a 
On the finding of Carduus tuberosus at Avebury. 207 
shall not have occupied these pages of the Magazine quite uselessly, 
if I have only shown how little reliance is to be placed upon the 
mere chiming of names with each other without analysis of the 
intrinsic meaning of them. R. C2: A. 
On the finding of Carduns tuberosus at Abebury. 
By Proressor Buckman, F.L.S., F.G.S.. &e. 
N reporting upon our Meeting at Avebury, Wilts, I took 
=<§|%) occasion to remark upon some interesting plants which I 
had obtained from the Druidical circle, and amongst notes upon 
others will be found the following: 
“ Carduus acaulis”’ (Linn.) Stemless Thistle, with (anomalous as 
it appears,) stems several inches high. This is one of the forms 
which has given rise to the many synonyms by which the true 
species is surrounded.! 
In July of the present year I found myself at the Avebury circles 
in company with my friend Edward Lees, Esq., when this thistle 
was by us more minutely examined, and upon carefully getting 
some specimens up by the roots, we were pleased to find that it 
agreed in this and other respects with the ‘‘Carduus tuberosus,” 
(Linn.) tuberous Plume Thistle, a specimen of which appears to 
have been sent by A. B. Lambert, Esq. to Sir J. E. Smith, and is 
figured in English Botany, t. 2562, to the description of which is 
appended the following habitat: “A copse wood called Great Ridge 
on the Wiltshire Downs, between Boyton House and Fonthill, 
abundantly, and Smith states that he there gathered it in 1819.” 
English Flora, vol. iii. p. 898. 
For many years, however, this form appears to have become ex- 
tinct in this its original habitat, and it was thought to have been 
entirely lost to our Flora, until within the last few months, when 
Mr. T. B. Flower of Bath fortunately discovered that a nurseryman 
in his neighbourhood had propagated the plant from its original 
stock, presented to the nurseryman by Lambert himself, and the 
Address to the Coteswold Natural History Club, October 6th, 1857. 
