386 On the Indigenousness of certain Plants 



V. suavis Bieb. was first cultivated in Britain, in, according 

 to G. Don's Si/st., 1820; according to Sweet's Hort. Brit., 

 the 1830 ed., in 1823 : which date is the correct one? — J. D. 



[Remarks in relevance of the Question of the Indigenousness 

 of certain Species of Plants reputed to be aboriginal in Britain. 

 (p. 84 — 90. 117, 118.)] — Can any of your botanical readers 

 inform me whether they have ever met with the snowdrop 

 (Galanthus nivalis) in a " truly wild situation;" I mean, in 

 situations and under circumstances which would convince 

 Professor Henslow (see his judicious remarks, p. 84.) that the 

 plant is a genuine native of Britain ? 



Nothing can be more common than the snowdrop in 

 orchards, groves, and other appendages to houses ; and, 

 accordingly, it finds a place in almost all our English floras 

 and local lists : yet I am disposed to think it is not originally 

 a native ; and ought to be referred to the professor's second 

 head, viz. " to such as have evidently been introduced by 

 the agency of man ; " or, at any rate, to his third head, 

 " such as may he : suspected of having been so introduced." 

 The circumstance recorded by the above botanist (p. 87.), of 

 his having " once observed /Vis fcetidissima and Polygonum 

 Bistorta " (these two species I should consider unquestionably 

 natives) " growing together, in a small patch, in a copse 

 where Helleborus fce'tidus abounded, and a few plants of 

 Bbsa rubiginosa," with " some straggling shrubs of jBuxus 

 sempervirens," to tell (as he shrewdly imagines) the story of 

 their origin, reminds me of what occurred to myself in regard 

 to the snowdrop. In February, 1834, I discovered a pro- 

 fusion of this plant occupying a considerable space on a high 

 sloping bank at Beausale, in the parish of Hatton, in this 

 county [Warwickshire]. I do not know that the sight of 

 this charming harbinger of spring ever before afforded me so 

 much pleasure : for, now, I said to myself, I have met with 

 the snowdrop perfectly wild and in a state of nature. The 

 bank formed the outside boundary of an old enclosure adjoin- 

 ing to a piece of waste land untouched by the hand of man; 

 no village was near the spot, and no house within a quarter 

 of a mile or more. I may add, there were no " straggling 

 shrubs of box" to tell tales; the snowdrops, too, it struck 

 me, had more the appearance of spontaneous growth than 

 any others I had elsewhere observed : they were, for the most 

 part, growing, not in thick patches, as we commonly see 

 them, but by twos and threes, and even by single roots ; 

 scattered about, as if by Nature's hand, among the rough 

 herbage, from the top of the bank down even into the ditch ; 

 and occupying, as I have said, a considerable space in extent. 



