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pensable to the production of the former, and to conclude that every 

 plant, endowed with those attributes of gracefulness of form or rich- 

 ness and variety of hues above its fellows in the field, must have 

 migrated from a climate in which alone we fancy plants so attractive 

 could have originated spontaneously. We may excuse the non-bota- 

 nical world for making that absolute and unexceptional which as a 

 general proposition holds true in the main, and only smile at their 

 crude speculations and traditions to account for the presence of cer- 

 tain southern types of vegetation which mingle in our flora with the 

 predominant and more northern forms ;* but it does seem surprizing 

 to find botanists who have the means of comparing the vegetation of 

 our own with that of adjacent countries continue to suspect or reject, 

 because their forefathers suspected or rejected, plants evidently pro- 

 per to our zone and climate. Many tropical genera, as Passiflora, 

 Dioscorea, and even tropical families, as palms, have one or more 

 outlying species that extend far into the temperate zone, and the 

 same holds good with plants having their chief seat in the south of 

 Europe, species of which extend into central or even northern Europe ; 

 such are Narcissus, Muscari, Gladiolus, Iris, Daphne and many more, 

 all of which have representatives in the middle parallels of our con- 

 tinent, and why not equally in Britain ? I do not mean to say that 

 every such outlying or northern species when found in Britain must 

 forthwith be set down as indigenous, because its natural limits in 

 other European countries are under a latitude as high as our own, for 

 it is well known that plants have their distribution governed almost 

 as much by longitude as by latitude ; but this I do mean to assert, 

 that when a species is discovered in reasonable abundance in this 

 country which is known to inhabit a nearly or equally high latitude 

 on the continent, and occurs here in situations perfectly analogous 

 with those it affects abroad, unless some good cause can be shown 

 why it is not likely to be indigenous, such as the vicinity of gardens, 

 or proof of recent importation, &c, it does strike me as an absurd 

 and needless refinement in scepticism to refuse such species the full 



* Many plants common in the south and west of England, such as Erica ciliaris, 

 Agrostis setacea, Briza minor, Rubia peregrina, Gastridium lendigerum and Tamus 

 communis, are in fact more truly southern species than most of those which it is the 

 fashion to suspect as aliens, but then they have not the misfortune, like these, to be 

 objects of cultivation for their beauty or other qualities, as in the case of such jeally 

 more northern plants as the hop, mezereon, Martagon lily, our two hellebores, co- 

 lumbines, &c, which have all some enemy or other amongst British botanist to inva- 

 lidate or deny their title to citizenship. • 



