962 



flower in other parts of that most extensive wood !!! Many other sta- 

 tions I have no doubt exist in the county, where, 



" Wrapt in verdure, fragrant lilies blow, — • 

 Lilies that love the vale and hide their bells of snow." 



Ruscus aculeatus. In woods, thickets, copses, in bushy, heathy 

 pastures, on hedge-banks and borders of fields ; frequent. Very 

 common in many parts of the Isle of Wight ; plentiful about Ryde 

 in various places, in Quarr Copse, Apley Wood, Shore Copse, woods 

 along the Wootton River, &c. Very large and abundant in Gurnard 

 Wood, by W. Cowes. Extremely plentiful in dry copses about 

 Newchurch, as at Skinner's Hill, Hill Copse, Alverston Lynch, Bord- 

 wood, &c. Woods in the Undercliff occasionally, but not very com- 

 mon there, and much more frequent in East than in West Medina, 

 preferring apparently the clay of the eocene or tertiary beds to either 

 the chalk or greensand. Common in some parts of mainland Hants, 

 and I think of universal distribution over the county. Portsea Island, 

 and very common in hedges in Hayling Island. About Clayhall and 

 Alverstoke, near Grange farm, and elsewhere in Stoke's Bay. About 

 Southampton, not uncommon. Sowley and elsewhere in the New 

 Forest ; probably abundant in that district. In Anfield Wood (near 

 Winton), near one of the principal drives, Mr. Win. Whale. Amongst 

 furze near Hasted, by Hursley, and on the Otterbourne road (from 

 Hursley ?), nearly opposite the corner where is the waterfall at the 

 end of Mr. Chamberlayne's park, Id. Hurne (near Christchurch), 

 Mr. Curtis in litt. and Brit Entom. xi. t. 489. The Salterns; Puxol 

 lane ; Gosport road ; Hill Copse, Mr. W. L. Notcutt. Of this plant 

 we have two principal varieties, but connected by intermediate grada- 

 tions. Var. a. Leaves (or rather phyllodia), narrow, subelliptic-lan- 

 ceolate. Var. /3. Leaves broadly ovato-elliptical. Both these forms 

 are about equally common, and are analogous to similar ones of the 

 common myrtle. I suppose the var. lax us of Smith in Linn. Trans, 

 and Engl. Fl. to be some slight deviation from the common narrow- 

 leaved form, a., with less erect branches than usual, but I find no- 

 thing in the station assigned for it (Stoke's Bay) at all differing from 

 the species in its ordinary phases. The flowers of this species are in 

 reality axillaiy, on peduncles several times their own length, running 

 beneath the epidermis of the flattened branchlet or phyllodium, and 

 appearing as if sessile on the disk of the latter, at or about its centre. 

 Analogy with other species of the genus leads us to regard this sub- 

 cuticular peduncle as the common stalk of a raceme, of which only 



