
vinced, considerably short of the actual number existing in the county. 
In the Isle of Wight their amount, like that of other aquatic plants, 
is extremely limited, and the opportunities have hitherto been few of 
extending my acquaintance with the species of the mainland. 

Potamogeton natans. In ponds, ditches and slow streams; fre- 
quent. 

Potamogeton oblongus. In wet ditches, on bogs, and marshy spots 
or plashes on heaths and commons; frequent, I think, in the Isle of 
Wight, and perhaps equally so over the whole county. On Lake and 
Blackpan Commons. Bog at Cockleton, near W. Cowes, &c. 

Potamogeton plantagineus. In similar places with the last; rare? 
It has not occurred to me in the Isle of Wight. Titchfield Common, 
in profusion, Mr. W. L. Notcutt! 

Potamogeton lucens. In ponds and ditches; probably common 
throughout the county. Marsh-ditches at Sandown. Pond at Holy 
Water, Wolmer Forest. 

Potamogeton perfoliatus. Ponds, lakes, streams, &c.; rare? Not 
found in the Isle of Wight, nor have I myself yet seen Hampshire 
specimens. “A very common species in Surrey and the neighbour- 
ing parts of Hants,” Mr. W. W. Reeves (in litt. 1848). 

Potamogeton crispus. In ditches, pools, &c.; common probably 
throughout the county. Abundant in the marsh-ditches at Easton, 
Freshwater Gate, and in those at Sandown. Pond at the brick-kiln, 
Bembridge, Dr. T. Bell Salter. 

Potamogeton pusillus. In ditches and other stagnant water, either 


1013 


fresh or brackish; most likely common along the coast. In marsh- 
meadow ditches behind Ryde Dover, abundantly, and in Brading 
marshes, in profusion. Marsb-ditches between Brading and St. He- 
len’s, Mr. Fred. Townsend !!!| Ditches in the marsh near Easton, Mr. 
W. D. Snooke in FI. Vect. !!! 

Potamogeton zosteraceus, Bab. Man. (not of Fries, according to 
Mr. Borrer). In the Avon, in the meadow next above the bridge at 
Christchurch, where the river is quite full of it, Mr. Borrer ! 

Potamogeton pectinatus. In ditches, pools, &c., both fresh and 
salt. Ditches around Sandown Fort, 1842, and in those on the 
marshes at Brading, 1844. Ina small pool on the marshes at Barn- 
field, near Yarmouth, July, 1844. Marsh-ditches at Easton (Fresh- 
water Gate), Mr. W. D. Snooke in FI]. Vect., where it occurs in great 
profusion, and seems to be the large-fruited salt-water variety of the 
plant, the P. marinus of Linn., &c.!!!| Ditch at Hill Head (near Fare- 
ham), Mr. W. L. Notcutt !, and most likely common over the county, 
principally, perhaps, on the coast. 

Potamogeton densus. In ditches, pools, rivers and slow streams 
(always in fresh water’); common, no doubt, in the county. Marsh- 
ditches at Sandown, and abundantly in those at Easton, Freshwater 
Gate. Cattisfield; pond at Uplands; Hill Head; (all near Fareham) : 
Mr. W. L. Notcutt. Anacharis Alsinastrum, or at least the Hamp- 
shire (Leigh Park) plant included under that name, but which a re- 
cent examination has convinced me does not differ in any essential 
particular from Udora verticillata of North America, when growing 
immersed in its native waters, bears no slight resemblance to small 
states of this Potamogeton, which may possibly be the main cause of 
the former existing so long unobserved iu this country. 

Ruppia maritima. In salt-water ditches and pools; frequent. 
Ditches behind Ryde Dover. The ditches between Springfield and 
Old Fort are almost filled with this and Zanichellia. In salt-ditches 
about Yarmouth and Freshwater, plentifully. Common, I think, all 
along the coast of Hants about Lymington, Portsmouth, &c. Iam 
not just now prepared to say to which of the two species or varieties 
(R. maritima or R. rostellata, given as British in the ‘ Manual’) our 
common Hants plant should be referred, but I believe rather to the 
latter. It is probable, however, that we may possess both. 

Zanichellia palustris. In ponds and ditches, both of fresh and 
salt water ; not uncommon in the Isle of Wight, and I conceive pro- 
bably as frequent on the mainland of the county. Ditches behind 
Ryde Dover, plentifully, and profusely in those between Springfield 


1014 


and Old Ford, to the eastward of Ryde. In a pool on a moory pas- 
ture near Mottiston Mill, in plenty. Ditch at Hill Head (near Fare- 
ham), Mr. W. L. Notcutt. 

Zostera marina. In shallows, creeks and inlets of the sea, the 
mouths of tide rivers, and salt pools; common. Profusely in the shal- 
low water of the shore at Ryde, about the pier, &c., where it is thrown 
up all along the coast in great quantities after heavy gales. At the 
mouths of the Yar and Medina, and plentiful in the pools of salt or 
brackish water on the marshes between Yarmouth and Freshwater. 
Profusely in the Southampton River, just below the town, retarding 
the progress of wherries and other small craft through the water, and 
clogging the oars inrowing. Plentiful in most other places along the 
coast of Hants. 

Zostera nana. In similar places with the last, and perhaps not un- 
common. At Wootton Bridge, in small quantity, just by the bridge 
itself, 1848, and found abundantly the same year by Dr. T. Bell Sal- 
ter on the black mud of Brading Harbour, a little above the mill !! 
I have not yet seen flowering specimens, but those found by Dr. Sal- 
ter and myself perfectly agree in size and character of the leaves with 
the beautiful figure in E. B. Suppl. t. 2931, and excellent accompa- 
nying description, as well as with the scarcely less beautiful icon 
in F). Danica, xii. t. 2041 (Z. Notki). Found in Portsea Is- 
land, at Gatham Haven, Doody in Ray’s Syn. 3rd edit. p. 53. I 
think from the description here given, there can be little doubt of 
Doody’s plant (No. 4, Potamogeiton marinum, &c.) being our present 
species. No. 5 (same page), or Doody’s Alga angustifolia vitrariorum, 
found by him with the other in the same station, I suppose may be 
the Zostera angustifolia of Babington’s ‘ Manual’ (is that identical 
with the Z. marina, 8. angustifolia, of F). Dan. ix. t. 1501 ?), of which 
I know nothing, and from the very short specific character should fear 
was hardly distinct from the commoner broad-leaved Z. marina. Mr. 
Babington attributes broad leaves to his adopted species, Z. angusti- 
folia, perhaps a misprint for narrow, and if it be the same with the 
variety depicted in Fl. Dan. t. 1501, they are quite as linear as in Z. 
nana, and little, if at all, longer than they are drawn and described in 
that plant in the supplement to E. B. . How far Z. nana and Z. an- 
gustifolia are entitled to rank as good species I will not undertake to 
say with my present very imperfect acquaintance with the one, and 
utter ignorance of the other excepting through figures. 

Cyperus longus. In damp or wet meadows and along the marshy 
sides of rivulets; very rare, and as yet not known to inhabit the main- 


1015 


land of the county. First found by myself in considerable plenty in 
a low meadow at Ape’s Down, on the road from Newport to Yarmouth, 
about two miles west of Carisbrooke, Aug. 10, 1839. Meadow below 
Carisbrooke Castle, on the west side, but in extremely small quantity, 
Oct. 1839. Not now to be found there. In profuse abundance in a 
low marshy meadow, called Castle Mead, at the extremest south point 
of the island, Sept. 10, 1839. For a further account of these stations 
see Phytol. i. p. 131. I question much if the Cyperus is now to be 
found at the Ape’s-Down station, at least in any quantity, as the mea- 
dow was about to be drained a few years back, and flowering speci- 
mens were not often procurable latterly when the grass began to be 
regularly mown for hay ; still I have not visited the spot for some sea- 
sons past, and speak on conjecture alone. But at Castle Mead this 
most beautiful plant may be annually collected in any quantity, which 
was hardly the case till within these last three or four years, as the 
former occupier of the land invariably cut it down as fodder with the 
other marsh herbage about the time when it was in perfection. The 
Castle Mead now forms part of the property of my friend George 
Kirkpatrick, Esq., of Windcliff, Niton, who not only allows the Cype- 
rus to grow unmolested by the scythe, but in his zeal for its preserva- 
tion has fenced in that part of the meadow, so that by his care and 
liberality a never-failing supply of specimens is effectually secured to 
all who wish to procure them at the proper season, which is from 
about the middle of August to the end of September or beginning of 
October, not July, as most of our books give for its flowering time. 
The plants here grow as thick and close together as reeds, and with 
their bright green, polished stems and leaves, long, gracefully curved 
involucral bracts, and ample, elegantly drooping panicles, with digi- 
tately spreading spikelets, of the richest chestnut and green, call to 
mind the idea of some tropical inmate of the stoves and conserva- 
tories.* Many of the individuals exceed four feet in height, and one 
amongst others of equal elevation, that [ measured in October last, 
was four feet eight inches from the ground to the base of the panicle, 
which latter might be about a foot higher; the largest of the three 
very unequal involucral leaves being commonly nearly two feet in 
length. I have hitherto uniformly failed in procuring ripe seed of 
Cyperus longus in this station ; the locality is probably too wet, and the 


* If I mistake not, C. longus is the largest and handsomest European species of 
its genus, from which the much taller Papyrus of the ancients (P. antiquorum), found 
in Calabria, is now removed, 


1016 


plant increases too.much by the creeping root to perfect seed ; in the 
drier and warmer soil and air of a garden the fruit would perhaps 
come to maturity, could the species be brought to thrive in such a 
situation, which with me it refused to do. Every part of this plant 
emits a faint but sweet and agreeable odour, altogether peculiar to 
itself, and which, though it continues to be long exhaled, is only per- 
ceptible under certain circumstances by momentary impressions, as 
on entering a close room or opening a box in which a number of spe- 
cimens are contained.* I know of nothing to which this scent can 
be likened ; perhaps that of cedar comes nearest to it, but the analogy, 
if any, is very remote. The root of the wild plant differs much in de- 
gree of aroma according to the soil; with us here it has merely a faint, 
sweetish odour like the rest of the plant, and aslightly warm, bitterish 
taste, hardly deserving of being called aromatic, but probably acquir- 
ing more of that character when dried. Perhaps, too, in the warmer 
and less humid soil of a garden these qualities are alone developed in 
the degree attributed to the species. Brotero, however, remarks that 
the root is often inodorous as well as sweet-scented in Portugal, and 
Mr. G. E. Smith describes his Kentish examples as possessing the pe- 
culiar fragrance of the species in perfection. When planted in water 
I find the herbage developed at the expense of the panicle, which 
then becomes extremely depauperated, the spikelets assume a pale 
green colour, and the beauty of the species is in a great measure de- 
stroyed. From the name, English Galingale, given it by the old her- 
balists, I think it likely to have been more frequent formerly in the 
wild state before the country was so much drained and enclosed as it 
is in our time, and I am convinced that were attention specially directed 
to the search, Cyperus longus would be found in many more places 
than it is known to grow in at present, and that it would finally be as- 
certained to inhabit every county along the south coast from Kent to 
Cornwall, increasing in frequency westward. It was this conviction, 
drawn from geographical considerations, that mainly led to its disco- 
very by myself in the Isle of Wight ; the probability of its occurrence 
in this part of England seemed to me so strong that I kept it con- 


* T remarked it to be very powerful when treading amongst the specimens at 
Castle Mead, yet it is not given out by breaking or crushing the plant, like many 
other scents, but is rather a subtle emauation from the whole surface, as in Malva 
moschata. The figure of this species in E. B. is very indifferent, and conveys no idea 
of the graceful slenderness and rich colouring of the spikelets; the panicle, too, is 
drawn as if erect, and is so described in our books, whereas, in fact, it is always lax, 
and when large even drooping. 


1017 


stantly in view during my herborizing excursions, and every field bo- 
tanist knows how greatly the detection of a rare or local plant is 
facilitated when the mind is bent on its discovery from well-grounded 
hopes of success in the attempt. I have little doubt the Cyperus lon- 
gus grows on the mainland of Hants; it was formerly found in Pur- 
beck, where it has been more recently detected by Mr. J. Hussey at 
Ulwell, a hamlet about a mile and a half from Swanage. In Wilts it 
occurs in plenty at Boyton, not far from the residence of the late A. 
B. Lambert, Esq., a remarkably inland station; and I think it has of 
late years been found in Cornwall by Miss Warren, in which county 
and in Devonshire I should expect it to be more frequent than in any 
others. Flowering very late, when other Glumacee (both Cyperacez 
and Gramina) are quite past for the season, and the panicle being 
often extremely reduced or depauperated, the species easily eludes 
observation, or is passed by at that or an earlier period, before the in- 
florescence is developed, for some Carex, especially C. vulpina, to the 
leaves of which those of the Cyperus bear a very close resemblance. 
But its presence on any spot may at once be ascertained, even when 
so masked, by the fragrance and aroma of the black, creeping rhizoma, 
which, however weak, is always sufficiently perceptible to distinguish 
it from every species of Carex resembling it. 

N.B.—Cyperus fuscus will, I feel confident, be eventually found to 
inhabit this county, and probably all the adjoining ones. It should 
be looked for in August and September, on wet, sandy ground on the 
grassy margins of pools and ditches, &c. Strange it is, that even this 
humble annual, although the most northerly species of its genus 
known, and a native of every country of Europe as far as Denmark 
and the south of Sweden (lat. 55—56), and from the westernmost 
shores of our continent across its entire breadth into Siberia, should 
nevertheless have been unable to escape that suspicion of foreign in- 
troduction which is endemic amongst the botanists of Britain, a class 
complaint, terribly infections in our atmosphere, it would seem, but 
very little known in other countries. Accordingly, we find Cyperus 
fuscus in the fourth and fifth editions of the ‘ British Flora’ marked 
with the asterisk, as one of those plants “ which have become natural- 
ized through the agency of man;” and I remember, before its disco- 
very by Mr. Salmon in a second and distant British station, having 
been obliged to contend strongly for its indigenous origin at Chelsea 
against a most excellent, learned and amiable naturalist, who insisted 
that it could have no just title to be considered British, and deemed 
its introduction due to humanagency. I even ventured to predict its 

VoL, Itt. 6 P 


1018 


speedy detection in other parts of the kingdom, and am now of 
opinion that it will ultimately prove more frequent and widely dis- 
persed over the land than C. longus, because this last is a more south- 
ern and far less hardy species than the other, and is scarcely known 
on the continent of Europe under British parallels, excepting in one 
or two places in Belgium,* whilst C. fuscus, as we have before re- 
marked, has a very wide range of distribution, both in latitude and 
longitude. It is worthy of notice, that even the discoverer of C. fus- 
cus near Godalming appears unable to divest himself of some of those 
misgivings which seem constitutional to British botanists, since in his 
announcement of the fact of its occurrence at Peat pond he says: 
“ Has Mr. Mill or any other gentleman carried out the suggestion in 
the article referred to (dissemination of seeds artificially), by intro- 
ducing the plant here?” It is not twenty years since Polygonum du- 
metorum was first observed in this kingdom, and now there are few of 
the southern counties of England in which it remains undiscovered ; 
yet did this conspicuous plant share the fate of most other novelties 
to our vegetation in being stigmatized with the brand of an interloper 
in the fourth edition of the ‘ British Flora.’ I have visited both the 
English stations for C. fuscus, and am astonished how any one could 
imagine it likely that the plant was introduced to either. For my 
own part, Iam prepared to hear C. fuscus announced as found in 
Yorkshire, and think C. longus will probably be found to range west- 
ward into the south and south-west of Ireland. Cyperus flavescens, 
the only other species of the genus that can reasonably be looked for 
in Britain, may very possibly be found hereafter with C. fuscus, its 
common associate on the continent. 

Schoenus nigricans. On turfy, moory bogs; very rare. Townhill 
Common (near Southampton), the late Mr. N. J. Winch in New Bot. 
Guide. Bog on the east side of Gomer Pond (near Gosport), but con- 
fined to one spot, Mr. Borrer. I have not yet seen Hampshire speci- 
mens of this plant, which has not occurred to me in the Isle of Wight, 
but I suspect it will be found to be not very uncommon on our forest 
bogs in the south-west of the county, and elsewhere. Dr. Salter finds 
it in plenty in some places near Poole. 

Cladium Mariscus. In deep turfy or peaty bogs, and fenny places; 
extremely rare in the Isle of Wight. In the marsh at Easton, Fresh- 
water Gate, Mr. J. S. Mill!!! [am indebted to the kindness of Mr. 
Mill for the only flowering specimens I possess, from the above and 


* At Burtscheid, near Aix la Chapelle, Xe. 


1019 


sole station for this fine plant in the island, where it was tolerably 
plentiful a few years back in one or two of the further meadows, but 
has now become, I think, nearly extinct, partly, perhaps, through 
draining, and because, being cut with the coarse herbage of the mea- 
dow for hay, it has not, since Mr. Mill gathered it in that state, been 
allowed to flower and seed, were it so disposed.* Very fine and pro- 
fusely plentiful on a tract of boggy ground at Gower Pond, near Gos- 
port, as noticed there by Mr. Borrer!!!+ Porisea, Rey. G. E. Smith 
in New Bot. Guide, but I do not know in what part of the vicinity of 
that suburb of Portsmouth my -excellent friend finds it. In great 
plenty in half-boggy, half-moory ground on the east side of Sowley 
Pond, near Lymington, in ripe fruit, Sept. 26, 1849, but not flowering 
in any abundance on that station. This, the tallest and stoutest of 
our native Cyperacee, grows, doubtless, in other parts of the county. 
The excessively stiff, glaucous and deeply channelled leaves are 
formidably armed along the edges and keel with hard cartilaginous 
serratures, with incurved points, capable of wounding severely if in- 
cautiously handled; in this respect, and in the structure of the beny 
fruit, evincing its affinity to Scleria, of which genus the present is the 
nearest European representative. e 

Rhynchospora alba. On spongy, turfy bogs, wet moors, and marshy 
spots on heaths and commons; not very frequent, though I believe 
generally dispersed over the county. Decidedly rare in the Isle of 
Wight. On the marshy skirts of Lake or rather of Blackpan Cow- 
mon, in one or two spots abundantly. I remarked it on the moors at 
Bournemouth, and I think also on Wolmer Forest; at the former 
place Mr. Borrer found it growing with Malaxis paludosa, and of un- 
usual height, which served me as one mark to look for the Malaxis, 
but that I could not fall in with last year in Mr. B.’s station. Short 
Heath (near Selborne), Dr. T. Bell Salter. Titchfield Common and 
Botany Bay (near Southton), Mr. W. L. Notcutt. Common about 
Southampton, Mr. Winch in New Bot. Guide, and I have no doubt 
in a great many other localities. The variety with brownish spikelets 
(@. sordida of Babington’s ‘ Manual’) I do not remember to have met 


* The Rev. G. E. Smith has remarked to me, that for the full development of the 
inflorescence of Cladium Mariscus, the absolute contact of water with the roots seems 
necessary, an opinion my own experience confirms. The soil of these meadows has 
become too dry apparently for some years past to sustain any longer the Cladium in 
healthy vegetation ; hence, doubtless, the more efficient cause of its rapid diminution 
in quantity and stature since Mr. Mill first detected it at Freshwater. 

+ Gomer Pond. 


1020 


with in Hants. This latter form runs some risk of: being mistaken for 
the following. 

Rhynchospora fusca. In similar places with the last, but much 
more rarely, and probably confined to the western side of the county. 
Not seen in the Isle of Wight. Bog by, and to the west of, the rail- 
way at Christchurch station, on the north side of the railway, where 
the stream passes under it; and in the bogs near the railway east of 
the station, Mr. Borrer!!! Plentifully in a bog between Southampton 
and Lymington, Petiver, apud Ray’s Syn. p. 427. A rare and interest- 
ing species, well characteristic of the transition so often before noticed 
in our county flora from the eastern to the western type. 


W. A. BRoMFIELD. 
Eastmgpnt, Ryde, Isle of Wight. 


(To be continued). 


Botanical Society of London. 


Friday, August 2, 1850. John Reynolds, Esq., Treasurer, in the 
chair. 

A paper was read by Dr. Arthur Hassall “On the Adulteration of 
Coffee.” The author commenced by observing that the inquiries, the 
results of which he was about to detail, originated in a remark made 
in the House of Commons during the late debate on chicory, to the 
effect that no means had been yet discovered by which the adultera- 
tion of coffee with that substance could be determined. The recol- 
lection of the fact, that in vegetable charcoal the component parts of 
the several tissues may be detected by the microscope, led Dr. Has- 
sall to infer that by the same means the less completely charred cells 
and vessels, &c., forming the tissues of those substances employed in 
the adulteration of coffee, might likewise be discovered; an expectation 
fully realized. In this way it was ascertained that the substances most 
frequently used in the adulteration of coffee are chicory, roasted wheat, 
colouring matter, and occasionally beans and potato-flour. The struc- 
ture of the coffee-berry, and of the several productions just named, were 
then minutely described; and it was shown that chicory might at all 


1021 ; 
limes be distinguished from coffee with the greatest ease by the size 
and ready separation of the cells, as well as by the presence of bundles 
of cells of a dotted or interrupted spiral kind. The substance so ge- 
nerally employed to deepen the colour of coffee Dr. Hassall found to 
consist, in those instances in which he had examined it, of burnt. 
sugar, and he referred to the fact that the rich brown hue of coffee is 
not peculiar to a decoction of that berry, but that almost all vegetable 
substances when charred yield a somewhat similar colour. The au- 
thor then proceeded to detail the results of the thirty-four examina- 
tions of coffee, of all prices ; from these it appeared that the whole of 
the coffee, with two exceptions only, was adulterated; that chicory 
was present in thirty-one instances, roasted wheat in twelve, colouring 
matter in twenty-two, beans and potato-flour in one only ; that in ten 
cases the adulteration consisted of a single article, in twelve of two, 
and in ten of three substances; and that in many instances the quantity 
of coffee present was very small, and in others not more than a fifth, 
fourth, third, half, and so on. Contrasting coffee and chicory, it was 
observed, that while the coffee-berry contains a large quantity of es- 
sential oil, visible in small drops in cells, and upon which the fra- 
grance and actual properties mainly depend, not a trace of any similar 
oil is to be found in the chicory root. The properties of coffee are 
those of a stimulent and nervine tonic, with an agreeable flavour and 
delicious smell, not one of which properties is possessed in any de- 
gree by the chicory root, it being rather aperient. Dr. Hassall regards 
chicory, therefore, as in every respect inferior to coffee, and observed 
that if its employment be deemed in any way desirable, it should be 
sold openly, and not, as at present, under the names of Ceylon, Ber- 
bice, Costa Rica, Mocha coffees, &c. The paper, which contained 
many other interesting details, was brought to a conclusion by one or 
two hints, addressed to coffee drinkers, namely, that coffee should be 
ground fine, in order to facilitate the liberation of the essential oil 
contained in the cells of the berry, and that an infusion and not a de- 
coction of it should be made.—G. E. D. 


1022 


Plants found in Devonshire and Cornwall, in addition to those con- 
tained in Jones’s ‘ Flora Devoniensis, and in Art. LIL. of Part 
1 of the ‘ Phytologist. By Isatan W.N. Keys, Esq. 


IF you can find a place for the accompanying list of plants, as an 
humble addendum to the Rev. W. S. Hore’s interesting paper (Phy- 
tol. i. 160), the readers of the ‘ Phytologist’ will be in possession of a 
tolerably complete list of the species which have been noticed in this 
neighbourhood since the publication of the ‘ Flora Devoniensis.’ 
Some of the plants which I find omitted from that work must, I con- 
ceive, have been observed by the talented author, but accidentally 
escaped record; or, indeed, I may, from the variety of synonyms, have 
overlooked them. 

Hordeum pratense, Huds. In a field adjoining Eldad Chapel, 
Plymouth. It has been noticed here for several years. I gathered 
specimens last summer. 

Molinia cerulea, Mench. Borders of Dartmoor (Tolckmoor), Mr. 
Bunker, July, 1850. Found before by Mr. C. Harper, somewhere 
near Shaugh Bridge. 

Gastridium lendigerum, Gaud. Near Torpoint, Cornwall, Rev. 
W.S. Hore. 

Luzula multiflora, Lej. Manadon Wood, near Plymouth. Spe- 
cimens from this locality have been confirmed by Mr. T. Bentall, of 
Essex, who at the time they were submitted to his examination was 
in correspondence with Mr. Babington on the subject. 

Polygonum Rati, Bab. Whitsand Bay, in the sand. 

Melissa officinalis, L. Rame, Cornwall; doubtfully wild. This 
plant used to grow at Laira, near Plymouth, where it had the appear- 
ance of beingindigenous. The South Devon Railway has obliterated 
this habitat. 

Linaria supina, Desf. Catdown limestone-quarries, Plymouth. 
Very abundant this year on rubble cast out from the quarries; not 
confined to the ballast-heaps on which it was first noticed some years 
since. I collected 600 specimens the other day. 

Linaria purpurea, Mill. On the walls of an estate called Trevol- 
laul, near Saltash, Cornwall. It last year sprung up spontaneously 
on the garden-wall of a friend of mine, on the border of Millbrook 
creek, about three miles hence. 

Orobanche amethystea, Thuil. Whitsand Bay, Cornwall. The 


1023 


discovery of this plant by hee Rev. W.S. Hore has before been re- 
corded in this magazine. 

Datura Siramonium, L: A troublesome weed in a garden at 
Woodside, Plymouth, W. T. Diment. I gathered one specimen last 
year on the mud deposits from the new government works at Morice- 
town, near Devonport. It might have found its way there with 
manure. 

Myosolis repens, Don. Not uncommon in this neighbourhood. 

Myosotis cespitosa, Schultz! Ditch in Chelson meadow, near 
Plymouth. 

Pulmonaria officinalis, L. Manadon and Widly, near Plymouth. 
Questionably wild. 

Polemonium ceruleum, L. This plant has grown freely for many 
years by the side of the Dartmoor railway, just before it enters upon 
the Laira embankment. Some cottages are at hand: verbum sat. 

Sonchus asper, Hoffm. Occasionally met with about this neigh- 
bourhood. 

Doronicum Pardalianches, L. 'Thicket at Widly, near Plymouth. 
It grows plentifully here, and seemingly wild; but in the same patch 
of ground are two or three other doubtful natives, which induces me 
to think that this plant has been introduced. 

Pastinaca sativa, L. Catdown, Plymouth, and other places in the 
neighbourhood ; not rare. ' 

Callitriche verna, L. Common about Plymouth. 

Callitriche pedunculata, De C. (8. sessilis?). Stagnant pools, 
Bickleigh Vale. 

Medicago denticulata, Willd. Hoe, Plymouth. 

Medicago sativa, L. Keyham, near Devonport. Tavistock Road, 
about two miles from Plymouth. 

Hypericum linariifolium, Vahl. Morwell rocks, river Tamar. 

Ononis antiquorum, L.? Wembury, Devon, Mr. F. H. Goulding. 

Geranium pratense, L. Near Knackersknowle, Devon; but pro- 
bably introduced. 

Geranium pyrenaicum, L. Road-side between the third and fourth 
mile trom Plymouth, on the Yealnyrton road, on slate. This plant 
was pointed out to me last summer. It appears truly wild. 

Viola lactea, Sm. (Viola lancifolia of continental authors). Bick- 
leigh Down, Devon, 1850. Messrs. C. C. Babington and H. C. Wat- 
son agree in attributing the above name to violets which I have sent 
them from this locality. 


1024 


es 

Reseda lutea, lu. Ballast-heaps, Catdown quarries, Plymouth. As 
this plant is not met with elsewhere in this district, it perhaps scarcely 
deserves a place in this list, being undoubtedly an alien. It has, 
however, occupied its present habitat for the past six years under my 
own observation ; how long before, I know not. 

Koniga maritima, R. Br. On rocks near the sea, Plymouth and 
vicinity ; frequent. 

Diplotaxis muralis, De C. Catdown, Mutley. From the syno- 
nyms employed, this plant appears to be comprehended under Sinapis 
tenuifolia by the author of the ‘ Flora Devoniensis.’ It is, however, a 
distinct plant. 

Helleborus foetidus, L. Manadon, near Plymouth. 

Ranunculus Lenormandi, Sch. Frequent in this district. 


Appended are additional habitats for three or four of the plants 
named in Mr. Hore’s list. Those to which an asterisk is prefixed 
rank therein as Cornish plants. Their appéarance in this county as - 
well is therefore the more worthy of note. 

*Briza minor, L. Catdown, Plymouth, 1850. 

Tragopogon porrifolius, L. Grass-plotin front of Devonshire Ter- 
race, Plymouth. 

*Trifolium ornithopodioides, L. Cann quarries, Bickleigh Vale, 
Miss Edmonds, 1849. It was collected this year by Mr. F. H. 
Goulding. 

* Reseda fruticulosa, L., was found at Hooe, near Plymouth, in 
1844, by Mr. G. Bartlett. I have not heard of its having been met 
with since. 


TsaraH W. N. Keys. 


Plymouth, August 7, 1850. 


1025 


A Catalogue of the Plants growing wild in Hampshire, with occa- 
sional Notes and Observations on some of the more remarkable 
Species. By WitttAM ArNoLD Bromrietp, M.D., F.L.S., &c. 


(Continued from page 1020). 


Eleocharis palustris. In wet meadows, ditches, sides of pools, 
and in other marshy or boggy places; abundantly throughout the 
county. In the wet meadow within the walls of Quarr Abbey. 
Abundant in Brading marshes, near the sluice, and various other parts 
of the island. 

Eleocharis uniglumis has, I understand, been found by Mr. Woods 
in Dorsetshire, near the Hants boundary. Of this species, real or as- 
sumed as such, I know nothing, but judging from the very slight dis- 
tinctions laid down in the ‘ Manual’ for its discrimination from E. 
palustris, anticipate its re-union with that common and variable plant 
at no distant day. wi 

‘Eleocharis multicaulis. On turfy bogs, and wet places on moors, 
heaths and commons; probably not very unfrequent, In several parts 
of the Isle of Wight, as on the marshy skirts of Lake and Blackpan 
Commons (the north side, adjoining Sandown Level), in considerable 
plenty. Most abundantly on the boggy south-eastern declivity of 
Bleak Down, facing Roude. Ina boggy pasture between Saynham 
and Dew’s Place. Bog at Freshwater, Mr. Dawson Turner in Snooke’s 
Fl. Vect. Bog at Blackpan, Dr. T. Bell Salter ! 

Eleocharis acicularis. On the shallow margins of pools, ditches 
and streams, and in damp, sandy spots on heaths, &c.; very rare? 
Not yet detected, to my knowledge, in the Isle of Wight. Along the 
muddy edges of Wall’s Pond, Holy Water, on Wolmer Forest, abun- 
dantly, and still in pretty full flower, Aug. 29, 1849. Brockenhurst 
Bridge, 1843, Mr. Borrer (in litt.). 1 could not find it last summer 
(1849). Probably not uncommon in the county, as Mr. Borrer seems 
to hold it a frequent Sussex plant. 

Scirpus maritimus. Abundant in salt-marsh pools and ditches, 
and on the muddy shores of tide rivers and inlets on eyery part of the 
coast, both of the Isle of Wight and mainland. Ditches behind Ryde 
Dover. In Brading, Sandown, Newtown and Freshwater marshes, 
&c., abundantly. Var. 8. monostachys; spike solitary. Of this I 
found many specimens last year in a marsh ditch on Hayling Island, 

VoL It. 6 Q 


1026 


with the usual many or cluster-spiked form, but this suppression of all 
the spikes but one seems rather a casual state or condition than a true 
variety of the species. . 

Scirpus sylvaticus. In damp woods, thickets, and along the shady 
margins of brooks, drains, ditches, &c. In various parts of the Isle of 
Wight, but almost entirely confined to East Medina, and more parti- 
cularly there to the valley of the East Yar. In drains or ditches on 
Sandown Level in several places, but sparingly, becoming more fre- 
quent higher up the stream. In a marshy spot on the north-east side 
of Youngwood’s Copse, near Newchurch, in great plenty. Abundant 
in a willow bed called, I believe, Quobb, on the borders of Sandown 
Marshes, a little east of Alverston; also in a willow thicket betwixt 
Messley farm and Langbridge, and in the withy bed above the bridge, 
in plenty. Abundant in the Parsonage Lynch, Newchurch. Pro- 
fusely at the northern extremity of Horringford withy bed, also by the 
stream close to Horringford Bridge, and along the ditches opposite 
Stickworth, very commonly. Still higher up the same stream (Kast Yar) 
it again becomes frequent along its course, and in the willow beds by 
its side, betwixt Bridge and Bagwich, as also betwixt Roude and 
Bridge Court (all by Godshill), near the latter in one or two spots, 
pretty plentifully. It grows likewise betwixt Merrygarden and Che- 
verton farms, by the stream on the right hand of the little bridge the 
road goes over, and most abundantly in a moist spot in the angle of a 
copse a little south-west of Combley farm, near Arreton, quite cover- 
ing the ground. Sparingly in a wet meadow by Newport Mill (West 
Mill?). By St. John’s turnpike, Ryde (Monckton Mead), Dr. T. Bell 
Salter. By the bridge at Alverston, in plenty, /d.// Under the cliff 
at Shanklin, Mr. Dawson Turner in Snooke’s Fl. Vect. Not uncom- 
mon, I conceive, in mainland Hants, although as yet I have only the 
undermentioned stations to give for this beautiful and conspicuous 
plant. Plentifully along the streams a little to the south-east of 
Petersfield, in several places, as well as by the mill at Sheet, near 
that town. Frequent apparently about Selborne. In one or two wet 
hollows in the bends of the stream betwixt Priory and Oakhanger, 
plentifully. I found it most profusely in the Combe Pond, betwixt 
Selborne and Priory farm, a part of which was exclusively filled with 
it in full flower, June 17, 1850; but the pond is in progress of drain- 
ing, and the species may not continue to grow there much longer. 
Dr. Salter finds it by the bridge at Oakhanger, and in a swamp at the 
foot of Weekhill hanger. I noticed it, in 1848, in several places 


1027 


about Botley and Bishop’s Waltham. S. carinatus and S. triqueter, 
found in Sussex, may one or both be fairly looked for in this county ; 
but I fear the former is hardlv distinct from 8S. lacustris. 

