18 



dence there found would go, nobody would doubt the two latter being 

 perfectly distmct from the former. 



On the 26th, 1 made an excursion on a cold and somewhat wet 

 afternoon with Mr. Dellman, to get Saxifraga sponhemica and Oxy- 

 tropis pilosa. The first we found in great abundance. It grows 

 just where the little stream of the Ellerbach issues above Sponheim, 

 from a rocky gorge. I would not pronounce it different from S. 

 hypnoides ; but as this is the original place whence the plant was 

 first described, and from whence the name was taken, it was well 

 worth an effort. The petiole is flat, while that of S. hypnoides, ac- 

 cording to Koch, is inflated and semiterete. In the other we failed. 

 Mr. Dellman had not himself gathered it, and we probably missed the 

 precise spot, for there is sufficient authority to make us believe that 

 it exists abundantly somewhere near the Castle of Bockenheim, and 

 there is i)lenty of wild, rocky, and broken ground about, which it 

 would take almost a day to examine ; and it was nearly 8 o'clock be- 

 fore we got there. The manner in which plants disappear is often 

 very curious. We find a species common in a certain district, which 

 seems its natural position. Leaving this we meet with it in particular 

 spots, but not spreading over the country. These outliers become 

 more and more detached, and there is sometimes a distance of 50 or 

 even 100 miles from one of them to the nearest point where the plant 

 is again found ; yet still it is there abundant, though one sees no 

 reason why, growing there, it should not also occur in a hundred 

 other places in the same neighbourhood. Last of all the individuals 

 become very scarce, even in these localities. Oxytropis pilosa is a 

 plant of eastern Germany, and is said not to be found elsewhere 

 among all the valleys of the Rhine. Cistus hirsutus has made a 

 longer leap than this, not being found between Brittany and Spain ; 

 and Ononis reclinata (or mollis) skips over part of France, and the 

 whole of England, to fix itself on the Mull of Galloway. Tragopogon 

 orientalis is abundant in the meadows, and Achillea nobilis on walls 

 and dry banks. 



On the 28th I walked to Roxheim, gathering by the way Veronica 

 triphyllos and precox. From Roxheim I proceeded towards Guten- 

 berg, and just as the road begins to descend towards the latter place, 

 gathered the Anemone sylvestris, which was the chief object of my 

 walk. It is very abundant, but in a very limited district, and I 

 Toamed through the woods on each side without meeting with any 

 more of it. In the same place grew Orchis militaris. The Hp, in all 

 I saw of this plant in Germany, keeps very steadily to one form, while 



