517 



the comparatively fewer stems and larger and more compound (or, as 

 he calls it "prickly") heads are quite discriminative of that species, by 

 far the rarer of the two in this island. 



W. A. Bromfield. 

 Ryde, Isle of Wight, 

 April, 1846. 



Notes on the wild Currants of the Isle of Wight. 

 By W. A. Bromfield, M.D., F.L.S. 



From those standard works on British Botany, the Floras of Smith 

 and Hooker, it would seem that the red currant and its varieties are 

 to be found truly wild only in the north of England and in Scotland, 

 at least, if not so asserted in direct terms, it is by implication to 

 be inferred that the same plant is to be met with in a merely natural- 

 ized state south of the Tees, or including its now acknowledged va- 

 rieties, R. petrsBum and R. spicatum, not nearer to us than Yorkshire. 

 Even those accurate and scrutinizing botanists, Mr. Babington and 

 Mr. H. C. Watson, who take little or nothing for granted or without 

 inquiry, seem to participate in the same opinion with the eminent au- 

 thors before mentioned; Mr. Watson affixing to all the stations for R, 

 rubrum in his Guide south of Yorkshire, the usual mark, either indi- 

 cative of doubt or of positive certainty that it has been introduced in- 

 to the respective localities by other than natural agency, whilst Mr. 

 Babington says simply " woods in mountainous districts," v/hich must 

 of course be held to exclude all but the northern parts of England 

 and Wales. That this opinion is erroneous, I have for many years 

 past been convinced by finding the red currant in situations near 

 Hastings, where it had perfectly the aspect of a genuine native, and 

 since then have been the more confirmed in the truth of this view of 

 the matter, by observing it in this island, over which it is very gene- 

 rally distributed, occurring frequently, and often most abundantly, 

 not only in our hedge-rows and thickets of the enclosed country, but 

 in the remotest recesses of all our hilly woods or deep boggy coppices, 

 flourishing indifferently at the sea level and in the wettest soil, or at 

 a few hundred feet of elevation, in ground comparatively firee from 

 moisture, though always in tolerably shaded, cool situations. It is, 

 indeed, so common an Isle of Wight shrub, that there is scarcely a 

 patch of copse or brushwood, however small, from which it is wholly 

 Vol. II. 3 s 



