90 THE WILD-FLOWERS OF SELBORNE 



some plant, the stinking hellebore or setterwort, for- 

 merly grew in some abundance. It was plentiful in 

 the year 1839, when the celebrated botanist, Dr. 

 Bromfield, visited the spot, when he pronounced it to 

 be, in his opinion, "most certainly wild." Since then 

 the neighbourhood has been much built over, and a 

 good deal of the " rough ground " has been converted 

 into private gardens, and it is to be feared that this 

 most interesting plant has perished. Near the grand 

 old Jacobean manor-house of Knighton, now, alas ! 

 pulled down, but of which we have so fine a de- 

 scription in Legh Richmond's Dairyman s Daughter, 

 there formerly grew the dwale, or deadly nightshade, 

 a striking plant both in flower and in fruit. This, like 

 the " large and venerable mansion," has disappeared, 

 and must now, with other notable species — the proli- 

 ferous pink, the grass of Parnassus, the spider orchis, 

 the beautiful white helleborine, and the vernal squill — 

 be counted as extinct in the Isle of Wight. 



The disappearance of some of these plants is doubt- 

 less due to what may be called the sporadic nature 

 of certain species. It is the way of some plants to 

 suddenly spring up in a strange locality, to remain 

 perhaps for a few years, and as mysteriously to dis- 

 appear. We have a striking illustration of this in the 

 case of Sisymbrium Irio, or the London rocket. The 

 plant, as is well known, received its English name 

 from the curious fact that after the Great Fire of 

 London in 1666 it came up plentifully "among the 

 rubbish in the ruines." During the two following 

 summers it was abundant, Ray tells us, and even 

 established itself " on the Lord Cheney's wall at 

 Chelsey," but finally it entirely disappeared. An 

 equally striking instance occurred at Aldborough, in 



