MELILOTUS 135 



the world, Captain Vancouver found some seeds in a vessel which 

 had been wrecked on a desert island, and on his return he 

 presented some of them to his brother, then residing near New- 

 bury. . . . The seeds were sown, expectation was raised ; Dr. Lamb 

 and Mr. Bicheno, with the vigilance of botanists, watched their 

 progress, and were in hopes to have been able to announce to the 

 agricultural world a valuable plant from the remotest island of 

 the Pacific, when, lo ! it turned out to be the Medicago arahica, 

 which is a native plant of Berkshire. It was found to produce 

 a luxuriant herbage, and cattle were extremely fond of it. Mavor's 

 Agr. Bcrks^ pp. 263, 290-291, 1809. 

 0. Loddon. In the Home Park and in the meadow near Windsor, 

 Everett. It is also very plentiful in the private portion of 

 Windsor Park, where it seeds freely in the spring and the 

 seeds germinate, so that the plants appear in the autumn and 

 last through the winter. Thus the plant may be biennial. 

 I find Mr. Bolton King noticed this species at Old Windsor when 

 he was at Eton College in 1876-8. 



It has been found in Oxfordshire, Surrey, Hants, Wilts, and 

 W. Gloucestershire. 



MELILOTUS, Adans. Fam. ii. 322 (1763) (Tournefort, Inst. t. 406). 

 M. officinalis, Lam. Fl. Fr. ii. 594 (1778^ Melilot. 



M. altissima, Thuill. Fl. Par. ed. 2, 378 (1799). TrifoUum M. officinalis, 



Linn. Sp. PI. 765. Melilotus Germanica, Ger. Em. 1205. 

 Top. Bot. 108. Syme, E. B. iii. 29, t. 341. Nyman, 172. Baxt. t. 363. 



Fl. Oxf. 77. 

 Native. Viatical, septal. Fields, hedge-banks, waste places, open 



spots in woods, railway-banks, and newly turned-up soil. Rather 



common. A. or B. June-October. 

 First record. Melilot groweth plentifully about Oxford, MS. in Lyte's 



Herball, 1660. TrifoUum melilotus officinalis, Mavors Agr. Berks, 1809. 



1. Isis. Near Buscot, Bellamy. Pusey. Near Wytham. 



2. Ock. About Oxford, MS. in Ujte. Between South Hinksey and 



Childswell Farm, Baxter, 1827. In a copse just beyond Botley 

 Pound, Baxter, Phaen. Bat. In wet furrows in the arable fields 

 about Blewbury. In Blewbury meadows, &c., Lousley, in 

 Ilussell's Cat. Marcham, Walker. Sparsholt Enclosure, Btllamy. 

 On gravel dredged out of the river Thames near Oxford, Richards, 

 1892. On the Abingdon Road, near Oxford, Druce, in Rep. of Bot. 

 Exch. Club, 1888. Denchworth, Wait. Childswell Farm. Abun- 

 dant about Uffington and Wantage, venton. Didcot. Witten- 

 ham, near to Day's Lock. Radley Abingdon. Cholsey. 



