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approach or touch the eastern coast, and, in a descending line through 

 the island, lie in the general longitude of Belgium, Germany and 

 France, countries considered the native habitat of the plant in ques- 

 tion. There is no circumstance of which T am aware, connected with 

 the distribution of Alyssum calycinum, which invalidates its claim to 

 a place in our indigenous Flora. 



The objections raised against its claims rely principally on two 

 grounds. J. That it has not been noticed as a British plant until re- 

 cently. 2. That it occurs in England only upon ploughed land. 



The first objection is of no more weight than doubts as to the in- 

 digenous character of Bunium Bulbocastanum, Ophrys arachnites, 

 Orobanche caryophyllacese, or Neottia aestivalis would be. 



" Full many a flower is doomed to blush unseen,'' 



and that is not the flower's fault. 2. It appears that Alyssum calyci- 

 num has been gathered only on ploughed land in England : whereas 

 in Scotland it is collected upon grassy commons near the sea-coast. 

 But in the continental range of the species, dry fields and sandy way- 

 sides, and walls are mentioned as its favourite habitats. These are 

 scarcely more uncultivated localities than arable land. Besides this, 

 many of our common plants equally affect ploughed and virgin soil, 

 as Plantago lanceolata, Leontodon Taraxacum, Trifolium procumbens 

 and filiforme, &c., &c. It is a new objection to the indigenous origin 

 of an annual or biennial that it occurs only on ploughed land, in a 

 certain locality. If this be a good rule in favour of the naturalization 

 of a species, how many of our commonest plants, such as the three 

 above mentioned, must be rejected from all claim to a place in our 

 native Flora ? If the plate in the 'Supplement to English Botany' is 

 the likeness of average Scotch specimens, the stature of the Scotch 

 plant is short indeed compared with other specimens, and all which I 

 have observed in the fallows of this parish. 



It is worthy remark, that in Cantley the Alyssum calycinum has 

 been noticed only upon land which has been untouched by the plough 

 eighteen months, or at least twelve. The plants in May had a woody 

 branched decumbent base, stripped of leaves, from which the shoots 

 which produced the spring flowers rose upward erect. These branches 

 had not certainly grown up since the winter. The plant is, I suspect, a 

 biennial ; and if so, its presence, as to ploughed land ox fallows only is 

 accounted for, as well as its rare occurrence : the young plants being 

 mostly ploughed in at Michaelmas or Lent. 



I have detected it, however, upon every fallow, with a sandy loam 



