846 



other parts of mainland Hants, but having omitted to note down the 

 stations, I forbear to give them from memory merely. Stigmas four, 

 bright crimson, nearly erect, slightly diverging only in two pairs ; 

 each (in all the specimens I can collect in this island) expanded into 

 a broad, irregular, waved and crenate lobe, in shape resembling a 

 cock's comb, or the fleshy inflorescence of Celosia cristata. The great 

 differences in the shape of the stigraas, as I find from that given them 

 in E. Botany and the authors quoted under the two preceding species, 

 only prove how variable are these organs as regards form and per- 

 haps number also. In my specimens the stigmas are constantly four, 

 but in place of being linear or awl-shaped, as Smith describes and 

 Sowerby figures them, they are invariably lobed and notched in the 

 manner above stated. In the plate of this species in 'Flora Danica' 

 (t. 2184) the stigmas approach those of my specimens in form, but are 

 much more simple or regular, widely spreading, or even reflexed, 

 scarcely at all lobed, and much smaller, nor are they, any more than 

 in mine, furnished with a basal auricle, as mentioned by Smith, and 

 so drawn in E. Botany.* Guimpel and Hayne (Abbild. der Deutsch. 

 Holtzart. ii. t. 203) come much nearer in their delineation of the stig- 

 mas to my own examples in size, shape and colour, from whence I 

 conclude these organs vary according to age and development, if not 

 in each individual from other causes. I found in a staminate catkin 

 from Bucket's Copse in 1843, several hermaphrodite flowers, the stig- 

 mas of which were fully formed and of the usual size. I have re- 

 marked the brown, glutinous flower-buds of the Aspen to smell 

 strongly of malt. 



fPopulus nigra. In wet woods, meadows and by river-sides, &c. ; 

 a very doubtful native, I fear, of Hants, and rarely seen with us in 

 any apparently wild situation. On Watchouse Point, near the Priory, 

 probably planted, and on wet slipped clay along the shore between 

 Sea View and the mouth of Brading harbour. Near Steephill, appa- 

 rently wild, and a tree or two betwixt Ninham farm and the Newport 

 road, in the wooded ground along the brook, as also on wet land near 

 the shore a little west of Cowes. A tree or two near Medham, and 

 three or four in a wood near Cliff farm, by Shankliu, but very doubt- 

 fully indigenous, as I found a solitary Horse-chestnut in the same 

 wood. I have sometimes thought that exotic tree occasionally pro- 

 pagates itself spontaneously in this country, as I believe I remember 



* In this last work the floral bracts (scales) are in the separate figure represented 

 as glabrous, doubtless through omission of the engraver. 



