INTRODUCTION. 17 



as a noxious weed, was brought originally to us from 

 the East Indies and Abyssinia, and so followed the 

 steps of a set of quacks, who used its seeds as an 

 emetic or cathartic.* Probably many plants have 

 been accidently earned about in this way, and 

 assuredly others have been purposely planted. 



So Diplotaxis tenuifolia, occurring on the walls of 

 Tenby, in South Wales, and other old towns, may 

 have accompanied the Flemmings, when they settled 

 in this country, from the Continent, in the reigns 

 of Henry I. and II. From abandoned and ruined 

 gardens, numerous plants, once esteemed as simple, 

 but efficient remedies for various disorders, or nur- 

 tured for some real or supposed virtue, have arisen, 

 to spread about the vicinity, lingering like mementoes 

 of departed joys, as if hoping they might yet be called 

 upon to resume their former functions. Thus Senecio 

 squalidus remained a great number of years on old 

 walls, near Worcester cathedral, a former member 

 probably of the convent garden, and yet existed in 

 1849. The same plant grows abundantly, on walls 

 at Oxford, escaped from the physic garden there. 

 Atropa Belladonna although now naturalized among 

 the stony hollows of the Cottes wolds, in Grloucester- 

 shire, and in other neglected spots, is a lurid plant, 

 certainly derived from the monasteries, and it now 

 flourishes in such profusion, near Furness Abbey, 

 Lancashire, that the " Yale of Nightshade " has been 

 appropriately applied to the spot. AristolocTiia clema- 

 tilis, having a celebrity for female complaints, was 

 cultivated in the gardens of nunneries, where, from 

 its abiding roots, it is still to be met with, about 



* WILLDENOW Principles of Botany, 8vo. p. 390. 



C 



