338 



preserved its original character. I allowed it to remain a third season, 

 and when I left the colony in the beginning of the present year, about 

 two thirds had become fatua, and nearly all the rest was in the interme- 

 diate stages. The soil was rather poor and stony, but I found the trans- 

 formation to take place much more rapidly in a deep, rich soil. I 

 examined a field of that description which had been self-sown two 

 years in succession, and was not able to find a single plant which re- 

 tained any appearance of the original, in a very dense crop on about 

 twenty acres of land, which was consequently cut green for hay, a 

 very common custom in the Australian colonies and also at the Cape. 

 I could multiply instances, if necessary, to prove this remarkable and 

 interesting fact, which shows the origin of one of the cereal plants, 

 if what T have already mentioned (which would be confirmed by any 

 practical farmer in the colonies) were not sufficient to prove what I 

 have asserted. 



The variety called the Tartarian oat is, I think, distinct, as I found 

 it to remain unchanged for several years on the same soil, but I am 

 not aware that it has ever been found in a wild state. Perhaps it 

 might be referred to A. strigosa .'' 



Writtle, September, 1845. 



Thomas Corder. 



Occurrence of Alyssiim calycuium and Narcissus hiflorus near 

 Dawlish, By R. C. R. Jordan, Esq. 



Your correspondent, the Rev. Gerard Smith, in a paper in the 'Phy- 

 tologist' (Phytol. ii. 282) on the claims of Alyssum calycinum to be 

 regarded as a native, says that all the localities hitherto recorded in 

 England lie near the eastern coast ; it will therefore be interesting, at 

 least to him, to know that my brother found it near Dawlish, occur- 

 ring rather plentifully in a sandy ploughed field. It may be well to 

 add, that although w^e must have often passed through the field, even 

 in the time of its flowering (May), we never noticed it before this 

 year. 



Narcissus hijlorus. — This plant occurs in small clumps of two or 

 three, scattered here and there, over the whole of the Dawlish warren. 

 It does not seem probable that in such a situation it could be merely 

 an exile from a garden ; and its being nowhere abundant and yet 

 found on opposite parts (in some places where the turf seems not to 



