261 



least such as form hedges or yield timber are so much the subjects of 

 planting that it is difficult to decide what are truly native. There is 

 a hedge of Lycium barbarum on the shore near Lymington, far from 

 any house, and I know not how the student would be able to pro- 

 nounce that it was not wild. At Malesherbes and Etampes, in 

 France, the woods abound with Cytisus Laburnum, looking quite as 

 if the natural produce of the country ; but it has been planted for 

 fuel. In the same neighbourhood we meet with Syringa vulgaris, and 

 this is also planted in Germany as a shelter for the game. We have, 

 I believe, no originally indigenous Pinus in England, but the seeds 

 of P. sylvestris sometimes come up abundantly and form a natural 

 wood where a sandy soil has a somewhat peaty covering, as, for in- 

 stance, on Esher Common. In the Poole basin the Pinus pinaster 

 propagates itself, and at Alum Chine, and perhaps elsewhere, we may 

 make out a strong probability of two native generations. I confess 

 in such a case I think the tree ought to find a place in the English 

 Flora. 



My next walk was along the shore as far as Poole harbour. The 

 sea is gaining all along the shore, which keeps it nearly clear of ma- 

 ritime plants. Towards the harbour the sand-hills yielded me Triti- 

 cura junceum, and Festuca rubra of the form which has been called 

 sabulicola by some continental botanists. We have a series in this 

 tribe in the structure of the root: first, tenuifolia, which seems to 

 have the least of a creeping rhizoma ; then ovina and duriuscula, 

 where it is very slender ; next rubra, of our hills and meadows, where 

 it is stouter, and perhaps two or three inches long; and lastly, that of 

 the sand-hills, where it is sometimes as many feet. A little way from 

 the harbour is a preventive station. The guard told me he had been 

 there six years, and that soon after he came a large part of the cliff, 

 above 100 feet in width from his description, gave way, and descend- 

 ed so gradually into the sea that a person might have stood upon it 

 without danger. 



As there are few habitations in the country there are few paths, 

 and walking over a close, continued bed of heath and furze is very 

 fatiguing. As there are no cattle and no sheep there are no tracks. 

 I saw notices of cattle taken in to graze, but what they were to feed 

 upon I do not know. I saw no cattle, nor even a sheep, and the 

 whole appearance of the country is that of barrenness, more than an- 

 swering to Col. Martin's celebrated description of the land in Con- 

 nemara. 



Mr. Borrer was to come on Tuesday evening to Bourne Mouth ; 

 Vol. hi. 2 n 



