HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP, 



The Inula leads us into one of those mazes caused by 

 the polyonymy of botanical literature. Inula dysen- 

 terica, the common fleabane, is by some authors 

 described as Pnlicaria, while the Inula conyza is 

 sometimes termed Conyza stjnarrosa, this latter being 

 the herbe anx puces of the French. Anyhow, pulicaria 

 best stamps the fleabane as the possessor of the 

 virtues ascribed to it, and the old herbalists agreed 

 that if it were burnt in any place haunted by fleas 

 they would certainly be driven forth by it. 



Besides these fleabanes and fleaworts the common 

 wormwood, Arteinhia vulgaris, was held to be a sove- 

 reign expellent. 



Julius Ccesar Scaliger insisted that bedsteads made 

 of fir were especially dear to fleas, that they are also 

 much generated among maps and books, but above 

 all in chicken-houses ; by way of remedy he says, 

 Odore Cypressifiigari, persitasum est. 



In the treatise of John Baptist Porta, concerning 

 the riches and delights of natural magic, he gives a 

 wonderful recipe, Ul convcniant pidices, by smearing 

 a stick with the fat of a salted hedgehog ; if you 

 place this stick under the bed, says he, all the fleas 

 will gather about it. James Hooper. 



NOTES ON THE BOTANY COLUMN OF 

 OUR NOVEMBER NUMBER. 



r^LORA OF £>£' A L.— There is none published 

 ^ specially of the Deal or Sandwich district, 

 but F. H. Habben will find a good deal of informa- 

 tion — showing the locality to be by no means a 

 despicable one — in Cowell's "Floral Guide for East 

 Kent," published in 1839, and now to be picked up for 

 "an old song." Good lists are given on pp. 73-75, 

 many of which, however, F. H. H. seems to have 

 found, along with a few interesting species not 

 mentioned. It was a little foolish of anyone to 

 represent that about Deal there was "little or no 

 work in the botanical way " to be done. Let F. H. H. 

 digest well this fact : good botanical work, perhaps 

 the best, much better than ranging over a wide 

 area, can be done anywhere in the countiy. Let 

 F, H. H. pick up everything he sees that has vege- 

 table life, all the mosses, scale-mosses, lichens, or 

 small fungi that he may find, and try to name them, 

 or if not atlept enough yet to do so, let him wrap 

 each carefully up in a packet by itself, and label 

 with date and exact locality. Hereafter, when he 

 has exhausted the Phanerogams, he may be glad, 

 nay, he will be, that he has done so. Damp hollows, 

 oases of vegetation amongst the sandhills, cannot 

 fail to be proline, if he take care, searching an acre 

 of bank well, in preference to a mile of sliingle less 

 thoroughly. A Hora of Kent is not yet published, 

 and by the time a couple of hundred packets of 

 cryptogamic insignificances have been collected, the 

 eye of the gatherer will at least have been educated 

 to see differences littie wotted of ; and then, too, any 



cryptogamist would be only too glad to have the over- 

 hauling and determining of the collection for F. II. H. 

 The items would be available for the future flora, and 

 F. H. H. encouraged by finding he could add some- 

 thing to the granary of botanical knowledge, even in 

 a district despised of some men at least. 



Bee Ore/us in 1880. — Here in the north, on the 

 magnesian limestone of Wetherby and Bramham, the 

 same scarcity has been deplored as is bewailed for the 

 south midlands and Sussex by J. S. In Yorkshire we 

 have had two years of scarcity : 0. apifera, plentiful 

 in 1878, few in 1879, only one near Tadcaster and 

 one in Bramham Park in 1880 having turned up to 

 my knowledge. I and others have sought vainly. 



Turritis glabra, or Arabis Tur?-ita. Others were 

 doubtless surprised besides Mr. Douglas to find 

 Mr. Dillon at page 210, writing of Turritis glabra 

 as " not now considered native in any part of Britain." 

 I expected others would remark upon Mr. Dillon's 

 error, but as they seem to have ^"agsjimed (as Mr. 

 Douglas does) that they and he were thinking of the 

 same thing, perhaps a suggestion from me may help 

 to clear up the matter. Was it not Arabis Turrita 

 (Linn.) that Mr. Dillon meant ? Though without proof, 

 the misunderstanding lies there, I believe. Arabis 

 Turrita (Linn.) has occurred on walls at Oxford, 

 Cambridge, and in Kinross, but only as an introduced 

 plant. One of its book names, which no sensible 

 man, let us hope, ever uses, is said to be " Tower 

 Wall Cress." Turritis glabraJJ-,.) or Arabis perfoliata 

 (Lamarck), as it is now more generally called, is a 

 native undoubtedly in Britain, occurring as far north 

 as Roxburgh, at least, whence I have specimens, the 

 right thing, from Mr. A. Brotherston, of Kelso. 

 Mr. Dillon must in some way, for some reason, be 

 confounding the two plants. Both are tall slender 

 Crucifers, both have radical tufts of lanceolate leaves 

 with hairs on them ; both have somewhat arrow- 

 head-shaped stem-clasping stem-leaves. There are 

 differences, of course, but exactly such as Mr. Dillon 

 may very well have overlooked, especially if his 

 specimen was just towering for bloom. The Turritis 

 glabra is very glabrous, the sagittate leaves smooth 

 and glaucous, with a bloom like that on an unripe 

 greengage plum, but only above ; the lower leaves, 

 as I have said above, are hairy. Lastly, Arabis 

 Turrita grown quickly under certain conditions is 

 much less hairy at one time than at another. Mr. 

 Douglas is quite right about his plant ; and Mr. Dillon 

 almost as certainly quite mistaken about his. 



Jersey Fern-like Blecknum, but fertile. — The frond 

 in outline like barren Blecknum spicatit, but with 

 sori on the back, without barren fronds, sounds as 

 if it were the common Folypodium vulgare ; or was 

 it from some fernery ? It is idle work guessing 

 botanical conundrums. Mr. Woollcombe's best plan 

 would be to show his fern to Mr. Druce of ii8 High 

 Street, Oxford, or send it to the Editor of Science- 

 Gossip. F. A. L. 



B 2 



