827 



recent British botanists as an introduced plant : I am disposed to 

 think it as truly wild on the Suffolk coast, as in the south of Europe, 

 where, although abundant, I have never seen it, except in or about 

 towns, as with us. At Gorleston by Yarmouth it seemed to me as 

 much at home as at Montpellier, though less plentiful, but the pro- 

 gress of building has done much to diminish its frequency in that Eng- 

 lish station. U. Dodartii I have every reason for believing a mere 

 variety of U. pilulifera, with entire, or partially entire leaves. 



Urtica urens. Very common in waste and cultivated places, by 

 road-sides and on dunghills, but less general than the following, and 

 more confined to the neighbourhood of habitations. I remarked it as 

 unusually frequent in west Bants, about Ringwood and Christchurch, 

 last summer. 



dioica. In waste ground, along hedges, in woods, lanes, on 



weedy banks, and by road-sides ; everywhere abundant. The var. /3. 

 angustifolia (Wim. and Grab.), with ovate-lanceolate leaves rounded 

 at base, I have remarked in this island occasionally. 



Humulus Lupulus. In moist or boggy woods, thickets, hedges, 

 banks of streams and bushy places, a truly indigenous plant, univer- 

 sally and abundantly distributed over the county. As common as 

 brambles in very many parts of the Isle of Wight, particularly in low, 

 damp thickets, which are often impenetrably matted with its interlac- 

 ing stems, or it may be seen running up the slender trunks of alders 

 and sallows in our boggy copses, in such abundance as to resemble 

 natural hop-gardens, and in these situations has a very picturesque 

 effect. Never grown in this island for its strobiles, which in the wild 

 plant yield excellent hops, and are sometimes gathered by the coun- 

 try people in lieu of the more expensive produce of Kent and Surrey. 

 The hop is cultivated for commercial purposes in a very small part 

 only of Hants, in the north-eastern portion of the county, along the 

 Surrey border, as Alton, Selborne, &c, yet is equally plentiful where 

 its culture is unknown ; I have never failed seeing it in every district 

 I have yet visited. Mr. H. C. Watson, in his valuable work the 

 'Cybele Britannica,' where, on the subject of the indigenous origin of 

 the plants composing our flora, he has, I cannot help thinking, suf- 

 fered his own independent and inquiring mind to be somewhat biassed 

 by the antiquated and crude speculations of others, puts the follow- 

 ing string of queries under the head of Humulus Lupulus (Cyb. Brit, 

 ii. p. 372). "Has the hop been introduced into Britain by human 

 agency, or is it an aboriginal native ? If native, how much of its pre- 

 sent area, how many of its localities, should be deemed natural ? and 



