AUGUST. 353 



found in Cornwall and Dorsetshire. Though the 

 amethystine hue is surely the appropriate colour of 

 the blossomed ling, yet when occasionally white flow- 

 ered shrubs appear among the purple, the effect is 

 very elegant. 



The beautiful Cornish or G-oonhilly Heath (Erica 

 vagans), flowers in August, and the Botanical Explo- 

 rator who has the opportunity, should now devote a 

 day or two to the examination of the Lizard District 

 where it grows. There this lovely plant covers acres 

 upon acres of barren moor with its snowy and pink 

 blossoms, presenting a spectacle of the utmost 

 interest to the geographical botanist.* 



It is remarkable that the family of Heaths are con- 

 fined entirely to the old world, and while but few 

 species occur in the north, more than three hundred 

 occur in the country about the Cape of Good Hope. 

 These are splendid ornaments in green-houses, for 

 they exhibit a surprising diversity in their flowers : 



* The Lizard District has been well illustrated both in its picturesque 

 and botanical features by the Rev. C. A. JOHNS, in A Week at the Lizard, 

 an example of the interest attachable by observation to a single and retired 

 tract of country however remote or seemingly barren. Besides the Cor- 

 nish Heath, the very local Strapwort (Corrigiola littoralis], Hexandrous 

 Water- wort (Elating hexandra)^ Whorled Knotgrass (Illecebrum verticil- 

 latum), the Least Gentianella (.Cicendiafiliformis), &c. may all be found 

 on the shore of the Loe Pool, a wide expanse of water near Helston, six 

 miles from the Lizard, or in its vicinity. Near Penrose Creek, says Mr. 

 JOHNS, the turf on the verge of the cliff for many miles of this coast, is in 

 spring studded with countless sky-blue star-like flowers of the Vernal 

 Squill (Scilla verna), and " in the months of August and September, the 

 Autumnal Squill (Scilla autumnalis), a plant very like the Vernal species, 

 but much less beautiful, comes into flower here and there along the coast, 

 but is nowhere, except at Cudden Point, so abundant as to form a bota- 

 nical feature. Its flowers are more pyramidal in their mode of growth, 

 and of a dingy purple hue. The leaves do not appear until the flowers 

 have faded." Various Trefoils, as Trifolium striatum, T. strictum, T. 

 Bocconi, and T. Molineiri, are also inhabitants of the Lizard District,- in 

 Caerthillian Valley. f ^ f 



2 A 



