166 THREE days' BOTANIZING [June, 



chalk down : it is now a blaze of white cornfield, with what 

 hedges it has, reduced to the scanty, ugly mechanical measure of 

 modern agricultural improvement; but after some interval the 

 hollows become deeper, the hills woody, with even an occasional 

 patch of open down, and the country assumes some of the cha- 

 racter of the more beautitul chalk districts. About two miles 

 from Audover the road divides, and the left branch climbs over 

 a ridge towards the village of Wherwell. On the summit of 

 this ridge the road skirts one extremity of the forest of which I 

 was in search, and which stretches from this place, over hill and 

 dale for a mile or two, perhaps much further, in an almost direct 

 line towards the south. Presuming that what was said to be 

 abundant in many places would be found with little difficulty, I 

 commenced a regular search through the forest. A more im- 

 mense abundance of Primroses, Anemone nemorosa, Adoxa Mos- 

 chatellina, or the Violet which we are now to call sylvatica, I 

 never saw, all in the greatest perfection of floral development, 

 though it was only the 1st of April. A Luzula (I believe For- 

 steri) was equally plentiful, and 1 saw some fine Oxalis Acetosella. 

 The root of every tree was coated with luxuriant Moss, and in 

 some places the same Moss covered the ground, but no Mezereon 

 rewarded my search, and I must have departed re mfectd, had I 

 not by good fortune met with some woodmen in the heart of the 

 forest, whom I asked for information. They all knew the plant, 

 and knew it too by its right name; but they spoke of it as of 

 a thing which they had only seen occasionally, and which, though 

 growing in a number of places, is not abundant anywhere. One 

 of them led me to a place full half a mile off", on the outskirt of 

 the forest, near the road leading from Andover to Micheldever 

 station, on the main Southampton line ; and here, amidst dense 

 brushwood, into which, but for his information, I should never 

 have thought of penetrating, we (or rather he) found two plants, 

 on one of which there were a few flowers. My guide said there 

 had been more of the plant formerly in this place, but that the 

 growth of the brushwood had been too powerful for it. In a 

 short time it will, no doubt, in this spot, disappear altogether, to 

 show itself again when next this portion of the copse is cleared. 

 My guide had seen it in greater quantity, a few years ago, ten 

 miles nearer town, in Bradley Wood, (I think he called it,) on 

 Lord Carnarvon's property, near Kingsclere. The flowering was 