Scirpus lacustris. In ponds, ditches, rivers, slow streams, and 
marshy meadows; common in most parts of mainland Hants, but 
never found by me in the Isle of Wight, which possesses only the 
next species or variety. In great quantity in a large pond at the 
back of Langston, near Havant. Very abundantly in the river Itchen, 
betwixt Winton and King’s Worthy. In the Lymington river, a 
little above Hayward Mill, Boldre, &c. Titchfield river, Mr. W. L. 
Notcutt. 

Scirpus Tabernemontani (S. glaucus, Sm.) In brackish or salt 
marshes, ditches and pools, but sometimes in those of fresh water; 
only found, I think, along the sea board, or at very moderate dis- 
tances from the coast. Abundant in several parts of the Isle of Wight. 
Marsh ditches behind Ryde Dover, pretty plentifully. Ditches near 
Gurnet Bay, where the plant is much smaller than at Ryde. Brading 
marshes, in plenty. Common in the ditches at Easton, Freshwater 
Gate, and abundant in marsh-meadow ditches, between Yarmouth and 
Thorley. I have gathered it in little inland fresh pools betwixt Ning- 
wood and Hampstead, and on the mainland, where it is extremely com- 
mon along the coast, as in Hayling Island, Stokes Bay, &c. With all 
the apparent constancy which distinguishes this from the last, in 
the glumes, number of styles, and smaller size, I find great difficulty 
in believing it to be anything more than a maritime form of S. lacus- 
tris. It occurs, it is true, in the Flora of Halle in Saxony, but that 
district abounds in some parts with salt, and yields salt-marsh plants, 
such as Salicornia, Scirpus maritimus, &c. I have certainly, seen 
transition states from one to the other, in particular the glaucescence 
of the culms varies greatly, and is sometimes scarcely more obvious 
in our present subject than is S. lacustris, which itself occasionally 
assumes a conspicuously blue or grayish colour. 

Scirpus cespitosus. On barren turfy heaths and moors; not yet 
observed in the Isle of Wight, but plentiful enough in mainland 
Hants, over all which part of the county it is probably dispersed. 
Abundant on many parts of Titchfield Common. In the New Forest, 
near Rufus’s Stone, betwixt it and Castle Malwood, and doubtless 
frequent in other parts of the forest. Abundant on the moors by 
Christchurch, and profusely on heaths and moors near Ringwood, 
in the vast fir plantations between the Avon and the Stour, at St. 
Leonards, &c. By Cesar’s Camp, near Farnborough. On heaths in 


1028 


the Holt Forest; Mr. W. W. Reeves (in litt.). At Fleet Pond, Mr. 
H. Bull (in litt.). The apparent absence of this plant from a district 
by no means deficient in heath and marshy ground is a remarkable 
feature in the Isle of Wight flora; and I am still inclined to the 
belief that it has been overlooked in the island, not really wanting 
there. This species flowers with us from the very commencement of 
May, or even at the close of April; the books give June, &c. 
Scirpus paucifiorus. On wet or boggy heaths; apparently rare in 
the Isle of Wight and county generally. Plentiful on the upper part 
of the heath at Colwell, Freshwater, towards Weston, July 6, 1840. 
Bog on the right hand below the road about three miles from Ly- 
mington towards Brockenhurst, June, 1849. Nutshaling (now called 
Nursling), Townhill and Netley Commons; Mr. Winch, in New Bot. 
Guide. 
Scirpus parvulus. In damp places, extremely rare. Discovered 
about ten or twelve years ago, by the Rev. G. E. Smith, on a mud 
flat near the baths at Lymington, but now seemingly extinct from 
alterations. I have several times instituted a most careful search, as 
has also Mr. Borrer, on the spot indicated to me by the discoverer, 
which is on the gravelly flat betwixt the bath house and the river, but 
I fancy the exact place where the plant grew is now occupied by a 
rectangular reservoir for the supply of the baths, and not, as has been 
stated, by a swimming bath, unless I have quite mistaken the direc- 
tions given me, as that establishment, though contiguous, is separated 
from the outer baths by an embankment and high palings, and could 
not, I am confident, have been the station for the Scirpus, seeing that 
it does not accord with the diagram of the locality furnished me by 
Mr. Smith himself. There is still a considerable surface of undis- 
turbed salt flats, close to the bath buildings, and as these from their 
inconvenient distance from the town and participation in the general 
decay of the borough (no longer the fashionable resort of the county 
families for sea bathing it once was), hardly pay the cost of keeping 
up, it is not probable that any further improvements or additions to 
the baths will be made to trench on the remaining ground, still likely 
to afford this rare little species on reiterated and persevering search. 
Some logs of timber lay on the spot where the Scirpus grew, and 
timber is still deposited on the same flat ground by the baths, which 
might naturally create a suspicion of the plant’s having been con- 
veyed by the latter from abroad; but what I have always seen lying 
there looks more like oak timber from the neighbouring forest, judg- 
ing by its small scantling and being almost in the rough, merely 


1029 


barked and slightly trimmed, not squared or sided, as it would be, I 
apprehend, coming from a foreign port.* I have set the bath-keeper, 
an intelligent and obliging person, to look out for the Scirpus, but do 
not hope for much assistance in its re-discovery from one ignorant of 
botany, and therefore wanting both in zeal and experience for the de- 
tection of a plant scarcely exceeding an inch in height. I have seen 
specimens in the herbariums of Mr. Smith and Mr. Borrer, and others, 
deposited by my reverend and esteemed friend, in that of the Chi- 
chester Philosophical Institution, but possess none of my own. I 
cannot doubt but that S. parvulus is truly indigenous in this, its only 
recorded British station, since it inhabits the south and middle of 
Europe, as far north as Denmark (by the Elbe in Holstein), but 
would seem to be extremely local and uncommon on the continent as 
with us. There is an excellent figure of it in ‘ Flora Danica,’ vol. xiii. 
t 2l6L. 

Scirpus fluitans. In ditches, drains, pools, and watery pits, either 
floating in the water or constituting a dense and spongy but trea- 
cherous turf around the shallow margins of the two latter. In several 
parts of the Isle of Wight. Marsh ditches at the upper cr north-west 
end of Blackpan Common, in great plenty, and in watery gravel pits 
on Bordwood Heath. In clay pits on heathy ground near the western 
arm of the Newtown river. All along the little ditch or drain bound- 
ing the fir plantation by Winford farm, rooting in soft mud. I have 
at present only the undermentioned mainland station to give for this 
Scirpus, which I cannot suppose to be really rare in the county, 
although it happens not to have fallen under my notice since I began 
to investigate that, the more extensive portion of Hampshire. South 
end of Miller's Pond,t Mr. W. L. Notcutt, in a list of the Rarer 
Plants near Southampton, in Phytol. i. p. 328.{ 

Scirpus setaceus. In damp sandy or gravelly places, on wet ditch 
banks, in low meadows, drains, and turfy bogs, &c., but by no means 
a frequent plant, at least in the Isle of Wight, where, and along the 
coast opposite, its place is chiefly supplied by the next species. Ina 


* The peculation so long carried on with impunity in the New Forest, through 
the supineness and maladministration of the forest officers, and recently brought be- 
fore the public in judicial and parliamentary inquiries, must materially have helped 
to stock»the builders’ and shipwrights’ yards of West Hants, with oak timber at an 
easy rate. 

+ Marked Weston Pond in the Ordnance Map. 

+ Since this was written I have found S. fluitans near Christchurch, in the New 
Forest, and elsewhere on the mainland; no uncommon species across the water. 


1030 


ditch near Ninham farm, by Ryde. Plentiful about Lake Common 
and in various parts of Sandown Level. By Lashmere Pool, at the 
foot of Bleak Down, but perhaps extinct there by the late draining. 
In a boggy meadow a little above Newbridge towards Calbourne 
Mill. Undercliff and east of Shanklin Chine; Mr. Wm. Wilson 
Saunders. Meadows by Steephill, Mr. Fred. Townsend. Not hkely 
to be rare in mainland Hants, but I have only the following localities 
to cite for it at present. Moist border of a field on the skirts of 
Durley Wood, near Bishop’s Waltham, 1849. By a pool betwixt 
Cracknore Hard and Marchwood, near Southton, July, 1850. Row- 
nam, near Southton; Mr. James Hussey ! 

Scirpus Savii. Far from uncommon in the Isle of Wight and 
along the opposite coasts of the county, in similar places with S. seta- 
ceus, in damp springy spots by rills, in woods and on heaths, also on 
wet slipped land by the sea shore, &c., never at any considerable dis- 
tance from the latter, or in the interior of the county. On the farthest 
part of St. Helen’s Green. Most profusely on the banks of slipped 
land under the Cliff in Sandown Bay, within half a mile of Shanklin 
Chine on its north side, 1840 and 1844 (See Phytol. ii. p. 516); some 
of the densely cespitose, depressed and radiating spreading tufts mea- 
sured as much as fifteen inches across. Wet spots on Briddlesford 
Heath, and in a marshy meadow not far from Landguard farm, by 
Shanklin, in one spot plentifully. Colwell Heath, Freshwater. I 
find it in various places betwixt Niton and Blackgang, especially 
along the little stream that descends over the dislocated land to the 
sea, in great abundance, as well as in most plashy spots on that part 
of the coast. These are the principal stations known to me in the 
Isle of Wight for this little Scirpus, but it may be found in most 
other parts of it occasionally, by looking in the proper situations, 
where it is apt to be mistaken by those unacquainted with it for S. 
setaceus. Mr. Borrer, one of the first I believe to recognize it in the 
south-east of England in modern times, may be held its discoverer 
again in our own day in the Isle of Wight;* he having noticed it 
many years ago at Knowle near Niton. Perhaps not less frequent 
along the opposite mainland coast, although this rather common 
Hampshire plant would seem to fail reaching Sussex to the eastward. 
On wet sand-banks near Christchurch (Hengisbury) Head, Oct., 1849. 
On wet gravel in a field a little way from the bridge at Lymington, 


* I have shown in a former part of this journal (Phytol. ii. p. 516) that S. Savii 
was distinguished specifically from S. setaceus, more than two centuries back. 


1031 


adjoining a brickyard, in considerable plenty, Sept., 1849. Near 
Boldre, on the way to Royden farm, with Centunculus minimus. In 
the Isle of Wight I have hitherto remarked only the variety with a 
solitary spike (var. @ monastachys, Hooker), but in the specimens col- 
lected at Lymington many of the stems bore two spikes, very rarely 
three, the second spike usually somewhat lateral, either quite sessile 
or on a peduncle more or less elongated, sometimes even greatly ex- 
ceeding the spike itself in length. In many instances the stems were 
forked at the summit, each fork bearing a solitary spike, neither of 
which was more evidently terminal than its fellow; and often the ter- 
minal as well as the lateral spikes was elevated on a longish stalk or 
peduncle, all these peduncles being distinguished from mere prolon- 
gations of the stem by strongly winged, deeply projecting ridges, 
giving the appearance of being spirally twisted. In these specimens 
the bracts were very short and minute, and in a great proportion of 
the spikes obsolete. 

Scirpus Holoscheenus. In damp sandy places on or near the sea- 
shore; very rare, and perhaps extinct in Hants. “On the sea-shore 
in this county,” Robson (Bot. Guide). Found in Hampshire, by 
Sherard (Moris. Hist. Plant 11. p. 232), and in this county, according 
to Petiver, also (Ray’s Syn.) Not detected, so far as I am aware, by 
any botanist of more recent times, but as no station was given by the 
authorities quoted above, there is every possibility that this rare plant 
still grows in some little explored corner of our extensive coast line. 

Blysmus compressus. In marshy or boggy pastures, on turf 
moors and grassy sides of rivers, ponds, &c., rare? Fisher’s Pond 
near Bishop’s Stoke; Mrs. Delmé Radcliffe !!!_ The first notice I had 
of this as a Hampshire species was from Mr. J. Hussey, in whose 
herbarium at Salisbury I saw specimens in May last, received by him 
from Mrs. R., who kindly gave me directions to the locality. I could 
not find it in the precise spot indicated to me at the south-west end of 
the pond, but gathered it in tolerable plenty on a space of moderate 
extent close to the water’s edge, about the centre of the western side 
of the pond, July 6, 1850. In very great plenty in some moory mea- 
dows by the river side, betwixt Bishop’s Stoke and Otterbourne, a 
little to the eastward of the South Western Railway, and to the north- 
ward of Highbridge, July 10,1850. It occurs unquestionably else- 
where in the county, and may be reasonably expected in the Isle of 
Wight. In Baxter's ‘ Flowering Plants of Britain,’ it is stated, on the 
authority of Mr. Bicheno, to be plentiful about Newbury in Berks, 
which town being only two miles from the Hampshire boundary, the 


1032 


Blysmus should be looked for along that part of the frontier line. 
The more exclusively northern B. rufus may be found extending its 
equatorial limits as far as this and other southern English counties. 
Our species has some resemblance to Carex intermedia, and was at 
one time even referred to that genus by Linneus, and called by him 
C. uliginosa, manifestly through hasty examination or careless inat- 
tention to the great differences in the structure which distinguish 
these genera. 

Eriophorum vaginatum. On turfy boggy heaths, and wet barren 
moors; apparently quite uncommon in Hants, although doubtless 
other stations besides those subjoined exist in the county. On a bare 
stony bank, under Cesar’s Camp, near Farnham, just above a spring, 
along with Convallaria majalis, 1844, Mr. W. W. Reeves. Sought nn- 
successfully there with the discoverer, April 30, 1850, both plants 
having seemingly become extinct. On Christchurch or Hengistbury 
Head, and at Sandy Balls, near Breamore, Mr. J. Hussey! In Miss 
Lovell’s herbarium is a specimen of an Eriophorum, with a solitary 
spike, picked by herself, Sept. 23, 1847, under the shore going west- 
ward from Blackgang towards Walpen Chine in this island, but the 
plant wants the inflated leafless upper sheath of the present species, 
and is, probably, only an accidental single-spiked form of the fol- 
lowing. 

Eriophorum polystachyon. In wet and boggy places, on barren 
moors and heaths, also on slipped land along the sea coast. Var. a. 
Fruit obovato-elliptical, E. polystachyon, Lezght., Fl. of Shrops. p. 
31, and fig. in pl. 2. Most abundantly on bogs on Rookley Moors, 
about the Wilderness, &c. Abundant in boggy ground on the south- 
eastern face of Bleak Down. Var. 8. Fruit elliptical-acuminate; E. 
angustifolium, Leight. (ut supra), with the former about the Wilder- 
ness, in plenty. These two varieties are scarcely distinguishable from 
each other by any well-marked or constant character, nor do I find 
the hairs of the second, in this island, any longer than those of the 
first variety. One or other grows on the wet, slipped banks of clay, in 
Colwell and Totland Bays, near Blackgang, and elsewhere, occasion- 
ally along the south-western shores of the island. Exceedingly fre- 
quent and abundant in mainland Hants, on the extensive moorlands 
of the New Forest, Christchurch and Ringwood Hundreds, and, in- 
deed, over most parts of the county. 

Eriophorum latifolium. In similar places with the two preceding, 
but apparently much rarer than E. polystachyon. At present I have 
only the undermentioned stations to record for it in Hands, but it is 


1033 


highly probable that it has been passed over by me, at least on the 
mainland, for the last species. Plentiful on the upper and boggy 
part of Colwell Heath, Freshwater, June, 1841. Well distinguished 
by the peduncles of the flower-spikes, that are scabrous in various de- 
grees, with minute, subappressed bristles. E. gracile, Roth (not of 
Smith), found in Surrey, should be looked for in this county. 

In the following enumeration of the Hampshire Carices, the list 
will be found extremely imperfect as regards the mainland division of 
the county, for which stations are still wanting to show the distribu- 
tion even of the commoner species, whilst several additional ones re- 
main doubtless to be discovered. My comparatively recent and im- 
perfect practical acquaintance with that part of Hants; its great 
extent compared with the Isle of Wight; the restriction of the flower- 
ing and fruiting of the sedges to the earlier months of summer,* and 
the difficulty of inducing the generality of local observers to pay at- 
tention to these and the rest of the Glumacee, in their respective dis- 
tricts, or even to transmit specimens fresh or dried for examination 
and recording; all these have proved obstacles to ascertaining with 
any approach to precision the number, frequency and distribution of 
the Cyperacez and their allies over the greater portion of the county, 
and have compelled me to depend mainly on my own exertions for 
filling up so important a gap in the botany of the district. As far, 
however, as regards the Isle of Wight, the catalogue of indigenous 
species belonging to these interesting and beautiful orders, will, I 
flatter myself, be found tolerably complete, they having engaged much 
of my attention for several years past. ‘The rich sample yielded by 
this little sea-girt spot, gives earnest of what may be expected from 
diligent exploration of a field of four or five times its area, hitherto so 
superficially examined, and that chiefly by strangers and temporary 
visitors, as has been mainland Hants. I shall consider myself parti- 
cularly under obligations to such botanical friends and correspond- 


* Tt is proper to remark in this place, that in the Isle of Wight, and unquestion- 
ably in every part of the county besides, by far the greater number of Carices indige- 
nous thereto, flower in May, and not a few towards the close of April, only partially 
continuing to blossom on through the first week or ten days of June, excepting the 
undermentioned, which belong mostly to that month: C. ovalis, intermedia, extensa, 
vulpina, Pseudo-cyperus, with perhaps one or two others. A kuowledge of this fact 
will save the botanist in the island both trouble and disappointment, as, if guided by 
the time given in our ordinary hand-books, he will find those species in fruit, perhaps 
over-ripe and ready to fall away, which he was led to expect in flower, or in that in- 
termediate state of flower and fruit which is the best possible for examination and 
preservation in the herbarium. 


VOL. It. GR 


1034 


ents as will favour me with specimens and notices of Hampshire Gra- 
mina and Cyperacee, the latter more especially, as less easy of detec- 
tion than the grasses, after the first half of summer, when the fruit has 
fallen away. I am already indebted to Mr. Borrer for information 
and examples illustrative of both these tribes, in the district where 
such help is most needed ; and Mr. Watson has communicated to me 
notices of one or two grasses new to the county, leaving me to regret 
the want of such able and zealous assistants to lighten my labours by 
more than their occasional services. 

Carex dioica, although as yet a very dubious inhabitant of Hants, 
can scarcely be supposed a stranger to the bogs and marshes of this 
county. It was pointed out to me growing sparingly in one spot, 
June 17, 1844, by Fred. Townsend, Esq., in a moist meadow imme- 
diately behind the Wilderness, at Rookley. I find the station entered 
as above in my MS., with a doubt expressed, but I think I felt such 
doubt at the time of seeing the plant, and having unluckily preserved 
no specimens, I held it safest to suppose an error, and that C. puli- 
caris was in all likelihood mistaken for C. dioica in this instance. 

Carex pulicaris. In bogs and marshy places, on wet moors, 
heaths and commons; not unfrequent in the Isle of Wight, and pro- 
bably throughout the county. Heath near Smallgains farm, by New- 
port, frequent. At Freshwater Gate, and abundant on the upper part 
of Colwell Heath. Wet places on Lake Common, and on Bleak 
Down. Marshy, heathy ground at the back of the great fir plantation 
in Long Lane, near Arreton. Bog at Blackpan, Dr. T. Bell Salter! 
Bog just below Cockleton farm, Miss G. E. Kilderbee. Titchfield 
Common, Mr. W. L. Notcutt!!! Titchborne Common, Mr. W. 
Pamplin. I have since met with it in other parts of mainland 
Hants, where it is certainly not uncommon. 

[Carex incurva.] In looking over the herbarium of the late Mrs. 
Robinson, of Fareham, shortly after that lady’s decease a year or two 
ago, the Rev. G. E. Smith found a couple if not more of packets of 
this northern sedge, each paper containing numerous specimens, and 
labelled in Mrs. R’s. hand-writing, “ Bog on Titchfield Common.” 
That a Carex hitherto found only in the northernmost parts of 
Britain, on the continent,* and restricted to the dry sandy shores 
of the ocean, should grow on a southern and comparatively mland 
morass, is a deviation from its usual habitudes so improbable, that 
with one of these specimens before me, for which I am indebted to 


* It is stated, however, to grow on the Alps, as the C. juncifolia of Allioni. 


1035 


Mr. Smith, I do not feel justified in admitting the species into the 
Hampshire flora (except between brackets), without more satisfactory 
evidence than the fact above stated supplies. Mrs. Robinson was 
most assiduous in collecting the plants of her neighbourhood, and I 
believe usually careful and exact in noting down their localities; but 
her collection embraced plants from other quarters of the kingdom, 
and it is very possible that in this case some transposition of names 
might have been committed in labelling the series of specimens, or 
the latter may have been themselves shifted into papers not intended 
for them, and inscribed with the locality for some other plant.* I 
spent some hours in June, 1849, searching for this Carex on Titch- 
field Common, without seeing a trace of it; but I might after all have 
missed the spot, for the common is of immense extent, and would re- 
quire several days to explore completely. C. incurva has not, I be- 
lieve, been found further south in Britain than Forfarshire; yet 
would a leap of some 400 miles, from the sands of Barrie to Titch- 
field Common, be not a wholly unprecedented, although sufficiently 
startling instance of anomalous distribution amongst plants; neither 
would its appearance in a somewhat inland and even boggy station 
be cause for much astonishment, seeing that C. arenaria, usually a 
species of dry, sandy sea-shores, occasionally occurs at considerable 
distances from the coast, in the like sandy and even (as we shall show in 
speaking of that plant) wet or boggy spots. But besides that the soil 
of Titchfield Common is not of a sandy character, the boggy nature of 
the station here assigned to C. incurva does seem foreign to that 
plant, as hitherto observed, and consequently affords very strong 
grounds for disbelieving in the existence of this Carex in Hampshire. 
Still the matter deserves further inquiry, and the attention of bota- 
nists visiting Titchfield is hereby respectfully directed to the point. 

Carex divisa. In meadows, pastures, and grassy places, on or 
near the coast, and in salt marshes; very frequent both in the Isle of 
Wight, and along the opposite shores of Hants. Frequent about 
Ryde, in the marshy meadows behind the Dover, in a part of which it 
constitutes a large proportion of the coarse herbage. In the meadow 
behind Quarr Abbey, dividing Quarr Copse from Shore Copse. 
Abundantly in the meadows betwixt Springfield and Nettleston 

* TI think I understood froin Mr. Smith, that the stations only, and not the name, 
was written on the packets, as if the species had been unknown to Mrs. R. Iam 
not sure if this be fact, but if so, it lends much weight to the supposed discovery of 
C. incurva, at Titchfield, coupled with the circumstance of there having been more 
than one paper found labelled as above. 


1036 


Point. Plentiful and very fine at the mouth of the Wootton river. 
Common about Cowes, as in Gurnet Bay, and abundantly in all the 
marshy meadows at the back of it. By creeks of the Medina, above 
West Cowes, frequent. Abundant in a meadow betwixt Yarmouth 
and Thorley, on the left hand of the small bridge, also along the 
shore a little east of Yarmouth. At Bembridge, by the road side op- 
posite the blacksmith’s shop at Hillway, Dr. T. Bell Salter. Very 
common, I think, on the coast of the mainland. Frequent near Alver- 
stoke, and if I recollect rightly in Hayling Island. Meadows along 
the shore below Lymington, where, as in the Isle of Wight, it forms 
the greater part of the herbage. Salt marshes at Exbury. Marshes 
near Hill Head, in abundance, Mr. W. L. Notcutt! A troublesome 
plant in our natural maritime meadows and pastures, as being apt to 
mingle in too large a proportion with the hay crop, that here and 
there consists of little else but this sedge, which is commonly in 
flower with us by the middle of April. Schkuhv’s figure of C. divisa 
is a professed copy of Goodenough’s, and being coloured from descrip- 
tion only is very unlike nature. 

Carex iniermedia. In wet meadows, by the sides of ditches, pools, 
rivers, &c., not rare. Frequent in the marsh at Easton, Fresh- 
water Gate.* Inawet meadow at the upper end of Brading Har- 
bour, plentifully. Boggy, swampy marshes at Andover. On Stoke 
Common, and in the Nythe pastures by the great pond at Alresford, 
plentiful in both places. Winnal meadows, by Winchester, Chilbolton 
Common. Bog at Cockleton, near Cowes, Miss G. E. Kilderbee! 
and many other places. Var. @. Spikes very compact, spikelets for 
the most part pistillate throughout with darker glumes. Wet mea- 
dow between Brixton and Muggleton, Isle of Wight, April 30, 1846. 
A rather remarkable form, differing from the ordinary state in the 
closer, less distinctly lobed and elongated spikes, which in nearly all 
the specimens I collected appear to consist entirely of pistillate 
florets throughout, one example only exhibiting staminate florets to- 
wards the summit of the spike, those below and at the apex being 
pistillate as usual. This variety has broader leaves than in my 


* T much fear that all the interesting plants at Easton are in a fair way of being 
speedily exterminated, through the bog-reclaiming zeal of Mr. John Squire, of Yar- 
mouth, and that by this time many of the stations recorded in the earlier part of these 
notes have become matter of history only. I have not visited that ill-fated morass for 
some months, but have been complacently invited to come and view the improvements 
made there this summer, and which I expect will have robbed the spot of half its attrac- 
tions for the botanist. 


aes 


1037 


examples from other places, and the stems are. somewhat arcuate. 
There cannot be the smallest doubt of its being a mere variety of C. 
intermedia, nor could Dr. Boott, to whom I showed it, refer it to any 
other species. ‘The fruit of C. intermedia seems to be not often per- 
fected, I find it so, however, at Easton, but do not perceive in the well- 
ripened perigyne any sign of that widening at the base of the beak 
mentioned by Babington and figured by Leighton (FI. of Shrops.), and 
which I therefore take to be an inconstant character. Dr. Boott thinks 
that Hudson’s name of disticha should be restored to this species on 
the score of priority.* Nut greenish yellow, shining, punctate, and 
somewhat wrinkled lengthways, ovoid-elliptical, very flatly trigonate, 
the lateral angles obtuse, with a narrow rib-like margin, tipped with a 
short cylindrical process, on which the style is jointed. 

Carex arenaria. Common on sandy sea-shores of the Isle of 
Wight, and mainland Hants; very rare in sandy places at a distance 
from the coast. Plentiful on Ryde Dover. Shore at Bembridge. 
Abundant on the debris at the foot of the cliffs in Sandown Bay, and 
on the detritus of the sand-clifis, between Niton and Blackgang. 
Shores of Portsea and Hayling Islands, Christchurch Head, &c. 
About the sand-pits on the south-west side of Petersfield, close to the 
town, in plenty, August, 1849. In considerable abundance a few 
miles from the sea, in damp, blackish, sandy turf, on a moor near the 
Avon, a little above Sopley, called, I was told, Dudmore (part of 
Hume Common *), growing with Erice, Calluna, and other moorland 
plants; June 30,1850. Var. 8. Stem and spikes upright, root fibrous, 
Withering’s Arr., 3rd edit. ii. p. 90, t. 20, C. Witheringii, Gray’s Nat. 
Arr. Sandy shore on the north-east side of the Isle of Wight, Wither- 
ing!!! On Ryde Dover. A very slight form, or rather state, of C. 
arenaria, with a less creeping rhizome than usual, but differing in no 
other respect, so far as I can see. The Petersfield and Hurne stations 
are among the few inland localities I know for this species in England. 
In 1838, I remarked it very abundant in the loose, sandy soil at Mil- 


* Hudson’s name, although not unexceptionable, is preferable to that of inter- 
media, subsequenitly imposed by Goodenough, because, as he tells us (Trans. of Linn. 
Soe. ii, p. 155), of “ having generally the intermediate spicule almost entirely male” 
(staminate). But the adjective intermedia is mostly employed to signify a transition 
species, or one intermediate between two others, its near allies’in character ; as used, 
therefore, by the Bishop of Carlisle, the question at once suggests itself, betwixt what 
two species is our Carex the connecting link? The spikelets of this sedge, if not 
strictly speaking distichous, present sufficiently the appearance of that mode of ar- 
rangement to render Hudson’s epithet allowable. 


1038 


denhall, in Suffolk. The long, creeping rhizome, when chewed or 
bruised, imparts a certain weak spicy taste and smell, like camphor 
and ginger combined, and has been used in Germany as a substitute 
for Sarsaparilla. 

Carex vulpina. In boggy or marshy places, sides of rivers, ditches, 
&c. (even salt or brackish), also in wet woods and hedges; one of the 
commonest species of the genus in Hants, abounding over most parts 
of the Isle of Wight and mainland pretty equally. About Quarr 
Abbey and elsewhere near Ryde, &c., frequent. Rachis of the spike 
very suddenly contracted at the top of the culm, which last, in damp 
thickets, is often four or five feet long, and reclining or even trailing. 
Very closely allied to our plant is C. stipata, Muhlenb., C. vulpi- 
noidea, Mz., which I remarked to be frequent in North America, but 
abundantly distinguished from C. vulpina, by its much softer stems, 
so deeply and acutely triquetrous as scarcely to present any central 
core or cavity, at the juncture of the three flat thin wings or angles; 
in its perigynes, which are more convex at the back, very abrupt and 
flat at the base, which is usually depressed in the centre, and on a 
slender stipes; in the much longer beak, and, lastly, according to 
Schkuhr, in having the sheaths of the lower leaves transversely stri- 
ated. The seed (nut) in both species is very similar. ‘The ripe peri- 
gynes of C. vulpina are usually deep rusty red, but I find them in 
some parts of the county of a dark brown, nearly black colour. 

Carex muricata. In moist gravelly pastures, on banks and under 
hedges, by road sides, &c. In several parts of the Isle of Wight, but 
not common. Quarr Copse, May, 1840. By the road-side close to 
Gurnet farm, by Gurnet Bay, in plenty, June, 1838. In the planta- 
tions under the cliff betwixt Shanklin and Cook’s Castle, 1840. 
Along the top of the Parsonage Lynch, Newchurch, 1841. Abundant 
along the road-side between Bowbridge and Godshill, June, 1843. 
Betwixt Alverston and the Grove, by the road-side. Possibly not 
uncommon on mainland Hants, but at present I have only the follow- 
ing station to record. Alverstoke, June, 1849. Ripe perigynes of the 
closely approximated spikelets more widely spreading, and the edges 
of the beak much rougher than in the following species. Similar as 
are this and the next species, there appear to be sufficient grounds 
for holding them distinct. Dr. Boott, than whom no one has studied 
the Carices more assiduously and profoundly, writes to me thus on the 
subject: “I think the habit of C. divulsa is different from C. muricata, 
and it is found in countries in which C. muricata is not a native.” 

Carex divulsa. In damp hedge bottoms, on banks, in woods, and 


1039 


moist shady places. Much more frequent than C. muricata in the 
Isle of Wight, and, in fact, no uncommon species in the county at 
large. In many places about Ryde, close to the town, as in hedges 
about Little Barground (formerly at least, now perhaps destroyed 
by alterations), in Quarr Copse, by the road-side betwixt Oakfield 
and St. John’s, and elsewhere. Plentiful with C. remota, under 
hedges in the lane that crosses the Newport road, on Binstead Hill, 
leading to Ninham, Firestone Copse, &c., and on the road out of 
Ryde towards Upton, and Haven Street, near the direction post. 
Frequent on hedge-banks about Newchurch, as by the road-side to 
Mersley, &c. Near Osborne or New Barn farm, East Cowes. In 
plenty on a low bank facing the lodge gate at Westover, and by the 
road-side betwixt Newbridge and Colbourne, &c., as well as in vari- 
ous other parts of the island. About Titchfield, in hedges, between 
Titchfield and Fareham. Strathfieldsaye Park and elsewhere, re- 
marked by myself, not uncommonly. Titchfield road, Puxol Lane 
(near Fareham), Mr. W. L. Notcutt. Assuredly very close to C. mu- 
ricata in character, yet I do not remember ever having found any 
difficulty in distinguishing one from the other. The ripe perigynes 
of the more remote spikelets are only moderately spreading, and are 
quite glabrous and smooth, excepting a few small distant serratures to- 
wards the apex of the gradually tapered beak. The nut I find ex- 
actly similar in both plants. C. teretiuscula most likely inhabits the 
county, but it is either itself an obscure species, too nearly resembling 
C. paniculata, or I do not sufficiently know the plant to be able to 
distinguish it at sight; all the specimens I have at first taken for it 
have proved on further examination to be only the variety of C. pani- 
culata descried under that species. My dried authentic examples 
from other parts of England of C. teretiuscula do not help me to dis- 
criminate these two from each other. 

