188 



reasonable explanation seems to be this : the waste gronnd on which most ot the plants 

 were found had been used during the spring months for pitching the contents of 

 the city mud-carts ; and if we suppose that the seeds had come accidentally in the 

 packages of merchandise from the south of Europe, its mixture with the street sweep- 

 ings would be easily accounted for, and once thrown on the waste ground, the hot 

 summer and autumn of 1S65 would readily encourage their growth. This explanation, 

 however, does not meet the fact of its appearance in the uncropped cottage garden, 

 where, so far as appeared, no street sweepings had been thrown. Some of the plants 

 ripened their seed, and it will be curious to observe whether it will again make its 

 appearance this summer. There is one circumstance against it, and that is that most of 

 the waste ground where it grew has been added ts the infirmary garden, and has been 

 raised three or four feet from its former level. 



Some five years since Mr. Edwin Lees read a paper on the Anacharis A Isinastrvm 

 before the Cotteswold Club, and continued his observations to the introduction of 

 plants in general to the Flora of Britain. Since he was unable to be present with ua 

 to-day, he has kindly placed his MSS. in my hands with free permission to use it for the 

 conclusion of the present communication ; a permission which will most certainly 

 give to this paper the character said to belong to ladies' letters, wherein the chief and 

 most interesting portion is always contained in the postscript. After a single quotation 

 peculiarly his own, I shall, for the sake of belter adaptation, use my own arrangement 

 and often my own words in appropriating the chief part of his very interesting paper. 



"If we strike from the British Flora," says Mr. Lees, "all the plants that have 

 come in since the Celtic colonization, hundreds would be lost to us. Our own island 

 was not the centre of vegetable creation, and I can only admit the true ancient Britons, 

 Indigenous to our present rocks, to have been the humbler tribes of Algce, Mosses, and 

 Lichens. These we may admit 



" True natives to the manner bom," 

 the only genuine colourers of the rocks, which had no painted robe of beauty of much 

 greater thickness than that 



" Prince Vortigern had en 

 \^^lich from a naked Pict his grandsire won." 

 Such was the true native vesture of this country, and its present robe of green and 

 floral adornments are aU of exotic origin." 



Without going quite so far as this, however, we may be sure that from the earliest 

 times, whenever man has migrated from east to west, various plants have accompanied 

 him — some he has gladly carried, whilst others have clung to his robe and sprung up in 

 , his path against his will. Go where he will the various docl;3 wUl spring up around 

 him, groundsell and chickweed or choakweed will grow in his gardens ; plaintain and 

 butter-cups will appear in the grass ; fat hens or the chenopodice will cover the rubbish 

 heaps ; sow-thiUles, poppies, chamomiles, corn flowers, ox-eyes, and numerous other 

 "furrow-weeds " will shoot up in his corn fields ; whilst everywhere the universal nettle 

 makes its appearance. The nettle, though really of extraneous origin, is now so abun- 

 dant everywhere in England that Watson in his Cyb. Brit, has made it one of the 

 features of our indigenous flora. 



Every nation that has landed on our shores has contributed something to our 

 present accredited flora, though in the majority of instances we may not now be 

 able exactly to trace the giver. 



