498 



species in this country, but being rarely abundant, like many other 

 annuals, seldom continues long in one spot, but shifts its station 

 within certain limits, or disappears entirely. The late Lady Blake 

 informed me it is to be found most years about Barton and Rougham, 

 near Bury, but scarcely in the same field for many successive seasons. 

 Centaurea Calcitrapa. Tn dry pastures, waste places, on commons 

 and along road-sides, on chalk, gravel, or sand ; rare. Road-side 

 between Niton and St. Lawrence (with white flowers), September, 

 1833 ; Mrs. Dixon. Not now to be found there (Mrs. D. thinks 

 from the road having been improved), or so far as I can ascertain, in 

 any other part of the Isle of Wight. Peel Common, near Fareham, 

 and on Portsdown Hill, near the Nelson Monument ; Mr. W. L. 

 Notcutt !!! I looked for it in vain on Portsdown, but found it in 

 plenty on Peel, and still more abundantly on Chark Common (which 

 is but a continuation of the former towards Stubbington) , forming 

 large bushes, and still in ample flower, October 13th, 1848. It pro- 

 bably grows in many other places in mainland Hants, towards the 

 coast, but is rather a plant of the eastern or " Germanic " than of the 

 western or " Atlantic " type of distribution, or perhaps should be re- 

 garded as making a transition from that to the purely "English" 

 type. It is apparently wanting over by far the larger portion of Eng- 

 land, inclining more and more to the eastern side of the island as it 

 advances northward, and only in the extreme south attaining the me- 

 ridian of Devon on the west. I have gathered it in Jersey, and 

 remarked it abundantly many years ago in Sussex, on this side of 

 Brighton. I have likewise seen it in Suffolk, near Ipswich, and in 

 June, 1847, gathered it in great abundance at Norfolk, in Virginia, 

 where it is completely naturalized on waste ground about that now 

 somewhat elderly American city. 



Arctium Lappa. In waste places, woods, by way-sides and mar- 

 gins of fields, &c. ; very common. Var. a. A. majus, Schkuhr? 

 By Shanklin farm, &c. Var. 0. A. minus, Schk-. f A. Bardana, 

 Willd. Much the more frequent variety of the two. Ventnor Cove, 

 &c. ; plentiful. These are very possibly, as Mr. Babington regards 

 them, distinct species, a position I am rather inclined to accede to 

 than controvert ; but, not having yet studied the two sufficiently to 

 be convinced that such is the case, and still seeing cause for doubt 

 and suspension of judgment, I prefer risking the commission of the 

 minor error of undue combination to the far greater evil of unnatural 

 separation. The prominence given to marked yet dubious forms by 

 special record under the head of varieties, suffices for their discrimi- 



