598 



Verbascum Thapsus. In woods, hedges, dry pastures, by road- 

 sides, on banks, wall-tops, and amongst ruins ; common in most parts 

 of the Isle of Wight and mainland Hants, most abundantly where the 

 soil is calcareous, and often of gigantic growth (six or seven feet 

 high). Var. |3. Leaves less downy, bracts longer than the calyx. In 

 a little lane between Brading Down and the lane leading from Adge- 

 ton to Morton ; Dr. T. Bell Salter!! Dr. S. thought this might be 

 the V. thapsiforme of Schrader (Monogr. Verb. p. 21), but that spe- 

 cies is unknown to me except by description, and the only specimen 

 I saw gathered by Dr. S. was not in a condition to enable me to de- 

 cide on its identity with Schrader's plant, nor was more than one ex- 

 ample found in the station above given.* Very common on declivities 

 of the chalk downs, at their highest elevation. From the texture of 

 the leaves known here sometimes as the " flannel plant." In Canada 

 and the more northern parts of the United States the great mullein is 

 quite an agricultural nuisance, overrunning such tillage lands as are 

 left in lay or not kept properly weeded. With us it keeps pretty 

 much within its legitimate boundaries, and its appearance occa- 

 sionally in the corn-field may be regarded as purely accidental. 



Lycltnitis. By road-sides, in waste places, and on 



hedge-banks, &c. ; very rare in Hants. Hambledon: Rev. Messrs. 

 Gamier and Poulter in Hamp. Repos. My friend George Kirkpatrick, 

 Esq., believes he once found either this or V. pulverulentum (V. floc- 

 cosum, W. and K.) on a rubbish-heap by a limekiln near Carisbrook, 

 most probably the former, as the more generally diffused species in 

 England, but I have not seen specimens as yet from any part of this 

 island or county. The latter plant (V. floccosum) has found its way 

 into the catalogue of Hampshire plants, on the authority of Mr. 

 Pamplin (see Watson's 'New Botanist's Guide,' Supplement), as 

 growing about Old Alresford, but on inquiry of Mr. P. that gentleman 

 has no recollection of having met with it there, and cannot account 

 for its communication to the work referred to, nor has Mr. Forder, 

 who resides at Old Alresford, ever fallen in with it in his neighbour- 

 hood, although a plant too singular in its appearance to be overlooked 

 even by a tyro in Botany, did it really exist there. Iu Britain it is 

 of pre-eminently oriental distribution, and almost exclusively confined 

 to the two easternmost counties of England — Norfolk and Suffolk, 

 where, as about Norwich and Bury, I have seen it in great plenty by 



* This is most likely the V. bracteatum of Agardb, and of Presl ; an apparently 

 rare and very little known species or variety. 



