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originating probably from prior cultivation of the plant as a popular 

 remedy for asthma, for which purpose it is commonly preserved in 

 rustic gardens. It used formerly to be found sparingly on Ryde Do- 

 ver, but has not been seen there for many years, the progress of im- 

 provement having effected the destruction of this and many other 

 plants which flourished on that spot before it was so much built over. 

 In a lane at the north-east end of Godshill ; Mr. W. D. Snooke, from 

 whom I learn that it was common there some years ago, but I cannot 

 find it now. A weed in the garden of the Shanklin Hotel, and in 

 garden ground at Niton and Godshill, spontaneous. In Northwood 

 Park, near the circular reservoir, on ground formerly a garden, a good 

 many plants, and more disposed to spread itself than I have remarked 

 here in general, September 21, 1844. I do not remember having no- 

 ticed it in mainland Hants, nor has it been indicated to me by any 

 of my county correspondents ; there can, however, be little doubt that 

 it occurs under similar conditions across the Solent to those in which 

 it is found on this side of the water, and perhaps more frequently, as 

 being a plant of decidedly eastern and continental distribution in 

 central Europe. In Britain it seems to be more frequent and less 

 fugacious in the eastern counties of England, and to become rare or 

 extinct towards the western coast, but our summers are not warm 

 enough for its free dispersion by seed, which is hardly to be regretted, 

 for the thornapple is a troublesome and noxious cumberer of the 

 ground in countries more congenial to its propagation. In Hungary 

 I have seen it lining the road-sides for miles, and growing beneath 

 the windows of the villagers in rank exuberance. In the middle and 

 southern states of America, as at New York, Philadelphia and 

 Charleston, the plots of ground left vacant for building upon are 

 often covered by a little forest of Datura Stramonium, and its purple 

 variety D. Tatula, which last I have never met with spontaneous in 

 England, but have occasionally seen it in gardens. That they are 

 only varieties I have convinced myself by tracing them through every 

 intermediate shade betwixt blue and white. It is now, I believe, ge- 

 nerally conceded that the thornapple is of Asiatic, not American ori- 

 gin, as indeed its latinized generic name Datura, of Arabic derivation, 

 goes very far to prove, besides that the species was known before the 

 discoveries of Columbus. There seems ground, however, for believing 

 that in common with some other plants it was indigenous to the 

 warmer parts of both continents, and that a nearly allied species, if 

 not the same with the Stramonium, has beeu known in Mexico from 

 the time of Cortes. 



