975 



i'ectly shaded situations, and is a sylvestral, scarcely a pratal species. 

 Besides Ramsons, it is here called Gipsy Onion, as forming it is said 

 an article in the strong diets of that singular race, whose picturesque 

 encampments, once numerous in this forest country, are now compara- 

 tively few. Nearly allied to our Ramsons is the A. tricoccum of N. 

 America, but in that species the leaves die off before the flowers are 

 developed, which is not till June or July. The bulb also appears to 

 be ovoid and acuminate, not as in our plant, elliptic oblong, equally 

 thick at both ends. Both exhale the same detestable smell when 

 drying for the herbarium. 



Agraphis nutans (Hyacinthus non-scriptus). In groves, thickets, 

 copses and on hedge-banks, as well as in damp open grassy places, 

 meadows, &c, most profusely abundant throughout the county and 

 Isle of Wight. Var. (3., flowers white, occurs here and there occa- 

 sionally as single specimens, but always very sparingly. In Quart 

 Copse, St. John's Wood and elsewhere about Ryde, now and then. 

 Not unfrequent in woods about Shanklin. An example or two with 

 pink or flesh-coloured flowers has occurred to me in this island, but 

 is extremely rare. This beautiful and familiar plant, more common in 

 Britain than in any other country of Europe, to the western parts of 

 which it is exclusively confined, goes here by the name of Blue-bottle, 

 doubtless from the ventricose form of the flower contracted and re- 

 flexed at summit. 



Obs. Muscari racemosum, the Starch Hyacinth, may be looked 

 for in the sandy fields and pastures of this country with good pro- 

 bability of success. It is reported in the adjoining counties of 

 Dorset, Surrey and Berks ; in the last, near Newbury according to 

 Dr. Lamb, a town close upon the Hampshire boundary, and the 

 station may even be within our own limits. The sandy tracts 

 between Petersfield and Farhham, and about Wolmer Forest, are 

 amongst the most likely to yield this species, which I am persuaded 

 is a genuine native of eastern England, as I have lately endeavoured 

 to show, nor should I be surprised to hear that M. comosum or M. 

 botryoides had been found wild in this country, being both coexten- 

 sive in their range with the other on the continent, 



Colchicum autumnale. In moist woods and thickets, or in low 

 damp meadows ; rare ? Found some years back by Mr. Daniel 

 Clarke of Newport, in a field by the Medina above Shide Bridge 

 (close to the town on the south), Mr. G. Kirkpatrick ; but subse- 

 quent research has not confirmed the discovery of the Colchicum in 

 that or any other part of the Isle of Wight. In a small wood at Ap- 



