885 



Corylus Avellana. In woods, copses and hedges everywhere most 

 abundantly ; often constituting the main part of the undergrowth in 

 our hilly copses, flowering here usually in February and sometimes in 

 January. 



ICarpinus Betulus. In woods, thickets and hedges, mostly in damp 

 clay soils ; very rare ? Not found wild in the Isle of Wight, where it 

 is only seen in plantations. In a wood abutting on Titchfield Com- 

 mon and in a copse by Down Lane, near Fareham ; Mr. W. L. Not- 

 cutt. I can hardly believe the Hornbeam not indigenous in Hants, 

 although I have as yet only the above stations to record for it in the 

 county, and regarding which Mr. Notcutt speaks with some hesitation 

 in a letter I lately had from him. The tree abounds in some parts of 

 Sussex, as near Hurstperpoint, and in woods at the Old Roar, near 

 Hastings. Its absence as a native production in this island is not 

 explicable on the ground of deficiency of suitable soil, as we abound 

 with the stiff clay in which it delights. It will probably be found in 

 several parts of the county if searched for in damp, tenacious ground. 



Taxus baccata. In woods, hedges, rocky places, borders of fields, 

 and on open chalky downs, very abundantly over a great part of main- 

 land Hants, mostly in elevated situations in the interior ; rarer in the 

 lower and flatter country or along the coast. Scarcely indigenous to 

 the Isle of Wight. A few small trees occur on the slope of the down 



tionable, inasmuch as it implies an order of plants like aments or catkins, which is 

 equally far from the truth and the sense intended to be conveyed in the word, whereas 

 Amentifers at once declares its own meaning and the true nature of the order, which 

 is composed of ament or c&t\.m-bearing plants, just as Conifers is of trees bearing 

 cones. In adopting Amentiferae, too, we secure correctness and uniformity at the 

 same time, as the termination now accords with Conifers, Cruciferae and Umbellifers, 

 which, had consistency anything to do with the barbarous, mixed nomenclature of the 

 natural orders still used by many, should have been Amentaceae, Conaces, Cruciacese ! 

 Umbellacese, or Ameules, Cones, Crucies, Umbelles ! words, it must be owned, that 

 would have beeu a disgrace to botany. But the fact is, that the termination in aeece 

 adapts itself with singular felicity to all the natural orders deriving their names from 

 a typical genus, whilst to the few that take their appellations from the form or structure 

 of certain parts, the ending in ferce, implying bearing or producing, attaches with 

 equal gracefulness and perspicuity. Rigid grammatical correctness is not to be ex- 

 pected in modern scientific nomenclature, but the uniform adoption (with the above 

 exceptions) of the ordinal termination in acece would secure it oftener than the arbi- 

 trary and capricious substitution of the endings in ece, nim, &c, which are only a bur- 

 den on the memory to recollect, and are often wholly unsuited to the structure of the 

 root to which they are attached, as Violari<e, where the r is quite out of place and ex 

 traneous. 