Carex paniculata. In wet boggy woods, thickets, willow-beds and 
in watery meadows; extremely frequent in the Isle of Wight, and, as 
far as my observation has yet extended, throughout the county. Plen- 
tiful in a wood a little way out of Ryde, near the junction of the 
roads to Ashey and Haven Street. Abundant in all the wet thickets 
about Newchurch and Alverston, in Apse Heath and Horringford 
withy beds, on the Wilderness, and Rookley Moors, near Newport, 
and in most swampy thickets and copses in the island. Var. 8. 
Smaller, in scattered simple tufts; panicle close with short branches. 
Bog below the bank betwixt Hartsash and Knighton farm, a little 
above Knighton Lower Mill, in plenty, May 6, 1845. On boggy 


1040 


meadow ground near the Wilderness, and J think not uncommon. 
This form, which may be the one slightly alluded to in the second 
edition of ‘ Babington’s Manual, under the present species, I at first 
took for C. teretiuscula, but could not make it quite agree with the 
original description of that species by Goodenough, in the ‘ Linnean 
Transactions.’ C. teretiuscula has indeed always been to myself an 
obscure and ill-defined plant, possibly from never having seen it 
growing or in a living state, but I cannot avoid remarking here that 
in description, the dried specimens, and plates, it bears a suspiciously 
near resemblance to C. paniculata. The description in the Manual 
of C. teretiuscula, paradoxa, and paniculata, are not such as to in- 
crease confidence in their distinctness as species, or to enable the 
tyro, or those not practically acquainted with the three, to discrimi- 
nate between them with certainty. In dealing with these plants in 
the normal state of each, some difficulty, I apprehend, will be found 
in obtaining characters of sufficient fixity and importance to satisfy 
the doubts of a great many, doubts naturally much strengthened by 
learning the existence of such an awkward-sounding “ intermediate,” 
betwixt C. teretiuscula and paradoxa, as the C. Pseudo-paradoxa of 
Gibson (C. Ehrhartiana of Hoppe, and C. teretiuscula 2. Ehrhartiana 
of second edition of the Manual). My own variety 8., mentioned above, 
is very probably identical with this last, but if so, is, I am fully per- 
suaded, a mere form of C. paniculata, of smaller, more contracted 
growth, perhaps even a young state of the whole plant, which at a pe- 
riod further advanced would become stouter, taller, and more cespi- 
tose, and with a more expanded panicle. Sir Wm. Hooker, who 
is justly sceptical of the clams of C. teretiuscula as a species, 
moreover, observes, “ The C. paradoxa of continental writers appears 
to be almost intermediate between them” (teretiuscula and paniculata), 
and whoever will be at the trouble of comparing the descriptions of these 
three plants and dried specimens of the same, must, I imagine, feel 
some scruple in keeping them distinct. Dr. Boott, the best autho- 
rity, perhaps, at the present day for the Carices, as having made this 
interesting genus an object of peculiar study, and possessing, pro- 
bably, the most complete collection of the species in existence, speaks 
of the line on the convex side of the perigyne, in C. teretiuscula and 
paniculata, as only “sometimes winged” (Hook. Brit. Fl. 5th. edit. 
p- 425.) In the specimens of ripe fruit of C. paniculata, in the carpo- 
logical collection I have been for some year forming of British 
plants, I find no such winged ridge on the back or convex surface of 
the perigyne, but at most an obtuse, often evanescent ridge, along the 


1041 


centre of the gibbous (not triangular) outer side, which fails to reach 
the beak, and is, in fact, only the central nerve or rib, not more dis- 
tinct or prominent than the lateral ones; * whilst on the outer side of 
the beak, I perceive only an occasional thickening, now and then 
forming a slight ridge, hardly to be called a wing, and as often or 
oftener obsolete as present. Again, I find the (fully ripe) perigynes 
by no means “ obscurely many-nerved,” but, on the contrary, that the 
nerves are for the most part very distinct, prominent, and rib-like on 
both sides at the base, vanishing at different distances in their course 
upwards towards the beak, into which, or nearly so, one or more of the 
central nerves very commonly extends. The densely tufted and 
matted fibres of the roots form, with the soil which they bind into a 
firm mass with their own substance, large conical mounds, often seve- 
ral feet in height, used, it is said, in some English counties for has- 
socks, and serving as stepping-stones, enable the botanist to traverse 
the boggy thickets with dry feet. The long tough culms are employed 
in this island as a cheap though inferior substitute for straw, in: 
thatching ricks, &c., occasionally. 
W. A. BRoMFIELD. 
Eastmount, Ryde, Isle of Wight. 


(To be continued). 


4 


Errata in previous Numbers. 


Page 836, note at bottom, for Holtzartin read Holizarten 
», 845, fourth line from bottom, for Stapler’s read Stopler’s. 
853, third line from bottom, for lesianthus read lasianthus. 
», 906, second line from bottom, for guide books, flourishes read guide-book 

flourishes. 

908, line twenty-two from top, for Parholt read Parnhoit. 

908, line twenty-eight from top, for Trondiem read Trondyem. 

911, line five from top, for Akenden Wood read Akender Wood. 
913, line four from top, for Serapis read Serapias. 

917, note, line three from bottom, for Erithronium read Erythronium. 
955, line twenty-three from top, for Haverstreet read Havenstreet. 
955, line twenty-eight from top, for Gadshill read Godshill. 
1003, line fourteen from bottom, after (in litt.) add 1! 
1004, line three from top, for Ilford read Lford. 


” 


* Repeated observation has convinced me that too much stress should not be laid 
on the number, direction, or distinctness of the nerves or ribs on the perigynes of the 


VOL It. 6s 


1042 


Notice of ‘The Tourist’s Flora:’ A Descriptive Catalogue of the 
Flowering Plants and Ferns of the British Islands, France, 
Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and the Italian Islands. By 
JosePpH Woops, F.A.8., &c. 


Tuts book has been a long time spoken of; and we accordingly pre- 
sume that it has been long also in course of preparation for the press. 
It is, moreover, the work ofa botanist of many years’ experience in that 
somewhat narrow view of botany which regards plants merely as nu- 
merous single objects, to be distinguished from each other by names 
and descriptions of external form. Such a work, by an author so qua- 
lified, we should expect to find good and useful after its kind; and 
the expectation is not disappointed by ‘The Tourist’s Flora.’ The 
following passage, from the Introduction, will let the Author himself 
explain the scope and aim of his volume :— 

“The intention of the present work is to enable the lover of botany 
to determine the names of any wild plants he may meet with, when 
journeying in the British Islands, France, Germany, Switzerland, and 
Italy. I have chosen these limits as those of the countries most fre- 
quented by English tourists, and with the botany of which I was in 
some degree personally acquainted. ‘To have extended them further, 
would have made my book more bulky, and, I am afraid, more imper- 


various species of Carex ; and, further, that descriptions of the fruit should be drawn 
up from perfectly ripened specimens alone. It is not before complete maturity that 
these nerves are to be seen in full distinctuess and relief; till then, they often continue 
wholly or partially obsolete or obscurely manifest, neither can the true form of the en- 
tire perigyne be so well judged of and described in a green or half-ripe state as after- 
wards, when no further change of shape takes place, by the dissipation of its fluid 
constituents. The nerves on the anterior and posterior faces of this organ are left in- 
definite by nature, nor are their direction and length much more rigidly appointed 
them ; it becomes, therefore, a matter of importance to describe this essential part of 
the plant in its most inalterable condition, for the avoiding as much as possible those 
errors which lead to want of accordance in the descriptions of different writers. My 
own practice has been to collect the perigynes of all our sedges when dead ripe, and 
to draw up the descriptions of them and the included seed or nut in that state only; 
the preserved specimens undergo no farther change by keeping, and remain from 
thenceforth in a condition fitting them for testing the accuracy of written descriptions 
in any case of doubt or dispute. If the perigynes be gathered before perfect ripeness, 
there is a risk of their becoming in some degree distorted by shrinking, and, perhaps, 
giving false or accidental characters, besides which, they do not in that case acquire 
their proper colour, and when that is at all peculiar or characteristic of the species, it 
should never, I think, be omitted in a detailed description. 


1043 


fect. To accomplish this object, I had to keep in view two important 
particulars,—to make the descriptions clear and distinctive, and at the 
same time to condense the whole as much as possible, so that the 
work might be comprised in a single volume, of a bulk not inconveni- 
ent for the use of the traveller.” Further, “ It will be perceived from 
this account that the work has no pretensions to originality. My 
task has been to translate and harmonize, as well as I could, the de- 
scriptions of different botanists; and I have added the result of my 
own observations only where it seemed to be absolutely necessary : 
considering that to give my own view would often have only been, to 
add one more to opinions already too numerous.” 

The volume of Mr. Woods will readily pass the first ordeal of pub- 
lishers and critics, who may ask whether the work is one calculated 
to meet any desideratum in botanical literature. We have repeatedly 
been asked by English botanists, particularly ladies, who were intend- 
ing to make a more or less extensive continental tour, what portable 
work they should carry with them, to assist in identifying the plants 
they might find in their route. Hitherto, we could seldom give any 
satisfactory answer to this interrogation ; partly because the Latin, or 
even the modern languages, often presented an impediment to the use 
of the continental floras; and partly because those floras usually refer 
to a single country or kingdom, while the tourists would visit portions 
of several. In the name of the work now under notice, we are at 
length furnished with a ready and sufficient answer to the same query, 
whenever it mav be again proposed to us. 

Secondly, allowing that an Author may fairly claim the right of pro- 
jecting a work according to his own conceptions of what is desirable 
and feasible, its purchasers have also their right to expect that the pub- 
lished work shall be carefully and faithfully executed in accordance 
with the title and plan announced by its Author. Now, while in 
some respects the plan of Mr. Woods’s work seems open to consider- 
able improvement, and numerous small defects of execution appear in 
his pages, we still cannot hesitate to say in general terms, that the 
Author has well and truly performed his part of the implied contract 
with the public, that is, with its purchasers. From the internal evi- 
dence there can be no doubt that much assiduous attention has been 
bestowed on ‘The Tourist’s Flora, and that much effort has been 
made to render it complete, concise, accurate, and serviceable, so far 
as its plan may allow. This is no small merit in these days of hasty 
book-making, when so many “ new works” in science are got up by 


1044 


needy book-makers, for speculative booksellers to advertize and puff 
into circulation; but in which the purchaser finds only a title-page 
ad captandum, a few showy pictures for “ illustrations,” and a guan- 
tum of text noticeable chiefly for its plagiarism and imperfections. 

H, however, we subject ‘The Tourist’s Flora’ to a third and more 
searching test, by inquiring whether it can be regarded as a contribu- 
tion towards the advancement of science, the reply must be in the ne- 
gative. Progress does not appear to have been within the Author’s 
contemplation; his object having been to repeat or to re-write the 
ascertained characters of known plants, and to transcribe the pub- 
lished descriptions of the less known or the merely book species. 
The distinctive peculiarity of the work is found in the space of Europe 
to which it relates, and also in its being a continental Flora writ- 
ten in the English language; its merit lies in the well-considered 
condensation and prevailing precision of its descriptions. True, in 
various instances, these descriptions are clear and constant only in 
the printed book, while they are inapplicable and false in the real 
plants. But we know no living botanist who could avoid making or 
repeating imperfections of this kind, in attempting to describe all the 
plants of a space so wide. 

Mr. Woods omits the authority for his nomenclature, by not adding 
the name of the botanist who first applied the generic and specific 
names he has adopted for the plants. The practice of using this ad- 
dition has led to so much falsification of nature, through its ministra- 
tion to the vanity of species-makers, that we are quite content to feel 
occasionally the small inconvenience of the omission, rather than be sub- 
jected to the great and frequent evils of falsification indirectly result- 
ing from the practice. The Author well meets the difficulty, too, by 
adding the most needed synonymes in his index, with a reference to 
the names under which he has described the species; while, in the 
body of the work, he quotes directly from the respective writers the 
descriptions of species which are obscure or doubtful; adding the 
writers name to the description, not to that of the plant. By this 
plan the compliment becomes one of very doubtful quality; being 
often and obviously awarded to the obscurity of the describer, or to 
the falsifying vanity of the species-maker. It may, indeed, be other- 
wise in some cases, and eventually prove only a just tribute to the 
acuteness or good fortune of a discoverer. Meanwhile, the plan 
keeps many suspicious novelties in the category of things to be held 
doubtful. And if we find the name of any particular botanist re- 


1045 


peatedly quoted in this way, we are naturally led to doubt the sound- — 
ness of his judgment, as a distinguisher of species, whatever credit 
may be awarded to him as an acute observer of varieties. 

We have still to mention one department of the work, in reference 
to which we feel called upon to express much disappointment, on 
account of its being so imperfectly executed as to be virtually false 
or faithless. The Author seems to have adopted no ruling plan or 
principle in giving the habitats of the species, except the old prac- 
tice of naming habitats for those species which he supposes to be 
less generally distributed. Now, it would have been perfectly easy 
to have started on the comprehensive plan of omitting the names of 
countries for all species that have been ascertained to occur in all the 
six principal divisions of his area, as indicated on the title-page, or 
even to have made these leading divisions rather more numerous, by 
subdividing some of them. The several countries might have been 
expressly named for other species that do not occur in all the divisions 
or subdivisions. And more special indications could have been given, 
by the names of small states, provinces, &c., for species of still more 
local or. limited occurrence. Some regular rule of this kind would 
have been far more philosophic and useful, than the hap-hazard 
course taken by the Author, and carried out so very imperfectly, and 
even falsely. 

We venture on the epithets of ‘ false’ or ‘ faithless ;? because, in nu- 
merous instances, the habitats are so indicated as to convey wrong in- 
formation, through omissions that could arise only from utter indiffer- 
ence to accuracy, or the most negligent inquiry. A charge of this na- 
ture, however, should never be made by a reviewer, without the citation 
of examples in illustration of what is meant, and in proof of its accu- 
racy. Accordingly we will select some examples, and take them from 
that portion of the volume which must have been last printed, and 
which should consequently be least behind the knowledge of the day. 

In the last order treated, that of Lycopodiacez, we find the habitats 
of “Scotland, Dauphiné, Germany,” indicated for Lycopodium anno- 
tinum by the usual abbreviations. The readers of the ‘ Phytologist’ 
are well aware that the species named has likewise been found in 
England, and that an early scepticism of the fact was eventually re- 
moved by good evidence of its reality. The announcement and con- 
firmation were made long enough ago for the habitat in ‘The Tourist’s 
Flora to have been given more correctly. But as this record does not 
yet appear in our general floras of Britain, or other collective works, 
even an Author on the “ Ferns of the British Islands” may readily be 


1046 


excused for overlooking it. The omission of Wales, also, may have 
been intentional, in the belief that the species has become extinct 
there. We cite this instance only in illustration of the kind of inac- 
curacy in the work, and not as an example for which the Author can 
be censured. 

But the inaccuracy becomes censurable when we see the habitats of 
Lastrea Feenisecii given as “ Ireland, North England.” ‘We believe 
that the first particular notice of this Fern, as an English species, was 
made by the Rev. W. T. Bree, in a list of Cornish plants, nearly 
twenty years ago. And though it certainly has occurred in some 
northern counties of England, it appears to be far more a southern 
than a northern fern, and therefore the express limitation to the North, 
and implied exclusion of the South, is one of those careless inaccu- 
racies which are censurable on account of their tendency to mislead 
botanists who use the work, by indirectly misrepresenting well-ascer- 
tained and long-recorded facts. Of the three English counties men- 
tioned for the species in ‘ Newman’s History of British Ferns,’ two are 
quite southern, Cornwall and Sussex ; the other is Cumberland. 

So, again, the habitats of Scheuchzeria palustris are cited as 
“Yorkshire, Vosges, Germany.” Of course, any reader of ‘The 
Tourist’s Flora,’ who relies upon the Author’s fidelity in stating habi- 
tats, will suppose that the Scheuchzeria is not known in any other 
county of Britain; or, at least, was not so known up to the year 1850. 
But in the second volume of the ‘Cybele Britannica, published in 
1849, four other counties are mentioned for it, and two of them by no 
means recent discoveries. In the ‘New Botanist’s Guide,’ published 
in 1835 and 1837, the counties of Salop and Perth are reported, in 
addition to that of York; and there are other and earlier records for 
the plant in those two counties. Here, we may say, that the Author 
has not made any attempt to ascertain and give the present state of 
knowledge on his subject, but has idly repeated only what was known 
a quarter of a century ago. | 

We could cite many such instances, but three or four will suffice to 
show that we do not censure ‘The Tourist’s Flora’ in this particular 
without good grounds for doing so. One more example shall be 
given, because the plant has excited. lively attention and interest 
among British botanists, and even in some degree among continental 
botanists also. The Anacharis Alsinastrum of Babington, appears in 
the work of Mr. Woods under the name of Udora occidentalis. The 
habitats are thus indicated, “ Damschen See near Stettin, Pomerania. 
Leicestershire.” Truly, the readers of the ‘ Phytologist’ will be sur- 


1047 


prized to learn that this remarkable plant was known in only one 
county of Britain up to the year 1850. In the ‘Cybele Britannica,’ 
1849, localities in seven counties are reported, with reference to their 
authorities, but two of them are suspected. Mr. Woods may here 
plead that the discoveries are quite recent, and that the writer of 
a general work must almost inevitably be a little behind the know- 
ledge of the day or year of his publication. Such a plea would in 
general be a valid exoneration for overlooking things of recent record. 
But the instance of the Anacharis or Udora is too remarkable and ex- 
ceptional for the plea to be allowed. If an Author is carelessly inac- 
curate in stating the habitat of this plant, what may we expect in the 
case of other plants less likely to command attention and accuracy ? 
Just what we have cited in the Lastrea and Scheuchzeria above men- 
tioned, and just what we could show in so many other instances. 

With regard to the admission of some species, and exclusion of 
other species, presumed to be of exotic origin, and only naturalized 
within the area of his Flora, the Author may be held at liberty to fol- 
low his own judgment or caprice. But some of the omissions, in con- 
trast with the admissions, strike us as belonging rather to the category 
of caprice than to that of judgment. Thus, to admit the Canna In- 
dica, and exclude the Sisyrinchium anceps, scems a somewhat strange 
preference. 

The same license and same comment may likewise be extended to 
the very debateable ground of species or variety. And as an instance 
of capricious separation, we may refer to the severance of Festuca 
pratensis and F. loliacea, as two distinct species, although a root of 
the latter absolutely can and does assume the characters of the former 
under cultivation, and the gradual transition from one to the other 
can be so easily traced in meadows where both occur. On the other 
hand, strange to say, after all that has been written about “ Primula 
elatior,” in England, and the correct manner in which P. veris, 
elatior, and vulgaris are entered in ‘ Babington’s Manual,’ and other 
works, we find the Author of ‘The Tourist’s Flora’ still confusing to- 
gether the P. elatior of Jacquin, and the umbellate variety of P. 
vulgaris. 

Indiscriminate eulogy in the notice of a new publication likely to 
excite attention, is a fraud upon his readers by the reviewer. And 
censure without citing examples of what is faulty, is unfair to the 
Author. We have endeavoured to avoid both these objectionable 
modes of noticing books, at present too much in vogue. ‘The 
Tourist’s Flora’ is a good and serviceable addition to our botanical 


1048 


literature, not without some serious deficiences; but its excellencies 
very much outbalance its defects. 


C. 


Contents of ‘ Hooker's Journal of Botany, No. 21, September, 1850. 


Contributions to the Botany of Western India. By N. A. Dalzell, 
M.A. 

Continuation of Mr. Spruce’s Letters from South America. 

Notes on the Botany of Jamaica. By Dr. R, C. Alexander. 

Botanical Information: Orchidacez found in Assam, &c. The late 
Professor Koch’s Herbarium. 

Notice of Macfadyen’s Flora of Jamaica, second volume. 


Contents of the ‘ Botanical Gazette, No 21, September, 1850. 


Some observations on the Herbaceous Rosacee. By T. Irmisch. 
[From the ‘ Botanische Zeitung.’ ] 

On Sagina apetala and S. ciliata. By Charles C. Babington, M.A. 
[The Author contends that these are two distinct species, and that 
both are also distinct from the true S. maritima. Unfortunately, his 
descriptions and arguments are here expressed in language more than 
usually obscure and ambiguous; so that his readers are left to dis- 
cover his views, &c., rather by guessing what he intended to say, than 
by reading literally what he has written. We could wish much that 
so good an observer would learn to express his observations more 
clearly with the pen; for his ‘ Mastership of Arts’ most certainly does 
not yet extend to any mastery in the art of writing clearly. In order 
to show that our own stricture upon his pen is simply critical, and 
not (as sometimes alleged) hyper-critical, we will tax the patience of 
our Phytological readers by citing a short passage in illustration, but 
selecting one which will at the same time convey some botanical in- 
formation, if or when understood. After stating the points of distinc- 
tion between Sagina maritima, and the other two species above men- 
tioned, Mr. Babington adds that,— 

“There is another plant usually called S. maritima, in England, 
which is the 8. debilis of Jordan, and the S. maritima of Grenier, 
which may very probably be a maritime state of S. apetala, but differs 


1049 


from zt by the much greater size of all zts parts, 74s awnless leaves, 
ats sepals not spreading from the ripe capsule, and equalling, or 
slightly exceeding zt. Jts capsule is of the same form, 7#s mode of 
growth is apparently similar, and ¢ts leaves are sometimes bluntish, 
and in other instances have a long apiculus.” 

_ What are the grammatical antecedents to the second “which” and 
first “it” of the passage quoted? Through the want of a conjunc- 
tive word, we are left in the uncertainty of two antecedents for the 
former; while the grammatical antecedent of the latter is certainly 
the “ maritime state” of S. apetala, which cannot be intended by the 
writer. Then we have five repetitions of the pronoun “it, its, its, its, 
it,” all in one sentence, though apparently intended to refer to three 
different objects or antecedents, which are confused together through 
this use of the one ambiguous substitute for their names. Next fol- 
low the halves of two comparisons, both meaningless, because neither 
of them is completed by any mention of the object with which “it” is 
to be compared. But, if we rightly guess at the Author’s meaning, it 
may be conveyed without confusion or ambiguity, and still nearly in 
his own words, by changing the grammatical construction of the pas- 
sage, and supplying the-omissions, thus :— 

“There is another plant usually called S. maritima in England, 
which is the S. debilis of Jordan, and the S. maritima of Grenier, and 
which may very probably be a maritime state of S. apetala; but it 
differs from the ordinary form of that species by the much greater size 
of all its parts, by its awnless leaves, and by its sepals not spreading 
from the ripe capsule, which they equal or slightly exceed. Its cap- 
sule is of the same form as that of S. apetala; its mode of growth is 
apparently similar to that of the same species, its leaves are some- 
times bluntish, and in other instances they have a long apiculus.”’] 

Literature: Thurmann’s Essai de Phytostatique. Payer’s Bota- 
nique Cryptogamique. Contents of botanical journals. 

Proceedings of Societies: Linnean Society. Microscopical Society. 
Botanical Society of Edinburgh. 

Miscellanea: Record of Localities. Morphology of Grasses, 


VOL. Il. 6 T 


1050 


On the appearance of Atriplex hortensis, Linn., near Worcester. 
By Epwin Less, Esa., F.L.S. 


As I was strolling the other day with a friend along the embank- 
ment of the Oxford Railway, at Tallow Hill, near Worcester, which 
has been lying abandoned and neglected for the last three years, I 
noticed among the rank weeds growing about, a queer looking plant 
unknown to me in fructification, which I at first took for some species 
of Dock. There was plenty of it, so I carried one off, and found on 
examination at home that it was an Atriplex, and it turns out to be 
A. hortensis, Linn. 

It is characterized by its very large green reticulated and entire 
perigynes, devoid of all tubercles or scaly granulations, though its 
foliage is as “frosty” as any others of this puzzling tribe. Dr. Brom- 
field has mentioned it as occuring in a wild habitat on the coast of 
the Isle of Wight (Phytol. 11. 330); but as at present no place is as- 
signed to it in our Floras, at the dagger’s point (t), I am unaware 
to what extent it may have been noticed by other botanists. At all 
events, this is its first recorded appearance in Worcestershire. If we 
are to have any migratory or uncertainly occurring plants at all in our 
floras, I can see no good reason why this should not possess a nook 
in a British list, as it does in the ‘ Flora Gallica,’ from which work I 
subjoin the following short account of it. 

“ ATRIPLEX HORTENSIS, Linn. Sp. 1493; Dod. Pempt. 615; Blackw. 
Herb. t. 99, et 552; A. domestica. Matth. Valgr. 459; Arroche, 
Bonne-dame. 

a, caule herbaceo erecto, foliis oblongo-triangularibus subdenta- 
tis, floribus racemosis axillaribus terminalibusque, calycibus 
seminum ovatis reticulatis acutiusculis integerrimis. 

8. A. hortensis rubra. Bauh. Pin. 119. 

Flores subherbacei, Junio. In hortis et olitoriis colitur.” * 

This Atriplex appears to have been an old olitory herb, though I 
should think, worn out and almost entirely forgotten in this country, 
whatever charm it may still hold upon continental cultivators of vege- 
table condiments. I have no recollection of observing it anywhere in 
our town or village gardens, though doubtless it must have lain neg- 
lected somewhere, and is now coming up to present its claims again. 


* Flora Gallica, seu Enumeratio Plantarum in Gallia sponté nascentium: auct. 
J. L. A. Loiseleur Deslongchamps, tom. i. p. 218. 


1051 


As our ancestors had it probably on their plates, we must now take it 
up as literary diet. 

I should remark that the spot where I noticed the Atriplex horten- 
sis to be rather plentifully growing, is made ground, raised upon pas- 
ture land, forming, in fact, the foundations and plateau of the in- 
tended Railway Station, and the materials of earth and rubbish can- 
not have been brought from any distance, as a cutting commences a 
short distance from the spot. The seeds have perhaps lain undis- 
turbed for many years, till the shifting and upraising of the soil has 
enabled them to exercise their vegetating powers. 


EpwIn LEEs. 
Henwick, near Worcester, 
Sept. 16, 1850. 


On the occurrence of Lobelia urens in Kent. 
By Wit11am Tomson, Esa. 


A living specimen of this rare plant has just been presented to me 
by the Rev. J. Dix, of Charing. It was found by Mrs. Dix in a wood 
near Ashford, on the 27th of August last ; and since it is usually sup- 
posed to be a Devonshire plant, its discovery in the county of Kent 
may be deemed worthy of record. Mr. Dix informs me that the plant 
grew about a yard from the path in a chestnut wood, which had been 
cut down; that it was in full vigour, and that its centre formed a su- 
perb spike of flowers. He adds, that there is no apparent possibility 
of its having been placed there through man’s instrumentality. 


W. THomson. 
Foxley’ Road, Kennington, 
Sept. 10, 1850. 


New Station for Mentha sylvestris in Glen Ogilvy. 
By W. M. Oaitviz, Esa. 


In the early part of last season I had the pleasure of meeting with 
Mentha sylvestris, in the Den of Glammis, on the north side of the 
stream that runs through it, and about half a mile from its entrance. 
Circumsta nces prevented me from visiting the station at the time re- 
corded for its flowering.. Being in the same locality the other day, I 


1052 


intended to have visited the station to see if there was any appear- 
ance of its flowering, had I not met with it in Glen Ogilvy, on the 
banks of the same stream, but about three miles further east than the 
Den of Glammis. At the time of my revisiting this place, the 8th 
and 9th of August, it was in full flower. I walked along the banks 
of this stream for about half a mile and found it in various spots on 
both sides, and I have little doubt, from its appearance, that it 
may be found as far up as the source, among the Sidlaw Hills. The 
place, however, where it seemed to be in greatest profusion, was that 
part of the stream in front of the farm house of Kilmundy, from which 
it is separated by about a field’s breadth, here it was in so great profu- 
sion that I might have gathered a thousand specimens in a few mi- 
nutes. In the January number of the ‘ Phytologist,’ for 1849, there is 
‘a note on, and query by my friend Mr. Lawson, respecting the flow- 
ering of the Mentha, at the station recorded for it in the ‘ Flora of 
Forfarshire, viz., ‘side of the new Glammis road, where it emerges 
from the Sidlaw Hills into Glen Ogilvy.” Mr. L. had walked a dis- 
tance of eleven hundred miles to see it in flower, but was disap- 
pointed, and from this, as well as from its growing only by the road- 
side, he seems to have some suspicion of its being native: he will 
therefore be glad to observe the record of another station where there 
can be little doubt of its being native, and where it flowers freely. I 
see no reason, however, to doubt its being native even at the road- 
side station. The road was made, I believe, about forty or fifty years 
ago, and at this place was made through a waste moor; even yet the 
sides of the road are lined with heath and broom, among which the 
Mentha in some places is growing, and which seems to have been as 
little touched with the spade as the moors and waste grounds around. 
I passed this station on my way to Dundee, and was pleased to ob- 
serve, that, even here, it was in flower, but sparingly. It is rather a 
strange circumstance that it should never have been observed in 
flower at the road-side station by any of our local botanists. Mr. 
Lawson mentions that the late Mr. Jackson never found it in flower, 
and I have seen none who have previously observed it. The late Mr. 
Drummond, however, must have gathered it in flower, from the re- 
mark made on it in ‘ Hooker’s Flora.’ This season has been remark- 
ably dry in this part of the country ; can this have had any effect on 
its flowering ? 

My own observations on the subject coincide with those of Dr. 
Bromfield, in the February number of the ‘ Phytologist, for 1849. “I 
apprehend,” he remarks, “that Mentha sylvestris, like many other 


1053 


plants of its order, has a great tendency to exhaust itself in root, and 
that whilst in some of its stations it may be induced to flower freely, 
in others, circumstances rather favour its propagation by the creeping 
rhizoma.” The plants at the road-side station were dwarf and very 
much scattered, sending up only here and there flower stems, while 
those by the side of the stream were tall, robust, and much thicker 
clustered together. I shall be happy to supply specimens to any of 
your readers with whom it may be a desideratum. 


Wm. M. OGILVIE. 
Castle Street, Dundee, Sept. 18, 1850. 


Botanical Notes, the result of a visit to Glamorgan and Monmouth- 
shire, in the latter part of July and beginning of August, 1850. 
By JoserpH Woops, Esq., F.L.S. 


Most botanists who have attended much to the species of Rubus, 
form their idea of what constitutes a species rather from the general 
habit, than from particular characters, and where there are no clearly 
marked and uniform characters, thisis perhaps the only way of forming 
correct opinions. But however indispensable as a beginning, it is 
only a beginning. It is true that what is called habit is formed by 
the combination of many small particulars, but these are so nume- 
rous, so indistinct, and often so inexplicable, that it is impossible for 
one man to communicate to another his perception of habit; and his 
knowledge, as far as that is concerned, dies with him. No two persons 
arranging a collection of plants by the habit alone, would distribute 
them into the same set of species. Similar plants must be put to- 
gether, but then some definite characters must be elaborated from 
their comparison. This comparison then of character with habit is 
the great desideratum of the botanist in the formation of species, and 
particularly important in the species of Rubus, and it is an object 
which I have kept in view in making the following observations. Be- 
sides the close affinity between the species of this genus, and the va- 
riations to which they are subject, there are some further difficulties 
in the way of forming a correct idea of the habit of a bramble. The 
species grow mixed and entangled together, and the habit is ob- 
scured. The mode of growth too is adverse to our studies. The root 
sends out a shoot one year, which bears flowers in the next, when the 
leaves had all disappeared. At the same time it puts forth new 
shoots, but growing as it usually does, in hedges or among bushes, it 


1054 


is not easy to determine with certainty whether the old flowering 
stem and the new leafy shoot proceed from the same root. Add to 
this, that where the root spends itself in making a great number of 
flowering branches, it is very apt to neglect forming new shoots; and 
vice versd, when the new shoots are strong and numerous, the flower- 
ing branches are apt to be deficient, so that it is no uncommon thing 
to find the shoots of one species and the flowering branches of another, 
almost exclusively in the same bush. 

My first station was at Sketty in the neighbourhood of Swansea. 
The species most abundant there are R. discolor, R. cordifolius, and 
R. Koéhleri; the scarce one R. macrophyllus. These are all tolerably 
distinct in their general appearance. R. macrophyllus is rather more 
prickly than it usually is in Sussex; but even with us the character is 
variable. R. cordifolius is almost exclusively the variety with nar- 
rower leafits, and a stem more or less hairy, 2.e., it is the variety consi- 
dered by Dr. Bell Salter to be at once the R. sylvaticus and the R. 
villicaulis of the ‘ Rubi Germanici.’ In the ‘ Tourist’s Flora, I have 
followed Babington, in making R. cordifolius the typical form. I 
am now almost inclined to repent of this, since, though R. cordifolius 
be the common variety in the south and east of England, the var. R. 
rhamnifolius seems to be the most widely diffused. The leaves are 
elliptic or somewhat rhombic, or perhaps obovate and acuminate, with 
or without a slight indentation at the base, but not truly cordate. 

On the borders of the Crwmlyn Bog, I observed a still more woolly 
plant, which I at first thought might belong to R. cordifolius, but the 
leaves have underneath something of the glittering appearance of R. 
leucostachys, with which I am now disposed to join it. It has the 
mixture of a few smaller prickles. R.radula occurs in the same 
neighbourhood. 

At Horton, on the borderssof Gower, and, I believe, on the lime- 
stone, I noticed what is perhaps R. fuscus (according to Dr. Bell 
Salter, a variety of R. Koéhleri), but which, but for the presence of 
setae, might pass for a variety of R. corylifolius. R. cesius, is abund- 
ant on the limestone of Gower. 

