260 WILD FLOWERS OF 



spot, I could never again detect it there. The narrow* 

 leaved Pepperwort (Lepidium ruderale), in like manner 

 shifts its quarters very capriciously. The beautiful 

 crimson Grass- Vetch (Latliyrus nissolia), is another 

 wanderer, that rarely presents its crimson flowers to 

 the charmed eye in bushy places, where it would be 

 totally inconspicuous without such adornments, as its 

 leaves simulate those of grass. The botanist, then, 

 must let no ramble escape him without improvement, 

 or he may lose opportunities never to occur again, for 

 it often happens that various contingences are re- 

 quired for the flowering of a plant, which may not 

 again soon happen for many years : thus, when an 

 undergrowth of wood is cut down in a coppice or 

 forest, that season the ground being more open to the 

 influence of the sun, plants arise and blossom before 

 unknown there, which, as the trees grow, sink again 

 into profound repose and, as in the tale of the 

 "Sleeping Beauty of the Wood," remain absorbed in 

 deep slumber, till the sun, like a liberating hero, once 

 more pierces into the broken labyrinths of their 

 prison, and rouses them to renewed life and joy. 



A few very rare species seem singularly restricted 

 to narrow bounds, from whence, like Prometheus 

 chained to his rock, they are unable to escape, and so 

 may always be met with in the places indicated.* 

 Thus ILelimihemim Breweri, has been found only on 



* A plant that is singularly confined to one spot, as the Origanum 

 Tournefortii, never met with except on the island of Amorgos, in the 

 Archipelago, may become by accident altogether lost to the earth $ and 

 this appears to be the case with the Smooth-podded Vetch (Vicia leevigata), 

 described by SMITH, and figured at p. 483 of English Botany. It grew on 

 the pebbly shore of Weymouth, Dorsetshire, " the only station recorded 

 for it in the whole world," say Messrs. HOOKER and ARNOTT, in the last 

 edition of the British, Flora, " and there it is now lost." 



