440 



grows in very great abundance in a damp meadow below the church, 

 on the north side, and in a wet thicket to the eastward, at the opening 

 of the valley leading to the Priory, in which third and last station it 

 occurs in plenty in marshy soil adjoining the stream. When I saw it 

 on or about the 16th of September, the greater portion of the plants 

 in the second and last localities had flowered freely, but scarcely any 

 specimens were left in that state, the flowers being for the most part 

 quite over, so that I did not think it worth while collecting examples 

 for the herbarium. In the first station below the church, but a com- 

 paratively small part of the entire number of plants appeared to have 

 flowered that year, the few that had done so being likewise out or all 

 but out of flower, and of these the leaves were in all three habitats 

 rusty and eroded as if about to perish, their functions being no longer 

 required, whilst those of the more numerous barren stems were uni- 

 formly fresh, entire and vigorous, and evidently destined to survive 

 the winter, green as then. This species being perennial, the young 

 plants, whether seedlings, or offsets from the creeping rhizoma of old 

 ones, would of course not flower the first season, but whether these 

 numerous barren stems were not of an age to flower, or were fated to 

 remain unfruitful from other causes, I am not prepared to say. The 

 great preponderance of barren over flowering specimens in the mea- 

 dow beneath the church, inclines me to suppose that many of the 

 plants never flower at all ; but that the whole of the apparently bar- 

 ren stems should remain permanently in that condition, seems to me 

 improbable. I apprehend that Mentha sylvestris, like many other 

 plants of its order, has a great tendency to exhaust itself in root, and 

 that whilst in some of its stations it may be induced to flower freely, 

 in others, circumstances rather favour its propagation by the creeping 

 rhizoma. M. sylvestris is given as a native of the Isle of Wight in 

 the old ' Botanist's Guide,' on the authority of Mr. S. Woods, but I 

 have never met with it here myself during nearly twelve years botani- 

 cal acquaintance with all parts of the island, nor is it by any means 

 a common species in England. M. rotundifolia, on the contrary, 

 abounds in some of the districts of this island, and exhibits the same 

 variable and capricious tendencies to barrenness and fertility as M. 

 sylvestris, to which it is so intimately allied as almost to induce a 

 suspicion, when the polymorphous nature of the genus is considered, 

 that they may be states of one and the same species. I should say, 

 for the same reason as that advanced in a late number of this journal, 

 that the non-production of flowers and seed does not militate very 

 conclusively against the claim of M. sylvestris to be held native to 



