1009 



remarked the sterile form in the swift streams at Winchester, Bishop's 

 Stoke, and most of the larger rivers and streams throughout the 

 county, in great plenty. 



Acorus Calamus. In ponds, ditches, and by river sides ; very rare ? 

 Not found in the Isle of Wight. Winnal water-meadows, by Win- 

 chester, Dr. A. D. White !!! I find it in tolerable quantity along the 

 banks of the river, beginning about a quarter of a mile above Dean- 

 gate Mill, and continuing at intervals for perhaps half a mile up the 

 stream, on both sides, but flowering very sparingly. Occurs, in all 

 probability, in various parts of the county, but is perhaps overlooked 

 for Sparganium ramosum, the leaves of which it greatly resembles, 

 but may be distinguished at some distance from them by its remark- 

 ably brighter and lighter green, and by the wavy appearance of the 

 ensiform leaves and scapes, that look as if crumpled into plaits or 

 puckers along one of their margins, which is very seldom seen in 

 the Sparganium, and then only accidentally. But the fine fragrance 

 of the whole plant when bruised or broken, like that of fresh orange- 

 peel, is the surest test to know it by when not in flower, a state it is 

 seldom seen in, but sparingly, as at the station just given. Pulteney 

 (Cat. of the rarer Pis. of Dorset.) says it grows in two or three places 

 in the Stour between Blandford and Sturminster Newton, and it 

 would probably reward a search along the Hampshire part of that 

 river and its beautiful rival, the Avon, which both flow through fine 

 water-meadows and are richly adorned along their banks with aquatic 

 plants. Morison (Hist. Plant, iii. p. 246) says it grows about Headley, 

 a village near the Surrey border, a few miles north of Liphook. 



I have a lurking suspicion that the Sweet Flag may not be aborigi- 

 nal to Britain. Neither Gerarde nor Parkinson speak of it as known 

 to them in a wild state in their time, nor is it once alluded to by Tur- 

 ner in his ' Herbal.' Yet had it been as common in the days of these 

 writers as it is, or was till lately, about Norwich and other chief 

 towns of England, it is difficult to imagine that a plant then much es- 

 teemed medicinally, and the roots of which were an article of impor- 

 tation from the Levant, could have passed unobserved by the earlier 

 herbalists and simplers. 



Arum maculatum. In woods, thickets, groves, on hedge-banks, 

 grassy borders of fields, often also in meadows and pastures ; in pro- 

 fuse abundance throughout the Isle of Wight, and not less so in most, 

 if not all, parts of the county. Our hedge-banks in the spring and 

 early summer are covered with the leaves, which by the middle of 

 June have quite disappeared, and as perhaps not one plant in twenty 

 * .Vol. hi. 6 o 



