563 



deprivation of light in close tin vessels have any tendency to produce 

 collapse of the blossoms, which in their native soil continue expanded 

 all day, and if not during the night, which they certainly do when 

 taken up, at least till long after dark. Sir Wm. Hooker has remarked 

 the flowers to be fragrant in Jersey. 



Cuscuta europaea. Parasitic on various herbaceous plants, in 

 hedges, &c, but very rare, at least in the Isle of Wight. On wild 

 hops, nettles, and thistles (Carduus arvensis), in a hedge betwixt 

 Kerne and Alverston; Dr. T. Bell Salter, 1840 !!! I have not seen 

 it there for some years past. On vetches in a field at Bouldner, near 

 Thorley ; Mr. Robert Gibbs, July, 1848 !!! Near Lake, Isle of Wight 

 (which Lake ?) ; Mr. J. Woods, jun., in Bot. Guide. Near Alton ; 

 Rev. G.E.Smith! Dr. Lindley ('Vegetable Kingdom') observes 

 that dodders do not seem to occur much in the tropics. I found two 

 or three species to be very common in Jamaica, and in the island of 

 Grenada observed not only shrubs (Rivina, &c), but trees of various 

 kinds and orders (Cerbera, Bignonia, Citrus, &c), twenty or thirty 

 feet high, smothered as it were under a gigantic species of Cuscuta 

 (not a Cassytha), growing in vast abundance, depending from the 

 branches like huge hanks of coloured yarn many feet in length, and 

 hiding a great part of its victims from view in its treacherous snare. 



Epiihymum. On furze, thyme, ling, heath and other 



shrubby plants, but principally on the first of these; very common. 

 On most of our larger heaths and commons in the Isle of Wight, and 

 on the mainland, the low furze bushes may be seen bearing this plant 

 like entangled skeins of red or yellow silk, often with a profusion that 

 can hardly fail to arrest the attention of the most incurious, as on 

 Ningwood Common, between Yarmouth and Shalfleet, Stapler's 

 Heath, by Newport, &c. On Galium saxatile by the road-side over 

 Bleak Down, to Newport. So abundant on the furze along the south 

 coast of Hayling Island, 1848, as to fill the air with its unpleasant 

 odour when a damp wind blew over it. On Shidfield Heath ; Miss 

 Hawkins. Hursley; Miss L. Legge. 



|? Trifolii. In clover-fields, apparently of recent introduc- 

 tion, and happily as yet very rare in the Isle of Wight. Abundantly 

 in a clover-field by Thorley Farm, 1842; Mr. R. Gibbs !!! In ano- 

 ther field on the same farm, not far from Yarmouth, but on the op- 

 posite side of the river, — very sparingly, October 13, 1843; Mr. 

 George Gibbs !!! Not, I believe, since remarked in either station. 

 The simultaneous appearance of this dodder, a lew years back, in va- 

 rious parts of England, from the ravages it made amongst clover, 