My next station was Pont-nédd-vechan. RR. discolor and R. 
Koéhleri are here abundant, and easily distinguishable. The former, 
however, does not ascend into the ravines, which form the character 
of this part of the country. Dr. Bell Salter, in his notes on R. argen- 
teus, Bot. Gaz., ii. p. 151, says, that the hairs have the “ opaque, lus- 
trous tint common to the tomentosi.” I do not understand this, since 
if Lam to consider the word opague as opposed to translucent, I am 


1055 


quite at a loss for his character of the tomentosz, for the hairs amongst 
them seem to be individually just as translucent as those of the Cory- 
lifolii. The passage above cited forbids us to oppose it to shining, 
and besides, R. leucostachys, than which no species has more shining 
hairs, is placed among the opaque-haired species. While on this 
head, let me add that Dr. Bell Salter puzzles me, by describing the 
hairs of R. argenteus, as “ divaricating and at the same time somewhat 
patent,” and in speaking (p. 147) of the figure of R. macrophyllus, in 
the ‘ Rubi Germanici, he says, the hairs are drawn “ not truly patent, 
but patent divaricating.” I have always understood divaricate to be 
patent in a very high degree. With respect to R. discolor, it appears 
to me that the closeness of the pubescence does not depend on its 
being adpressed, but on its being stellate and very short. Another 
incorrectness, and in which I confess I have:been a participator, is in 
describing the margin of the leafits as bent down. The curve is lon- 
gitudinal, slightly modified by the somewhat wavy nature of the mar- 
gin. Let me add, in making these remarks, that I am very sensible 
of the great merit of this paper, which [| think is a considerable step 
forward in our knowledge of this intricate genus. 

R. rhamnifolius is also common about Pont-nédd-vechan, and as be- 
fore, usually hairy,so that I have sometimes found it difficult to draw 
a line between it and R. leucostachys. When the hairs are very nu- 
merous it is difficult to determine whether the stem beneath is polished 
or not. Sometimes, however, its red polished stems are very conspi- 
cuous. At other times it shows a tendency to produce over-lappin g 
leafits. The prickles on the old stem are sometimes few and small, 
while those on the young shoots are large and numerous, showing 
that in different years, or at different seasons, a different degree of 
prickliness is produced. 

Dr. Bell Salter joins R. villicaulis, . of Babington’s [first] edition, to 
leucostachys, and Babington in his later edition has joined R. villi- 
caulis altogether to R. leucostachys. I am not inclined to dispute this 
decision, but I observe here two forms which apparently belong to this 
species, the first has a lengthened panicle, generally furnished with one 
or two simple cordate leaves, lilac flowers, and a stem with few or none 
of the smaller scattered prickles. The other, with a shorter, leafless 
panicle, white flowers, and a much greater proportion of smaller scat- 
tered prickles. The young shoots also, in the specimens I have 
brought home, exhibit few sete. The latter form is very common 
among the hills of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, the first is compa- 
ratively scarce. 


1056 


Rubis saxatilis occurs occasionally in the narrow valleys above 
Pont Nedd vechan, and R. subcrectus soon after leaving the Merthyr 
road, in order to ascend Pen-y-Craig. I did not see R. plicatus any- 
where in Wales. 

From Pont-nédd-vechan I went to Pyle, hoping to find something 
among the Rubi of the magnesian limestone ; but I was disappointed. 
R. discolor grows very luxuriantly near the little stream. Some of 
the flowering branches must have been above five feet long, of which 
the branched panicle occupied at least two. 

My next station was Sully, south of Cardiff. Here R. cesius is 
abundant, as it is in Monmouthshire, and often without hairs or seje, 
apparently the R. tenuis of Babington. A somewhat remarkable form 
of Rubus with some resemblance to some of the forms of R. corylifolius 
is found along the shore. The stem is slightly hairy with stellate 
hairs, like those of R. discolor, but with a mixture of single hairs, 
each tipped with a gland. The stem has a tendency to be pruinose. 
It suggested to me the idea of its being a hybrid between R. discolor 
and R. czsius, both of which are common in the neighbourhood. 

At Caerphilly I saw nothing among the Rubi different from what I 
had already observed, and having hurt my foot I could not scramble 
much after them. At Newport, I observed two forms which seemed 
to deserve notice. One had the pubescence and nearly the panicle of 
R. discolor, but the stem on the old shoot had eight slight furrows, 
instead of as usual, being five-sided, and that on the new shoots was 
armed with very unequal, but not very numerous prickles. 1 cannot 
pretend to assign a name to it. The other is, I think, distinctly R. 
hirtus, and I met with it again at Ragland and at Monmouth. At 
Ragland also I met with a Rubus with a hairy stem, and nearly equal 
angular prickles, but differing from R. rhamnifolius and R. leucosta- . 
chys, in having uniformly, at least as far as I could trace it, only three 
narrow leafits. The panicle is hardly corymbose and the prickles are 
nearly straight. With respect to the last character, it is to be ob- 
served, that when a branch is preparing to take root, sometimes even 
before any fibres are thrown out, the direction of the prickles and 
leaves towards the extremity is reversed, and next to these we find 
the leaves set on horizontally, and the prickles which ought to be 
deflexed or recurved, are horizontal and nearly straight, as if nature 
had not determined which way she should turn them. 

At Monmouth, besides the plants already mentioned, I gathered a 
setigerous Rubus, with a very widely-spreading and leafy panicle. 
Perhaps a variety of R. Radula, and another which agrees pretty well 


1057 


with Babington’s description of R. Schleicheri. At the foot of the 
Wynd Cliff there is a form of R. corylifolius, with few and compara- 
tively small prickles, and generally only three very broad and over- 
lapping leafits. I noticed, at Farnborough, a plant with a similar ge- 
neral habit, but more prickly, and with five, or sometimes seven broad 
overlapping leafits. 

I cannot say that in this investigation I have advanced much in 
forming a conception of the distinct habit of the Rubi, or of connect- 
ing it with character; on the contrary, like the green track over the 
moors described by Scott, I have sometimes lost, on a nearer approach, 
distinctions which seemed to be sufficiently evident at a distance: 
yet it first seems essential. To have to examine in detail every 
bramble one meets with, before we can form an opinion of the species, 
requires a patience almost superhuman, and without some definite 
notion of habit, this is unavoidable. R. discolor is generally very 
distinguishable, yet about Newport I could not always separate it in 
its general appearance from R. rhamnifolius. R. rhamnifolius is 
usually in the form sylvaticus, and not always readily told from R. 
leucostachys. In Haddock Wood, near Monmouth, [ observed two 
shoots growing side by side, in form, colour, and general appearance 
exactly alike. On examination, one belonged to R. rhamnifolius, 
while the multitude of setz on the other obliged me to refer it to R. 
trudis. ‘The flowers in the bush seemed all to belong to one species, 
and as the panicle was setigerous and the flowers white, I concluded 
them to belong to R. rudis. In the second form of leucostachys, as 
exhibited at Pont-nédd-vechan, there is a sharpness in all the parts 
which catches the eye, and the calyx is spreading and star-like imme- 
diately after flowering, though it seems to become reflexed in the fruit, 
but these appearances were less evident in other places. I have 
thought that I knew R. Koéhleri, but some of its varieties have in a 
general view so close a resemblance to some of those of R. Radula, 
and perhaps to some other setigerous species, that I have learnt to 
doubt my knowledge. In R. corylifolius the degree of overlapping in 
the leafits varies very much, yet it must be reckoned one of our best 
marked species. 

Beyond Rubus I have little to say. Qnanthe Lachenalii is the 
usual Cinanthe of the marshes in these parts, and not O. pimpinelli- 
folia. The Statice of the rocks is Dodartii. In Armeria maritima 
the tube of the calyx is not “ uniformly hairy,” but there is an inter- 
mediate line of hairs between the nerves; this I have observed also in 
Sussex. Feedia Auricula grows in Gower, near Norton, and more 

Vou. i. 6 U 


1058 


abundantly in some barren fields near Ragland. I acknowledge that 
the plant exhibits in other particulars the closest resemblance to F. 
dentata, especially to the variety F. eriocarpa, but I cannot persuade 
myself that so marked a difference in the fruit is of no value. The 
Valeriana of the valleys is V. sambucifolia. The leafits are four or five 
pairs, with a trifid terminal leafit. Near Monmouth I sometimes found 
five or six pairs with a quinato-pinnatifid terminal leafit. The cup from 
which the processes of the calyx arise, is sometimes fully as wide as the 
widest part of the conico-ovoid seed, at others it is divided quite down to 
the base. The rhizoma is sometimes almost perpendicular, exhibiting 
one set of fibres above the other; but I did not notice this in any 
flowering specimens, and in such cases the lower root, not the upper, 
sends forth slender runners. The upper is probably the production 
of the year, instead ofa flowering stem, and it would flower, and send 
out runners the next year. Independent of this descending rhizoma, 
there are, both for the flowering and barren plants, superficial run- 
ners, often very numerous, producing in their course pairs of scales, 
and sometimes a single leaf; but I could not see any pairs of leaves, 
except at the end, were the fibres of a new root were produced. 

Triticum caninum, which, I think, is not mentioned in the Bota- 
nists’ Guides, grows near Pont-nédd-vechan, both on the Purthin and 
on the little Nédd, and there are several tufts of Gnaphalium margari- 
taceum below the Dinas Rock, a large limestone rock rising abruptly 
at the head of the open valley. Lepidium Smithii grows at Pont- 
nédd-vechan, and at Pont Walby. At the latter place, and, I believe, 
at Cil-Hepste, there is a curious form of Equisetum, perhaps of E. ar- 
vense, in which the lower branches are subdivided, sometimes even 
producing secondary whorls. It has the long terminating division of 
the frond which has been noticed in E. umbrosum, with which in 
other respects it does not well agree. Its situation on wet banks, or 
in the spray of a waterfall, is very different from that in which we usu- 
ally find E. arvense, and it may perhaps prove a distinct species. 
Orobanche Hedere grows at Penrice and at Sully. Genista Anglica, 
which I do not see mentioned in the ‘ Botanist’s Guide’ for Glamorgan, 
grows at Rhydgroes, near the station of Rubus suberectus. Mr. Wat- 
son in the Bot. Gaz. 1. 59, has given a list of plants not very rare, but 
not hitherto recorded in the botany of South Wales. Of these Ra- 
diola millegrana occurs on the ascent of Cefn Brin, in Gower; and 
Silaus pratensis is common on the bog in the eastern part of the 
county. 

Near Pyle, among the sand hills on the shore, is a large pond, 


1059 


called Kenfig Pool, which used to be celebrated for its pike, and 
which also contained a multitude of roach, serving as food for the 
pike, but whence of late years both pike and roach have disappeared 
without any apparent cause. I found nothing in the pool, but my 
friend Mr. Moggeridge has sent me lately some fragments of a Pota- 
mogeton, which, from the appearance of its seeds, I suspect, may be 
P. trichodes, at least they seem different from those of any acknow- 
ledged British species. In a moist hollow in this pool, growing on 
the sand with Erythrea pulchella and Centunculus minimus, there 
was a considerable quantity of what, from the description, appears to 
be the Myosotis multiflora of De Candolle. All the specimens I at 
first gathered seemed to be strictly annual, but on returning to the 
spot, I found in many plants traces of a descending rhizoma, and a 
second bundle of radical fibres, indicating the plant to be, sometimes 
at least, biennial. I suspect it to be a variety of M. palustris, with- 
out, however, relinquishing my opinion that it is the M. multiflora of 
the ‘ Prodromus.’ 

On a large limestone hill, near Pyle, called Newton Down, there is 
a great abundance of Ulex Gallii. There it keeps itself distinct from 
U. nanus by its habit; but about Monmouth intermediate states may 
be seen. The wings are very nearly equal to the keel in length{; in 
individual flowers sometimes avery little longer (perhaps thirtieth or for- 
tieth of an inch), when flattened against it, but this was not the usual case, 
and in the natural state the curve of the wings makes thein appear 
shorter. Before the parts are fully expanded, the point of the keel 
sometimes does and sometimes does not project above the wings. In 
returning homewards, I examined the U. nanus, on the heaths about 
Farnborough, where the plants are smaller and slenderer than any I 
had seen in Monmouthshire; but the heaths there are periodically 
pared for fuel, and neither heath nor furze can grow to any size. In 
these also I should have described wings and keel as of equal length, 
but the former are now and then a very little shorter; they are always, 
however, narrower than the keel, which, before their full expansion, 
projects sometimes above and sometimes below them. On Ashdown 
Yorest the wings are sometimes a little longer than the keel. Both 
U. nanus and U. Gallii have frequently flowers near the ends of the 
branches, as described in U. strictus, but their usual position in both 
is near the base of the primary spines, and never, as in U. europzus, 
scattered more than half along their length, or on the secondary 
spines. 

I add the position of a few plants which have not yet found their 


1060 


way into the ‘ Botanist’s Guide.’ Aconitum Napellus, is, as I am told 
by Mr. Mr. Moggeridge, abundant on some bushy ground near Llan- 
brissant. Senebiera pinnatifida is found about most of the sea ports. 
Cardamine impatiens and Dipsacus pilosus are not uncommon along 
the Wye. Brassica oleracea, without a seed in the beak, is plentiful 
on the marl cliffs of Barry Island. Diplotaxis muralis is common 
about Swansea. Erucastrum monense at Nicholaston,in Gower. This 
was found by Mr. Borrer also at Merthyr. When Dillwyn’s ‘ Bota- 
nist’s Guide’ was first published, Matthiola sinuata used to be found 
in several places among the sand-hills of the shore. Afterwards it 
disappeared. ‘Two or three years ago it again showed itself, but has 
again disappeared. ‘The corporation of Swansea, it seems, sometimes 
take turf from the sand-hills and replace the soil with some they want 
to get rid of from the neighbourhood of the town, and in these spots 
I noticed Calendula officinalis, Koniga maritima, Delphinium consolida, 
a cultivated Pimpinella, and other garden plants. This could hardly 
be the origin of the Matthiola; but I suspect that it has produced the 
D. consolida, noticed by Mr. Lees, at least I neither saw nor heard of 
the plant except in such situations. A more curious instance of inci- 
pient naturalization was exhibited a few years ago in the Yucca glo- 
riosa, a root of which was cast on the shore of Cromlyn burrows. It 
established itself there, sending out suckers, and for some years 
seemed quite disposed to be permanent, till a storm buried it under 
a heap of shingle. Sagina maritima grows at Porth Cawl. Althea 
officinalis in Barry Island. Lavatera arborea, is | am assured, wild in 
two places on the coast of Gower. Hypericum dubium is common 
among the hills both in Glamorgan and Monmouthshire. I see Mr. 
Bennet considers the plant he found on the Wye to be H. maculatum ; 
mine seemed to be the common form of H. dubuim, without any ap- 
proximation to the characters of H. quadrangulum. Hypericum mon- 
tanum in woods on the Wye. I observed a single plant of Melilotus 
arvensis in a clover field at Sully. Rosa systyla occurs in Gower. 
(Enothera biennis in Barry Island. Sedum sexangulare was found by 
Mr. Motley at Bwich Afen, a name I do not find in the map, but it 
is stated to be in the upper part of the valley of the Glamorgan Avon. 
It has since been sought for in vain. Carum verticillatum is frequent 
in boggy meadows about Swansea and Neath, and as this has long 
been well known, I wonder how it escaped from the first ‘ Botanist’s 
Guide.’ Galium tricorne grows in Barry Island. Inula Helenium in se- 
veral places in Gower and about Sully. Veronica Buxbaumii I saw at 
Lavernock, a very out-of-the-way place for a stranger. Mentha ro- 


1061 


tundifolia is to be seen near Taaswell, and is common about Mon- 
mouth. Calamintha Nepeta at Caerphylly. Leonurus cardiaca abun- 
dantly at Kenfig. Atriplex Babingtonii on Sully Island and on the 
coast by Barry Island. Empetrum nigrum near Pont-nédd-vechan. 
Euphorbia stricta at Tintern. Scirpus Savii on the sands at Oxwich 
and Porth Cawl, on the hills at Cefn Bryn, and Pont-nédd-vechan. 
Carex levigata near Oystermouth. Gastridium lendigerum at Pennarth. 
Agrostis setacea on Cefn Bryn and on Newton Down. Festuca uni- 
elumis on the sand-hills in several places. 

The botanist in Glamorganshire will look in vain for many plants 
which are found in similar situations in Yorkshire. Here is no,Pri- 
mula farinosa, no Geranium sylvaticum, and the Sesleria cerulea 
so abundant on the limestone of Yorkshire and Westmorland, and 
which reappears on the chalk hills of Rouen, refuses to grow on the 
limestones of South Wales, as well as on the downs of Sussex. 


JosEPH Woops. 
Lewes, Sussex, September, 1850. 


A Catalogue of the Plants growing wild in Hampshire, with occa- 
sional Notes and Observations on some of the more remarkable 
Species. By WitiiamM ARNoLpD BromrizLb, M.D., F.L.S., &c. 


(Continued from page 1041). 


Carex Beenning hauseniana.* On the margins of little shaded pools, 
in woods and thickets, chiefly on a clay soil, very rare? In Quarr 
Wood, near its western extremity, and on the sea-side of the main 
path among the thick brushwood, principally by the little pools or 
plashes in the hollow part of the copse, not far from the shore, in great 
plenty, June 15, 1843. Taken when first gathered for the following 
species, but pronounced on very competent authority to belong to the 
present. I must candidly own to feeling great difficulty in rightly 
understanding the difference betwixt these two alleged species, and 
have now lost the slight clew I once thought I possessed to distin- 
guish them apart and on paper. The very limited time left me before 
taking my departure for the East, precludes me from entering on the 


* Named after C. M. F. von Bonninghausen, author of the ‘ Prodromus Flore 
Monasteriensis,’ 1824 ; the spelling ought therefore to be as above, not Boenninghau- 
siana, as it is frequently written. 


1062 


discussion of this intricate subject at present. I shall therefore con- 
tent myself with copying from my MS. descriptions of Hampshire 
plants that of C. Boenninghauseniana, drawn up June 16, 1843, from 
a large bundle of fresh specimens gathered in the locality above men- 
tioned. 

C. Boenninghauseniana, Kunze, Suppl. der Riedgr. p. 86, t. 22; 
Fl. Dan. xiv. t. 2300 (good representations both of our Vectian plant) ; 
E. B. Suppl. iv. t. 2910 (spikelets much darker than with us, and on 
the whole less characteristic than the two figures just quoted). 

Plant growing in large tufts. Root creeping, cespitose and fibrous. 
Culms numerous, erect or inclining, spreading or radiating from the 
centre of the tuft, from one to two and a half, three, or even four feet 
in length, rigid, slender and striated, but stouter, firmer and much 
more acutely angular than in C. remota (to which, as to C. axillaris, 
this plant betrays a strong affinity), and especially so at and near the 
summit, below the inflorescence,* where the angles are very sharp and 
scabrous, and to a much greater distance downward than in that; in 
the middle and lower part quite smooth, the faces rather convex ; 
leafless for a considerable distance from the top. eaves linear, bright 
pale green, the superior ones narrow, as long or longer than the culms, 
more usually shorter, about one to one and a half line in breadth, 
flattish, or at least much less channelled or concave than in C. remota, 
very acutely pointed and tapering, with triangular, scabrous points ; 
rough along the edges and keel for about half their length downwards ; 
those towards the base of the culm very greatly shorter than the su- 
perior leaf, the lowest of ail shorter even than their sheathing bases. 
Spike terminal, simple, much shorter for the size of the plant than in 
C. remota, from one and a half to three, four or more inches in length; 
rachis straight, with three very unequal faces, one of them much 
broader than the other two (hence appearing at first sight two-edgedt), 
the angles very acute and rough, with cartilaginous serratures. Spike- 
lets sessile, ovate or ovate-lanceolate, acute, the two lowermost con- 
siderably distant from each other, but less so than in C. remota,{ the 


* In C. remota the culm is quite smooth or very slightly rough only to the lower- 
most bract, the rachis only of the spike being scabrous, as is truly remarked by Good- 
enough. 

+ One of the angles is often smooth, and so obtuse and indistinct as very nearly to 
render the rachis ancipital. 

t The comparison is here all along made with C. remota, and not with C. axillaris, 
under the impression that the latter was the plant before me whilst drawing up the 


description. 


1063 


third and even sometimes the fourth from the bottom tolerably wide 
apart, and all more or less compound at their base, sometimes (though 
rarely?) simple, their spicule more or less spreading; subterminal 
spikelets approximate, the terminal crowded, smaller and more pointed 
than the basal, and. simple. Bracts subulate, foliaceous, erect, very 
rough on the margin and keel, with trigonous points, the lowermost 
bract always much longer than the rest, and generally overtopping the 
spike, often quite as long as in C. remota, the remaining bracts always 
as remarkably shorter than in that species, the inferior bracts not 
reaching the summit of the spike,. those still higher reduced to mere 
subulate points of their broad, glume-like bases, and below the crowded 
terminal spikelets scarcely distinguishable from the glumes themselves; 
in these respects agreeing with C. divulsa, to which, although suffici- 
ently distinct from both, our present plant and C. remota bear a con- 
siderable degree of resemblance. Glumes ovate, acute and even 
mucronate, membranous, at first greenish and silvery, finally pale 
tawny, and having a broad, tapering, bright green keel, and a central, 
pellucid, often roughish nerve continued to their apex. Staminate 
florets in all my specimens apparently few at the base of each of the 
lower spikelets, often scarcely any, one or two occasionally in the 
centre or upper part of them; more numerous in the terminal and 
subterminal spikelets, which are sometimes wholly staminate or nearly 
so. Anthers bearded or spinulose at the tips. Styles two, long and 
tapering. Perigynes substipitate, nearly erect (not spreading), ovate- 
lanceolate, tapering (not rounded) at base, plane in front, slightly con- 
vex at the back, with several prominent ribs; mostly about as long or 
longer than the glumes, gradually narrowed into the green, rough- 
edged, rather deeply cloven beak. Nut broadly ovate or ovate-ellip- 
tical, much compressed, smooth, tapering into a short cylindrical 
point, on which the persistent style is apparently articulated ; seldom, 
it would seem from Kunze’s observations and my own, perfected. 
The foregoing description will enable any one to judge in what re- 
spects C. Boenninghauseniana differs from C. axillaris, from which I 
feel myself at present quite incompetent to disentangle it in figures, 
description or dried specimens. The plant pronounced to be C. 
Boenninghauseniana, from Quarr Copse, and described above, has to 
my eyes little or no resemblance to C. paniculata, if we except its 
densely cespitose habits of growth, but the figure in E. B. Suppl., and 
a plant in St. John’s garden at Ryde, from Mr. Borrer (from the ori- 
ginal Hertfordshire station, if I mistake not), do in the darkness of the 


1064 


glumes and disposition of the spikelets bear some resemblance to C. 
paniculata, whilst the Isle-of-Wight plant agrees well with the figures 
of Kunze and the ‘ Flora Danica’ in the paler, more tawny hue of the 
glumes, and shorter, broader, less spreading spikelets. 

Carex axillaris. n similar localities with the last, also in damp 
hedgerows, moist copses and marshy places, but rarely, nor am I at 
all certain that some of the few subjoined stations may not belong 
rather to C. Boenninghauseniana. First found by me on the margin 
of a little pool in Apley Wood, by Ryde, May 28, 1837. In Church 
Lane, Binstead, under the boundary fence of Quarr Copse, June 18, 
1843, with C. remota, its very frequent companion. In tolerable 
plenty in the Parsonage Lynch, Newchurch, also with C. remota, 
July, 1843. Damp spot in Saltern Copse at Norton, Freshwater, 
June, 1849. A large tuft of this or the last species by the stream just 
above the mill at Sheet, near Petersfield, Aug. 19, 1849. How far all 
these stations belong to C. axillaris I feel quite unable to decide, even 
from the dried specimens before me, it being as well to confess the 
truth, that the slight distinctions between C. axillaris and Boenning- 
hauseniana which I once thought I perceived and understood, have 
vanished on renewed examination, after some years’ neglectfulness of 
the subject. 

Carex remota. In wet or boggy woods, thickets, and under damp 
hedges, &c.; frequent in the Isle of Wight, and I think not less so in 
the county at large. Common about Ryde, in Quarr Copse, and in 
the lane that intersects the Newport road between Binstead and Nin- 
ham (Binstead Cross), along with C. divulsa. New Copse, near 
Wootton Bridge. Yarbridge, particularly about the swampy pools 
in Marshcombe Copse, very plentifully, as it is also in a boggy copse 
close to Prestwood, near Ryde. Abundant in Cleveland Wood, Ap- 
puldurcombe, and various other parts of the island. By the road- 
side just out of Christchurch, towards Sopley, in plenty along the 
right hand hedge for a considerable distance. ‘Titchfield road, Puxol 
Lane (with C. divulsa), Mr. W. L. Notcutt. Noticed by me in various 
parts of mainland Hants, but the species is of too general occurrence 
to make a further enumeration of stations necessary. Sometimes co- 
vering the soft, black mud (humus) in our deep, boggy woods with its 
dense, spreading tufts. Culms much less triangular than in its near 
allies, the two preceding species, one angle chiefly being prominent, 
the others rounded off or nearly obsolete ; smooth, except quite close 
to the summit. 


1065 


C. elongata may be expected to occur in Hants; it has been found 
copiously in one station, if not more, in Surrey, although principally 
distributed in the midland counties of England. 

Carex steliulata. In boggy, marshy places, wet woods, meadows, 
and on moory, heathy ground; very frequent over the entire county. 
Abundant on the skirts of Lake and Blackpan Commons, and else- 
where near Sandown. Plentiful in New Copse, near Wootton, and 
on Bleak Down. Abundant in boggy meadows about the Wilderness, 
Rookley Moors, &c., and equally frequent on the mainland. 

Carex curta. In bogs and marshes, sides of pools, ditches, &c.; 
apparently very rare in Hants, and known to me as yet only in the 
Isle of Wight. Observed to be extremely abundant almost everywhere 
in Rookley Moors and about the Wilderness, where I had previously 
detected it in more limited quantity, June 17, 1844. 

Carex ovalis. One of the more frequent species of Carex in this 
island and county, over which it seems very generally, though not 
copiously, dispersed in boggy, marshy places, damp meadows, on wet 
heaths, commons and pastures. On Stopler’s Heath, by Newport. 
Ashey Common. Heathy ground between Quarr and Ninham. 
Easton Marsh, Freshwater. Frequent in many parts of Sandown 
Level, and abundant on the boggy parts of Lake Common.  Plenti- 
ful in moory ground between Perreton and Horringford, and profusely 
in moist pastures about Rookley Farm and the Wilderness, 1842. In 
meadows near Newchurch, towards Haseley. On Bleak Down, in 
several places, and elsewhere in the island. On Gurnet Common, and 
by the Medina above E. Cowes, Miss G. EK. Kilderbee. Met with by 
me so frequently in mamland Hants that I have neglected noting 
down special localities. By Durley Wood, near Bishop’s Waltham. 
Frequent at Fisher's Pond, between Twyford and Bishop’s Stoke, and ’ 
various other places. Fareham Common, Mr. W. L. Notcutt. 

Carex vulgaris (C. Goodenovii, Gay., C. cespitosa, Sm.). Not un- 
frequent in wet meadows, sides of ditches, ponds and other swampy 
or boggy places in the Isle of Wight, and possibly equally dispersed 
over the county, although I have no locality to cite for this most va- 
riable species on the mainland. In Sandown marshes. In a bogey 
meadow at the upper extremity of Brading Harbour, plentifully. In 
Alverston Lynch, and between Newchurch and Alverston, frequent. 
Bog at Cockleton, Miss G. E. Kilderbee !!!_ Var. 8. Leaves extremely 
narrow ; in Sandown Level, on the skirts of Lake or Blackpan Com- 
mons, and elsewhere. Var. y. Pistillate spikes small, much abbrevi- 
ated, ovoid-oblong, pointed, perigynes very dark and broad; marshy 

VoL It. 6 x 


1066 


meadow at Freshwater Gate, June 17, 1841. Remarkable for the very 
short and broad spikes and the dark colour of the perigynes, which are 
scarcely distinguishable from the glumes in the dried state. 

C. stricta (Gooden.) I suspect grows in several places in mainland 
Hants, and perhaps in the Isle of Wight. I am inclined to believe 
having noticed it abundantly in water-meadow ditches near Bishop’s 
Stoke and elsewhere, but to have passed it by for a tall form of the last, 
or for the following, to both of which it seems to be nearly, perhaps 
too closely, allied, and is one of those species I find difficult to under- 
stand and recognize when I meet with them. I find a plant in my 
herbarium marked C. stricta, with a query, gathered in a little bog 
near St. Catherine’s Point, June 11, 1839, but on a renewed examina- 
tion am disposed to consider it as belonging to the preceding or the 
following species. | 

Carex acuta. In exactly similar places with the two foregoing, 
but quite rare in the Isle of Wight, and to myself equally so on the 
mainland of the county. In several meadows in Sandown marshes, 
abundantly ; the last meadow but one on the right before coming to 
the village is full of it. By the Titchfield River, below the town, 
June, 1849, where it had been previously remarked by Mr. Notcutt. 
It doubtless grows in many other parts of the county, but I think can 
hardly be a frequent species with us, unlessit has been overlooked by 
me for some of the larger states of C. vulgaris. In Sandown Level 
the glumes of the staminate spikes are sometimes of a pale reddish 
brown, or almost fawn-coloured. Var. @. Leaves extremely narrow 
and erect; perigynes ovate, acute, much longer than the very obtuse 
glumes. Foot of Alverston Lynch, May 21, 1842. Comes very near 
the description of C. Gibsoni, Bad., but twice as tall. Yet the plant 
here is, I am convinced, a mere form of C. acuta. 

Carex flava. By no means uncommon in boggy meadows, and 
wet, moory, heathy pastures, both in the island and on the mainland. 
Between Quarr and Ninham, near Ryde. On the marshy skirts of 
Lake and Blackpan Commons. Bog at Cockleton, near West Cowes. 
On a piece of wet land close to Little Duxmore Farm, in plenty. 
Abundant on the boggy parts of Colwell Heath, and elsewhere in the 
Isle of Wight, rather frequent. In the New Forest and various parts 
of mainland Hants of general occurrence. Var. 8. deri, C. Gkderi, 
Ehrh. Equally frequent, I should say, with the type. About Ryde, 
near Fishbourne, and Ninham Farm. Near Thorley. New Copse, 
near Wootton Bridge. Most profusely in moory meadows near the 
Grange Farm, Alverstoke (Gomer Pond), 1849. Now very generally 


1067 


and properly considered a mere, and not very constant, form of C. 
flava. The E. B. figure of C. flava is, Dr. Boott informs me, the va- 
riety lepidocarpa, and that of Host (Gram. Aust. i, p. 48, t. 63) 
resembles, in its tall, slender habit and very small perigynes, a plant I 
have received from Dr. Boott, under the name of C. Céderi, from the 
Falls of Niagara, and which Dr. B. is inclined to consider distinct 
from the European plant so denominated. 

Carex fulva. Var. 8. speirostachya, Wahlenb. (fide Boott), C 
Hornschuchiana, Hoppe. In damp or marshy meadows and pastures, 
as well brackish as fresh, in several parts of the county, often in great 
plenty, and mostly on or towards the coast. In the Isle of Wight 
chiefly found in West Medina, particularly in Freshwater, in some 
parts of which it abounds, as in the marsh meadows at Easton, and 
on the boggy ground at the upper end of Colwell Heath, towards 
Weston, plentifully. Observed elsewhere in damp meadows about 
Colwell, and in a meadow at Norton. Near Briddlesford Heath, 
June, 1841, the only station in East Medina I find amongst my notes. 
In profuse abundance in a salt-marsh meadow, amongst other coarse 
herbage, on the station for Polypogon monspeliensis, opposite Far- 
lington Church, near Havant, July, 1849. Meadow near Winton, 
July, 1850. Marsh meadows near Bishop’s Stoke. 

Are not C. fulva and C. distans simply forms of one and the same 
species? The differences when fairly weighed are very slight. Both 
inhabit the sea coast or inland places, fresh or salt-marsh ground, in- 
differently. The chief differences I find to distinguish C. distans 
from C. fulva, are the usually more numerous and crowded and nearly 
erect (not, as in C. fulva, patent or spreading) perigynes, hence the 
more elongated shape of the pistillate spikes ; the greater smoothness 
of the culms at top, that are nearly devoid of roughness ; in the less 
pointed glumes, destitute of a pale, membranous edging; in the 
somewhat shorter beak; and larger and differently shaped nut, which 
is rather ovoid-oblong than turbinate, more attenuated at each end, 
with sharper angles. Good full-length figures of C. fulva and dis- 
tans are seen in FI. Dan. t. 1049, 2043, 4 and 5. 

Carex distans. In muddy or marshy ground near the sea; rare, 
or at all events much less frequent than C. fulva in this county and 
island, nor am I quite sure that some of the earlier noted of the sub- 
joined stations do not belong to the latter. On a piece of moist 
ground near the shore in Gurnet Bay. In a creek of the Medina by 
Medham brick-field, 1840. Abundant at Freshwater Gate, especially 
in the second meadow from the shore (probably C. fulva). Plentifully 


1068 


on the beach where a small stream discharges itself into the sea, 
about half a mile west of St. Catherine’s Point, June 1, 1842. Plen- 
tiful in a damp meadow nearly in the line between Tapnel and Wil- 
mingham Farms, July 7, 1844. In the bog at the source of the Yar 
(Easton Marsh), Mr. Dawson Turner in Snookes’s Fl. Vect.!!! (pro- 
bably only C. fulva). I have no mainland locality to give for C. dis- 
tans at present, although the likelihood of its growing on the opposite 
coast of Hants can hardly admit of question. 

