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visit, though fruitful in some respects, failed to reveal the Scirpus ; 

 until passing over the Burrows a third time, on my passage to the 

 Poppleridge, I quite accidentally encountered the rarity that had so 

 long eluded my search. Any reader of the ' Phy tologist,' then, who 

 may wish to visit Braunton or Ilfracombe in future, may take the be- 

 nefit of my experience. Let the explorer keep to the southern side 

 of the Burrows, within a quarter of a mile of the twin lighthouses, 

 but farther from the river than they are ; here he will come upon a 

 line of little pools and marshy hollows, abounding with. Teucrium 

 Scordium, Anagallis tenella, &c, and two of which were almost filled 

 up with aquatic mosses and a profuse growth of Epipactis palustris, 

 finely in flower at the time of my visit. Following the line of these 

 damp hollows towards the sea, they terminate in a little marsh im- 

 pinging upon the sands, and here the Scirpus HoloschcEnus grows 

 luxuriantly, forming almost a close thicket when I was there, four or 

 five feet high, but entirely confined to a space about twenty yards in 

 length. As the village of Braunton is itself three miles off, a field 

 botanist, not guided to the spot, might make many a ramble on the 

 northern side of the Burrows, and about the central sand-hills, with- 

 out any attendant success. 



Mr. Babington, in his ' Manual,' has reported Astrantia major as 

 located " between Whitbourne and Malvern." Whoever should take 

 a ramble between Whitbourne and Malvem, would certainly find a 

 very pretty country up hill and down dale for some eight or nine 

 miles ; but the chance of coming upon the Astrantia from the locality 

 recorded, is so little, that I have in vain urged our local botanists to 

 attempt its capture. Yet no doubt it was seen, and may exist still, 

 though how it got there may be another question. 



Some plants will establish themselves plentifully in places where 

 they appear, to an observer, to have been placed by Nature at the 

 time of observation, but disappearing afterwards, a question arises as 

 to the deduction from the first recorded fact. About twenty years 

 ago, 1 landed at Swansea, from Bristol, on a lowering evening, and 

 after a hasty refreshment in the town, ran down to botanize on the 

 sandy beach. Gloom hung upon everything, and a rhimy fog ad- 

 vancing with the sullen sounding billows, threw a murky gloom upon 

 the deepening twilight. I however maintained my ground till it was 

 quite dark, and, among other things unquestionably indigenous to 

 the spot, gathered various specimens of Delphinium Consolida, two 

 of which are now in my herbarium. I consequently reported the 

 Delphinium as " truly wild on the sandy shore of Swansea Bay," and 



