190 



(Datura Stramonium), wlilch is now scattered thronghout the greater part of Europe 

 as a noxious weed, but was brougiit originally to us from the East Indies and Abyssinia, 

 and so followed the steps of a set of quacks, who used its seeds as an emetic oi 

 cathartic. Probably many plants have been accidentally carried about in this way, 

 and assuredly otherd have been purposely planted." — Lees' Botanical Looker-out. 



" Thus Senecio squalidui remained a great number of years on old walls, near Wor- 

 cester Cathedral, a former member probably of the convent garden, and yet existed in 

 1849. The same plant grows abundantly, on walls at Oxford, escaped from the physio 

 garden there. Atropa Belladonna, although now naturalized among the stony hollows of 

 the Cotteswolds, in Gloucestershire, and in other neglected spots, is a lurid plant, 

 certainly derived from the monasteries, and it now flourishes in such profusion, near 

 Furness Abbey, Lancashire, that the " Vale of Nightshade" has been appropriately 

 applied to the spot. Ariitolochia c'ematitis, having a celebrity for female complaints, 

 was cultivated in the gardens of nunneries, where, from its abiding roots, it is still to 

 be met with at the ruins of such structures as Godstow Nunnery, Oxfordshire, from 

 whence I have a specimen. Such historical or memorial plants have a peculiar interest, 

 and deserve to be noted, though there can be no necessity for insisting, as some 

 botanists do, that they are "certainly wUd," — meaning thereby that they had an ati 

 crigine existence in our island." — Ibid. 



To this source we are also probably indebted for the Barberry — so much used of 

 old in confectionery— the eye bright, the wall flower, the ivy leaved toad flax, and many 

 other of the plants before mentioned. A botanical ramble around the site of an old 

 abbey or monastery to this day will almost always afford some interesting plants not 

 common in the district. 



The Flemings, who were brought in as colonists by some of the Norman monarchs 

 to occupy parts of South Wales in the reigns of Henry I. and II., seemed to have 

 been particularly fond of the narrow leaved mustard (Viplotaxis tcnuifolia), for this 

 plant now covers the old walls and ruins where the Flemings once resided. It is 

 especially common — amongst other places— in Tenby and the neighbourhood, where 

 every "coign of vantage" on the low picturesque houses is covered with it. 



Many instances, amongst the plants already pointed out as "Wanderers" into the 

 British Flora, might be given to illustrate the influence of modem international com- 

 munication in the introduction of fresh plants, but it is not necessary. The rule is a 

 general one, and applies to all countries. If America has given us the Anacliaris alsinas- 

 trum,, the (Enothera biennis, the Erigeron canadensis, the Impatiens fulva, and several 

 other plants, it has received and has heartily welcomed from Europe a host of others 

 in return, insomuch that Sir Charles Lyell has called New England the " Paradise of 

 European weeds." From the little knot-grass, that Dr. Terry says abounds in the 

 vicinity of New York, to that rankest of our arable weeds, the common black mustard, 

 which Professor Buckman found towering on the banks of Ohio— in short, wherever 

 clearings are made in the primitive forest and corn fields are introduced, there the 

 European agrarian weeds quickly appear in abundance. 



A curious example of the unconscious persistent attendance of certain plants on 

 man is afforded by the fact that the little waybred or plaintain (Plantago major) was 

 called by the Indians " Englishman's foot," because they always observed it to spring 

 up whereever the English had encamped. 



I will give but one other illustration, and it shall be from the Antipodes. In 

 Australia, wherever sheep farms are established, the buttercup, the horehound, the 

 thistle, and other plants of British origin immediately begin to appear ; indeed, as you. 



