604 Coronilla varia in Britain. 



plant, quite destitute of flowers or fruit, which, in its foliage and 

 habit, struck me immediately as being nothing else than Coro- 

 nilla varia ; a species very familiar to me from having gathered 

 its pretty variegated heads of flowers so often on the Continent, 

 especially in the Bois de Boulogne, at Paris, where it abounds. 

 Unwilling to trust to comparisons from memory alone, I care- 

 fully compared the specimen, on my return, with living ones 

 from Page's garden in this town, and found them agree ex- 

 actly. I forwarded both the wild and cultivated plants, in a 

 dried state, to a gentleman who holds the highest rank in this 

 country as an accurate and practical observer: his verdict I 

 have not yet received. 



Last spring my attention was called by my excellent friend 

 Captain Brine, R. N., to a plant in his garden at Boldre Hill, 

 near Lymington, which he said had been planted there by a 

 friend of his own, the Rev. Mr. Levett, who found it growing 

 wild, a year or two before, amongst the rocks at Linton, in 

 the county of Devon, and brought it thence on account 

 of the beauty of its flowers. As these were not even in the 

 bud when I was first shown the plant, nothing but the foliage 

 and general habit enabled me to pronounce with confidence 

 on the genus and species. The transmission of flowering spe- 

 cimens, three days ago, at my request, proved that I had not 

 decided rashly ; and convinced me more than ever that my 

 Berry Head plant and Captain Brine's were the same. Indeed, 

 I know of nothing amongst British leguminous vegetables 

 which resembles Coronilla. Hippocrepis comdsa comes, per- 

 haps, as close as any ; but it is not near so large, and the leaf- 

 lets are very different in shape, as well as size. Conspicuous 

 as Chrysocoma Linosyris is when in flower, its discovery at the 

 Berry Head is of recent date. And why may not Coronilla varia 

 have been overlooked on the same spot where I stumbled on 

 it, by pure accident, in climbing over a rocky ledge, beneath 

 which, in a kind of nook, or recess, looking towards the land, 

 and quite sheltered from the sea winds, I found it growing. 

 The second specimen I left to flower and seed if it pleased : 

 and the day was too far advanced to permit a search lor more. 



In looking over a small collection of dried British plants, 

 about two years since, belonging to a friend, and which were 

 chiefly collected in the neighbourhood of the Lakes, I was 

 much surprised to find a specimen of Coronilla varia, and ex- 

 pressed an opinion, at the time, that some mistake had occurred 

 in substituting that plant in the place of another, which it was 

 intended to represent; but was assured that no question existed 

 as to their being all wild specimens. I was unable to gain 

 farther particulars respecting the Coronilla, because that with 



