228 THE FLORA OF HYDE PARK AND KENSINGTON GARDENS. 



doors, and studied without the help of a railway-ticket. This list may 

 also prove acceptable as an attempt to throw together the floral records 

 of our chief London breathing-place, and as a means of bringing up to 

 a modern date the occurrence in Hyde Park of many species, uncon- 

 firmed there since early in the present century or even an anterior one. 

 All notice of trees is omitted in the present list. It might be interest- 

 ing to give a list of such of these as have produced seedlings, as many 

 have done ; but it would hardly come within the scope of this paper to 

 do so. In many flower-beds seedling Rubl occur, a curious commentary 

 on an idea once held that Ruhus was seldom propagated thus. There are 

 also to be found in the ' Flora of Middlesex ' some curious notes on the 

 age and species of several trees in our limits. Saynbiicns nigra and Salix 

 viminaUs, S. frnr/ilis and S. triandra, occur in the gardens, but their claims 

 are slender to admission in our Flora. Hedera, Cratagus, Digitalis, etc., 

 occur, but all clearly through human agency. The most interesting plants 

 in Hyde Park grow mainly in two pieces of ground. One is a strip of turf, 

 of no great extent, beginning north of the Magazine and lying between the 

 King Road and the ditch bounding Kensington Gardens on the west. 

 Here Trifoliiim glomeratum, Ornifhopus, Carex mnricata, etc., gi'ow, and 

 here Moenchia and Ciiscida used to be found. . I call this ground " the 

 strip " sometimes for brevity in my list. The other noteworthy slip of 

 turf begins at the end of a black wooden wall which runs south of the bar- 

 racks to near the Humane Society's Receiving House and the Deputy 

 Ranger's House opposite the Serpentine. It consists of the site of a road 

 now grassed over, and runs west towards the Magazine, say, for about 

 two hundred yards. Here Sagina ciliata, Plantago Coronopus, Festuca 

 bromoidcs, and Trifoliiim filiforme may be found without much trouble.* 

 It is most important in the present flora to specify, if the species was 

 gathered in the open and apparently original turf, or whether it grew 

 within the limits of artificial enclosure, in a flower-bed, in the circular 

 hurdles used to pi'otect the trees from sheep, or in newly-sown grass- 

 land. Plants in the first category alone (excepting, of course, the 

 aquatics) ought •prima facie to be reckoned natives in this list, though 

 plants which nearly always follow horticulture, like Solanum nigrum, may 

 be just as native (or un-native) in a Kensington Garden flower-bed as in 

 a Devonian cottage garden. What is meant may be shown by an 

 example : — Chrysantheumm Leucanthemum within our limits is seen about 

 thrice in open turf, twenty or thirty times under suspicious circumstances. 

 Hence, without wishing to dogmatize, I incline to the opinion that this 

 species is generally a casual in Hyde Park, however common a native it may 

 be elsewhere. In fact, I would much rather, if possible, have omitted all 

 notice in the present list of these flower-bed casuals, and newly-sown turf 

 ephemerals, if I may use the expression. The plants of the genuine open 

 park herbage are really the important matter in this record. What 

 species, imported with garden-mould or grass-seeds, may manage to sur- 



* During a former residence in Cheshire, I made a careful list, through many 

 years, of every species found within a mile radius of my dwelling-place. It is 

 worth mention that several plants belonging to the present list were absent from 

 my Cheshire enumeration, — Tr if uliion glomeratum, Koeleria cristata, Sagina ciliata, 

 Hordeum mnri//iim, Hordeum pratense, Senebiera Coronopics, and Arenaria serpylli- 

 folia. The first three absences are likely enough, but the last four may surprise 

 many a south country reader. 



