I860.] ISATIS TINCTORIA. 235 



great pains to undo his meritorious work of increasing the sta- 

 tions of rare British plants. This was, however, impracticable. 

 The plant had selected for itself a spot where, happily, it was 

 beyond the reach of the most resolute human exterminator. 



It is well established at Wandsworth, but not in an inaccessible 

 locality. It can be easily reached. Let not the Metropolitan bo- 

 tanists avail themselves of its unprotected situation. They are 

 entreated to spare it for the sake of posterity. 



In modern times, the questions in reference to the immigra- 

 tion of species into certain parts of the country where they had 

 not previously been seen, and, as in the present case, could not 

 have been, are too often discussed with more acrimony than posi- 

 tive results. They are among the most fruitless of all unfruitful 

 controversies. The question itself, viz. Whence and how came the 

 Isatis tinctoria to its present new abode ? is not an improper nor a 

 foolish question. The answers unhappily contribute more to in- 

 crease our chagrin than our knowledge. Guildford is twenty-five 

 miles from Wandsworth; Tewkesbury is a hundred; therefore, 

 as a logician or a mathematician would say, it is more probable 

 that the Isatis now at Wandsworth came originally from Guild- 

 ford than from Tewkesbury. It must, however, be admitted that 

 there is no reliable evidence to support the assumption that it 

 came either from the one place or from the other. It might have 

 reached Wandsworth from some quarter far more remote from 

 its new station than either of the above-quoted Enghsh localities. 

 It is easy to guess whence it came, but it is impossible, under 

 present circumstances, to give any positive information about its 

 original locality, 



I have seen straggling plants of the Isatis on the towing-path 

 of the navigable Wey, below Woodbridge, probably miles from 

 the chalk-quarries where the plant grows. These stragglers may 

 reasonably be assumed to have been conveyed in the lime or in 

 the horse-provender of the bargemen. In modern times, how- 

 ever, hypercritical and even sceptical habits are so prevalent, that 

 if the assumption in the present case were hazarded that the 

 Woad at Wandsworth migrated from the large colony at Guild- 

 ford, it would certainly be met by the objection that the chalk is 

 burned before -it is transported, and that the intense heat neces- 

 sary for its conversion into lime would certainly destroy the vita- 

 lity of either seeds or roots. 



