ON A NEW SPECIES OF TACCA. 261 
deeply seated bud has forced up a spindling weakly-looking shoot to 
the air, the very first effort (in which it is usually successful) is to 
thrust out lateral thready roots in all directions within from 6 to 12 
inches of the surface, and often extending to 6 feet and more. These 
ramifications are full of buds, and the second year produce a plentiful 
supply of herbage and flowers, as just recorded. Bnt it is time that 
I explain its denizenship, and its connection with the Walcheren Ex- 
pedition. When our troops returned to England many disembarked 
at Ramsgate; the poor fellows were suffering under malarious fever, 
and their beds were ripped up and the straw, etc., was placed in an 
old chalk-pit belonging to a Mr. Thompson. Time passed on, and 
this heap of refuse was mixed with seaweed and manure, and finally 
employed to fertilize the fields. Wherever this was done a plentiful 
crop of the new weed was produced, and which to distinguish it was 
called Thompson’s weed. We have traced its introduction, and its 
spread over many parts of the Isle of Thanet ; it now remains to show 
its future progress. It seems to take to the edges of ditches, the 
edges of footpaths, etc., in preference to the open fields, and may be 
traced through Canterbury, Chatham, and to Sittingbourne, Gravesend, 
Deptford, Peckham, etc., as I have done; but how far it has reached 
towards the northern and midland counties I have had no oppor- 
tunity of ascertaining. It may be well, however, for me to state, that 
I have measured one root in the chalk where it was originally ae 
that was 9 feet long, and then did not reach the extremity. (W. M 
‘Gardeners’ Chronicle.") 
ON A NEW SPECIES OF TACCA. 
By Tuos. NUTTALL, Esq. 
[When lately working up the different species of Tacca for my Viti 
Flora, I was unable to procure a sight of the ‘American Journal of 
Pharmacy’ (of which there does not exist a copy at the British Mu- 
seum, nor a complete set at the Pharmaceutical Society of London, 
nor, as far as I know, anywhere else in Europe), and I could there- 
fore not clear up the synonymy satisfactorily, owing to T. oceanica 
being described in the ninth volume of that useful periodical. Pro- 
