of certain British Plants, 87 



crops which may happen to be under culture at the time, and 

 they are perpetually shifting their quarters from one field to 

 another. Some of these succeed in establishing themselves to 

 a greater or less extent in the hedges, and about the borders 

 of cultivated fields, but are never to be met with in uncul- 

 tivated districts. Many of these can scarcely be considered 

 as even naturalised, certainly not as truly indigenous plants ; 

 but it must be left to the judgment of the observer to decide 

 whether any species in particular is to be placed under this 

 or the following head, until better information respecting its 

 mode of growth in other places has been obtained. 



3. Species possibly not indigenous. — It is this third en- 

 quiry which will afford most scope for discussion ; and many 

 persons will at first be disposed to consider the object as of 

 very little importance. But it seems to afford the safest 

 means, at this late period of the earth's history, of arriving at 

 anything like certainty in our conclusions respecting our 

 truly indigenous flora. What has been said under the last 

 head is, perhaps, almost sufficient; but the enquirer may 

 often assist his judgment by obtaining local information, whe- 

 ther any particular species was not formerly cultivated in the 

 neighbourhood, or may not now be growing in a spot which 

 was at one time used as a garden, &c. I once observed JTris 

 fcetidissima and Polygonum Bistorta growing together, in a 

 small patch, in a copse where i/elleborus fce'tidus abounded, 

 and a few plants of i?osa rubiginosa were also scattered. As 

 these plants were not to be met with elsewhere in the imme- 

 diate neighbourhood, and as the spot itself was on the out- 

 skirts of a village, I was suspicious of their being strictly 

 indigenous; and, upon farther search, detected some strag- 

 gling shrubs of iftixus sempervirens, which perfectly satisfied 

 me that my suspicions were well founded. 



It may be safely asserted of several of our rank weeds, 

 that, unless the ground were cultivated, and the crops re- 

 gularly grown, they would soon cease to spring up. In fact, 

 although they make their appearance as regularly as the 

 crops themselves, they are seldom to be met with in uncul- 

 tivated ground ; and certainly are not more frequently to be 

 found " truly wild " than individual specimens of the species 

 which compose the crops themselves. When I mention our 

 common field poppies as not exempted from all suspicion of 

 an exotic origin, it will be supposed that I am stating an 

 extreme case ; and yet I question whether some if not all the 

 species of the genus Papaver (of Decandolle) would not 

 ultimately disappear from our native flora, if the whole king- 

 dom were abandoned to the uncultivated state from which it 



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