C. punctata should be looked for in the county, but judging from 
the characters of the species as described in books, it must require a 
more than ordinarily acute eye to detect it growing, since even descrip- 
tion fails to make the distinction between it and the two foregoing 
species very intelligible. 

Carex exiensa. In muddy salt marshes and meadows by the sea, 
on several parts of the coast of the Isle of Wight and mainland Hants. 
Shores of the Wootton River. Moist, sandy ground amongst rushes 
on St. Helen’s Spit, in some plenty. Frequent along the Yar between 
Norton and Freshwater, particularly amongst reeds at the edge of a 
copse on the east bank, a few hundred yards below the mill and near 
a cottage, with Ginanthe Lachenalii. Picked in a meadow near Far- 
lington. Between Emsworth and Langston. Creek of the Beaulieu 
River, a little above Upper Exbury brickyard, in plenty, Aug. 28, 
1850; fruit only then ripe in part, being much later in coming to ma- 
turity than in any species I am acquainted with.* Cams shore; the 
Salterns (Fareham), Mr. W. L. Notcutt! There are two excellent 
figures of this species in Host’s ‘Gramine Austriaca,’ i. t. 73, ‘and 
‘Flora Danica,’ x. t. 1709. Both these works are deserving of more 
frequent quotation and reference by British botanists than heretofore, 
for the excellence and fidelity of the plates, which exhibit in most 
cases full-length portraits of the tribes we are now speaking of. 

Carex pallescens. In marshy (scarcely in boggy ?) places ; usually 
with us in damp or even dry woods and thickets, but by no means 
frequent, either in the Isle of Wight or on mainland Hants. New 
Copse, between Ryde and Wootton Bridge, pretty plentiful in the 
drier and more open parts. Abundantly in Dunnage Copse, not far 
from Briddlesford Farm, June 4, 1841. Stroud Wood, between 


* 1 have indeed gathered it at St. Helen’s with nearly ripe fruit as early as July 
21, but the perigynes of most, if not all, our other Hampshire Carices have fallen off 
by that time, or are ready to do so, whilst those of C. extensa are persistent on the 
spikes till the close of September, and perhaps later, although the flowering season 
(June) is but little behind that of C. flava and its other allies. 


1069 


Aldermoor Mill and Coppid Hall. A few specimens found in a wood 
near Apley, by Ryde, June, 1845, Mr. Thos. Meehan !!_ In a damp 
wood in Heckfield Park, near Odiham (the Rt. Hon. Chas. Shaw Le- 
fevre’s). Near Alton, in Carter’s Copse, by Rotherfield Park, and 
picked in Chawton Park. A pretty, delicate Carex, apparently more 
frequent in the north of England and Scotland than in these southern 
parts of the kingdom. 

Carex binervis. In dry or even boggy woods, and on heaths and 
barren, turfy moors, not uncommon. Plentiful in New Copse, be- 
tween Ryde and Wootton. Common in the dell known as Tinker’s 
Hole, at Apse Castle. On Briddlesford Heath. Plentiful on Bleak 
Down. Bog at Blackpan, Dr. T. Bell Salter, 1844! Abundantly on 
Titchfield Common, and elsewhere remarked in the county, where it 
is certainly not rare on the moors and heaths. Near Hill Head, Mr. 
W.L. Notcutt. Closely allied to the following, between which and 
C. distans it is in some degree intermediate, though abundantly dis- 
tinct from either. 

Carex levigatu. In boggy or marshy places, wet woods, thickets, 
copses, meadows and pastures ; never, I think, like the last, on very 
dry ground.* In very many places in the Isle of Wight. On a little 
piece of boggy ground by the road-side a few hundred yards before 
coming to Ninham Farm from Ryde, and in a boggy copse close to 
Prestwood. Very common in several parts of Sandown Level, and in 
moist woods and pastures between Apse and Ninham Farms (near 
Shanklin), also in Apse Heath withy-bed, and in a low, marshy spot 
at Apse Castle. New Copse, near Wootton Bridge, in very great 
abundance. Common about Calborne Mill, and between it and New- 
bridge. Briddlesford Copse, abundantly. Extremely common in 
damp, boggy woods about Newchurch, as in the Parsonage Lynch, 
Alverston Lynch, wet parts of Bordwood Copse, &c., abundantly. 
In a marshy wood within half a mile of Combley Farm to the south- 
west, and on a piece of marshy land close to Little Duxmore. In 


* C, binervis and levigata are often found growing together in this island, the lat- 
ter most abundantly in very wet, the former in drier situations, on heaths, &c., but 
like its congener, C. binervis may be successfully sought for in the wettest thicket or 
morass, and levigata in comparatively dry places. In their flowering time there is a 
considerable difference, C.binervis being for the most part far advanced before C. 
levigata begins to bloom, which is commonly not till the latter end of May, whereas 
the other is seen in flower early in that month, or even at the close of April. This 
difference in the flowering time is inherent, and not dependent on situation, since the 
same order is observed by the two plants when growing together under precisely simi- 
lar circumstances. 


1070 


great plenty in a marshy slip of ground just beyond the northern end 
of the willow-bed east of Bagwich Farm. Wood between Ryde and 
Newport, Mr. Dawson Turner in Snookes’s Fl. Vect. On the main- 
land it is perhaps not less generally distributed. In considerable 
plenty on a low, damp part of Heckfield Park, near Odiham. Ex- 
tremely abundant in Cranbury Park woods. Between Alton and 
Chawton Park, Mr. J. Woods, jun., in Bot. Guide. A handsome 
sedge, nearly allied to C. binervis, but very distinct by the lanceolate, 
not ovate, and mucronate glumes, longer pistillate spikes, paler and 
more spreading perigynes and glumes, tawny or fulvous colour of the 
staminate spike, and by the greatly shorter and broader leaves, of a 
paler green. ‘The nut I find precisely the same in both. I have ob- 
served C. laevigata near Ryde subdiccious, by the total?suppression 
of the usual pistillate spikes beneath the solitary terminal staminate 
one. The anthers in this and binervis are spinulose at the tips, most 
conspicuously so in the latter. 

Carex panicea. In marshy or boggy ground, on damp heaths, 
moors and pastures; very frequent over the Isle of Wight and rest of 
the county. Var. 8. Perigynes more oblong, or elliptical and pointed. 
On the bog upon Colwell Heath, Freshwater, July 9, 1844. The rare 
C. depauperata, found near Godalming, in the contiguous county of 
Surrey, where, guided by Mr. Salmon, I have gathered fine specimens 
a few years back, may fairly be hoped for as an accession to the Hants 
flora, through some diligent plant-hunter of a future day. Don’s 
alleged Forfarshire station is probably erroneous for a species so de- 
cidedly southern as this. 

The pretty and mostly north-country C. limosa, I by no means de- 
spair of adding eventually to our Hampshire list of sedges. 

Carex strigosa. In damp, wet or boggy woods, groves, thickets 
and copses, but not common, either in the Isle of Wight or on the 
mainland. In St. John’s Wood, close to Ryde, but sparingly, May 
31, 1840. In the wood (Monkton Mead Wood?) nearest to the sea 
skirting the marsh meadows behind Ryde Dover, abundantly, 1843.* 


* This wood is, I believe, one of the three stations in the Isle of Wight for the very 
rare and curious Clathrus cancellatus, which has lately been found by Mrs. Griffith 
at Torquay, in Devonshire. The discovery of the Clathrus has been attributed in a 
most beautiful work on British Fungi, still in course of publication, by a lady, to the 
author of these notes, but the real discoverer was Mr. Kippist, librarian to the Lin- 
nean Society, as that gentleman detected it at Ryde, in the above wood, about the 
same time"thatjmy attention was called to it at Old Park, by the gardener there, 
when it was again observed by myself shortly afterwards in the Pelham woods, near 


1071 


Profusely at the north end of Smallbrook Heath Copse, on the left 
side of Rosemary Lane going towards Aldermoor Heath, where it 
quite covers the ground by a plash or pool in the copse, requiring a 
damper soil than C., sylvatica, June, 1844. Abundantly in a moist 
copse a little south-west of Combley Farm, May, 1844. In a wood 
between Swainston and Five Houses, but not remarked in any great 
plenty, being confined to one spot only, June, 1845. Picked in the 
woods at Cranbury Park, near Winton, July, 1850. By the road- 
side just before coming to the bridge across the brook at the entrance 
to Sidmonton Common from Newtown (near Newbury), and in great 
abundance in a moist copse close to the said bridge, on the right hand, 
growing along the side of the stream and a path through the copse, 
June 3, 1850. Combe Wood, near Selborne, in one part rather abun- 
dantly, June 17, 1850. Hill Copse, near Placehouse (Fareham), Mr. 
W. L. Notcutt! Much resembling the following, but in addition to 
many and well-known marks of distinction, differs from C. sylvatica 
in having a hollow, not solid, stem, deciduous, not, as in that, persis- 
tent, styles, and very much broader leaves. _Pistillate spikes some- 
times compound at the base with us. 

Carex sylvatica. One of the commonest and most universal spe- 
cies of the genus, to be found in almost every - moist wood, copse, 
grove and thicket in the county and island. Affects less moist and 
shady places than the last. Midrib of all the glumes spinose. This 
is not the species Linneus had in view when he tells us, in the ‘ Flora 
Lapponica,’ the Laplanders employ a carded and dressed plant of this 
genus as a protection to the feet against the cold of their climate, but 
C. vesicaria, as is quite plain by his reference to the above work, un- 
der that species, in his ‘Flora Suecica, 2nd edit. p. 333 (@. Carex 
culmo longissimo spicis tenuibus remotis, Fl. Lapp. 328). Our C. 
sylvatica inhabits only the most southerly provinces of Sweden, and 
is a perfect stranger to Arctic Europe, and of course to Lapland. 

Carex pendula. In moist or even boggy woods, groves, thickets, 


St. Lawrence, from whence I sent young plants, through Mr. Gray, of the British 
Museum, to the Rev. M. J. Berkeley. If the mere noticing a species in ignorance of 
its nature and rarity can be called a discovery, then the gardener above mentioned has 
a prior claim over myself to the merit of first detecting it as British ; but Mr. Kippist 
not merely noticed it independently of us both, but recognized it as a known and de- 
scribed species, though new to Britain ; it is to him, therefore, that the true merit of 
discovering Calthrus cancellatus in England belongs. 


1072 


marshy sides of rivers, &c., also on wet, slipped land along the coast. 
Not rare in the Isle of Wight. About Ryde, in Marina Wood, by 
Apley, and in woods at the mouth of the Wootton River, on the west 
shore (profusely in the boggy parts of Chapel Corner Copse). Abun- 
dant in various places about Shanklin, as in the Chine, and in the ra- 
vine along the stream below the church, and under the garden of the 
Shanklin (late Williams’s, now Hale’s) Hotel. Plentiful in Great 
Copse, about half a mile out of Shanklin on the road to Ventnor, and 
frequent in Hungerberry Copse. About Cowes, as in woods at Nor- 
ris Castle, and especially in Buckett’s Copse, on her Majesty’s estate 
at Osborne, in the utmost profusion ; frequent also along the shore 
near West Cowes, towards Gurnet Bay. Abundant in copses between 
Gurnet and Thorness Bay. At Sheat Farm, near the Medina below 
Newport, in great profusion. Less frequent, it would seem, in main- 
land Hants. Most abundantly in a moist part of Durley Wood, near 
Bishop’s Waltham, near the fine trout stream that flows in front of 
Calcot Farm. In a wet place below St. Cross, by Winton, to the 
westward of the mill, May, 1849. Gill Copse (Fareham), Mr. W. L. 
Notcutt. The largest Carex in Europe, if not in the world, often 
rising with us to six feet, and highly ornamental from its spreading 
tufts of fine, broad root-leaves, long, slender, elegantly drooping pis- 
tillate, and nodding, club-shaped staminate spikes. Always begins 
flowering in this county soon after the middle of April. 

Carex Pseudo-Cyperus. In wet, swampy places, woods, thickets, 
pools, ditches, river-sides, &c.; not very common in the Isle of Wight. 
A single tuft in Quarr Copse, June, 1844. Between Brading and 
Sandown, in marsh ditches between Yarbridge and Yaverland, under 
Marshcombe Copse, in some plenty; also in ditches nearly at the 
back of Lower Morton Farm. Boggy spots by the little stream that 
descends to the sea between Niton and Blackgang, in some abundance, 
particularly in a swampy tract of ground partly enclosed by a stone 
fence near the shore, in great plenty, growing in large tufts, June, 1841. 
Picked in a pond between Wootton Bridge and King’s Quay (one 
specimen only). In one or two places in the marsh at Easton, Fresh- 
water Gate (perhaps destroyed by draining). Wood near Smallbrook 
Farm, about a mile from Ryde, Rev. G. E. Smith, 1838!!! Picked 
at Christchurch, on the road to Sopley. Ditch-bank by the canal 
about a mile from Romsey, towards Timsbury, in some plenty, and 
op peat in a meadow not far from the same locality. In enormous 
quantity in ditches of the meadows adjacent to Broadland’s Park 
(Lord Palmerston’s), by Romsey, on the west side, quite fillmg them 


1073 


in some places, June, 1850. In a lane between Cove and Hillmore 
Farm, near Farnborough, in some plenty. Abundant in a pool about 
a mile from Upper Exbury, on the road to Beaulieu. I have picked 
it in the heart of the New Forest, and in other parts of the county, 
where this most graceful species is very widely distributed. 

Carex precox. Frequent on heaths, and in dry, turfy meadows, 
pastures, open woods, &c., throughout the county and island. 

C. montana, Schk. (not of Linn. according to Sm.), C. collina, 
Willd. (see. Hook. and Arn. Br. F). 6th edit.), which has lately been 
discovered in Sussex by Mr. W. Mitten, should be looked for in 
Hampshire. 

Carex pilulifera. Tn marshy, moory or boggy ground, on damp 
heaths, and in moist woods, &c.; not uncommon, and from its small 
size less often observed than overlooked. Plentiful in New Copse, 
between Ryde and Wootton Bridge. Common at Apse Castle, on the 
turf walks. On LakeCommon, &c. I happen to have no memoranda 
of localities for this species on the mainland, where I have repeatedly 
met with it, and am certain of its being not at all unfrequent in that 
part of the county. 

The very rare C. tomentosa of the adjoining county of Wilts, its 
only known British station being at Merston Measy, where it has been 
gathered in plenty of late years by Mr. Borrer and Mr. Flower, may 
be eventually found within the limits of this flora. With far greater 
probability may C. clandestina be expected with us, as it grows in 
quantities on the high chalk downs stretching eastward from Salis- 
bury, towards the Hampshire border, as I am informed by Mr. J. 
Hussey, who showed it to me last May in the vicinity of that city, 
growing in patches, distinguished by their pale green colour from the 
surrounding short herbage of the downs. The neighbourhood of 
Breamore and Rockbourne, to the north of Fordingbridge, is the most 
likely to produce this rare and remarkable species. 

Carex glauca (C. recurva, Huds.). In woods, meadows, pastures, 
along hedges, road-sides, on heaths and commons, in bogs and marshes ; 
the most abundant and universal, as well as most variable in aspect, 
of all our sedges. In two specimens of C. glauca, I found on the 
summit of one of their pistillate spikes, in the first a diendrous floret, 
each of whose filaments was tipped with a double erect anther; on 
the other spike was a monandrous floret, with the filament cleft, and 
bearing a single erect anther on each fork. It is singular that this 
very common European Carex, which does not appear to be at all 
rare in Sweden, should yet have been overlooked and left undescribed 

VOL. Il. 6 Y 


1074 


by Linneus. C. filiformis, frequent in the bogs of the north of Eng- 
land and Scotland, may nevertheless occur in Hants. 

Carex hirta. In moist woods, meadows, pastures, by ditches, 
pools and other wet or boggy places; frequent both in the Isle of 
Wight and county at large. About Ryde, not uncommonly. San- 
down marshes. In the Cyperus meadow at Ape’s Down, abundantly. 
Common along the stream from Calbourne to Newbridge, and in moist 
meadows about Newchurch. Easton Marsh. Meadows between 
French Mill and Bobberston. Meadow at Yarbridge, abundantly. 
At Bonchurch, Steephill (on the edge of the little pond by the phea- 
santry), &c. Banks in Totland Bay, Mr. W. D. Snooke in FI. Vect. 
By Alresford Great Pond, and noticed by me in very many parts of 
the county. Road between the tunnel and Cattisfield (Fareham), Mr. 
W.L. Notcutt. <A variety with the pistillate spikes compound at 
base, I found, June 10, 1840, by the stream-side just above Calbourne 
Mill. 

Carex ampullacea. In ditches, ponds, drains, and swampy or 
boggy meadows; very frequent in mainland Hants, and by no means 
rare in the Isle of Wight. In Sandown Level, on the skirts of Lake 
and Blackpan Commons, in several places. Abundant in several 
ditches by Newchurch, at the foot of the Parsonage Lynch, &c., and 
by a drain on Apse Heath, close to the withy-bed. In several parts 
of the marsh at Easton. Abundant in various places along the valley 
of the Medina, below Newport, in the boggy meadows between Crid- 
more and Appleford, about the Wilderness between that and Rookley, 
&c. I find it so frequent in mainland Hants that I have neglected 
making notes of its localities lately. Bog on Titchfield Common. 
Abundant in Winnol water-meadows, at Winton. In the shallow 
part of Miller’s Pond, by Botany Bay, near Southampton. Plentiful 
about Christchurch, Romsey, Ringwood, and in the swamps of the 
New Forest. At Forton and elsewhere about Andover, &c. The 
nearly-related C. vesicaria there can be little doubt inhabits this 
county, although it has hitherto eluded my endeavours to find it with 
us. I understand from Mr. W. W. Reeves, that it abounds near 
Farnham, which town is very close on the Hampshire boundary line, 
and Mr. R. thinks he has seen it on the side of this county. The 
greener, not glaucous, leaves, larger and very inflated perigynes, and 
much more acutely angled culms, will distinguish it from the broader 
leaved states of C. ampullacea, which I believe are sometimes mis- 
taken for C. vesicaria. Nothing can be more variable indeed than the 
former as respects the breadth of the leaves, which are sometimes 


1075 


scarcely a line wide, in other examples three or four lines broad, ° 
whilst the degree of glaucescence is hardly less subject to variation. 

Carex paludosa. In low, marshy, swampy meadows and pastures, 
in ditches, pools, by river sides, &c. Together with the next, an 
abundant species in the county, but not very common in the Isle of 
Wight. Ina boggy spot on the western skirts of Lake Common, in 
plenty ; also along marsh ditches by the road-side just before coming 
to Sandown village from Brading. Wet meadows a little above Al- 
verston Mill, and along the side of the mill-stream, intermixed with 
the following, plentifully. Boggy meadows at Easton, Freshwater. 
Abundantly by the water courses just above Yafford Mill, and fre- 
quent in wet meadows about Brixton; abundant in the boggy mea- 
dows at Moor Town and all the way to Bottle Hole, in the wet willow 
thickets. At Steep Hill, in a moist meadow nearly opposite the stables 
and laundry, in plenty. More universal in mainland Hants, where it 
is of very common occurrence in most districts. Profusely in the 
great pond at Bishop’s Waltham.  Plentiful on Stoke Common, and 
about the pond at Old Alresford, &c. By Titchfield River, Mr. W. 
L. Noteutt. | 

Carex riparia. In exactly the same places with the last, and 1 
think of about equal frequency on the mainland of Hants ; less com- 
mon perhaps than C. paludosa in the island. Abundant in the marsh 
ditches behind the Dover at Ryde, and in Centurion’s Copse, near 
Brading.* Fringes the stream above Alverston Mill in great profu- 
sion and luxuriance. In most of the places given for C. paludosa on 
mainland Hants, as well as in innumerable others. Place House; 
Fontley (Fareham), Mr. W. L. Notcutt. Var. 8. Spikes of either sex 
more attenuate (the pistillate especially), on extremely long, slender 
stalks, pendulous; staminate spikes for the most part solitary, terminal, 
drooping, bearing pistillate flowers in the middle. On a piece of very 
wet salt marsh under Chapel Corner Copse, at the mouth of the 
Wootton River, in plenty, May 22,1846. This remarkable condition 
rather than variety of C. riparia, was sought by me unsuccessfully this 
summer; the plants on the station having assumed the normal ap- 


* It has been suggested to me that Centurion is a corruption of St. Tewin, a Saxon 
or perhaps British saint, and that therefore the latter is the proper orthography. Tra- 
dition gives this copse as the site of a French town in very early times, as Newtown 
certainly was (thence called Francheville in old records) : may not the place now oc- 
cupied by the copse in question have been dedicated to St. Ouen, the same personage 
as St. Tewin, and identical with the Welsh name of Owen ? 


1076 


pearance of the species, with but a slight tendency in one or two in- 
dividuals to inordinate elongation of the peduncles. 

Digitaria humifusa. In cultivated fields, in a sandy soil; very 
rare? Amongst corn (wheat and barley), potatoes, clover and turnips, 
on the sandy alluvial gravel on the north side of Christchurch, within 
a mile of the town, on the Wimborne road, in vast profusion, covering 
the soil in patches of large extent, as well as growing in a more scat- 
tered manner, Aug. 21, 1850. I traced the species, in quantity that 
was truly immense, from some allotment gardens in which it first 
caught my eyes, into all the neighbouring fields, in which, where the 
crop had been carried, I found the stubbles filled with it in flower. 
A farmer, seeing me gathering the grass, conducted me into his fields 
across the road, where it was equally prevalent; and further on I 
found part of a large potato-field in which the Digitaria formed a per- 
fectly close, compact turf, like a grass lawn, to the absolute exclusion 
of every other plant, and concealment of the ground it grew upon. 
The species is well known to the farmers and their men, but has no 
distinctive name amongst them, being only held a kind of “ poverty 
grass,” that is, a grass indicative of an extremely poor soil. I have 
the best reason for believing that the Digitaria covers a far greater 
space of land than I had the opportunity of looking over, and that it 
will be found no very uncommon production of the alluvial sand or 
gravel which prevails throughout so large a tract of south-western 
Hants. It will likewise be detected probably in the sandy districts 
along our eastern or Surrey border, as between Farnborough and Pe- 
tersfield, &c. The Digitaria was accompanied by Antirrhinum Oron- 
tium, a weed in every. field and by the road-sides for miles round 
Christchurch, and in one place by Arnoseris pusilla, till then unknown 
to me as a plant of this county. 

+Echinocloa Crus-galli. In waste and cultivated ground, also in 
low, moist situations, as sides of ditches, streams, &c.; extremely 
rare. “ By a Rivolet side near Petersfield, Hampshire, Mr. Goodyer,” 
Merrett, ‘ Pinax,’ p. 56. I am not aware of any modern authority for 
this grass in the county, in which, however, it is quite as likely to 
grow as in any other of the southern and eastern ones. I have 
searched the sides of the stream that runs close by Petersfield, on the 
west of the town, having been led to suppose that it must have been 
the one intended by Goodyer, in consequence of the substitution of the 
definite for the indefinite article in copying Merrett’s words into the 
Synopsis of Ray, from which last work the notice has been transcribed 
verbatim by the authors of the old ‘ Botanist’s Guide,’ and from them 


1077 


by succeeding writers. But on turning to Merrett I perceive that he 
does not say the, but a rivulet, which leaves it very doubtful whether 
I searched in the right place after all, and gives ground for hope that 
this grass may yet be found in the neighbourhood. 

Setaria viridis will, I feel confident, be detected hereafter in our 
sandy districts, with perhaps S. verticillata and glauca for its associ- 
ates. The great rarity of the genera and species composing this tribe 
of Gramina (Panicee) is a remarkable feature in the English flora, 
seeing that most of them are amongst the commonest weeds of culti- 
vated ground on the continent, under the parallels of the south and 
centre of England. Surrey seems to be the head-quarters of all the 
British panic-grasses, possessing more than perhaps any other county 
in its warm, dry, inland and easterly position, the climatic conditions 
in which this tribe of grass so eminently delights. Hence the spe- 
cies composing it fail totally in the west of England, in Wales, Scot- 
land and Ireland, and I think are rarely found with us close to the 
sea. In an economical point of view, their absence from our fields is 
not to be regretted, as in most parts of the world, where the summers 
are very warm and dry, such harsh, worthless annuals as the various 
species of Panicum, Setaria, Cynodon, Digitaria, Paspalum, Cenchrus, 
&c., are miserable substitutes for the perennial, succulent meadow 
grasses of our own land, whose place they in a great measure usurp. 

What may be the plant of Merrett (Pin. p. 56) intituled “ Gramen 
Paniceum procumbens, seu chame paniceum palustre. Ina lane, 
and watery places, and ditches near Petersfield”? Can it be Leersia 
oryzoides, a grass likely enough to grow there, and the culms of which 
are sometimes procumbent, or rather decumbent, when on damp 
ground and not immersed in the water, but the term “chamz” seems 
to point at some species of smaller stature than that usually is. 

Phalaris arundinacea. By the sides of rivers, ponds, pools and 
ditches ; not unfrequent in the Isle of Wight, and extremely common 
and abundant in most parts of mainland Hants. In various parts of 
Sandown Level. By the Medina at Shide Bridge, Newport, abun- 
dantly. In the pond below Carisbrooke Castle, and abundant gene- 
rally by mill streams and ponds at Newport and Carisbrooke. In the 
stream between Newbridge and Mill Green, near Shalfleet. Willow 
thicket between Messley Farm and Langbridge. By the stream-side 
at Yarbridge, and by the bridge at Alverston and elsewhere. So com- 
mon on the mainland, and universally distributed, that I have not 
been at the trouble of marking localities. 

P. canariensis (Canary grass) is occasionally found, a few plants 


1078 


here and there, on waste ground, manure heaps, &c., by fortnitous 
dispersion, but can hardly be called naturalized with us, and hence 
is not, any more than Buckwheat, ‘a proper species for incorporation 
with the county flora. 

Anihoxanthum odoratum. In meadows, pastures, woods, &c., es- 
pecially in dry, heathy, sandy soils; plentiful over the entire county. 
Abundant at Apse Castle, &c. The culms have a hot taste when 
chewed, with a flavour of bitter almonds, and the fresh roots emit a 
powerful odour, less delicate perhaps than the fragrance of the herbage 
when drying, and which Swartz, in ‘Svensk Botanik,’ compares to 
the smell of the Tonquin bean; (Wickstrém, Stockh. FI. p. 19, note). 

Phleum asperum and P. Boehmeri, though very local, and not 
known to inhabit the counties contiguous to this, may nevertheless 
prove to be indigenous to Hants, and should be looked for in dry, 
open fields and pastures, on sand or chalk. 

Phleum arenarium. On loose sand of the sea shore, but not com- 
mon. On the sandy spit at Norton (by Yarmouth), Freshwater, in 
considerable plenty, June 21, 1846; already quite dried up by the 
great heat and long drought of the season, but since gathered there in 
perfection, in May, which is the proper flowering month of the spe- 
cies in this county. Along the South Beach, Hayling Island, in con- 
siderable abundance at intervals. Coast of Hants, Rev. G. E. Smith! 
Probably occurs on several other parts of the coast line, but flowering 
early, and soon withering, is from its colour, which comes very near 
that of the sand it grows upon, easily overlooked when in seed. 

Phleum pratense. Abundant in most parts of the county and Isle 
of Wight, in meadows, pastures, borders of fields, &c., in high and dry, 
as well as in low, damp situations ; common on the chalk, in the most 
arid exposures. 

Alopecurus pratensis. In meadows, pastures and grassy places, 
by road-sides, &c., mostly in rich or somewhat moist soil; abundantly 
throughout the county. 

Alopecurus geniculatus. Extremely common in and about shallow 
pools, ditches and plashy spots, likewise in moist meadows and pas- 
tures, in salt marshes, and even on dry ground. Var. 8. Culms 
swollen, clavate or bulb-shaped at their base. With @. occasionally. 
On Ryde Dover and elsewhere. “Var. 2. Awns longer than the ca- 
lyx ; root bulbous; little fruit-stalks branched ; sheaths wider than 
the thickness of the straw. Awmns barely twice the length of the ca- 
lyx. Anthers purple, changing to brown-yellow. Mr. Woodward 
thinks this different from the A. bulbosus, with an upright straw. On 


1079 


a bog at the source of the Yar; Freshwater Gate, Isle of Wight.” 
(With. Arr. 3rd edit. ii. p. 120). I know not what this can be, but 
suspect it is only the following species. A. fulvus will probably be 
some day discovered in this county, but as distinct from the present 
I have great misgivings. 

Alopecurus bulbosus. In salt-marsh meadows, also in dry pastures 
and waste ground near the sea, in several parts of the Isle of Wight. 
On Ryde Dover in great plenty not many years ago, but I doubt if it 
exists there now, that piece of ground being nearly built over, and 
the small part still left unoccupied by houses levelled and trodden 
down into a bed of loose sand, and traversed by roads and embank- 
ments.* It may, however, be found in the marsh meadows at the rear 
of the Dover, between it and the gas-works. Salt marshes between 
Bembridge and Brading, near the sluice, &c., abundantly. Between 
Yarmouth and Thorley, by the road-side near the bridge. Marshy 
spot by the road-side between Brading and Sandown, Aug. 1848, Mr. 
Borrer. On the lawn of Lord Spencer’s house, Ryde, Dr. T. Bell Sal- 
ter. Ihave no station to give for this species on the mainland of the 
county, but cannot doubt its existence there, believing, as I do, that 
A. bulbosus is of very common occurrence in most of our salt or 
brackish pastures in the island, but not distinguishable with the cer- 
tainty required for botanical indication from A. geniculatus, without 
examination of the glumes in every instance. In our standard floras 
and hand-books the culms are described as erect; they may be so in 
many instances, but here at least I have always found them‘as Lloyd 
remarks them in Brittany, decumbent and geniculate. The plant is, 
in fact, with us perfectly depressed, forming tufts of a circular outline, 
and looking as if trodden flat, the root emitting numerous leafy culms, 
spreading in all directions, with bulb-shaped bases, the lower joints 
geniculate, and the part of the culm above these porrected horizontally 
to the very termination of the spike; never erect, but sometimes a lit- 
tle ascending. Thereis, indeed, nothing in the aspect, colour or mode 


* The existence of most of the interesting plants inhabiting the Dover at Ryde has 
become, within these four or five years, matter of history merely. T believe all or 
nearly the whole of the under-mentioned species are extinct or lingering their last on 
that once fertile spot to the botanist :—Trifolium striatum, scabrum, glomeratum, suf- 
focatum, ornithopodioides, subterraneum (this last, and possibly a few specimens of 
the others, still survives on the little remaining turf), Mercurialis annua, Onopordon 
Acanthium, Gastridium lendigerum, Dianthus prolifer (now greatly circumscribed in 
space), Festuca uniglumis ? Armoracia rusticana (Cochl. Armor.), Alopecurus bulbo- 
sus, and Datura Stramonium. 


1080 


of growth, so far as | can see, by which this species is distinguishable 
at sight from A. geniculatus, nor does A. bulbosus always grow in wa- 
ter, as Smith asserts, but often in dry or comparatively dry places. 
I cannot rid my mind of the impression that A. bulbosus and fulvus 
are but states, or perhaps permanent varieties, of A. geniculatus, much 
as I could wish to be convinced to the contrary by the many and able 
botanists who still keep them apart. 

Alopecurus agrestis. In cultivated fields, amongst corn, clover and 
other crops; far too plentiful. Abundant in the Isle of Wight; ex- 
tremely common about Ryde, Bembridge, Shanklin, Luccombe, Bon- 
church, in corn-fields about Thorley, Wellow, Calbourne and most 
other places. Equally prevalent, I have reason to believe, on main- 
land Hants. Very common about Winton. Observed between Ports- 
mouth and Petersfield, and in numerous other parts of the county. 
Fields by Gill Copse, &c. (Fareham), Mr. W. L. Notcutt. The corn- 
fields in many parts of the Isle of Wight are visibly tinged with the 
slender purple and green spikes of this most prolific and troublesome 
weed, the Black-grass of our farmers (Black-bent in some places), 
probably from its dark red colour. Flowering from April to Novem- 
ber, the land is never free from it, but fortunately the species is confined 
chiefly to the southern parts of Britain, being rare and perhaps not in- 
digenous to Scotland, and as yet quite unknown to Ireland. Here it 
is amongst the worst weeds we have, and although so near akin to 
one of our best pasture grasses (A. pratensis), I am not sure that cat- 
tle will touch it. Possibly the clover crops infested with it may not 
be injured by the admixture, when made into hay at least. 

The rare and curious little Knappia agrostidea is not an unlikely 
plant to be detected eventually in our sandy (and especially mari- 
time pastures. It is not, however, essentially a sea-side grass, being 
found far inland on the continent, and is included in the floras of Pa- 
ris, and various partsof Germany. Its extreme minuteness, and great 
precocity and brief duration, veil it no doubt from the eye of the ob- 
server in many places. 

