104 



tologist,' I am induced to offer a few additional remarks on the same 

 subject. Probably very few will agree throughout in their views as 

 to what are or are not " truly indigenous ; " fewer still, as to the de- 

 gree of naturalization which should entitle a species, known or suspect- 

 ed to have been introduced, to take its place in our lists. As far as I 

 have had an opportunity of forming an opinion, I think the authors of 

 the 'London Catalogue' would have been fully justified if their list of 

 excluded species had been much more extensive than it is : such un- 

 doubted aliens as Lilium Martagon, Impatiens fulva, and some others, 

 ought, as it seems to me, to be very widely distributed ere they are 

 admitted even as naturalized species in any catalogue of British plants. 

 On the other hand, there are in the excluded list one or two species 

 for which I would claim a less dubious position ; Mr. Sidebotham has 

 already mentioned one of these, Oxalis stricta, and I shall only add, 

 that in the orchards at Lariggan and the Minney near Penzance, 

 where it occurs in tolerable abundance, it is known to have existed 

 for more than eighty years, and, so far from receiving any encourage- 

 ment, it is regularly weeded up by the occupiers of the property. 

 Iris tuberosa is another plant which, whatever may have been its 

 origin, has been established in its present localities, near Penzance, 

 many years, and although I only contend for its being thoroughly na- 

 turalized there, it has, as far as the nature of its stations are con- 

 cerned, much more the appearance of being indigenous than Allium 

 Babingtonii, which in the 'general list' takes its place, an unquestion- 

 ed native. 



As the 'London Catalogue' bears evident marks of the anxiety of 

 its authors to record everything, even to the " ambiguous and errone- 

 ous," I would call their attention to Geranium striatum, L., which they 

 have altogether omitted ;* always found near gardens, and in small 

 quantities, it is yet sufficiently naturalized, or apparently so, in this 

 country to make it desirable that it should receive some notice in 

 every work on British plants. In my earlier days it was long a sore 

 puzzle ; finding it in waste places with ordinary weeds, any doubts of 

 its being otherwise than a true native never occurred to me. 



Although not exactly to the point, I will not conclude without ex- 

 pressing my regret that the British Flora should now be regularly 



* One of the authors (Mr. Hewett C. Watson) notices this plant in his ' Cyhele 

 Britannica;' the omission of it therefore in the 'Catalogue' must have heen an 

 oversight. 



