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duced at the beginning, the tree is as completely naturalized as any 

 aboriginal of the county, fully as much so as are those species to 

 which we never hesitate assigning a place in our general and local 

 floras, as Acer Pseudo-platanus, for example. Besides in the enrol- 

 ment of the Scotch fir amongst the species of our existing flora, we 

 are perhaps only reinstating a priinseval but extinct inhabitant of South 

 Britain in what was once probably its native soil, as North Britain in- 

 disputably is at the present day ; since I believe trunks and cones of 

 this species have been dug up in the bogs of the south of England, 

 as well as in those of Ireland, the vestiges of anciently existing pine 

 forests. 



Pinus Pinaster, Ait. ? P. maritima, D. C. ? Naturalized abun- 

 dantly with P. sylvestris in the dry, sandy soil of Bournmouth, and 

 on the turfy heaths and peaty, boggy moors betwixt Christchurch and 

 Poole. The immediate vicinity of Bournmouth is at this time a per- 

 fect pine forest, both species forming in some places on the crests of 

 the sandy cliffs above the beach, low, dense thickets, in others rising 

 into groves of taller trees, exactly recalling to mind the natural pine 

 woods of the European and American continents. There is little 

 doubt that if left to themselves these two trees will establish them- 

 selves throughout the heath district of the Poole basin, as it is not 

 only in the immediate vicinity of the original plantations that the 

 species occur spontaneously, but they are beginning to dot the moor- 

 lands and bogs with vigorous young pines of both sorts at wider 

 distances from their artificial places of growth. The cones of the pi- 

 nasters when ripe discharge their seeds elastically with great force, 

 and the seedlings that spring from them are called by the woodman 

 at Bourne " self-setters." The wood, they say, of P. Pinaster is infe- 

 rior to that of the Scotch fir, which in this part of England is used 

 only for temporary railing, fencing, and other coarse purposes. With 

 Mr. Woods (Phytol. iii. p. 261) I do not see how a place can be con- 

 sistently refused to P. sylvestris and P. Pinaster, whilst many other 

 plants, even less perfectly naturalized, are admitted without hesitation 

 into our British flora. The plantations are of nearly fifty years stand- 

 ing, so that there has been time enough to test the self-propagating 

 and self-preserving power of both these pines. I am not sure that I 

 am correct in quoting P. maritima, D. C, as a synonym of P. Pinas- 

 ter, Ait. ; if I am, the latter must doubtless have a prior claim to 

 adoption ; neither am I certain that our pinaster and the P. maritima 

 so abundant.in the Landes, or sandy maritime plains betwixt Bordeaux 

 and Bayonne, are the same species, although they appear to me from 



