160 Analysis of Scientific Books and Memoirs. 



from France or Spain. Few trees (for the Arbutus becomes a tree at Kil- 

 larney) are found to be so isolated as this is, in a state of nature. 



Much as we owe to our insulated situation, in a political point of view, 

 we are forced to allow, that, in another respect, in what concerns the ex- 

 tent and number of the species of its vegetable productions, Great Britain 

 must yield the palm to the continent; extent of country and elevation, 

 above the level of the sea, being the same. Plants cannot, or they can 

 but rarely, by means of their seeds, cross over the ocean, so as to become 

 naturalized in other countries. On the continent, they are continually 

 migrating and extending the circle of their stations. Thus, we find that 

 we no sooner pass the channel, and wander by the roadsides, or into the 

 corn-fields of France, than we see many plants to which our eyes have only 

 been accustomed as inhabitants of the garden. This is peculiarly the 

 case with the Eryngium campestre, (now, we believe, quite extinct in 

 Britain,) Cirsium oleraceum t Alyssum calycinum, Anemone pratensis, 

 Campanula speculum. It is the same in Germany and Holland, and a 

 slight glance at the figures in the Flora Danica will suffice to show how 

 many plants there are, even in those northern climates, which we cannot 

 call ours. The Alps of Switzerland, and the mountains of Norway, sepa- 

 rated as they are by very great distances, have many plants in common, 

 which we do not include in the Flora of our alpine regions; while, on the 

 other hand, we can boast of very few plants which are peculiar to our 

 islands. Sir James Edward Smith is inclined to consider the Ligusticum 

 cornubiense as exclusively of British origin, though we must confess, that 

 our own observations have led us to a different conclusion. Brassica 

 monensis has not yet been found in any other part of the world than the 

 Western Isles, and upon the opposite shores of England and Scotland. 

 But the most interesting of our peculiarly British plants is the Eriocau- 

 lon septangulare, very nearly allied, indeed, to the E. pellucidum of Ame- 

 rica. In no other part of Europe is any one individual, even of the ge- 

 nus, to be found ; and what is very remarkable, although the greater num- 

 ber of the species are inhabitants of the tropics, or of warm climates 

 borderino- upon the tropics, yet our species is found in one of the most 

 northern of the Hebrides ; and in a lake so cold, that the bare recollection 

 of our wading into it, in pursuit of this rarity, seems to cast a chill over 

 our whole frame. 



Amongst the Cryptogamia, rich as Britain has proved to be in that ex- 

 tensive family, very many of them have been long known to exist equal- 

 ly upon the continent of Europe, and in North America. Indeed, it is a 

 certain fact, that the lower we descend in the scale of vegetation, the 

 more universally are the individuals of those tribes dispersed over the sur- 

 face of the globe. We have received from North and South America, 

 and from New Holland, a Lichen which we cannot distinguish from the 

 Cenomyce rangiferina of our heaths and moors. Schweinilz, who has 

 collected and described, with much care, the Fungi of Upper Carolina, 

 (where, let it be observed, there is scarcely a phsenogamous plant common 

 to Europe,) has remarked that a very large proportion of them are the 



1 



