795 



would iu all likelihood be no rare inhabitant of our woods, since it 

 contrives to maintain its ground in spite of marauders that seem bent 

 on its extirpation. With us, in the wild state the flowers are very 

 pale red, or nearly, if not quite, white, but in delicious fragrance not 

 inferior to the deepest blush variety seen in the gardens. Cuttings of 

 this shrub do not strike, unless perhaps in sand under a hand-glass, a 

 process too refined for rustic horticulturists to practise, and hence 

 probably the reason why seedlings from the woods are in such request 

 for supplying the cottagers' gardens with a favourite, but I fancy not 

 very enduring, occupant. 



As regards the question of the actual spontaneity or indigenous ori- 

 gin of the Mezereon in England, it has unquestionably, both in this 

 and the adjoining county of Sussex, the appearance of being a ge- 

 nuine native. Mr. H. C. Watson, in the second volume of his ' Cy- 

 bele Britannica,' p. 352, has the following remarks on this head. 

 " My own inclination would be to treat this shrub as an alien, without 

 attempting to fill in the formula in the customary way for native 

 plants. By Hooker it is classed with the introduced species ; by 

 Henslow and Babington with the undisputed natives. Mr. Borrer 

 deems it " truly wild" in Sussex; Mr. Pamplin apparently takes the 

 same view of it in Hants ; the authors of the ' Flora Hertfordiensis ' 

 enter it as an unchallenged native of Herts ; and so with respect to 

 some other counties and their witnesses. The continental distribu- 

 tion of the species is such as rather to oppose the idea of the shrub 

 being indigenous to Britain." The objection conveyed iu the con- 

 cluding sentence of this quotation is the only one which, in my opi- 

 nion, carries any weight with it. I presume Mr. Watson here alludes 

 to the inland and eastern, or, as it might be termed in accordance 

 with his nomenclature of distribution, ultra-Germanic tendencies of 

 this shrub. The Mezereon has its principal seat in the north and 

 north-east of the European continent, appearing, as a general rule, to 

 shun the maritime climate of its western coasts, and of the smaller is- 

 lands appertaining to it. The species abounds most in Poland, Rus- 

 sia, eastern Germany towards the Baltic, and in all parts of Hungary, 

 Gallicia, and other deeply continental lands betwixt the Baltic and 

 Mediterranean eastward beyond the Uralian mountains into Siberia, 

 and extends northward into Scandinavia as far as the southern pro- 

 vinces of Lapland. It certainly approaches the western shores of 

 central Europe in several parts of their extent between Norway and 

 France, as it is included in the floras of Denmark proper, of Belgium 

 and France, — all of which, however, it must be allowed, are to the 



