136 PAPERS, ETC. 
with such variety of soil and aspect, there is a very wide 
field afforded for the botanist, and it is not a little surpris- 
ing, and much to be lamented, that there is no published 
Flora of Somerset, containing in its pages all the necessary 
information. In the literature of botany, ceounty or local 
Floras become of much account—such, for instance, are 
Leighton’s Flora of Shropshire, and Mr. Baker’s recently 
published supplement to the Flora of Yorkshire—books 
the value of which are well known to botanists. 
Before elosing this paper, I would beg leave to suggest 
to persons interested in the science, the benefit which may 
accrue to its more complete study by their noting down the 
species oceurring in their respective neishbourhoods, in the 
last edition of the London Catalogue of British Plants— 
the one generally employed for that purpose by English 
botanists. 
The enclosing of commons and waste land, and progress 
of agrieultural improvements generally, must unavoidably 
destroy the habitats of many rare plants, and in some in- 
stances lead to their extincetion ; such, I fear, is the case 
with Chrysocoma lynosiris and Lobelia urens, which used 
formerly to grow near Axminster. Therefore, it is parti- 
cularly desirable that a record should be kept of rare indi- 
genous plants. Some few species there are, such as 
Veronica Buxbaumi, which become naturalized in our 
fields by the agency of the farmer, who scatters the germ 
unwittingly along with his clover or other seed obtained 
from the Continent ; and though the botanist may not look 
with an unfriendly eye upon the “ foreigner,” he still feels 
that it cannot make amends for our native plants, the 
growth of our native soil, introduced by no human agency, 
placed in their appointed spot by the Almighty will, 
tlourishing for long years the “ flowers of the waste,” and 