Gastridium lendigerum. By way-sides, in waste places, dry, rough 
pastures and cultivated fields, amongst corn, clover, &c., also (but more 
rarely) in woods and copses; extremely frequent in the southern part 
of the county, on or near the coast ; not found, so far as I am aware, 
in the central and northern districts, or at any considerable distance 
inland, and varying in abundance in different years, being, moreover, 
very fugitive and capricious in its localities. Quite frequent, and in 
many seasons abundant even to profusion, over the greater part of the 


108% 


Isle of Wight, seldom, if ever, I think, scarce at any time with us, but 
constantly becoming so on former, and appearing in new, Stations. 
Its habitats are so numerous, and at the same time so little to be de- 
pended upon for permanence, that a particular mention of many of 
them would be superfluous. About Ryde in most years, common. 
On the Dover (at least formerly), about Quarr Abbey and Fishbourne, 
at St. Helen’s, Sea View, and various other places. Woods on the 
west side of the Wootton River, July, 1845. Fields and woods along 
the new road from Wootton Bridge to King’s Quay, in abundance, 
Aug.1848. Very abundantly on the waste building-lots at East Cowes 
Park, June, 1846, and common generally around Cowes, in corn-fields, 
&c., also about Newport, at Garrett’s, &c. A perfect weed in corn- 
fields sometimes, about Yarmouth, Thorley, and in Freshwater parish, 
both in the standing wheat and on the stubbles after harvest, which 
are often quite overrun with it till late into autumn. Not particular 
as to soil, but I think more prevalent on the chalk and clays of the 
tertiary deposit than on the greensand, and in low more than in up- 
land fields. The species here is as truly sylvestral as agrestal or via- 
tical. If not so common along the coast of mainland Hants as in this 
island, it is at least no rarity there. In Hayling Island, not unfre- 
quent. Near Boldre, Lymington, &c. Fields near Blackbrook ; 
Maindell (Fareham), Mr. W. L. Notcutt. One of the most beautiful and 
elegant of European grasses, the pale green, spear-shaped panicle, 
shining with a silvery lustre, the dense tufts of erect or spreading 
culms, often eighteen or twenty inches in height, making a conspicuous 
appearance in our wheat-fields, where the plant may be found in flower 
from June to October. The figures of G. lendigerum in all our illus- 
trated works on British botany are for the most part below mediocrity. 
That of E. B. is very indifferent ; those of Knapp and Parnell poor 
and meagre in the extreme; the one in Baxter’s ‘ British Flowering 
Plants’ (done from Ryde specimens) is much superior, but still want- 
ing in some points. 

Polypogon monspeliensis. In brackish pastures, and muddy salt- 
marsh land, in and on the edges of salt-water or brackish ditches and 
swamps, also (but not with us) in dry, sandy pastures and waste places 
near the sea; rare. Not yet detected in the Isle of Wight. Known 
ever since the time of Lobel to inhabit this county, but first found by 
myself, growing in considerable abundance, July, 1848, partly in damp, 
and partly in very wet, salt-marsh ground near some long-since aban- 
doned salt-works on the north-east side of the point of land projecting 
into Langston Harbour, about half a mile due south, nearly from Far- 

VoL tit. 6 Z 


1082 


lington Church, scattered over a considerable extent of salt marsh. 
I again fell in with it abundantly in a swampy spot close to a stag- 
nant pool at the farther end of a large grass-field a little way out of 
Porchester, along with the following species, July 14, 1849.* Mr. 
L. H. Jacob, ofgLandport, Portsea Island, lately in the excise, but 
now retired, who possesses a considerable knowledge of British plants, 
and has botanized the mountains of Forfarshire with Mr. Gardiner, 
assures me that P. monspeliensis grows in several parts of Portsea 
Island, and particularly in a lane leading up from a place called the - 
Salterns, or the rough Salterns (now abandoned) to a farm (Tangier 
Farm?) on the east side of the island, along with P. littoralis; and 
further, that P. monspeliensis grows in the north-west parts of Port- 
sea Island, near Hillsea Barracks and elsewhere.t First discovered 
in Hants, according to Lobel,{ by the Rev. Richard Garth, in wet, 
grassy places (riguis herbidis) near salt-works and old houses, called 
Drayton, two miles from Portsmouth. If the distance be here given 
correctly, the place called Drayton, on the yoad between Cosham and 
Havant, the only one I know of bearing the name, cannot be the sta- 
tion alluded to by Lobel, because it is six miles, or thrice the alleged 
distance, from Portsmouth that Lobel’s habitat is said by him to be; 
besides which, I could find neither the Polypogon nor the remains of 
salt-works any nearer to the Drayton of our day than Farlington, 


* The following directions will enable botanists to find our two Polypogons with 
facility. To arrive at the first station for P. monspeliensis, turn down the lane lead- 
ing from the high road (Portsmouth and Chichester) to the Farlington water-works ; 
cross the railway by the gate a little to the south of the works, and being now on the 
marshes, keep about due east, till you come opposite Farlington Church, you will find 
the plant in various places, but chiefly in and near a strip of very wet ground, covered 
with Scirpus maritimus and other salt-marsh species, amongst which the taller variety, 
a., rises very conspicuously. To reach the second station, including the one for P. 
littoralis, proceed a few hundred yards out of Porchester, on the road to Havant; op- 
posite a farm standing close by the road-side, a gate opens into the meadow in ques- 
tion, at the farther or south end of which is a line of salt pools, communicating with 
the tide in Portsmouth Harbour, and situated about half a mile, a little west of north, 
from Porchester Castle ; in the westernmost of these pools both the Polypogons will 
be found growing in company. The meadow is further remarkable for a spring of 
the finest water, which rises through the brackish soil. 

+ Mr. H. Bull, of Portsmouth, in a letter to me, confirms the existence of both the 
Polypogons in Portsea Island, and since then I have received, from Mr. Jacob, spe- 
cimens of each from the same island, with a notice of three stations for P. monspeli- 
ensis, in addition to those mentioned before, viz., High Grove Field; lines at Hillsea, 
near the highroad; and Nine Acres, opposite Horsey Island. 

+ * Adversaria altera pars.’ p. 469. 


1083 


which is barely near enough the former to make it possible that Lobel’s 
and my own station are the same, setting aside the difficulty about the 
distance, which is not so easily got over. I suspect, therefore, that 
there is, or was, some other place called Drayton, much nearer to 
Portsmouth, and that Lobel’s station is one of many Portsea-Island 
localities for Polypogon monspeliensis mentioned to me by Mr. Ja- 
cob. Var. a. major, Kunth. Panicle lobed; culm repent at the base; 
sete very long. P. polysetus, Steud. Near Porchester, Dr. Mac- 
reight (in his Man. of Brit. Bot.); probably the same station as thag. 
given above. Var. 8. minor. Panicle short, densely spiked; cu 
rarely repent at base; sete short. Salt-works near Portsmouth, Jd.; 
probably one of Mr. Jacob’s stations before alluded to on Portsea 
Island. I find no other difference but in size between these two va- 
rieties, the larger growing in the wetter, the smaller in the drier places; 
the former rising to the height of four feet, with culms like reeds for 
thickness, and perfectly erect, except at base, bearing a panicle from 
four to five and a half inches in length; the latter forming tufts, with 
numerous culms, from a foot or less to about eighteen inches long, de- 
cumbent below, and spreading or partly erect; panicle much smaller, 
two to three inches long. I have never seen English specimens from 
other counties at all approaching the gigantic size of the Hampshire 
plants at Porchester and Farlington, but Mr. H. C. Watson has re- 
ceived examples as large from the Azores.* About Montpellier, from 
whence the species has its specific name, it is very common in arid, 
sandy places, and [ have also collected it in the loose sand on Sulli- 
van’s Island, opposite Charleston, 8. C., in June, 1847, where it has 
become naturalized, but in both places much smaller than with us. 
It is a singular fact, that the same plant which in the south of France 
is an inhabitant of the driest sands, should in England be found only 
in muddy salt marshes, a situation I do not recollect to have seen it 
in at Montpellier, nor have I heard of any instance in which this spe- 
cies has been noticed on sand in this country. Here P. monspelien- 
sis is truly a noble grass, with its broad leaves and exquisitely soft, 
silky, compact, spear-shaped panicle, emulating many of its order na- 
tive to the torrid zone. Few of the figures given by British authors 
do justice to this elegant species; that of E. B. is very bad; that of 
Knapp equally so, if not worse; Parnell’s much better, but not first 
rate; Mr. Curtis’s in Brit. Entom. xvi. t. 767, nearly all that can 


* The great size of the Hampshire plant did not escape the observation of Lobel 
in the ‘ Adversaria’ before quoted. 


4 


1084 


be wished, as far as the only portion of the plant represented is 
concerned. 

Polypogon littoralis. In brackish or salt-water swamps, pools and 
ditches; very rare. Most profusely, with the last, in a swampy pool 
in the meadow near Porchester, before described, October, 1848. In 
Portsea Island, Mr. L.H.Jacob! A grass with very much the habit 
and appearance of Agrostis alba, but far larger and handsomer, yet 
liable, when out of flower, to be mistaken for an awned variety of that 
species, as indeed happened to myself, I having sent a specimen as 
such to Mr. H. C. Watson, with a query, in the autumn of 1848, to 
which he replied, “Is not your plant rather P. littoralis?” which, in- 
deed, it was. In the Porchester station it grows associated with P. 
monspeliensis (its companion in most of its other known localities), 
Agyostis alba (the procumbent form), Scirpus maritimus and other salt- 
marsh plants, but exceeds them all in quantity, absolutely filling up 
the pool with its decumbent stems, so as to enable one to walk in 
amongst it, without sinking in the muddy water more than ankle deep. 
Here again, as with P. monspeliensis, the species appears greatly to 
exceed the usual size it attains in the few remaining English habitats. 
Many of the culms I measured were six feet in length, and the pa- 
nicles eight and nine inches quite commonly. These last, especially 
in their contracted state before and after flowering, bear a certain re- 
semblance to those of Calamagrostis epigejos, being, like them, lobed, 
and either purple or pale green, or a mixture of both, but much supe- 
rior in elegance. 

This very rare and beautiful grass was formerly supposed to be re- 
stricted to England, and even there is confined toa few spots on the 
south and east coasts, no other part of Britain being hitherto known 
to possess it. It is now ascertained to inhabit other parts of Europe, 
as in the island of Norderney, on the coast of Hanover, and according 
to Lloyd (‘ Flore de la Loire inférieure, p. 297), on that of Brittany, 
but rarely. It is not likely, however, to be so circumscribed as it ap- 
pears, yet must it be very local in its general distribution, both in this 
country and on the continent. I have not seen even a tolerable figure 
of this grass in any British or foreign work. 

W. A. BROMFIELD. 

Eastmount, Ryde, Isle of Wight. 


(To be continued). 


1085 


Observations on the Notice of the ‘ Tourist’s Flora (Phytol. iii. 1042). 
By JosepH Woops, Esq., F.L.S. 


Peraaprs I ought to be contented with the portion of praise assigned 
to me by your reviewer “C.,” in spite of the somewhat sneering tone 
in which it is given, and of the cant about progress ; but I think that 
{ have some reason to complain that he passes the bounds of fair, or 
at least of civil, criticism when he accuses the work of being false or 
faithless. A book may be censured in many points without impli- 
cating the author’s moral character, but it is not possible that a sci- 
entific book should be justly stigmatized as false or faithless while 
the author is altogether honest and upright, and whether intended or 
not, ninety-nine out of a hundred readers will feel that the expression 
implies some dishonesty on the part of the writer. I was anxious to 
examine what the reviewer could find in the book deserving so bitter 
a censure, and was not a little surprised when I found that the whole 
charge against me was, that Thad not given certain habitats of plants, 
when I knew them, or ought to have known them, since they had 
been published in the works of Mr. H. C. Watson. I hardly knew 
how to believe that any one should pass so harsh a judgment, avow- 
edly on such slight grounds. I never pretended, or imagined, that 
plants were necessarily absent wherever their presence was not ex- 
pressly declared. Perhaps I have been rather less solicitous about the 
British stations than about foreign ones, thinking that my readers 
when in their own country were more likely to apply to works ex- 
pressly devoted to British botany, and that little more was wanting 
in that respect than to point out whether the plant before the student 
was one that might be met with at home. The habitat of Lastrea 
Feenisecii was an error of the press,—“ N. England” for “ W. Eng- 
Jand.” In general, I conceive that ina work like the ‘ Tourist’s Flora’ 
the habitats can only be considered as indications of the points on 
which it would be desirable to seek local information, and perhaps to 
give the young botanist some additional confidence in the result of 
his investigation, when he finds the species at which he has arrived 
a native of the district where he finds it, or of its neighbourhood. To 
have given such habitats as would enable the botanist to find the pre- 
cise locality, would have enlarged the work most inconveniently. I 
have sometimes thought that, if a sufficient portion of life and health 
were spared to me, I would publish a botanical guide, as a companion 
to the ‘ Tourist’s Flora, but I could not hope to compress it in much 


1086 


less compass than the work itself. Gaudin’s ‘ Botanical Topography 
of Switzerland’ forms an octavo of 667 pages, and Mr. Watson’s ‘ Bo- 
tanist’s Guide for England and Wales, in a smaller form, contains 
398. The larger extent of country embraced in the ‘ Tourist’s Flora’ 


would necessarily occupy more space. 
JosEPH Woops. 
Lewes, Sussex, October, 1850. 


Contents of ‘ Hooker's Journal of Botany, No. 22, October, 1850. 


Notes on the Botany, Weather, &c., of the United States. By Dr. 
W. A. Bromfield. 

Continuation of Mr. Spruce’s Letters from South America. 

Extract of a Letter from Dr. J. E. Stocks; being an account of a 
journey into Beloochistan. 

Appendix to the ‘Spicilegia Gorgonea,’ published in the ‘ Flora of 
the Niger Expedition.’ By P. B. Webb, Esq. 

Botanical Information: Ambherstia nobilis. Mr. Sullivant’s new 
Mosses and Hepatice from Tierra del Fuego. The Gingko-tree 
(Salisburia adiantifolia) on Boston Common. 


Contents of the ‘ Botanical Gazette, No 22, October, 1850. 


On Carex ampullacea (Good.) and Carex vesicaria (Zinn.) ; with 
remarks on their modifications of form. By N.J.Andersson. [These 
species are said to change gradually, and correspondingly, with in- 
crease of elevation, and with other conditions analogous in influence, 
until the former appears to become C. rotundata (Wahl.), and the 
second to become C. pulla (Good.). It would seem further, from the 
author’s remarks, that English botanists have been misled in substi- 
tuting the name of C. saxatilis (Zinn.) for that of C. pulla; the Lin- 
nean name more probably having been intended for C. rigida (Good.). 
The paper is translated from the ‘ Flora’ of May 21, 1850.] 

On Triticum laxum (Fries). By Charles C. Babington, M.A. 
[A description of a sea-side grass, probably not scarce on the shores 
of Britain, which is usually regarded as a small form of Triticum jun- 
ceum. Said to be distinguishable from the latter species by flat (not 
involute) leaves, which are rendered scabrous on the upper surface by 


1087 


numerous acute points. This latter character, with some others, is 
stated also to distinguish T.laxum from the littoral form of T. repens. | 

Additions and Corrections to the Abstract of ‘Fries’s Hieracia.’ 
From notes furnished by James Bladon, Esq. [Includes useful com- 
parative lists of the species mentioned in Babington’s ‘ Manual,’ in 
Arnott’s new edition of the ‘ British Flora,’ and in the abstract of 
Fries’s essay. ] 

Literature: Irmisch’s Morphology of Tuberous and Bulbous Mo- 
nocotyledonous Plants. Contents of various botanical journals. 

Proceedings of Societies: British Association for the Advancement 
of Science. Botanical Society of Edinburgh. 

Miscellanea: Record of Localities. Discovery of Naias flexilis in 
Ireland. New Locality for Carex punctata [query, C. distans]. 
Thuret on the Moving Spores and Spiral Fibres of the Cryptogamia. 
Gasparini’s Herbarium offered for sale. E. Bourgeau’s Spanish Col- 
lection for 1850. 


Note on Lastrea uliginosa. By the Rev. W. T. Breer, M.A. 


In consequence of the notice relating to Lastrea uliginosa on the 
cover of the August number of the ‘ Phytologist,’ I have lately pro- 
cured, through the kindness of a friend, a living plant of that fern, 
from Mr. Kennedy, in fine condition and fructification ; and IJ feel no 
hesitation whatever in saying at once that it is not Lastrea Filix-mas, 
rigida, or cristata! The fern is familiar to me as what I have long 
been accustomed to distinguish by the name of Aspidium spinulosum, 
2. €.. Lastrea spinosa of Newman. The species is not uncommon in 
this neighbourhood in moist woods and bogs; but here with us it is 
usually of a much paler green. The darker colour of Mr. Kennedy’s 
plant may possibly be owing to cultivation, soil, situation, &c. In 
Coleshill Bog, where the fern occurs in exposed situations, quite un- 
sheltered by trees or bushes, the fronds are of a very light green, or 
rather of a yellow colour. Iam decidedly of opinion that. Lastrea 
uliginosa, which I admit would be an appropriate name for the plant, 
cannot be considered“as a distinct species, and that it is only one of 
the phases of the somewhat variable Lastrea spinosa, or, as it is, I be- 


lieve, more generally called, spinulosa. 


W. T. BREE. 
Allesley Rectory, October 14, 1850. 


1088 


Botanical Society of London. 


Friday, October 11. Arthur Henfrey, Esq., V.P., F.L.S., in the 
chair. 

The following donations were announced :—British plants from the 
Rev. F. Douglas, Mr. J. B. French, Mr. R. Withers, Mr. J. H. Wil- 
son, Mr. T. Dutton, the Rev. W. M. Hind, Dr. Caspary, and Mr. G. 
E. Dennes. ‘Du Mode d’Action de la Chaleur sur les Plantes et en 
particulier de Effet des Rayons Solaires, par M. Alph. De Candolle ; 
presented by the author. ‘ Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society 
of England; presented by that Society. ‘Journal of the Statistical 
Society of London ;’ presented by that Society. ‘Journal and Trans- 
actions of the Pharmaceutical Society ;) presented by that Society. 
‘ Transactions of the Royal Horticultural Society of Berlin; presented 
by that Society. 

G. C. Churchill, Esq., of Harpenden, Herts, and Miss Evans, of 
Coventry, were elected corresponding members. 

Mr. Daniel Oliver, Jun., exhibited specimens of Naias flexilis, Rostk., 
discovered by him in a pond near Roundstone, Connemara, Ireland, 
in August last. 

Mr. Daniel Stock communicated a paper ‘On the Botany of Bun- 
gay, Suffolk’—G. FE. D. 


Note on a remarkable Monstrosity in a specimen of Verbascum 
nigrum. By H. L. DE LA CHAUMETTE, Esq. 


THIs curious specimen was presented to me by my friend W. Coles, 
Esq. It was gathered in a lane near Reading, in Berkshire. The 
plant was found growing amongst many of its species. The whole of 
the bright yellow corollas forming the spike were transformed into 
green leaves, of the same shape as the corollas of the usual specimens. 
The pedicels bearing these green corollas were elongated to about an 
inch. From the centre of these corollas the pistil apparently arose, 
as a pedicel, bearing a similar green corolla on its summit. In various 
instances the stamens had the appearance of being converted into 
small, undeveloped buds. This gave the whole a very remarkable ap- 
pearance. What could have been the cause of such a change in this 
one plant, all the others retaining their usual form of development ? 


H. L. DE LA CHAUMETTE. 
Church St., Stoke Newington. 


1089. 


A Catalogue of the Plants growing wild in Hampshire, with occa- 
stonal Notes and Observations on some of the more remarkable 
Species. By Witi1am Arnotp Bromrietp, M.D., F.L.S., &c. 


(Continued from page 1084). 


Milium effusum. In moist, shady woods and thickets. In various 
parts of the Isle of Wight, but not very common, and principally found 
in East Medina. About Ryde, in Quarr Copse, in some parts of 
which it is common; in Shore Copse, sparingly ; wood between Quarr 
and Ninham; in Briddlesford, Bloodstone and Inward’s Copses ; New 
Copse, near Wootton Bridge. Sparingly in copses under Arreton and 
Mersley Downs. Wood at Apse Castle ; in Cowpit Cliff, Greatwood 
and other hill-side copses, between Shanklin and Bonchurch, plenti- 
fully. Wood near Norris Castle, East Cowes. Tolt Wood, near Gat- 
combe (in W. Medina). Copse on the north side of Wroxall Down, 
above Wroxall Farm. I happen to have few stations for this conspi- 
cuous grass marked down in my notes for mainland Hants, but find 
it to be very general over that part of the county. Harewood Forest, 
near Andover, in plenty, and in woods about three miles from the 
same town, a little beyond Enham, on the Newbury road, 1850. Pro- 
fusely in Crab Wood, by Sparsholt, three miles west of Winton, May 
28, 1850. Hambledon Woods, about Alton, as in Akender Wood, 
Chawton Park, Rotherfield, Selborne and elsewhere, in plenty, June, 
1850. 

Agrostis setacea. On dry, turfy heaths, commons and high downs, 
sometimes also in woods and copses, where the soil is sandy or gra- 
velly (never, I think, seen on the chalk) ; abundantly in the Isle of 
Wight, and the maritime districts of mainland Hants. Plentiful on 
the higher parts of Apse Castle. Profusely on St. George's Down 
and Stopler’s Heath, by Newport, as also, before it was enclosed, on 
Royal Heath, Sandown. Heathy places about Kingston. In Young- 
wood’s Copse; all over Bordwood Copse, Apse Heath and other 
places about Newchurch, abundantly, and indeed in most dry, heathy 
and elevated ground throughout the island. About Colwell Hill 
Farm and Freshwater, not unfrequent, Mr. W. D. Snooke in FI. Vect. 
Not less plentiful on the mainland of Hants towards the coast; ex- 
tremely rare, if found at all, in the centre and north of the county, but 
I have not yet determined its limitsinland. The staple grass in most 
of the following localities:—Brown Down, behind Stoke’s Bay ; on 
Titchfield Common ; Southampton Common; the prevailing grass on 

Von: i, igh. bie 


1090 


most heaths about Southton. Profusely in the Poole basin, about 
Bournemouth, and on all the heaths and moors about Christchurch, 
Lymington, Beaulieu, and other parts of the New Forest and Christ- 
church hundreds, near the coast, in vast quantity. On dry, gravelly, 
heathy ground south of Anfield Church (part of Anfield Common *), 
June 26, 1850, the most northerly station in the county hitherto 
known to me. 

This, the Rabbit or Deer’s-foot grass of the Isle of Wight, is re- 
markable for the bristle-like slenderness of its leaves, constituting 
dense tufts of silvery gray, and forming a soft, highly elastic but slip- 
pery turf, exceedingly pleasant to walk or recline upon from its dry- 
ness, growing thickest and most cushion-like under the shelter of the 
heath and furze. The panicle remains closed as well before as after 
flowering, and indeed is but little expanded at any time, excepting in 
favourable states of the weather and at certain hours of the day, col- 
lapsing even then on being gathered. I do not believe A. setacea is 
relished by sheep, if they touch it at all, as in many parts where this 
grass forms the staple of the herbage, and sheep abound, its silvery 
panicles wave uncropped by these animals, and the root-leaves are 
not eaten down by them that I can perceive. It is a strange fact in 
the history of this grass, that although so profusely abundant in the 
south-western English counties, it was known, or at all events distin- 
guished asa species, only in modern times, being probably confounded 
with other kinds of Agrostis, since no mention or description of it oc- 
curs in any author down to the time of Ray, who, one would think, 
must have detected its characters had he seen it growing. Even Hud- 
son, so late as 1798, thought it a variety of A. canina in his ‘ Flora 
Anglica.’ Curtis has the merit of first making it known to botanists, 
and his figure in ‘ Flora Londinensis,’ like all from his pencil, is ad- 
mirable. Although so abundant inall the south-western counties and 
in our own, the termination of this species to the north and east is 
remarkably abrupt. In Sussex it has hitherto been detected in a sin- 
gle locality only, and Bagshot Heath, in Surrey, is at once the most 
boreal and inland station that stands on good authority. The York- 
shire station is very apocryphal. 

Agrostis canina. In moist woods, meadows, pastures, and on 
damp heaths; common. 

Agrostis vulgaris. In rough, stony or sandy pastures, on heaths, 
by road-sides, and in other dry places; abundant everywhere. Often 
very diminutive on arid heaths and wastes, where I suppose it is the 
A. pumila of Lightfoot’s ‘ Flora Scotica.’ 


1091 


Agrostis alba. In moist woods, meadows, ditches, damp corn-fields, 
grassy pools, and other wet places; common. Covers all the damp 
ledges of the cliffs to the north of Shanklin Chine, in great quantity 
and very large. 

Apera Spica-venti (Agrost. Spic.). In dry, sandy, chiefly culti- 
vated fields, and on banks adjacent; probably not rare on the eastern 
border of the county; not remarked in other parts of it, nor in the 
Isle of Wight. In vast profusion in the sandy fields at Cove, near 
Farnborough, where it is a troublesome weed amongst the crops of 
every description, wheat, barley, oats, beans and potatoes, also grow- 
ing on the sandy borders of the fields, July 14, 1850. Common in 
corn-fields at Aldershot, two miles from Farnham, chiefly amongst 
wheat, August 2, 1850. I venture to predict that this most beautiful 
grass, which was sent to me in August, 1849, from the Farnborough sta- 
tion, as a Hampshire native, by Mr. H. C. Watson, will be found in 
many parts of the sandy tract between Petersfield and Farnborough, 
since it-abounds in some of the adjacent parts of Surrey. Possibly, 
too, A. interrupta, lately discovered at Thetford, in Norfolk, may be 
found within our limits, a plant I am not acquainted with, and by 
some held to be a mere variety of A. Spica-venti. Few of our native 
grasses come up to the present in elegance, as seen waving its large, 
silky panicle in the breeze amidst the standing corn, rising to a height 
of two or three feet. 

Obs.—At Aldershot, Campanula Rapunculus grows in very consider- 
able plenty on hedge-banks and borders of fields, as intimated to me by 
Mr. W. Reeves last year, thus confirming it as a plant of the county. 
The Petersfield station mentioned in a former part of this catalogue, 
on the authority of Goodyer, I have great reason to believe was an 
error of the old botanist, and that C. patula was the species intended 
by him, as I find the latter in abundance in a sandy field on the north 
side of Petersfield Heath, but no traces of C. Rapunculus exist there 
at present. 

Obs.—I am strongly impressed with the idea that Stipa pennata 
will eventually be confirmed to the British flora, by its discovery in the 
south-east of England. This remarkable grass is generally spread over 
southern and central Europe, being enumerated in the floras of Ger- 
many, Belgium and the north of France (Paris, Rouen, &c.).. Dr. 
Salter tells me that, when a student at Guy’s Hospital, he once saw 
numerous specimens of Stipa pennata, brought in by a person em- . 
ployed there, who had gathered them wild, as he affirmed, in the 
neighbourhood of Dorking; the person is since dead, and Dr. 8. has 


1092 


no clew to the locality. A plant of this kind, limited perhaps to a 
single circumscribed station, is as likely to elude observation as Teu- 
crium Botrys, Apera interrupta, Simethis bicolor, and other recent but 
indubitably indigenous additions to the English flora. 

Arundo Calamagrostis (Calam. lanceolata). In boggy, moory or 
marshy ground, wet hedges, woods, meadows and ditches; very rare? 
Not yet seen in the Isle of Wight. In wet or boggy hedges on the 
east side of Gomer Pond, Mr. Borrer. I gathered it in moderate 
plenty on boggy, moory meadows, amongst Arundo Phragmites, rushes, 
and coarse herbage of various plants, very near the Grange Farm, by 
Alverstoke, June and July, 1849. The station at Marchwood, near 
Southampton, sent by me to Mr. Watson, and inserted by him in the 
‘ New Botanist’s Guide’ (Supplement), as on Mr. Borrev’s authority, 
was a mistake of my own, for which I cannot now account, Mr. B. 
never having, as he tells me, found this species at Marchwood. 

Arundo Epigejos (Calam. Epigejos). In open places, and borders 
of moist woods and thickets, in damp, shady, bushy pastures, on sand 
and clay; abundant on the northern side of the Isle of Wight, and 
especially in East Medina. Everywhere about Ryde, where there 
are few patches of copse or thicket wholly without this grass. In 
Quarr Copse, Shore Copse, Whitefield Wood, &c. Woods about 
Wootton Bridge and Havenstreet. At St. Helen’s, in a wood by 
Hill Farm, and in rough, bushy ground by the descent to the mill 
from the green. In Long Phillis and Inward’s Copses, near Ashey. 
Above Cowpit Cliff, near Shanklin. Near the Medina, above Cowes, 
in and about Parkhurst Forest and elsewhere near Newport. Almost 
everywhere along the shore, on wet clay, between East Cowes and 
King’s Quay, as well as on the shores of the latter estuary. Less fre- 
quent in West Medina, but frequent about Yarmouth, as in Salterns 
Copse, by the road side nearly opposite Afton House, in Thorness 
Wood and shore adjacent, near Wellow, &c. Found in numberless 
other places in the island, but nowhere, I think, on the chalk, neither 
have I remarked it on the galt or in any part of the Undercliff, or 
elsewhere along the south coast. Woods along the Beaulieu River, 
between Beaulieu and Exbury, and near Upper Exbury brick-field, 
Aug. 28, 1850. 

Psamma arenaria (Ammophila arundinacea). On loose sand of 
the sea shore; abundantly. Plentiful on the Spit at Norton and St. 
Helen’s. On the beach at Sandown, but not plentiful. Used for- 
merly to grow, but very sparingly, at the east end of Ryde Dover; 
probably now destroyed. Profusely along the south beach of Hayling 


1093 


Island, particularly amongst the sand-hills atits westernend. Sandy 
cliff and banks between Christchurch and Bournemouth, abundantly, 
and most profusely (covering hundreds of acres almost exclusively) 
on the sandy shores of Christchurch Harbour, Calshot Beach, &c. 
This grass is remarkable for having the culms solid or with a central 
perforation only, an unusual feature in the order of Gramina. 

Phragmites communis (Arundo Phragmites). By rivers, ditches, 
ponds, in wet meadows, woods, thickets, osier-beds, damp hedges, and 
wet, marshy places in general; abundantly throughout the county. 
Plentiful in the Isle of Wight, even in salt-marsh ground, as along the 
Yar, between Freshwater and Yarmouth, &c. Var. @. Culms sterile, 
procumbent or trailing, twenty to forty feet or more in length. 
Phragmites communis, b. repens, Meyer. Chlor. Hanov. p. 650; W. 
A.B. in Phytol. i. 146. On wet banks of sand and slipped clay along 
the south and east shores of the Isle of Wight. Common along the 
shore at Puckaster Cove, trailing to a great length on the flat sands 
or hanging from the clay-banks above the beach, also in other places 
along the south coast. Near the Shanklin extremity of Sandown Bay, 
and rooting at the joints. In a ditch between Sandown Bay and 
Lower Morton Farm, I found it with culms of considerable length, 
floating, and emitting fibres from the joints, Aug. 1842. At Bem- 
bridge, Dr. T. Bell Salter. This singular form of the common reed 
of our ponds and marshes, appears to have been first remarked by 
Merrett (‘ Pinax,’ p. 11) in this island, and his brief notice quoted by 
Dillenius, at the end of his edition of Ray’s ‘Synopsis, in a list of 
uncertain, obscure or ill-authenticated species, on which it was de- 
sirable, if possible, to have light thrown. Meyer, in the ‘ Chloris 
Hanoverana,’ is the only foreign author I find who has described this 
prostrate form, which he says occurs in the island of Norderney (the 
only German station for Polypogon littoralis), and Koch, Syn. 2nd 
edit., in sandy fields of the plain or valley of the Rhine (Rheinflache). 
A more particular account of this variety will be found in a former 
volume of the ‘ Phytologist,’ cited above. 

Obs.—Cynodon Dactylon it is likely may be detected on the sandy 
sea-shores of this county, or perhaps in the sandy fields of the inte- 
rior, as, notwithstanding it has hitherto only been remarked in Eng- 
land as a maritime and western species, on the continent it is by no 
means confined to the vicinity of the sea, but is found abundantly in 
various parts of France, Germany and Belgium considerably remote 
from the coast, and ranging as far north as Berlin and Hamburgh. It 
already approaches our limits very closely, having been detected some 


1094 


years since on the loose sandy beach of Studland Bay, Dorsetshire, 
by Dr. T. Bell Salter, and where 1 have myself gathered it in plenty. 
Its small size and insignificant aspect may occasion its being over- 
looked or slighted by all but the experienced botanist, whose interest 
is not exclusively engaged by magnitude or beauty of form and co- 
lour. This little, wiry, unpromising grass is dispersed over a large 
part of the warmer regions of the earth, and has obtained much cele- 
brity for its nutritive properties, in both hemispheres. It is the Dur- 
rah-grass of India, the Crab-grass and Bermuda-grass of North 
America and the West Indies, and im all these countries is esteemed 
valuable pasture for cattle. The truth is, it is only deserving of re- 
gard in climes where our fine, succulent, meadow grasses will not 
succeed, and from its power of resisting the fiercest heat and drought 
of summer, in the sandy soil on which better herbage cannot grow. 
Spartina stricta. In muddy salt-marsh ground along the coast, 
and at the mouths of rivers and creeks, always in the ooze of spots 
wholly or partially overflowed at high water; abundantly in most parts 
of the Isle of Wight, and of the opposite mainland, where mud-flats 
abound. Plentifully along the Wootton River, below Wootton Bridge. 
Shores of the Medina above Cowes, frequent. Salt marshes along the 
Yar, at Yarmouth, and near the shore at Norton. Newtown salt- 
marshes, in profusion. By the Southampton Water, below the town, 
and muddy shores of the Itchen River, near its junction with the 
Southton Water. I think I have remarked it in Hayling and Portsea 
Islands, but have lost or mislaid a quantity of notes made there a year 
or two back. Shore at Lower Exbury, in plenty. About Portsmouth, 
very abundant, Dr. Macreight, Man. of Brit. Bot. Between Southton 
and Millbrook, Winch in New Bot. Guide. Cams shore (Fareham), 
Mr. W. L. Notcutt! and doubtless in many other places along the 
coast. If it be not allowable to tax Nature with downright ugliness 
in any of her productions, it must be admitted that Spartina stricta 
has received fewer embellishing touches from her creative hand than 
most other members of a natural family in which artistic skill and 
finish are signally displayed. Our Spartina is, to call it by the 
mildest term, avery plain grass; its dwarfish stature, stiff; erect, rigid 
habit, totally devoid of all grace; its pale, sickly colour, a dirty, yel- 
lowish or brownish green, with sometimes a tinge of lurid purple, and 
made more dingy still by incrustations of slime and mud, from which 
it is seldom free,—when to all these defects is added the rank smell 
which distinguishes all the species of Spartina, we are forced to 
assign to the Twin-spiked Cord-grass the very lowest station amongst 


1095 


the British species of this usually beautiful family of plants. Neither 
does it recommend itself to notice by any known uses like the follow- 
ing, unless, as in that, by its creeping and fibrous roots serving to con- 
solidate the soft, fluctuating soil on which it grows, and affording a 
safe, if not dry, footing over the dreary waste of muddy salt-marsh. 
I am not aware that any animal will touch this grass, and the straw is 
much too short either for litter or thatching. Although found spa- 
ringly in Devonshire (ex herb. Smith), it appears to be everywhere 
scarce to the westward of the Isle of Wight, but extends southward 
into Africa, as far at least as Mogador, from whence I have seen spe- 
cimens. The distinct articulation of the leaves, with their sheaths, 
by a slightly raised fillet or ring-like and cartilaginous joint, at which 
a separation can be easily effected at any time, will always distinguish 
this species from stunted or nascent specimens of the following, which 
sometimes resembles it not a little. 

