< 
HISTORY OF BOTANY. ac 
‘of English botanists to this remote and neglected corner of the | 
kingdon. 
The materials for this work were personally collected by the 
author during two visits made to the islands in 1837 and 1838. On 
ithe first occasion, we learn from his journals, he arrived in Jersey on 
the 16th of July, and spent nearly four weeks there, afterwards 
moving on to Guernsey, where he stayed from the 11th to the 31st 
of August. The following year, 1838, he started earlier in the 
‘season, reaching Jersey on the rst of June, limiting his stay there to 
three weeks, and then devoting the remainder of the time, from June 
22nd to August 8th, to Guernsey and the smaller islands. 
‘The total number of flowering plants and ferns recorded in the 
Flora Sarnica amounts to 848 species for all the Channel Islands 
combined. Of this number 553 belong to Guernsey, viz., 536 
phanerogams and seventeen ferns and fern-allies. 
Considering the immense changes that have have taken place in 
this island during the sixty odd years that have elapsed since the 
-day when young Babington and his friend, William Christy, ‘ found 
Euphorbia Peplis in great plenty on the sands of Grand Havre, at 
‘some distance beyond the Vale Church,’ the wonder is that the 
number of wild plants which have totally disappeared is not far 
greater than it really is. Many, however, which are still bravely 
struggling against the steady advance of the builder and the 
market gardener are growing more and more scarce, and ere long 
they will have to be ranked among extinct species. 
Out of the 536 flowering plants noted for Guernsey in the 
Lora Sarnica, fifteen species then recorded for the first time have 
not been met with during the last twenty years. A few of them 
being cornfield weeds, may reappear some day, but the majority 
have been lost through drainage and the cultivation of waste land. 
‘These fifteen plants are :— 
Myosurus minimus. Linaria spuria. 
Ranunculus Lingua. Pedicularis palustris. 
Papaver Argemone. Stachys Betonica. 
Sium angustifolium. Typha angustifolia. 
Chaerophyllum temulum. Phalaris arundinacea. 
Rubia peregrina. Aira flexuosa. 
Scabiosa Columbaria Sclerochloa procumbens. 
Verbascum Blattaria. 
Clearness and conciseness mark every page of the #/ora Sarnica. 
‘The system of enumerating after each plant all the islands in which 
dt occurs certainly ensures economy of space, but it likewise increases 
the possibility of error, as a name may easily drop out unnoticed in 
the course of transcription. Perhaps this accounts for the singular 
omission from particular islands of many common plants which 
Babington could not fail to have seen. With respect to Jersey I 
