964 



bridge), Mr. J. Hussey (naturalized probably). This is the only 

 mainland station I have on record, but others less exceptionable will 

 in course of time be discovered. I see no reason to doubt that the 

 wild tulip is indigenous to Britain ; in some parts of England it 

 abounds in chalky pastures, and is the species appropriated to west- 

 ern Europe, just as T. biflora, altaica, &c. are to eastern Europe and 

 Siberia, under our parallels. The sole cause for suspecting the Isle- 

 of- Wight station is the fact of the meadow in which it grows being 

 close to the site of a small farm-house, now many years destroyed, 

 called Little Hardingshoot, but I have no evidence of the spot in 

 which the tulip is found, or any other part of the field, having ever 

 been garden-ground, nor is there the smallest trace of a garden visible 

 at this day. I nevertheless consider it incumbent on me to state, in 

 cases like the present, the remotest suspicion that may arise on the 

 question of the spontaneity of any plant enumerated in our county 

 flora : the ends of science can only be promoted by the unreserved 

 communication of every doubt, however slight, and by holding with 

 strict impartiality the balance of argument in which are weighed the 

 claims of species to be called indigenous, not failing to declare when 

 the beam inclines ever so little against us. 



Fries tells us that the wild tulip so abounds in innumerable places 

 in the Swedish province of Scania, as in early spring to cover the 

 ground as if thickly sown with corn (segetis instar stipata), but rai'ely 

 flowering and quickly withering away. He thinks geographical rea- 

 sons opposed to its being truly aboriginal in that part of Europe (lat. 

 55j), but that objection does not apply to the south and middle of 

 England, which is quite within the proper zone of Tulipa sylvestris, 

 whatever may be the case with Scania. Fries observes that the plant 

 was well known to Linneus a century ago, who, according to him, was 

 disposed to hold it native there (haud advenam declaravit), Corpus 

 Fl. Provin. Suec. Scan. p. 170. But Linneus appears to me to have 

 held rather the contrary opinion, for he says (Fl. Suec. edit. 2, 106) 

 " ex hortis non pridem aufuga," an ambiguous wording, since pridem 

 means both lately and long ago, but in both senses the escape from 

 gardens is directly asserted by him. 



Friiillaria Meleagris. In damp meadows, pastures, woods and 

 thickets ; rare. Not found hitherto in the Isle of Wight. Sparingly 

 in a moist meadow belonging to and opposite the residence of J. K. 

 Jonas, Esq., about half a mile out of Bishop's Waltham, on the road 

 to Gosport, Miss L. Minchin !!! Very sparingly in Tangier Park, 

 near Basingstoke, Miss Orde, 1848. In all the woods round Strath- 