Spartina aliernifiora. In precisely similar situations with the 
foregoing species, but far rarer, and indeed only known in Britain on 
the subjoined station, where I feel pretty well assured it must have 
been introduced, although now perfectly naturalized. Profusely. on 
mud-flats of the Itchen River, at Southampton, 1836. (Fora full ac- 
count of the characters, habit and uses of this species, see Hooker’s 
“Companion to the Botanical Magazine, ii. p. 254.) Although un- 
able to ascertain with any precision the date of its introduction to this 
country, I cannot persuade myself that this fine grass is aboriginal 
with us in England, a conclusion I should be the more happy to ar- 
rive at, since I was myself its discoverer at Southampton, and bota- 
nists, to whose opinion the greatest respect and deference is due, are 
arrayed against me in its favour. My objections to receive it as a 
strictly indigenous grass are, first, its limitation in Europe to a couple 
of stations on the western coast, both sea-ports having constant com- 
munication with America, over which continent it is very widely and 
abundantly distributed, but is quite unknown in our hemisphere, ex- 
cepting in the two localities just mentioned.* Secondly, the weight 
of local testimony goes to prove that the Many-spiked Cord-grass was 
unknown at Southampton within the memory of persons now living, 
and although the evidence I have been able to collect be sufficiently 
confused and contradictory to show that very little is known about 
the origin of this grass with certainty, it is not so weak that we can 


* The other European station for S. alternifloya is in salt marshes by the Adour, at 
Bayonne (Loisel. F]. Gall. 2nd edit. i. p. 41). 


1096 


safely set 1f aside in a case so open to suspicion as the one before us. 
Were additional stations to be discovered for S. alterniflora on our 
own or other European coasts, where no communication was kept up 
with America, I should feel justified in admitting it as a species com- 
mon to both continents without hesitation, regarding the suspicious 
nature of the Southampton habitat in the light of a mere coincidence; 
as it is, reason, I think, demands the withholding the full rights of abo- 
riginality from a plant that betrays its exotic descent in so palpable 
a way as this. I do not understand how those who are so forward to 
doubt the indigenous claims of many a strictly European plant in 
Britain, can consistently pass an acknowledged and almost exclu- 
sively American one into the list of indubitable natives, as is nega- 
tively done in our standard botanical text-books by the omission of 
the usual symbols of distrust. As to the way by which this grass may 
have been conveyed hither from America, a few of the creeping roots 
accidentally taken on board a trading vessel, with ballast or freight, 
would retain their vitality long enough to vegetate when thrown out 
upon the muddy shores of a tide-river like the Itchen, and would 
afterwards propagate the species by the runners they send out, for 
neither this nor our native species, S. stricta, perfect seed, at least ha- 
bitually and plentifully. 

S. alterniflora is a valuable grass, and notwithstanding the fetid 
odour it has in common with the rest of the genus, affords grateful 
and nutritive food for cattle. I had already pointed out its practical 
application to purposes of rural economy by the people of Southamp- 
ton in my memoir above alluded to, when I was both surprised and 
gratified to find during my late tour in the United States that it was 
used in that country just in the same way as in our own. At South- 
ampton it is regularly cut down by the poorer classes, and employed 
by them in lieu of straw or reeds for thatching out-houses, cattle- 
sheds, &c., and more extensively for litter, and subsequently as ma- 
nure ;* horses and pigs, I am told, eat it greedily ; and for all these 
purposes it is much sought after, so that hardly an accessible patch is 
suffered to remain uncut by the end of September.t As fodder, it 


* A labouring man with whom I conversed, in 1836, on the uses of this Spartina, 
assured me he remembered it in its present station upwards of twenty years ; had for- 
merly employed it in thatching a part of his own premises, and found it outlast two 
courses of straw. The people here know it only by the common name of “ sedge.” 

+ Elliott says of S. glabra (S. alterniflora):—‘“ This plant is greedily eaten by 
horses and cattle. It is remarkable for a strong rancid and peculiar smell, affecting 
ithe breath, the milk, butter, and even the fiesh of the cattle that feed upon it. It 


1097 


ought, I conceive, to be aut much earlier, when in flower in July and 
August, as it is then more tender and succulent, and the rancid smell, 
which to myself comes near that of phosphuretted hydrogen, is not 
repulsive to stock, to which it probably recommends itself by the salt 
it contains. For this reason, and from the power of the creeping 
roots to bind and consolidate the soft soil deposited by the tide, it 
might be advantageously planted on the mud-flats of our southern and 
eastern coasts. In America, S. alterniflora abounds from north to 
south. I observed it abundantly at Boston, New York, and at 
Charleston, S. C., on the mud-flats of the Ashley and Cooper Rivers, 
and in the salt swamps and creeks that intersect the suburban dis- 
tricts of that pretty but insalubrious city. I am not aware of any use 
this grass is put to in New England or at New York, but in Charles- 
ton, where, as at Southampton, it covers acres of salt marsh around 
the town, looking at a distance, when ripe, somewhat like fields of 
wheat, it is of great importance, and in the months of May and June, 
when fresh and succulent, and before flowering,* bundles of Spartina 
(there called “ salt-marsh,” or simply “ marsh,” sometimes “ grass ”’), 
made up like wheat-sheaves and set on end, may be seen for sale at 
the corners of the streets and in the markets, chiefly for the use of 
horses. An intelligent negro of Charleston assured me that from May 
to September stock were very fond of it, but refused it earlier and 
later, when it becomes hard, dry and unpalatable, and I think loses 
much of its odour. This man further told me that a coarse hay was 
made from it, and the straw used for littering cattle, thus confirming 
Elliott’s account in every particular. That its properties and appli- 
ances should so soon have been discovered and carried out in Eng- 
land, where the field for experiment was so contracted, is a curious 
circumstance in the history of this interesting grass, and speaks much 
for its practical value to the agriculturist. Professor Gray, in his 
‘ Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States,’ fears to adopt 
the prior name, alterniflora, of Loiseleur Deslongchamps for Muhlen- 
berg’s glabra, not being certain that the two plants are the same, 
since ‘l'rinius says the leaves are “ margine hispidula.” The South- 
ampton plant at all events has the leaves perfectly smooth on the 
edges, and so, as far as I can see, have those of a single Unio Itine- 


affords, however, good pasturage for out-door stock, and is becoming valuable and 
valued as a manure.” (‘Sketch of the Botany of S. Carolina and Georgia, i. p. 96). 

* At Charleston it flowers scarcely a month earlier than at Southampton, where it 
begins to blossom towards the end of July, continuing on into September. 


VOL Ii. 7B 


1098 


raria specimen I possess from Bayonne, kindly given to me by Sir 
Wm. Hooker, but which were suffered to become involute in drying, 
which they never are naturally, and are, besides, firmly glued to the 
paper. May not the leaves be occasionally a little rough-edged, both 
in European and American specimens ? 

Andropogon Ischemum I should never be surprised to hear had 
been detected in the south-east of England. 

Leersia oryzoides. tn and about the grassy or reedy margins of 
rivers, brooks, ditches and ponds, in swampy meadows, wet hollows, 
and other marshy places; very rare? In many parts of the Boldre 
River, West Hants, in great plenty, 1849 and 1850. Since the ac- 
count of my finding this extremely curious and interesting grass with 
us was published in this journal for November, 1849 (Phytol. 111. 681), 
my anticipations of detecting it in increased frequency and abundance 
have been amply realized. I am now enabled to announce it as 
abundant in the Boldre River, for nearly three miles along the stream 
above and below Brockenhurst Bridge. In tracing the plant above 
bridge I commenced, August 24, with the southernmost tributary, or 
branch of the river, which diverges to the left from the main stream, 
in a westerly direction, at the west corner of New Park Inclosure, and 
is known as the Rhinefield Water, along which I found the Leersia 
in plenty, at distant and irregular intervals, for about a mile and a 
half, on both banks, becoming more frequent as I ascended the stream, 
and growing chiefly where the banks expanded into small, marshy 
flats, as near the Aldridge Inclosure, above Rhinefield Lodge, but 
ceasing entirely higher up, where, on approaching Markway Bridge, 
the country assumes more completely the moorland character. Here 
the Leersia grew very large and luxuriant, amongst Myrica Gale and 
other swamp shrubs, always in or close to the edge of the stream, and 
remarkably erect, the panicles fully formed, but no portion of them pro- 
truded from the sheaths. Descending the river, we first find the Leersia 
again at Brockenhurst Bridge, as described in a previous communica- 
tion; here are two moderately sized tufts of it only, growing out of 
abundance of Isnardia palustris,* just under the railing at the Brocken- 


* T was fortunate to discover a third Hampshire station for the Isnardia on the 
25th of August last, namely, in a damp spot (apparently a water-way in the winter 
months) in the heart of the New Forest, between two of the branches or tributaries of 
the Boldre River, a little to the north-west of New Park Inclosure, and about two 
miles in the same direction from Brockenhurst Bridge, an exactly similar locality to 
that of the Isnardia on Petersfield Heath, and where it occurs, as there, in plenty, 
with Helosciadium inundatum and Peplis Portula for its associates. On this station 


1099 


hurst side of the bridge, and on the left hand crossing over it to go to- 
wards Lyndhurst. Pursuing the downward course of the stream, we find 
the plant again under the wooden railway viaduct between the bridge 
and Brockenhurst Mill, and in this part of the river | may mention 
grows plenty of Ribes nigrum, in an unquestionably native state. A 
little below the mill the Leersia shows itself for the third time, and 
may be found in plenty in an expansion of the river between the 
wooden bridge across the ford, a couple of hundred yards at most 
from the mill, and where the stream enters Brockenhurst Park under 
some heavy palings placed across it, not a weir, as stated in the for- 
mer account. Within these palings, and consequently in the park, 
the Leersia speedily becomes more abundant than ever, forming 
patches by itself of several feet in length, and so continues at intervals 
for perhaps half the extent of the park, when it ceases rather abruptly, 
as I was unable to trace a single plant lower down, towards Boldre 
Bridge, where the water becomes saltish, not even at Royden Farm or 
Hayward Mill, where the current is quite fresh. I have tracked the 
main stream of the Boldre River, above Brockenhurst Bridge, very 
neatly up to Lyndhurst, but find none of the Leersia along any part 
of its course, which, however, is chiefly between steep water-worn 
banks, and therefore not fitted for the production of this plant, which 
delights in the swampy, grass-grown margins of rivers, where such 
species as Phalaris arundinacea and Phragmitis communis flourish. I 
have since searched the upper part of the Beaulieu River, and several of ° 
the smaller forest streams, but without meeting with the Leersia, which, 
however, I am confident must exist in more localities than those in 
which it has yet been detected with us. In particular I should ex- 
pect it in the Avon and Stour, and their tributaries, as also in the 
streams and ditches that intersect the great marshy valley between 
Christchurch and Fordingbridge, about Ringwood, &c. It should 
likewise be looked for in our mill pools and the large ponds, of which 
we have so many on the forest lands in east and west Hants. 


the plant flowers and fruits freely, trailing on the damp but not overflowed soil, _ 
although much smaller and less luxuriant than at Brockenhurst Bridge, where it 
grows submerged, and fructifies much more sparingly. A search for this and the 
Leersia will lead the botanist into some of the must lovely and secluded forest scenery 
in Europe, into shades as solitary and primeval as the back woods of America, where 
he may wander for miles and for hours together without meeting a human creature, 
through groves and glades of brave old oaks and beeches, with no underwood to im- 
pede his steps. 


1100 


In our Hampshire waters the Leersia usually grows quite erect, 
whether the culms be few or, as they more frequently are, numerous 
from the same root, but occasionally some of the culms become 
reclining, decumbent or even procumbent, or at least very strongly 
geniculate, especially when the plant is growing from a projecting 
portion of the bank. I have never seen the Leersia in England as an 
inhabitant of simply marshy places, as in other countries, but always 
in or closely contiguous to water, usually with the bases of the culms 
immersed, but creeping now and then for a foot or two upon the wet 
soil of the banks, amongst other aquatic grasses. The power the 
leaves and sheaths possess of cutting the hands of those who gather 
the plant would seem to be overrated; that it is capable of doing so 
1 can assert from personal experience, but the occasional slight inci- 
sions caused by its asperity scarcely go deeper than the cuticle, at 
least with myself; in some of its rougher states, however, it might 
prove more formidable. The Leersia is one of the very few British 
grasses that are branched, and the only one that bears two, three or 
even four panicles on the same culm from the axils of the lower 
leaves, in both which characters it recedes from most Gramina of the 
temperate zone, and assimilates to those of tropical regions. The re- 
semblance in structure, habit, colour and general aspect of this singu- 
lar grass to the awnless variety of the cultivated rice is indeed very 
remarkable. Another feature worthy of notice in our Leersia is the 
"extreme tendency in the leaves to become involute on being gathered, 
which happens so rapidly that a few minutes suffice for them to roll 
up completely into a cylinder; the same effect follows almost instan- 
taneously if the leaves be drawn through the fingers or handled in any 
way. This result can be prevented by always leaving the root 
attached to specimens intended for preservation, for if put with a mass 
of roots thoroughly saturated but not dripping with water, into a closed 
tin collecting-box, the leaves will retain their flatness perfectly for two 
or three days, and when laid out, the roots should still be left attached, 
as, if severed, the leaves will instantly begin to curl up when placed 
in contact with the drying paper, and even when the above precaution 
is observed, the specimens must be handled as little as possible, and 
subjected to pressure without delay. The Leersia is indeed a most 
intractable plant for the herbarium, where specimens are desired that 
shall really exhibit the character of the grass, not only from the above- 
mentioned tendency in the leaves to curl up, but from the size, length 
and branching of the larger examples, and particularly from bearing 
two or more panicles on one stem, which prevents its being folded or 


110i 


doubled on the paper with the same facility as other British grasses. 
The best time for collecting the Leersia is towards the middle of Sep- 
tember, which is, I think, the average season of flowering with us, but 
as only a very small portion of the panicle is usually protruded in this 
country from the top of the sheaths, it is difficult to ascertain when 
the flowering actually begins; I suspect it often commences in Au- 
gust, and the seed isripe in October. The roots are easily pulled up 
out of the soft mud by grasping the culms at bottom, and come up 
in huge, matted clumps, which are readily cleansed by repeated 
plunging in the stream; the superfluous water should then be wrung 
out, and the mass divided into portions as large as can be conveniently 
packed in the collecting-box. In this way only can specimens be 
preserved in a perfect condition for drying, on the return home of the 
collector, or for transmission to distant correspondents. I do not 
think it would be possible to collect the Leersia between the leaves 
of a field portfolio, unless strapped together much tighter than could 
be conveniently managed, to obviate involution. There is this ad- 
vantage, too, in keeping the specimens with their roots thoroughly 
wetted in a close tin vasculum for about twenty-four hours previous to 
laying them out, that the panicles, I find, by the warmth and moisture 
of the included air, partially make their egress from the tops of their 
sheaths much more decidedly than when growing in their native wa- 
ters, thus approaching closer to the normal state of the inflorescence, 
as developed in the south of Europe. 

An opinion seems to have prevailed amongst some botanists of Ger- 
many that Leersia oryzoides was introduced to the ponds and rivers 
of that country from Italy (Phytol. iii. 682, note). The cause of this 
idea | apprehend to be, that the grass was overlooked there in the 
same way and for the same reason that it so long escaped detection 
in England,—its clandestine mode of flowering in central Europe. If 
not rare, it is at least a local species on the continent, and possesses 
little or nothing in its general aspect to attract attention from the 
passer-by. Mr. Borrer has remarked to me its great resemblance to 
the barren shoots of Phalaris arundinacea, its common associate, and 
to which genus it was even referred by Linneus, but may always be 
distinguished from that common grass by the paler, yellowish or 
brownish green of the leaves, not to mention their extreme roughness. 
It is probable, however, that this resemblance may have contributed 
in no small degree to veil it from observation, both in our own country 
and on the continent. Schreber (Beschreib. der Grisen, 2ter th. s. 7) 
says our Leersia was first discovered in Italy, by Padua, Verona, &c., 


1102 


subsequently in Switzerland and different districts of south Germany, 
and finally in various other and more northerly parts of that country, 
as Saxony, Hesse, &e. It is now ascertained to inhabit most parts of 
continental Europe south of the Baltic from Belgium, eastward to Po- 
land and Russia, and northward as far as Holstein (FI. Dan. x. fase. 
30, p. 1, t. 1744). The occurrence in Britain of plants of so austral 
a type as Leersia and Isnardia, should be a hint to some of us not to 
be so ready to doubt the indigenous origin of every new and many an 
old discovery, for I suppose few willimpugn the aboriginality of these 
two species, since neither are ever cultivated for their beauty or other 
qualities. So long, however, as such plants as Cyperus fuscus and 
Viola odorata are objects of expressed suspicion, and the asterisk is 
still appended to even such boreal productions as Aquilegia vulgaris 
and Humulus Lupulus, there is no security for any British vegetable 
being permitted to flourish with its claims to nativity unimpeached. 
The figure of Leersia oryzoides in ‘ Flora Danica’ (ut supra), and that 
of Host, Gram. Aust. i. t. 35, are admirable full-length portraits of that 
grass as it usually exhibits itself in this country. Schreber’s figure 
(Beschreibung der Grisen) is also very accurate, and that author no- 
tices a peculiarity in the structure of our Leersia which seems to have 
escaped the observation of all previous and subsequent describers of 
the species, and which I find very correctly stated in his excellent 
and detailed account. At the origin of each branch of the culm, or in 
the axil of the bifurcation between the branch and main stem, will be 
found a long, narrow, pellucid and membranous appendage, sometimes 
of a brownish colour, applied by its thin margins to the branch, which 
margins form a fold or reduplication, that is garnished with long, white, 
silky, rather distant or scattered hairs, directed downwards according 
to Schreber (herunterwirts stehenden), but spreading in our Hamp- 
shire specimens. 

Obs.—Sesleria cerulea, which occurs on the chalky hills and banks 
of Normandy, may well be supposed able to maintain itself on the 
same formation in the south of England; this probability of its occur- 
rence should therefore be kept in mind by botanists residing in the 
Channel districts. 

Aira cespitosa. In moist, shady places, woods, thickets, groves, 
&e.; plentiful in the Isle of Wight and throughout the county. In 
Quarr Copse, Apley Wood, and elsewhere about Ryde. Abundant in 
woods at Yarmouth, &c., and in most parts of mainland Hants. 

Aira flexuosa. In dry, heathy, hilly pastures; decidedly very 
local in the Isle of Wight, but probably not rare in the county. On 


1103 


St. George’s Down, by Newport. At Apse Castle, near Shanklin, 
abundant, but confined chiefly, if not wholly, to one part of it, namely, 
the heathy portion about America. A single specimen found in a 
corn-field near Mottiston, July, 1838. On Royal Heath, Sandown, 
Mr. Albert Hambrough! (probably now destroyed by inclosing). I 
have some how or other neglected making notes of this and the two 
following grasses on the mainland, although certain of having seen 
them all three at various times. The present species I have gathered 
near Farnborough Station, in July last. 

Aira caryophyllea. In dry, barren, sandy or gravelly and hilly 
pastures, on heaths, &c.; not unfrequent. In rough, elevated fields 
near Bembridge, plentifully. Field between Sandown and Lee Farm, 
in great profusion. On Royal Heath and Lake Common. Frequent, 
if 1 remember right, on Bleak Down, on the sandy fences by the road 
side, and in various other places. The Salterns (Fareham), Mr. W. 
L. Notcutt. 

Aira precox. In exactly similar places with the last, also on 
banks, waste ground and wall tops occasionally, but I think less fre- 
quent with us than that. Plentiful some years ago on a waste part of 
Ryde Dover, but doubtless now destroyed. On the higher and heathy 
part of Apse Castle, near the top of the hill, abundantly. On Royal 
Heath, but whether to be found at present on that almost entirely in- 
closed spot I amignorant. These are the only Isle-of-Wight stations 
I find on record by myself; for mainland Hants I have only the fol- 
lowing habitat as yet to communicate, although there can be little 
doubt the early Hairgrass is no uncommon species in the county. 
Titchfield Common, Mr. W. L. Notcutt. Well distinguished, as they 
are, by excellent and stable characters, and by the different flowering 
time, there is a close resemblance between this and A. caryophyllea, 
which last, in some of its more luxuriant states, incurs greater liability 
to be mistaken for A. flexuosa than for A. preecox, being in fact a 
quasi-intermediate, though perfectly distinct, species from both its 
larger and smaller congeners. 

Corynephorou scanescens (Aira canescens, Sm, &c.) may be looked 
for with strong probability of success on the sandy parts of the 
Hampshire coast. It is stated to occur as near to us as Poole, in 
Dorsetshire. 

Trisetum flavescens. In dry fields, meadows, pastures, heathy 
places, by road-sides, on banks, &c.; very common in most parts of 
the Isle of Wight, and I think of the rest of the county ; particularly 
abundant on the chalk, but not unfrequent in sandy places. 


1104 


Avena fatua. In corn-fields and other cultivated land, in waste 
ground, fallows, &c.; abundant in most parts of the Isle of Wight, to 
an injurious degree in cereal and other crops. Much too common 
about Ryde, Yarmouth, &c. amongst corn, clover, turnips, &c. Ge- 
nerally distributed, I believe, over the county. The more valuable 
cultivated Oat (4. sativa) differs from the present species in its 
smaller and far less spreading panicle, which continues unilateral to 
the last; in its smoother, less strongly ribbed florets, nearly devoid 
of all hairiness beneath, one or more of which are abortive, and want- 
ing the awn, which is shorter, and not geniculate, as in that. The 
florets of the cultivated Oat are placed upon a short, vertical, com- 
pressed pedicel, immediately under their base, in a transverse posi- 
tion, whilst those of A. fatua stand laterally or obliquely upon their 
very short point of insertion, and are all furnished with awns. 

{Avena strigosa. In corn-fields and cultivated ground, in potato- 
plots, &c., here and there occasionally, but not common, at least in 
the Isle of Wight, and doubtless introduced with agricultural seeds. 
In a field at Steephill. A specimen or two amongst potatoes in a 
garden near St. John’s toll-gate, Ryde, Rev. G. E. Smith, 1838 !!! 
I believe I have gathered it elsewhere in the island, but its presence 
here is quite fortuitous, and hardly entitles it to a place in our flora, 
even amongst the naturalized species. I am not aware that it is ever 
cultivated with us as it is in various parts of Europe, and very com- 
monly in the Isle of Skye, as I learn from Mr. Borrer. Spikelets 
two- (sometimes four-) flowered; both florets perfect, the inner one 
on a geniculate, bearded pedicel, but neither having any basal tuft, as 
in A. fatua. Scar nearly circular, neither transverse nor oblique, the 
pedicel of each floret being rounded, not compressed, as in A. sativa, 
which the present species much resembles ; inserted at the very cen- 
tre of the base of the pales. 

Avena pratensis. On dry pastures and heaths; very common in 
the chalky parts of the island, and, with the next, on most of the 
chalk downs in the county, Plentiful on St. Boniface Down, and 
other parts of the Undercliff; about Carisbrooke, &c. 

Avena pubescens. In dry woods, pastures, on chalk-banks, downs, 
&c., with the last, and I think equally common. Abundant on St. 
Boniface Down, and elsewhere along the Undercliff. Common about 
Luccombe, Carisbrooke, Freshwater, &c., Mr. Dawson Turner in 
Snooke’s FI. Vect. !!! 

Arrhenatherum avenaceum (Avena elatior, Sm. &c.) In meadows, 
pastures, thickets, on hedge banks and by road-sides; very common 


1105 


in the Isle of Wight and throughout the county. Var. 6. bulbosum ; 
frequent. This variety is called Knotgrass in the Isle of Wight. 

Holcus lanaius. In meadows, pastures, woods, and about hedges ; 
almost everywhere. 

Holcus mollis. In woods, copses, meadows and pastures; usually 
in more shady places than the last, and much less frequent with us 
than that. In Quarr Copse, and wood between Quarr Abbey and 
Ninham Farm. In Whitefield Wood, between Ryde and Brading, 
and in Stroud Wood, by Aldermoor. The prevailing grass on some 
parts of Apse Heath. Plentiful in Northland’s Copse, near Yaver- 
land. Probably not unfrequent throughout the county, but my know- 
ledge of the distribution of the Gramina and Cyperacee on mainland 
Hants, even as regards the commoner species, is very limited at pre- 
sent. Cams (near Fareham), Mr. W. L. Notcutt. 

Triodia decumbens. On dry, hilly pastures and heaths, also in 
boggy, moory ground; not, | believe, unfrequent in the island and county 
generally, but from its depressed mode of growth apt to escape re- 
mark. In Firestone Copse. On the down above the Culver Cliffs. 
Plentiful amongst the furze on Colwell Heath, Freshwater, especially 
at its north-west corner, close to the bay. Bog at Cockleton, near 
Cowes. Heathy ground between Yarmouth and Newtown. Grounds 
at the Priory. Anfield Wood, near Winton. Titchfield Common, 
frequent, and doubtless in many other parts of the county. This 
plant is remarkable for having the upper surface of the leaves pale 
glaucous, the under of a full, deep green, the reverse of which is the 
case with leaves in general, and the usually membranaceous ligule 
reduced to a mere fringe of extremely short hairs. 

Keehleria cristata (Aira cristata, Sm. &c.). On dry, elevated, 
sandy or chalky pastures and downs; chiefly, I believe, near the coast. 
In many parts of the Isle of Wight. Abundant on Brading, Bem- 
bridge and Yaverland Downs, and on the edges of the sandstone cliffs 
above Sandown Bay, plentifully ; abundant also along the edge of 
the cliff between Niton and Old Park. In the Lenten Pit, by Caris- 
brooke. On Freshwater Down. Maindell Chalk-pit (Fareham), Mr. 
W.L. Notcutt. ~~ 

Melica uniflora. In shady woods, copses, groves, and under 
hedges ; very common in most parts of the Isle of Wight, and the rest 
of the county. Common about Ryde, in Quarr Copse, St. John’s 
Wood, &c. Between Shanklin and Bonchurch. Abundant in Chaw- 
ton Park, near Alton; Enham, near Andover, &c. About Fareham, 
Mr. W. L. Notcutt. 

Vous, Tir. [ers 


v 


1106 


M. nutans, frequent in some of the northern counties of England, 
it is possible may one day be found in the south, for which it is in- 
dicated doubtfully in the ‘New Botanist’s Guide.’ 

M. ciliata, a fine species, with a very different aspect and habit 
from both our own, and which I have gathered plentifully in the south 
of France, occurs over the greater part of continental Europe, and is 
not very unlikely perhaps to prove an addition to the British flora 
hereafter. It grows in very dry, rocky places. 

Molinia cerulea. On heaths, barren, sandy or gravelly pastures, 
and?moory, boggy ground. Frequent in the Isle of Wight. On 
Stopler’s Heath, by Newport, and in Parkhurst Forest, abundant; in 
the latter itjis the prevailing grass. On Apse Heath, Lake Common, 
heathy places about Kingston and elsewhere, in plenty. Profusely on 
the boggy moorlands of south-western Hants, in the great fir-planta- 
tions about Ringwood, Christchurch, Bournemouth, &c., and in most 
other quarters of the county, particularly in the old forest districts of 
Wolmer, Holt, Bere, &c. Var. 8. Leaves longer and less rigid; pa- 
nicle green. M. (Ernodium) ceruleum, var. atrovirens, Dumort. ? 
In shady places, under trees; Parkhurst Forest, &c. A mere state of 
the plant, induced by shade preventing it from acquiring the violet 
or deep purple which distinguishes it in more open situations. Like 
the following (Catabrosa aquatica), this grass has been the sport of 
system, shaving been a Melica, Aira, Festuca, Poa and Arundo, from 
its affinity to all, uniting itself completely with none, and hence pro- 
perly constituting a genus apart. 

Catabrosa aquatica. In shallow pools, ditches, drains, and other 
wet, swampy places. Rather uncommon in the Isle of Wight. In se- 
veral marsh-meadow ditches in Sandown Level, above Alverstone 
Mill, one of which I found nearlygfilled with it. Abundant in a little 
pool by the road-side at the entrance of Sandown village from Brading. 
Ditch in Appuldurcombe Park. Under the cliff at Foreland, Dr. T. 
Bell Salter. Pond near the village of Pan, Mr. W. D. Snooke in Fl. 
Vect. Not at all rare, I think, on mainland Hants. Profusely in the 
neighbourhood of Romsey, filling the meadow-ditches. Common 
about Christchurch, Ringwood, &c. Chilbolton Common, Andover, 
and various other places. Side of Stubbington Road (Fareham), Mr. 
W. L. Notcutt. 

Poa bulbosa. Yn dry, sandy ground and pastures by the sea; oc- 
casionally inland; very rare? On the sandy spit below St. Helen’s, 
Isle of Wight, May, 1850, Dr. T. Bell Salter!!! This curious and 
local little grass is far from plentiful in the above station, but may be 


1107 


gathered at intervals nearly the whole length of the spit or tongue of 
low, sandy ground that almost closes the entrance to Brading Har- 
bour, converting it at high water into a salt-lake. The Poa prefers 
the turf, where the herbage is thin, to the bare, loose and shifting soil 
of the sand-hills, growing on the former in a scattered manner, a few 
plants here and there, at considerable distances apart. It will pro- 
bably be detected on other parts of the Hampshire coast, and pos- 
sibly in the sandy tracts of the interior, but I searched for it 
unsuccessfully along the south shore of Portsea and the opposite 
part of Hayling Island in May last, with great expectation of finding 
it after its discovery at St. Helen’s, and from having only a week be- 
fore gathered it in plenty at Little Hampton, Sussex, with Mr. Borrer, 
who first noticed it there. My Sussex specimens are much larger 
and finer than those from the Isle of Wight, and far more abundant, 
which may account in some degree for my having overlooked the spe- 
cies in the latter station, which I was in the habit of visiting very 
often, at all times of the year; but Poa bulbosa is at best an incon- 
spicuous grass, with no strongly marked character to arrest the atten- 
tion of one unacquainted with its appearance when growing, as was 
the case with myself. Mr. Borrer remarks that this Poa resembles 
KG6hleria (Aira) cristata in its panicle, only much shorter and smaller ; 
to myself, when in full flower, and the branches of the panicle spread- 
ing, it recals Poa compressa, or a contracted form of P. pratensis, fre- 
quent on wall-tops and dry situations (the var. subcerulea, Sm. ?) 
The extremely short, narrow, rough-edged leaves, and copious 
bulbous offsets from the root, its much earlier flowering time, and 
other well-marked distinctions, will prevent its being confounded with 
the remaining species belonging to the section with mostly webbed 
florets, between which there is a strong and sometimes bewildering 
resemblance. I cannot find any figure of this grass conveying a cor- 
rect idea of its aspect, excepting that old one of Vailliant, ‘ Botanicon 
Paris.’ t. 17, fig. 8, which is very good; those of ‘ English Botany, 
Knapp and Parnell are all extremely defective.* 

Poa annua. In meadows, pastures, streets, court-yards, and under 
walls; the commonest of grasses. 

Poa nemoralis. In shady places, woods, thickets, groves, and on 
hedge-banks, but rarely. Not yet observed in the Isle of Wight. On 
shady hedge-banks at the south end of Sidmonton Common, near 


* A really well executed work, I mean as to illustrations of the Gramina of Bri- 
tain, is yet a desideratum to the botany of our country. 


