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blended with the daisy, the bird's-foot trefoil and cowslip, into a na- 

 tural carpet of the most resplendent colours. 



Onobrychis saliva. On banks and chalky slopes in various parts 

 of the county and island, though not very common or always easy to 

 determine whether wild or not from the universality of its cultivation. 

 I believe it, however, to be a genuine native in Hampshire and the 

 south of England, and our chalk downs to be its rightful, undisputed 

 home. 



Prunus spinosa. Most universal and abundant in all parts of the 

 Isle of Wight, and I believe of the county, in woods, thickets and 

 bushy places. In some of our stiff clays it covers considerable tracts 

 of ground, to the exclusion of everything else, its densely interwoven 

 branches forming thickets which are absolutely impenetrable by man 

 and all but the smaller quadrupeds and birds, that find a secure re- 

 treat for themselves and their young in these thorny fortresses. The 

 fruit or sloes, called here winter keeksies, are abundantly produced on 

 certain trees and totally fail on others, probably from some defect in 

 the reproductive organs : a large majority of the plants are in this 

 barren condition. In this part of England P. spinosa appears under 

 some very puzzling aspects, and is linked to the two following by 

 such imperceptible and evanescent degrees of affinity as to defy any 

 specific formula that can be formed to distinguish them, unless in 

 their extremest states of divergence, and not always even then. 



insititia. Woods, hedges and thickets in all parts of the 



Isle of Wight, very common, but less abundant than the foregoing. 

 A larger, taller and stouter shrub than the last, with a yellowish (of- 

 ten yellowish green or olive) coloured bark, and much larger flowers, 

 that appear with the leaves. Fruit globose, dark blue, as large as a 

 marble, not altogether uneatable when fully ripe, and excellent for 

 tarts and puddings, for which they are collected by the country peo- 

 ple. I once brought home a quart or more of these wild bullaces, 

 and had them made into a tart, which was one of the best flavoured 

 and most juicy I ever partook of. Yet plants occur continually in our 

 hedges so exactly intermediate between the bullace and the austere, 

 uneatable sloe, that I am compelled to regard them both as forms of 

 one species, and believe that the solution of the problem is to be 

 sought for in the well-known fact that many plants evince a strong 

 tendency to sport in varieties as the species advance southward, 

 which in more northern latitudes continue true to their primitive or 

 normal type. In other words, that climate spontaneously works that 

 amelioration in vegetables easily susceptible of improvement, which 



