753 



borne village ; Binstead, near Alton ; Blashford, near Ringwood, on 

 the road to Fordingbridge. Fareham; Mr. W. L. Notcutt !!! Wam- 

 ford ; Rev. E. M. Sladen. About the Priory (Selborne), plentifully ; 

 Mr. Wm. Famplin. Andover ; Mr. Win. Whale ; and I have every 

 reason to believe frequent throughout the county. This plant has the 

 habit both of Amaranth us and Spinacia, and is familiarly known as 

 "wild spinage" in the Isle of Wight, where, however, if it was ever 

 used as such, as it still is in some parts of the kingdom, no tradition 

 of its employment as a pot-herb here has survived its disuse. Better 

 entitled, from its peculiarity of habit, perennial duration, and very 

 elongated stigmas, which are sometimes as many as four or five, to 

 generic distinction. It formed the genus Agatophyton of Moquin- 

 Tandon, but that author in the Prodromus refers it to Blitum. 



Beta maritima. Abundant, often to profusion, in muddy salt- 

 marshes, on old walls, chalk cliffs, banks and waste ground along the 

 sea-shore, or even a little inland, on rocks, &c. ; on most parts of 

 the coast, both of the island and main. In great plenty by the shore 

 between Springfield and Sea View, and elsewhere near Ryde. Com- 

 mon at Cowes and Yarmouth. Profusely on the ledges or terraces of 

 the cliffs betwixt Freshwater Gate and the Needles, called meads and 

 greens by the cliffsmen (see Orobanche Picridis, iii. 604). At the 

 foot of the rocks of gait or firestone that hem in the Undercliff on the 

 north, as in the Pelham Woods, behind St. Lawrence, many hundred 

 yards from the sea-shore, and some two or three hundred feet above 

 it, in great plenty. Common, I believe, almost everywhere on the 

 opposite coast, in Hay ling and Portsea Islands, at Porchester, &c. 

 In common with the last, usually called " wild spinage " by the 

 poorer classes, but also beet, and is by them gathered from the shore, 

 boiled, and eaten as greens with the pork or bacon that forms so con- 

 stant an article in the dietary of our Hampshire peasantry. Dr. Salter 

 remarks to me that the flowers of the sea-beet possess a powerful fra- 

 grance, like that of Clematis (C. Flammida) and new hay conjoined. 

 He has also perceived the same agreeable odour in the flowers of 

 black mustard {Brassica nigra). 



Salicomia herbacea. On muddy salt-marshes, shores and inlets 

 of the sea, abundantly. On each side of the Medina above Cowes. 

 Shores of the Wootton River and of the Yar. Salt-marshes at Brad- 

 ing, Newtown, &c. Var. ft. procumbens ; stems prostrate. S. pro- 

 cumbens, Stn. Shores of Yarmouth harbour, and abundantly with a. 

 in the Newtown salt-marshes. Abundant on the coast of mainland 

 Hants, where, as in this island, it grows even in the brine in the high 



Vol. hi. 5 e 