1108 


Newtown, a few miles 8. 8S. E. of Newbury, in considerable plenty ; 
also on hedge-banks between Hurstbourne Priors and Andover, about 
a mile from the former along the high-road, plentifully, June 3, 1850. 
In Akender Weod, near Alton, June, 1850. On a bank between 
Weekhill Farm and the Hanger, Selborne, Dr. T. Bell Salter, Sept. 
1844 !! ‘The above are the only stations I am at present able to give 
for a grass which is probably not very uncommon in this, as in other 
of the southern counties of England, although more general and 
abundant in the northern counties and Scotland. A slender wood 
form of P. pratensis I have reason to believe is sometimes taken for 
this species, as is another state of the same grass, growing on walls 
and in dry places, for P. compressa. 

Poa trivialis. In meadows, pastures, woods, groves, and other 
shady places; abundant. Spikelets said to be sometimes single- 
flowered in var 8. parviflora, Parn. In abundle of specimens pulled 
in a corn-field near Ryde the glumes were invariably two-flowered, as 
Smith remarks to be the case occasionally. 

Poa pratensis. In similar places with the last, and equally, if not 
more plentiful than it. Var. 8. Slender; leaves long, very narrow; 
panicle lax; spikelets smaller and narrower. P. angustifolia, Linn. ? 
Sm. Engl. Fl. i. p. 126, with reference to Ray’s Syn. and Morison’s 
Plant. Hist.(cum fig.) P. pratensis, var. I. angustifolia, Gaud. F). Helv. 
11. p. 259. Frequent in woods and shady places, and apt, I think, to 
be taken for P. nemoralis. Var. y. P. subcerulea, Sm.? P. pratensis, 
var. III. strigosa, Gaud. FI. Helv. ii. p. 260. On wall-tops and other 
dry, barren places at Thorley, Cowes, Yarmouth, &c. In this the 
leaves are much shorter than the culm, rigid and subglaucous ; the 
panicle small, compact; glumes very acute, with mostly three co- 
piously-webbed florets. A somewhat similar but very dwarf form of 
P. pratensis abounds on dry sand by the sea at Ryde, &c., with short, 
flat, rigid leaves, and a short, triangular, spreading panicle. The 
former of the two has, I conceive, been repeatedly taken for P. com- 
pressa, as was indeed done by myself; the latter runs a chance of 
being confounded with P. bulbosa by those unacquainted with the 
true plant of that name. 

Poa compressa. On dry, barren fields, banks and wall-tops ; rare ? 
Abundantly in a dry, elevated field above the southern extremity of 
the park at Swainston, near Rowledge Barn, Dr. T. Bell Salter, Sept. 
8, 1843!!! I have not seen it since, or elsewhere in the island. Plen- 
tiful on a wall in the Cathedral Close, at Winchester, immediately 
facing the entrance to the Dean’s house, as well as on several other 


1109 


walls in the vicinity of the cathedra!; likewise on the North Walis, 
and on wallsin Hyde Street. On a wall in Basingstoke, by the house 
of Mr. May, brewer, July 12, 1850. Perhaps not uncommon in the 
county, but lost sight of by the passing botanist from the close family 
resemblance between it and other species of the genus, as now re- 
stricted. I feel pretty certain of having been shown specimens at 
Andover, by Mr. W. Whale, gathered there by himself, but have no 
examples from thence to recur to for full assurance on the point. The 
Salterns (near Fareham), Mr. W. L. Notcutt. Spikelets, in my Win- 
ton specimens, in some examples three to four, in others five-flowered, 
webless, and agreeing with the var. subcompressa* (P. subcompressa, 
Parn.). The character of having the highest joint of the culm at or 
near the middle of the latter, applies only to small or medium-sized 
specimens; in tall plants the culm is nearly erect from the base, and 
the uppermost node near the top of the stem. The having the sheath 
of the topmost leaf about equal in length with the leaf itself, I find a 
much more, if not always, constant character. 

Glyceria aquatica. In ponds, ditches, rivers, streams and water- 
meadows. This fine and most conspicuous grass is extremely abun- 
dant and widely diffused over the whole of mainland Hants, but is 
totally absent from the Isle of Wight, although there are many locali- 
ties on this side of the Solent apparently congenial to its habits.t 
Abundant about Southampton, Winton (Winnal meadows, &c.), 
Bishop’s Stoke, &c. Plentiful about Petersfield, in streams and 
ditches. In the Avon, near Ringwood, and along most other parts of 
that river. Exceedingly abundant in wet meadows at Christchurch, 
Sopley, Avon, Fordingbridges &c. In the Test, at Forton, near An- 
dover, and at Romsey, besides innumerable other places. Titchfield 
River, Mr. W. L. Notcutt !!! 

Glyceria fluitans. In ponds, ditches, slow streams, and low, wet 
places, meadows, &c.; frequent over the county and Isle of Wight. 

Glyceria plicata. In like places with the last; rare? On the 
heath near Cesar’s Camp, between Farnham and Farnborough, Mr. H. 
C. Watson in litt.! With the characters and appearance of this 


* In those from Basingstoke some of the spikelets bore but two florets. 

+ One cause of the scarcity or absence of a great majority of aquatic or semi- 
aquatic plants common in other districts of the county, which constitutes a local pe- 
culiarity of the Vectian flora, is, I conceive, the impregnation of most of our standing 
water and slow streams with iron, through the decomposition of the pyritic nodules so 
abundant in the greensand and argillaceous strata of the island, and which metal cer- 
tainly acts as a poison to vegetation when in excess in the soil. 


1110 


newly-dissevered species (from G. fluitans) of Fries, I am as yet prac- 
tically unacquainted, but from the description of the assigned dis- 
tinctions, the diversity of opinion respecting its claims, and above all, 
from the remarks in the sixth edition of the ‘ British Flora,’ I should 
fear G. plicata was one of those species that so abound in the pages 
of systematic botanists, but ignored in the volume of Nature’s own 
inditing. 

Sclerochlea maritima (Poa maritima). In moist pastures by the 
sea, and in salt-marshes; common along the Hampshire coast, and in 
several parts of the Isle of Wight. Shores of Yarmouth Harbour, 
above the mill. Plentiful in the salt-marshes at Newtown, and very 
fine about the edges of the brine-pits, &c. In abundance by Yar- 
mouth and Brading, Mr. W. D. Snooke in FI. Vect.!!! The Salterns 
(Fareham), Mr. W. L. Notcutt. Common along the western coast of 
the county. Var.8. Stem diffuse, almost prostrate ; branches strongly 
deflexed; Fl. Dan. xiii. t. 2222? (P. distans). At the farthest ex- 
tremity of St. Helen’s Spit, on the beach near the inn. This I ga- 
thered (now several years back) for P. distans, but Mr. Borrer regards 
it rather as a form of the present species. 

Sclerochloa distans (Poa distans). In sandy pastures and waste 
ground, chiefly near the sea. Plentiful in the marsh-meadows be- 
hind Ryde Dover. Between Yarmouth and Thorley, in a wet spot at 
the eastern end of Stopler’s Copse, Oct. 5, 1845. Salt-marshes at 
Lymington. Along the terrace-walk by the shore at the bottom of 
Pelham Fields, Ryde, abundantly, Rev. G. E. Smith !!! 

Sclerochloa Borreri. Yn muddy salt-marshes, about the edges of 
the drains and ditches. In the ooze of*the ditch on Ryde Dover, at 
the end of Monkton Street, in,the rear of the engine-house, sparingly. 
Abundant in the first meadow, or that nearest the sea, at Freshwater 
Gate. Newtown marshes, and on the marsh-meadows behind Ryde 
Dover, along with S. distans and procumbens, but not observed 
plentifully, July 21,1844. The figure, together with the description 
by Mr. Babington (the founder of the species), of this grass in EH. B. 
Suppl. 2797, are most excellent. At Freshwater, Mr. Borrer, who 
also finds it along the opposite mainland coast, at Stoke’s Bay, Gos- 
port and Southton. 

Sclerochloa procumbens (Poa procumbens). In similar places with 
the three foregoing species ; likewise on waste ground, and at the foot 
of walls, houses, &c., near the sea; not uncommon. In the marsh- 
meadows at the back of Ryde Dover, but not abundant there, July, 
1844. In the lower part of Dover Street, about the edges of the 


1111 


paving and kerb-stones. Under the wall by the Yacht Club House, 
West Cowes, and on waste ground in front of it, plentifully. By the 
White House, East Cowes, and in various other places about that 
town, at least several years ago, but not recently looked for there or 
in the remaining stations just referred to. I haye seen this species 
on the mainland opposite coast, but cannot now find notes (if I made 
such) of its occurrence. I believe to have remarked it at Lymington, 
in or near the Salterns, and I think in other places. 

Sclerochloa rigida (Poarigida). On dry, barren and waste ground, 
fallows, walls, rocks and cliffs; not uncommon either in the Isle of 
Wight or across the water. Amongst the ruins of Quarr Abbey, and 
on Ryde Dover, if not now destroyed by building. On cliffs near 
Ventnor, St. Lawrence, &c. By the road-side between Niton and 
Blackgang, at the foot of the stone fences, pretty abundantly, 1842. 
Abundant in dry, chalky fields at the foot of High Down, between 
the Needles Hotel and Alum Bay. Corn-field near Calbourne New 
Barn, 1842. On the wall or stone-faced bank below the church at 
Newchurch, in considerable plenty, with Petroselinum sativum (quite 
and long naturalized there). At Yarbridge, and various other places. 
Shide Chalk-pit, &c.; rather common throughout the island, Mr. W. 
D. Snooke in Fl. Vect. Not rare on mainland Hants, but time will 
not permit me now to look out for the observed localities amongst my 
notes. Fields at'Selborne. On a wall at Portsmouth, in plenty, and 
gathered in many places in the county. 

Sclerochloa loliacea. On dry, barren and sandy ground, walls, 
banks, cliffs, and pastures by the sea, but rare in the Isle of Wight. 
On Ryde Dover, sparingly ; not seen there for years, and in all likeli- 
hood now quite extirpated. At St. Catharine’s Point, not far from the 
new lighthouse (St. Catharine’s Tower), Sandown Bay. Yarmouth, 
Isle of Wight, Mr. E. Forster, jun., in Bot. Guide, and Mr. Dawson 
Turner in Snooke’s FI. Vect. (probably on Norton Spit). St. Helen’s, 
Dr. Macreight, Man. of Brit. Bot., where I also found it, July, 1839. 
I have no mainland station to assign for this interesting but withal 
somewhat ambiguous species. 

Briza media. In dry or barren fields, pastures, meadows, and on 
turfy heaths; abundant in every part of the island and mainland. 
Profusely on the short turf of our high chalk-downs, as well as in the 
more humid and fertile soil of hay-fields and artificial grass-lands, 
into the produce of which it sometimes enters rather too largely. A 
variety with pale-green spikelets, the result of excess of shade or 
moisture, is not uncommon, and has been occasionally taken on the 


1112 


continent, and perhaps with us, for the following. Panicle much 
less branched or decompounded than in the next species, the spike- 
lets consequently fewer and distant; culms leafless at the top; anthers 
exserted. 

Briza minor. n corn-fields and other cultivated ground, also on 
thin pasture-land by road-sides, but much seldomer in the latter than 
the former situations; very rare. In the two last fields, one on each 
side the road, from Quarr Abbey to Fishouses, abundant in certain 
years, whenever the land is cropped with corn, particularly wheat, at 
other times usually scarce. In 1836, when I first observed it, the 
quantity was very moderate, but the year following it was abundant 
(I think amongst oats), and in 1859 came up in profusion, both 
amongst wheat and vetches. In 1840 scarcely a specimen could be 
found, but in 1842 it was again plentiful, also in 1843, in the right 
hand field (from Quarr), then in lay. In 1838, when the land was 
laid down with clover, the plant almost totally disappeared. Again 
abundant in 1845, and since then up to the present year (1850) found 
when looked for in plenty occasionally, and if not to be seen in the 
fields it may almost always be gathered on their grassy margins, al- 
though not so abundantly. The Briza is certainly permanent in this, 
its only known Isle-of-Wight station, and no casual introduction with 
corn or grass-seeds, as is sufficiently proved by its invariable abun- 
dance when certain crops come in rotation. Abundant in corn-fields 
at Marchwood, near the head of the Southampton Water, on the op- 
posite side to the town, Mr. Borrer!!!_ I gathered it there in plenty 
in 1836, and again this summer (1850), and find it scattered over 
most parts of that vicinity, not only as a weed, in cultivated fields of 
all kinds, but on the short, thin turf or pasture by the road-sides, 
along with such semi-pascual and pratal species as Anthemis Cotula, 
Polygonum aviculare, Pulicaria vulgaris, &c., but much more spa- 
ringly than on the tillage-lands,* nor is it, with us at least, a true 
meadow or pasture-grass, like B. media. Potato-fields at Boscombe, 
near Bournemouth, between Christchurch and Poole, the Hon. C. A. 
Harris, ex. J. Curtis in litt. and Brit. Entom. viii. t. et. fol. 353 (from 
a Hants specimen). No doubt it occurs in other parts of Hants, but 
only probably in the south-west and along the coast. The Isle of 
Wight is, I believe, the most easterly station in England for Briza 
minor, than which few species are more characteristic of the occidental 


* At Poole, in Dorsetshire, Dr. Salter finds Briza minor springing commonly from 
the interstices of the pavement in the less frequented streets of the town. 


1113 


flora. Panicle copiously branched or decompound, with very nu- 
merous spikelets; culms usually leafy nearly to the top, anthers 
included. A more delicate and graceful species even than the last, 
and one of our most beautiful as well as rare grasses, from the silvery 
green of the panicle, and pale, tender verdure of the leaves. In size 
it is scarcely inferior to B. media, rising very commonly in our corn- 
fields from six to eighteen or twenty inches, and I gathered specimens 
this summer at Marchwood which were little short of a yard high. 
The plant tillers like wheat, and sends up frequently numerous culms 
from the same root, often three, the two lateral exactly of the same 
size, shorter than the central one, and slightly ascending at bottom. 
In very tall specimens the summit of the culm is leafless, as in B. 
media. The stamens appear to me from repeated examination to be 
either imperfect or wholly wanting in the majority of the lowermost 
florets of each spikelet, as also the styles. 

_ Cynosurus cristatus. In dry meadows, pastures, and by road-sides ; 
abundant everywhere in the county, constituting a large proportion 
of the crop in our hay-fields and grass-lands. 

C. echinatus it is possible may some day be found in the sea-side 
pastures of West Hants.* 

Dactylis glomerata. In meadows, pastures, by road-sides and 
borders of fields, as well as in woods, groves, orchards (thence called 
Orchard-grass), and other shady places ; acommon but valuable grass 
everywhere. 

Festuca uniglumis. In the loose, sandy shores of the sea, or in 
dry, barren ground adjacent; rare. In the loose sand of St. Helen’s 
Spit, Isle of Wight, in the greatest abundance, where it was first no- 
ticed by Mr. Borrer!!! South-west shore of Portsea Island, but not 
very plentifully. 

Festuca bromoides. Not uncommon on dry, barren ground, walls, 
and in sandy pastures. Formerly on Ryde Dover, now probably lost. 
Wall-top in the Spencer Road, Ryde. Calshot Beach, and various 
other places in the island and on the mainland. Var. 6. Myurus, F. 
Myurus, Sim. &c., not Linn. Chiefly on walls, but quite rare in Hants. 
On the walls round the church-yard at Thorley, in tolerable plenty, 
June 22, 1841, and repeatedly seen there since by myself. On the 


* It is said to have occurred in Kent, and in Sussex (Hastings), but I think has 
not been found in either county of late years. JI have seen specimens (Oct. 21, 1845) 
in the possession of the Rev. Wm. M’cAll, of Brixton, Isle of Wight, gathered under 
the Hoe, at Plymouth, I believe by the Rey. W. 8. Hore. 


Vou: tl. aD 


1114 


garden-wall of Wolverton, by Shorwell, 1839. Wall at East Cowes, 
June, 1837. Not remarked on the mainland. Said not to be the 
Linnean F. Myurus, nor of continental botanists. In appearance this, 
the Capontail-grass, is very distinct from the commoner state of the 
species. 

Festuca ovina. In dry, barren and especially elevated pastures 
and heathy places; common throughout the county and Isle of Wight. 
Abundant on the high downs. Var. 8. duriuscula. Equa'ly frequent. 
Var. y. rubra, F. rubra, LZ. In loose sand by the sea, and in sandy 
pastures, I think frequent. On St. Helen’s and Norton Spits, Isle of 
Wight, &c. A mere creeping-rooted state of F. ovina, as 1 am now 
quite convinced of its being. 

Festuca pratensis. In moist meadows, pastures, on banks, by 
road-sides, &c.; frequent. Plentiful by the road-side between Ryde 
and Ashey, at the upper end of Rosemary Lane, if it be not rather the 
inland state of the last. Var. 8. loliacea, F. loliacea, Sm. Wet mea- 
dows, not common. Ina marshy meadow called Pan Moor, just out 
of Newport, towards Shide. Abundant in meadows at Easton, Fresh- 
water Gate, where it may be seen passing into F. pratensis, which 
abounds there. Whitwell. Meadow by the stream-side a little be- 
low Calbourne Mill. By the side of the Medina, between Newport 
and Shide, Mr. W. D. Snooke in FI. Vect. !!! Now very properly 
reduced by common consent to a variety of F. pratensis. 

Festuca arundinacea (F. elatior, Sm. an Linn.?). Onthe banks of 
rivers, and in moist meadows and pastures, also on the moist, sandy 
sea-beach, and wet banks along the shore; rare. Upper end of San- 
down Bay, near the foot of the Culver Cliffs, in plenty. Abundant 
on the wet, slipped land under the cliffs at the mouth of Luccombe 
Chine, on the Shanklin side. I have not met with this species as yet 
on the mainland. Of this tall and stout grass Mr. H.C. Watson, who 
had also remarked it at Luccombe, writes, March, 1842 :—“ There is 
a large Festuca by the shore at the entrance of Luccombe Chine, 
going thither from Shanklin Chine, which has puzzled me a good deal. 
A root now in my garden, I delieve to have been brought from that 
spot, produces leaves near a yard long, and a culm of five feet high, 
with very numerous spikelets, much more ovate than those of F. pra- 
tensis, and with the glumes and palez more acute and slightly awned. 
I fancy this to be the F. arundinacea of continental botanists.” I 
have seen the same plant at Exmouth and Plymouth. Having neg- 
lected to examine this plant for some years, I cannot speak to the di- 
varicate state of the branches of the panicle after flowering, given by 


1115 


Mr. Watson, as characteristic of the species. The Isle-of-Wight 
plant would seem assuredly to be the F. littorea of Wahlenberg, FI. 
Suec. edit. 2, i. p. 66, as well from the references to the F. elatior of 
Smith and E. B. as from the agreement of our plant with Wahlen- 
berg’s description. The name “ elatior” ought, I apprehend, to be 
retained, as in the last edition of the ‘ British Flora,’ for the F. arun- 
dinacea of continental authors is in a hopeless state of confusion, and 
I fear the characters and synonyms of F. elatior and pratensis are still 
in a fluctuating condition. They are certainly most puzzling and am- 
biguous species. The Isle-of-Wight F. arundinacea is a large, mari- 
time form of Smith’s elatior. 

Festuca gigantea. In moist, shady woods, copses and hedgerows; 
not uncommon. In Quarr Copse, Shore Copse, and elsewhere about 
Ryde. Whitefield Wood. Near Yarbridge. Knighton E. Copse, 
by Newchurch. Shanklin Chine, Appuldurcombe, &c. Frequent in 
most parts of mainland Hants, so as to make a statement of localities 
needless. A variety of a more delicate and slender aspect occurs here 
and there, differing only in having the spikelets fewer and more re- 
mote, the number of florets being the same in both. This I believe 
to be the B. triflorus of Linneus, figured in E. B. xxvii. t. 1918, and 
in F]. Dan. iii. t. 440. The present species is nearly intermediate 
between Festuca and Bromus, making an approach also to Brachy- 
podium ; the habit is quite that of a Bromus. 

Bromus asper. Abundant in most parts of the county and Isle of 
Wight, in damp woods, copses, groves, and thick, shady hedgerows. 
One of the tallest and most graceful of our grasses, often upwards of 
six feet high, and most conspicuous from its large panicle, elegantly 
drooping in all directions. 

Bromus erectus. On dry, sandy or chalky, open pastures, banks, 
and by road-sides ; very rare, or at all events very local, in Hants. 
At Luccombe, Isle of Wight, where it appears to have been first no- 
ticed by Dawson Turner, Esq., and communicated by him to the au- 
thor of the ‘ Flora Vectiana’!!! It still grows there in plenty, along 
the steep descent into the chine from the Bonchurch and Shanklin 
Road, above Rose Cliff, and in vast abundance on the sloping side of 
the down above the road between Luccombe and Bonchurch, here 
and there covering the ground, to the exclusion of every other grass, 
at an elevation of perhaps about three hundred feet above the sea, 
June 16, 1844. Bank by the road-sidea short distance beyond Wey- 
hill (coming from Andover), before turning off to Appleshaw, also on 
a hedge-bank near Appleshaw, in both places plentifully, June, 1848. 


1116 


Tese are the only stations at present known to me as affording this 
rather rare grass, of which the description in Bertolonr’s ‘ Flora Ita- 
lica’ is particularly excellent. The B. agrestis of Allioni, and of the 
very faithful figure in Host’s ‘ Gramina Austriaca, i. p. 9, t. 10. 

Bromus sterilis. Nearly everywhere, most abundantly, in waste 
places, by way-sides, the borders of fields, and on dry hedge-banks, 
walls, &c. 

Bromus diandrus. In dry, barren and sandy ground, and espe- 
cially on old walls; very rare? Not known to me as inhabiting the 
Isle of Wight. Gathered in some plenty on a wall near the gaol at 
Southampton, May 28, 1840, and noticed, July 20, 1850, in very con- 
siderable plenty on various parts of the ruins of Netley Abbey, in fully 
ripe seed. These stations I have since learned from Mr. Borrer had 
been long known to him. It will doubtless be found elsewhere in 
the county. 

B. maximus, a nearly allied species, native in the Channel Islands, 
may perhaps acquire hereafter a greater claim to be called British by 
its discovery along our southern coast. 

B. tectorum, a common grass on roofs, &c., over most parts of the 
continent from Sweden southward, seems to differ from B. diandrus 
in the broader leaves, longer, more whorled branches of the panicle, 
and smaller and drooping spikelets, and to partake of the characters 
of both this last and B. sterilis. 

Bromus secalinus. In corn-fields; not very uncommon in the Isle 
of Wight and mainland Hants, but excepting in seed not easily dis- 
tinguishable from B. mollis. About Ryde, occasionally, but in no 
fixed station. At Whatcombe, near Newport, Mr. Wm. Hughes, 
where it abounded to an injurious degree some years ago, having been 
introduced, Mr. H. supposes, with seed-wheat from Suffolk, and it 
was only by changing the seed that he was at last successful in rid- 
ding his fields of it. At Redhill, abundant, Jd./ Amongst vetches 
at Play Street Farm, by Ryde, Mr. Wm. Jolliffe, 1841! On the sea- 
coast at Ryde, Withering. Bot. Arrang. 7th edit. Corn-field at 
Marchwood, in great plenty, July 22, 1850. Sandy corn-fields at 
Cove, near Farnborough, July 14, 1850. 

Bromus commutatus. In corn and other cultivated fields, and 
their borders, by way-sides, in pastures, and even in woods and 
hedges; in various parts of the Isle of Wight. At Ryde, by the new 
road from the Dover to St. John’s turnpike, in plenty, along the bank 
on the right hand, 1850. By the road-side between Ryde and Brad- 
ing, before coming to the turning to St. Helen’s, frequent, July 5, 


1117 


1839. Field near Coppid Hall. By the pathway between Sandown 
and Shanklin, and in a corn-field near Shanklin, towards Luccombe. 
Hedge-banks near Carpenter’s, below St. Helen’s, and elsewhere in 
the island. I am not prepared to give the distribution of this species 
in mainland Hants from personal observation, but suppose it is not 
uncommon there. Fields by Down Lane (Fareham), Mr. W. L. Not- 
cutt. Very apt to be mistaken for B. arvensis. 

Bromus mollis. A most universal and abundant species through- 
out the county, in meadows, pastures, corn-fields, waste places, by 
road-sides, &c. Very variable in the degree of pubescence of the 
leaves and spikelets. 

Bromus racemosus. In just the same places as the last, but some- 
what less common and universal. Not rare about Ryde, as in fields 
between that town and Binstead. Fields near Ashey, &c. Abun- 
dant in meadows on Sandown Level, where I find a variety interme- 
diate, as it were, between this and the last, with the culms pubescent. 
I can hardly believe this to be more than a glabrous state of B. 
mollis. 

{? Bromus arvensis. In corn-fields and waste places, by road-sides, 
&c.; extremely rare, and held to be an introduced and imperfectly 
naturalized species in all the assigned English stations. Fields near 
Southampton, Sherard. Corn-field between Netley Abbey and the 
old fort, 1804 or 1805, Mr. Borrer. Southampton Bay, Hook. and 
Arn. Brit. Fl. 6th edit. (the same station as the last ?—if not, where 
is Southton Bay ?). I have never seen Hampshire specimens of this 
grass. The plants belonging to this section of Bromus, which con- 
stitutes the genus Serrafalcus, Parlatore, and of the ‘ Manual,’ are 
kept apart by characters not the most satisfactory to such as seek for 
broad grounds of distinction in species. 

Brachypodium sylvaticum. Yxtremely common in moist woods, 
thickets, groves, copses, and on shady hedge-banks, as well as on dry, 
elevated and exposed places on downs and heaths, throughout the 
Isle of Wight, and in most, if not all, parts of mainland Hants. Var. 
8. Spikes nearly erect. In open, heathy or grassy places on chalk- 
downs. “On the downs in various places there is a very deceptive- 
looking Brachypodium, which I suppose is a variety of B. sylvaticum, 
but it has some of the characters of B. pinnatum, such as the erect, 
pinnated spike, cylindrical, hairy spikelets (are not those of B. pin- 
natum usually smoothish ?), and almost glabrous leaves, but then the 
leaves are broad and the awns long, which are strong characters of B. 


1118 


. sylvaticum. This plant appears to be nearly intermediate between 
the two.” (Mr. Wm. Wilson Saunders in litt., July, 1841). 

The above remarks of my friend Mr. Saunders apply to a plant I 
had long and repeatedly observed in dry, open, hilly places in various 
parts of the island, and which I had always looked upon as a variety 
of B. sylvaticum, differing merely in its more erect or less drooping 
spikelets, and such Mr. Mitten, who received specimens from me, 
considers it. The variety occurs abundantly on the slopes of our 
downs at Bonchurch; between Shorwell and Brixton; behind the 
Tolt Copse, near Gatcombe; near Hampstead; by Yarmouth, &c. 
It is certainly different in aspect and character from the genuine B. 
pinnatum, which I have not succeeded in finding in this county, al- 
though from its frequency in most of the adjoining ones I cannot but 
think it must soon be forthcoming in Hants. Our var. 8. I have seen 
in many places across the water, and gathered it plentifully at the 
back of Box Hill in August last. 

The inner pale in the florets of B. sylvaticum overlaps and incloses 
two of the stamens, and the ovary, leaving the scale (nectary, Sm.), 
which is deeply cloven almost to the base, and the remaining stamen 
between the pales, free; this third and outer stamen lies in and ex- 
actly fills the space left between the inflexed edges of the inner pale. 

Triticum caninum. In woods, thickets, hedges, and on banks, &c., 
particularly chalk or limestone, and in shady situations; to myself 
appearing quite uncommon in Hants, as I think I have heard Mr. 
Borrer say it isin Sussex. I cannot quote a single habitat for this 
species in the Isle of Wight from my own observation, and as I un- 
derstand the plant, but Dr. Salter finds what he considers T. caninum 
plentifully in hedges between Holm Wood and Aldermoor Mill, near 
Ryde, as also between Havant and Leigh Park. In Akender Wood, 
near Alton, July 13, 1850. Butler’s Copse, by Hambledon, Aug. 8, 
1850. Thick hedgerow a few hundred yards east of Nettlebed Farm, 
near Alresford ; in all three stations quite sparingly, and in company 
with Hordeum sylvaticum (Elymus europeus), of which it bas much 
of the aspect. At all times readily distinguishable from every variety 
of the two following by its fibrous root, fewer (three to five) ribbed 
florets, and very long, wavy awns, that give it a remarkably bristly ap- 
pearance. 

Triticum repens. On hedge-banks, borders of fields, in waste and 
cultivated places, woods, &c. A very common and often extremely 
troublesome grass. Var. 8. liitorea. Whole plant more or less glau- 


1119 


cous; florets with or without awns (Host. Gram. Aust. iv. p. 5, t. 9, 
and perhaps also his T. glaucum, p. 6, t. 10). Abundant under the 
shore at Apley, and along the coast at the Priory, Sea View, &c. 
Under Apley walks the plant may be found exhibiting every grada- 
tion between the awned and unawned states, and of every shade of 
colour between the usual inland green and the intensest blue or glau- 
cescent tinge, which it generally contracts by the sea. Wicor Hard; 
Cams shore; the Salterns (all near Fareham): Mr. W. L. Notcutt. 

Triticum junceum. On sandy banks, hillocks, and waste ground 
by the sea-beach, along with var. 8. of the preceding. Very fine on 
the shore a little east of Ryde, beyond Apley House. Sandy shore 
at the Priory. In great abundance on the loose sand of Norton Spit, 
and in many other places. The characters given for discriminating 
this from the preceding, both being themselves prone to exhibit great 
inconstancy in the very points adduced as arguments for their sepa- 
ration, are just such as may be created by the modifying influences of 
soil and situation. My own belief is, that T. junceum is but a sea- 
side variety of T. repens, whilst T. caninum is to all appearance truly 
distinct from either. 

Lolium perenne. Pilentiful everywhere in meadows, pastures, waste 
ground, corn-fields, by road-sides, &c. Var. 8. Spikes branched. In 
the Spencer Road, Ryde, Dr. T. Bell Salter! who finds this com- 
pound form extremely common about Ryde, on the Dover, between 
Ryde and Ashey, as well as elsewhere. 

tLolium multifiorum. In cultivated fields, and on banks, &c. ; 
rare, and probably either naturalized by direct importation with 
foreign grass-seed, or an annual or biennial state of L. perenne, pro- 
duced by culture, as suggested by the authors of the sixth edition of 
the ‘ British Flora.’ In a clover-field near Fernhill, Aug. 1841. Plen- 
tiful and with very long awns along a private path to Brooklands (the 
Rev. Augustus Hewitt’s) from Binstead, Dr. T. Bell Salter !!! 

Lolium temulentum. In corn-fields, chiefly amongst wheat and 
barley, but certainly not common in the county, at least in this island, 
nor have I chanced to fall in with it myself. Between Lake and 
Sandown, Dr. T. Bell Salter, Sept. 1838 (two species only) !! Amongst 
barley at Whitcombe, near Newport, Mr. Wm. Hughes !!' Corn-fields 
about Yarmouth, the late Mr. Joseph Squire ; and Thorley, Mr. R. 


Gibbs ! W. A. BROMFIELD. 
Eastmount, Ryde, Isle of Wight. 


(To be continued). 


1120 


Contents of the ‘ Botanical Gazette, No 23, November, 1850. 


On the Structure of the Fruit in Punica; by H. F. Hance, Ph. D. 

On the Coloration of the Water of the Serpentine; by William 
Thompson, Esq. 

A Notice of Potamogeton trichoides of Chamisso as a Native of 
Britain ; by Charles C. Babington, M.A. 

On the Morphology of Tubers and Bulbs; by T. Irmisch. 

Literature: Hooker’s ‘ British Flora,’ sixth edition. ‘ Annals of 
Natural History.’ ‘ Hooker’s Journal of Botany.’ ‘The Phytolo- 
gist.’ ‘ Botanische Zeitung.’ 

Proceedings of Societies: Botanical Society of London. 

Miscellanea: Record of Localities. On the axillary Bulbils of 
the Garden Tulip ; by the Rev. R. C. Douglas, M.A. New Arrange- 
ment of the Crucifere ; by M. Chatin. Remarks on the Growth of 
certain large Stems of Alga, and on the means of determining theif, 
age; by F. J. Ruprecht. Collections of Plants. a) 


Contents of ‘ Hooker’s Journal of Botany, No. 23, November, 1850. 


The Origin of the Existing Vegetable Creation ; by @ . F: Schouw; | 
translated by Dr. Wallich. asf a 

Notes on the Botany, Weather, &c., of the United ‘States ; ‘ay W. 
A. Bromfield, M.D. sie ‘40 

On the Dates of Fezzan; by Dr. James Richardson, | 

Contributions to the Botany of Western is yA r Dalzell, 
M.A. 

Appendix to the ‘ Spicilegia Gorgonea,’ pola the: Flora,of 
the Niger Expedition ;’ by P. B. Webb, Esq. 

Botanical Information: Note on Stilbacee; by Dr. Benjamin 
Clarke. On the Kosso, or Braya anthalmintica. Victoria Regine. 
Mr. Spruce’s Dried Plants of the Amazon. 

Notices of Books: Hooker’s Sikkim Rhododendrons. Griffith’s 
Posthumous Papers. 


E. NEWMAN, PRINTER, 2), DEVONSHIRE STREET, BiSHOPSGATE STREET. 


hd oath. 


2 


‘ 
Ws 


aor py ln 
ey URE CE 


Sec Cae a 


er eer 


FE: 


ee 


¥ 


Las gael $e 


ta ae Sant SERN SS 


» N = ‘ 
MAW 


AN 


Ws . SS 


AX 


AK