36 



In the neighbourhood of Bath we have two species especially- 

 deserving of notice in this point of view ; that is to say from 

 their localisation in particular spots, without positively asserting 

 what has led to this localisation. I refer to the Euphorbia 

 2nlosa, found in Prior Park lane, and in a wood on Claverton 

 Down, near the monument, the onlj'^ known station for it in 

 Great Britain ; and the Lysimachia thyrsiflora that grows, or did 

 grow, plentifully in a small pond near South Wraxall, a species 

 almost entirely confined to North Britain, and very local 

 everywhere. It may be possible, as some think to be the case, 

 that both these plants have been, accidentally or intentionally, 

 introduced into the places where we now find them. With regard 

 to the first, however, the Euphorhla, there is evidence to show that 

 it was growing in the same locality nearly 300 years ago, it having 

 been discovered there by Matthias de Lobel, botanist to King 

 James I., and published by him as a British plant in his 

 " Stirpium Historia," the date of which is 1576. He describes 

 it under the name of Esula majw Germanica, and speaks of it as 

 plentiful " in a wood belonging to Mr. John Coltes, near Bath." 

 I am sorry to say it is not plentiful there now, and it appears to 

 be getting scarcer every year. I would express a hope, therefore, 

 that if any of our members or other persons go to look for it, 

 they wUl be sparing in gathering specimens, lest it soon become 

 entirely extinct. It has been suggested that it "may have 

 escaped originally from the neighbouring grounds of the Prior 

 of Bath, or from the physic gardens of the herbarists of this 

 city,"* it being a plant undoubtedly used in medicine in those 

 days, but though this might have been the case with tlie plants 

 growing in the station in the lane near the town, it seems hardly 



* See a paper by the late Mr. Edward Forster in the " Linnean 

 Transactions," (vol. xvii., p. 533), in which are given full particulars 

 relating to the discovery of this species of Euphorbia as a British 

 plant. 



