574 



weeds that encumber the corn and other tillage lands of one quarter 

 of the globe, and severally test the skill and vigilance of the European 

 husbandman in their eradication or subjection, naturally excites sur- 

 prise and inquiry into its probable cause. I was forcibly struck with 

 the relative paucity of corn-field plants, both as regards species and 

 even individuals, in that country, compared with their prevalence and 

 variety at home ; a difference certainly not attributable to better 

 farming, but to the fact, I think, that the number of social plants, or 

 those endowed with great power of occupancy, is much larger on this 

 than on the other side of the Atlantic, which is quite in accordance 

 with an observation made long since by Humboldt, that in approach- 

 ing the equator, whilst the amount of species increases, the individuals 

 of each kind diminish in number, grow farther apart, or in other 

 words, become less social or gregarious. 



Pulmonaria angustifolia. In woods, thickets and copses, on hedge- 

 banks and along the borders of fields, exclusively on the tertiary or 

 freshwater formation, and particularly on damp, or even wet clay soils; 

 abundantly over the greater part of the Isle of Wight north of the cen- 

 tral chalk range, especially in the eastern part of East Medina, and 

 that portion of the western hundred nearest to the latter, occupying 

 an area of several thousand acres. Plentiful over the whole of the 

 woody country south and west of Ryde, to the Medina and the foot 

 of the chalk hills, on and beyond which, on the greensand, gait, &c, 

 not a specimen is to be seen. In Quarr Copse, Firestone Copse, 

 Whitefield and Combley Woods, Briddlesford and Chillingwood 

 Copses, &c, in great plenty. Rarer in West Medina, in consequence 

 of the limited area of its favourite formation in that hundred, but plen- 

 tiful in and about Parkhurst Forest, and frequent in damp thickets 

 and copses along the river between Newport and Cowes. Var. /3. 

 Leaves very narrowly lanceolate, Ger. em. p. 808, fig. 3 (bona). Not 

 uncommon. Var. y. Flowers white. Rare. In a little copse near 

 the Medina, by New Fairlee, near Newport; Mr. George Kirkpatrick!!! 

 (The leaves in this variety are extremely narrow). 



On the mainland of Hants the Pulmonaria appears confined to the 

 hundred of the New Forest, where the geological features of the coun- 

 try accord with those of the opposite shores of the Isle of Wight. 

 How far it extends over this district I am at present unable to say, 

 but I find it plentiful about Lymington and Boldre, and recorded as 

 growing at Holbury in the New Forest, throughout which it is probably 

 distributed. I have never seen it or heard of its being found in any 

 other than the extreme south-western part of the county, which dif- 



