968 



being pretty generally recognized as a native at the present day by 

 our leading botanists. Still there are dissentients, or those inclined 

 to be so. Mr. Watson, in ' Cybele Britannica,' wavers somewhat yet. 

 No one, I think, who has seen the Fritillary in many of its English 

 habitats could reasonably doubt its nativity, but we will take up our 

 old position and tower of strength in the geographical distribution of 

 the genus. The Fritillaries have their chief seat in the northern 

 temperate zone, either on high mountains towards the south, or in 

 low plains, at or near the sea level, towards their northern limit : they 

 are, in fact, plants of cool and even cold climates. We find under 

 our own parallels, or between fifty and sixty degrees of latitude, spe- 

 cies of the genus appropriated to every part of the world. In Europe 

 we possess F. Meleagris all over the west, ranging in Norway and 

 Sweden to about lat. 60°, and eastward to the confines of Asia, where, 

 in Siberia, it is replaced by F. verticillata and F. minor (Ledeb. Fl. 

 Altaica), and at the furthest eastern extremity of that continent in 

 Kamtschatka, and on the opposite western shores and isles of Ame- 

 rica by F. Kamtschatcencis and F. lanceolata (Hook. Fl. Bor. Am.). 

 These species, like our own, inhabit the plains and low grounds, and 

 are strictly the analogues of F. Meleagris in their respective countries. 

 \}Lilium Martagon. In woods, copses and thickets; very rare. 

 Not known in the Isle of Wight. Discovered about fifty-six years 

 ago by Cap* Charles Robinson, R.N., late of Swanmore Cottage, 

 near Bishop's Waltham, now of Greenwich Hospital, in a wood near 

 Durley. Capt. R. obligingly communicated to me the following par- 

 ticulars in a letter from himself, dated July 26, 1848 : — " It is now 

 many years since I discovered the Martagon in some abundance in 

 the large wood on the Durley estate, called Durley Wood, through 

 which a small rivulet passed and ran into the river running (into ?) 

 the pond at Bishop's Waltham, opposite or nearly so to Calcot House, 

 then the residence of — Clewer, Esq., of Botley. Many specimens 

 of this plant have since been obtained by others from the same loca- 

 lity ; whether there are any at present I really cannot (say), since * 



it being now full fifty-four years since I first discovered it in the before- 

 mentioned wood." La^t summer I searched in Durley Wood for the 

 Martagon lily without success, but time did not then permit of more 

 than an imperfect examination of the wood, which is very considerable 

 in extent and irregular in form : I trust to be able to renew the search 

 for this fine plant, and hope others residing near or visiting Bishop's 



* I cannot decypher some few words in Capt. R.'s letter. 



