1861.] AT THE BEGINNING OF APRIL. 167 



nearly over, as might be expected from the advanced state of 

 other and later spring flowers. The time to look for it would 

 probably be March. I have seen it in perfection about the middle 

 of May, in the woods of 



" Vallombrosa, where the Etruscau shades 

 High overarched embower,' ' 



and in the eastern Pyrenees as late as May 28th : but these, 

 though so far south, were mountain situations, and in the latter 

 case the season was a very backward one. 



The next day I crossed to the Isle of Wight to look for the 

 Pubnonaria, stated by Dr.Bromfield to grow in all the woods about 

 Ryde. I first tried Quarr Copse, which, I grieve to say, is evi- 

 dently in course of preparation for being cut up into villas. I 

 found no Pulmonaria, though abundance of Daphne Laureola in 

 full and fine flower. The next copse, however. Shore Copse, (the 

 one between Quarr Abbey and the Solent,) abounded in the 

 Pulmonaria, which I found equally plentiful in all the other 

 woods, and occasionally thickets, in that direction. In some 

 places it was as abundant, and almost as beautiful, as w^ood Hya- 

 cinths elsewhere. Its ample clusters of funnel-shaped flowers, 

 in various stages of the transition (so common with Boraginea;) 

 from an original reddish tint to a bright metallic blue, made it, 

 in this stage of its existence, a great ornament to the country. 

 Considerable obscurity hangs over the specific characters of this 

 genus. Dr. Bromfield names the Isle of Wight plant angusti- 

 folia, and identifies it with P. azurea of many German botanists, 

 and of the ' Prodromus ;' but in the shape of the leaves, and in 

 some other characters, it seems to me to agree better with 

 P. tuberosa or saccharata than with angustifolia (or azurea), at 

 least as described by Grenier and Godron, if indeed all three, and 

 perhaps officinalis also, are not forms of a single species. What- 

 ever it be, it is one of the most beautiful of our rarer spring plants. 



I sought, but vainly, for Prunus Cerasus, the Morella Cherry, 

 which, according to Dr. Bromfield, grows in a wood between 

 Wootton church and Whippinghara Street, but nearer to the 

 latter, in the western angle of the wood. Two beautiful woods 

 answer to the description, and I searched them widely; but 

 as they were long and narrow, and ran nearly due north and 

 south, I found nothing which could be called decidedly the west- 

 ern angle of either of them. 



