673 



" Native. Ericetal. Peculiar to the two counties above mentioned, 

 as far as hitherto ascertained ; having been first introduced into the 

 British Floras some twenty years ago, when it was sent to Sir W. J. 

 Hooker instead of E. vagans, by the late Rev. J. Tozer, who had been 

 applied to for the latter, and consequently looked out for some Erica 

 different from Tetralix and cinerea. The localities in Cornwall are 

 variously described, but are all of them about Penryn, Truro, and St. 

 Agnes. The Dorset locality extends, according to Dr. Salter, 'through- 

 out nearly the whole space from Arne to Corfe, a distance of fully 

 four miles.' The curiously intermediate links between this and E. 

 Tetralix, one of which is described by Bentham as a variety (' Wat- 

 soni,' DC. Prodr.) of E. ciliaris, are probably hybrid varieties. At 

 one end of the series, they are barely distinguishable from E. Tetra- 

 lix, by the slightly larger and ventricose corollas ; while, at the oppo- 

 site extremity, they pass into E. ciliaris almost imperceptibly. It is 

 thus optional to place them as varieties, under either or both of the 

 two species. I found numerous plants, and thus obtained a series of 

 the forms, on a heath near Truro, which was then (1831) in process 

 of enclosure ; and looking at the map, I think it must have been on 

 the road towards Redruth ; but I was an utter stranger to Truro at 

 the time, and was strolling along whither chance might lead. The 

 Rev. C. A. Johns has recently given me a living plant, raised from 

 cuttings of E. Watsoni, but not exactly the form described by Ben- 

 tham, taken from a single shrub of it which was found by Mr. Boner 

 (in 1847 ?) 'on the right hand side of the lane which leads from the 

 Foundry at Perran to the plantation in which E. ciliaris grows so 

 abundantly.' It is highly probable that E. ciliaris had been really 

 known as a native many years ago, but again lost sight of until re-dis- 

 covered by Mr. Tozer. In Curtis's Botanical Magazine, t. 484, it is 

 remarked of this Heath : ' C. Bauhin, mistakenly, calls it anglica, 

 which has given rise to the idea of its being an English plant, but it 

 is not. I have a specimen of true E. ciliaris, obtained by Mr. John 

 Ellis from a garden shrub, which, he was informed, had been trans- 

 planted from a common near Farnham, in Surrey. It is probable that 

 there was some mistake about the individual shrub, for E. ciliaris is 

 killed down by very severe winters, in my own garden, in the same 

 county; and it would therefore seem to require a milder climate for 

 its natural habitat." — p. 149. 



We will next give an example of Mr. Watson's mode of treating a 

 familiar species, the distribution of which has been rendered obscure 

 Vol. hi. 4 s 



