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But this loose mode of reasoning is best met by referring to the dis- 

 tribution of the suspected species abroad, which will seldom fail to 

 expose the fallacious premises. Popular and historical tradition is 

 the last ground I shall mention as having been advanced against the 

 indigenous claim of some British species. Thus the spontaneity of 

 the hop has been opposed on the faith of an old distich not very 

 much to the purpose if fairly examined, and that of the cherry and 

 beech on evidence which has nothing but its classicality to recom- 

 mend it. With respect to the hop, Sir James Smith says, " I have 

 sometimes suspected hops not to be indigenous, which was also the 

 opinion of Lightfoot with regard to Scotland. But Haller says they 

 are never cultivated in Switzerland, where nevertheless the wild plant 

 is abundant, and it may with equal probability be reckoned a native 

 of Britain 1 ' (Engl. Fl. iv. p. 241). Sir James might have added, that 

 a plant found in every country of Europe, from Spain and Italy to 

 Norway, Finland, and Russia, as high as 63° of latitude, and through- 

 out Siberia and a part of North America, is not unlikely to be indige- 

 nous to the British Isles. I am convinced that no plant is more truly 

 and incontestably wild than the hop with us ; it abounds even to pro- 

 fusion in the Isle of Wight, where it is never cultivated, and quite as 

 much in those parts of mainland Hants where hop grounds do not 

 exist as where its cultivation is most extensively earned on. Yet 

 Sir Wm. Hooker brands it with the asterisk as a certainly introduced 

 species, though without assigning any reason for doing so. Smith, 

 we see, appeals to geographical distribution against his own scepti- 

 cism, but apparently without knowing the full power of the argument 

 he employs ; his conversion is therefore less hearty and entire than it 

 would probably have been had he traced the range of this species to 

 its utmost limits. This example of the hop is instructive, as showing 

 on what slight grounds, or none at all, the nativity of our plants has 

 been questioned or denied. But an end to this long yet I trust not 

 altogether useless digression. 



he would scarcely have formed so hasty an assumption. He would have seen that it 

 is the last outlying species towards the north of its eminently European genus, ran- 

 ging through Holland, Belgium, and Germany to the south shores of the Baltic, and 

 'therefore quite as likely to be indigenous with us up to the same latitude (54°) in its 

 perfectly wild looking localities. Indeed, it is now admitted on all hands to be a true 

 native of England, after some nonsense spoken at times, more ma jorum nostratum, 

 about having been perhaps a garden flower and introduced by the monks, and so forth. 

 I quote from the above useful and agreeably written little work to show how error may 

 be originated and kept alive by such gratuitous conjectures as these. 



