Botany. 439 



Bree's notice of /. tuberosa also reminds me that, some years ago, Dr. 

 Nash published, in his History of Worcestershire ^ /Vis JTlphium as found 

 by the side of the river Avon at Fladbury; and, on Nash's authority, it 

 was inserted in Dr. Stokes's edition of Withering^ Berkenhout's Synopsis 

 ef the Nat. Hist, of Britain^ and other publications ; but the plant (if 

 really found at all) must have been an outcast from a garden, and cannot 

 now be found at all on the banks of the Avon. 1 by no means would 

 wish to insinuate any doubt whatever as to Mr. Bree's or Mr. Drum- 

 mond's accuracy, as to the Irish habitat of /. tuberosa, but merely (in the 

 absence of more specific intelligence) to hint that perhaps the " old hedge 

 bank" was the boundary of a former garden, and the station near the " old 

 ruin," probably so likewise. 



While, however, as Dr. Withering remarks (see new edit, of his father's 

 Arrangement of British Plants, vol. ii. p. 89.), " from the progress of time 

 and intercourse with foreign parts, so many exotics have become naturalised 

 in Britain," plants truly wild occasionally spring up in habitats where they 

 were before unknown j and records of these facts, when noticed in con- 

 nection with the nature of the soil, become truly valuable. Thus, in your 

 Second Volume, p. 70., Mr. Bree notices the apparently spontaneous ap- 

 pearance of Epipactis latifolia in a new plantation he had made, though it 

 was previously unknown in his vicinity; and Purton, in the Appendix to 

 his Midland Flora, mentions the ffinothera biennis as springing up on the 

 banks of the river Arrow, after the widening of the bed of that stream, and 

 I have myself observed the same plant on the bank of the river Teme, 

 probably after an operation of a like nature. These and other similar 

 facts are confessedly valuable ; but I must enter my protest, in accordance 

 with E. {Mag. Nat. Hist. vol. iii. p. 460.), against, I must say, the bo- 

 tanical fraud of scattering the seeds of exotic plants among our wild 

 woods and rocks, either for the purpose of astonishing the traveller, or 

 hoaxing the scientific collector. Notwithstanding, then, your query as to 

 increasing the beauty of our wild scenery, and Mr. Thompson's support 

 of the practice (p. 86.), I do think it childish at best, and can only com- 

 pare those who thus employ themselves to the rustics in the vicinity of 

 Bredon Hill, in this county, who some years ago constructed a pyramid 

 of the oolitic stones which there abound, beneath which they placed an 

 immense horse-shoe, made for the occasion, to astonish the antiquaries of 

 the year 3000. * The garden, the plantation, and the pleasure-ground are 

 the proper places for the exhibition of the effect of man's sportive and 

 improving hand; but let us leave the woods and rocks to their native 

 wildness and magnificence, as long indeed as the advance of population 

 allows us to retain any wilds at all. If, indeed, as Mr. Thompson hints, 

 the winds, birds, and animals may introduce fresh species without our aid, 

 here we have opportunity for observation and remark ; but doubt, con- 

 fusion, and everlasting dispute must result from the reprehensible practice 

 to which I refer, independently of the hoax on the collecting botanist, 

 for that is not " the limit of the evil." Last week I passed through a 

 wood covering one of the transition limestone hills near Ledbury, which 

 was most profusely ornamented by the beautiful Tfcia sylvatica, festooning 

 the trees on all sides ; I was delighted in the extreme at this wild produc- 

 tion of nature so strikingly lovely, but had it been in the power of any 

 person to have informed me that some ornamenter of wilds had been 

 purposely sowing the plant in the wood, my pleasure would have been 

 much abated, nor could I have in that case concluded that a calcareous 



* I must exclude from this censure that genuine son of humour, J. F. 

 Dovaston, Esq., who has frequently enlivened your pages, and who made 

 (Vol. II. p. 400.) t\iQ amende honorable for planting Antirrhinum Cyrabalaria 

 jn Wales. 



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