817 



A Catalogue of the Plants growing wild in Hampshire, with occa- 

 sional Notes and Observations on some of the more remarkable 

 Species. By William Arnold Bromfield, M.D., F.L.S., &c. 



(Continued from page 768). 



Empetrum nigrum, although now apparently extinct, has cer- 

 tainly occurred in Sussex (near Amberley), and may therefore be 

 looked for with some hopes of success on our boggy tracts and forest 

 peat. Its discovery would be an acquisition to the Hampshire flora 

 of no small interest, as being at once the type and sole British repre- 

 sentative of the small order Empetracese. 



The Box (Buxns sempervirens) should be looked for on the north- 

 ern slopes of our chalk downs. It is profusely abundant on most 

 parts of Sidon (Sidedown) Hill, in Highclere Park (Lord Caernar- 

 von's), scattered over its shelving sides as if quite spontaneous, and 

 said to disperse itself freely by seed. I could not, however, satisfy 

 myself of this fact by finding young plants newly springing up, and 

 therefore omit it from the category of naturalized Hampshire species. 

 It is an evident, and indeed acknowledged, introduction at Highclere, 

 and only found on Sidon Hill, which is wholly within the boundaries 

 of the park, the most extensive and picturesque in the county.* I 

 believe there are no recorded habitats for the box on the continent 

 quite so far to the north as the well-known and now sole existing sta- 

 tion for this shrub in England at Box Hill, in Surrey,t but it is an 

 undoubted native of calcareous hills in southern Belgium, between 

 latitude 50° and 51°, within a degree of the Box Hill station, the 

 aboriginality of which has by some been called in question as usual. 



Euphorbia Peplis. On sandy sea-shores ; extremely rare, and I 

 fear now quite extinct in Hampshire. A single specimen found in 

 Sandown Bay, in this island, now some years since, by J. S. Mill, 

 Esq. ! (Phytol. i. p. 91). Through the kindness of Mr. Mill I possess 

 the above example of this rare British species from the most easterly 



* The park at Highclere is thirteen miles in circumference, and besides Sidon 

 Hill, is overlooked by the still loftier eminence of Beacon Hill, just outside the park, 

 and the highest culminating point in the county. I have no hypsometric data as yet 

 for the mainland of Hants, but the elevation of Beacon Hill must verge very closely 

 on, if it does not exceed, 1000 feet. 



f The Box is said to grow profusely at a place called Checquers, in Bucks or 

 Berks, I forget which, as well as the name of the proprietor ; but from the silence of 

 our botanists on the subject I infer that the tree is at most only naturalized about the 

 house and grounds, and perhaps quite as dubiously so as at Highclere. 



Vol. hi. 5 n 



