841 



little shrub doubtless occur here, but I am not yet prepared to state 

 them. 



fPopulus alba. In damp woods, hedges, moist meadows, and on 

 the banks of rivers in various parts of the county and Tsle of Wight, 

 but in most cases I find myself unable to distinguish it with certainty 

 from the following, of which I am strongly disposed to regard it as a 

 cultivated variety, being, indeed, unable to cite a single station for 

 this tree in its most characteristic and best marked form, where it has 

 an undeniably wild appearance. 



canescens. In similar places with the last, also on hilly, 



heathy, and dry situations, as commons, &c. ; not very frequent, but 

 perhaps truly indigenous to the county. Very common about Pag- 

 ham farm in hedges, and in a small wet wood near the same, plenti- 

 fully. In Barton or Bucket's Copse, and in the wet hollow or valley 

 just outside of it, betwixt that wood and Osborne House, are some 

 large and old, as well as many young trees, apparently indigenous. 

 Hedges about Great Park farm, two miles W. of Newport, a rather 

 dubious station; more wild to appearance in a lane leading down to 

 the Wilderness from the high road between Newport and Niton, a 

 little beyond the Star Inn, but sparingly. I have noticed it also near 

 the northern side of Briddlesford Heath, in copses, as well as in se- 

 veral other places in the island, but where it would be scarcely pos- 

 sible to pronounce whether native or introduced. Noble trees of this 

 species grow in a field hedge near Landguard farm, by Shanklin, but 

 pretty evidently, I think, planted, as this and P. alba certainly often 

 are with us on newly made hedge-banks and along fences. There is 

 a magnificent tree of the gray poplar a few miles south of Newport, 

 near a farm, but the name has escaped my memory. Hedges in Hay- 

 ling Island. About King's Worthy, near Winchester. In Durley 

 Wood, near Bishop's Walthara, by the millstream, and splendid spe- 

 cimens around the great pond at New Alresford, of vast size and 

 height, but I am not certain that the trees (which some might call P. 

 alba) are truly wild in either place. These two species, if they be 

 really distinct, are given in all our leading floras, both local and ge- 

 neral, as if unquestionably indigenous, at least to England. Neither 

 Smith, Hooker or Babington hint a suspicion to the contrary. Wat- 

 son says of the Abele, " P. alba is clearly indigenous to the southern 

 provinces of England " (Cyb. Brit. ii. p. 383). Ray (Hist. Plant, and 

 Synopsis), Gerarde and Parkinson* cast no doubt on its nativity, but 



*" The smaller leaved white Poplar tree" of Parkinson (Theat. Bot. p. 1410, fig. 

 2) accords with my idea of P. canescens, as does his fig, 1, same page, " The white 



Vol. hi. 5 q 



