I860.] GENTIANA PNEUMONANTHE. 333 



tlie gardener of Lady Tankerville, an aged man, who had been 

 known at Walton more than half a century, and who knew all 

 the plants of both hemispheres, — of the four quarters of the 

 globe, — and therefore could tell me all about the plants of 

 Walton Heath. 



Like the virtuoso who set out to investigate the history of the 

 three black crows thrown up by a sick man, I went, and suc- 

 ceeded in finding this third sage. Like the former two, he re- 

 ceived me courteously, and listened very patiently to the tale of 

 my wishes and disappointments. He admitted that it was quite 

 true that he had known the plant to grow near Walton, and that 

 many years ago he had gathered it by the handful ; but now, he 

 said, the entire country around had been so much altered by 

 drainage, enclosures, plantations, cultivation, and buildings, that 

 he did not know where the Gentiana grew. I also hinted that 

 the Utriculat'ias and Hottonia would be very acceptable acqui- 

 sitions. 



Like an aged warrior, who feels momentarily a martial glow 

 when the implements of his profession are suggested, and espe- 

 cially when the encounters of his youth are brought to his re- 

 collection, this good man remembered the pleasures of his earlier 

 days, when the gorgeous floral productions of the tropics had not 

 caused him to forget the humble attractions of the native plants 

 of his own land. He said if I would wait till his young men 

 had done watering, he would let me have either of them or both 

 of them for the day, and that they should ramble with me 

 Avherever I listed, and should also assist me by their local know- 

 ledge. They took me, indeed, to parts of the common where 

 Drosera rotundifolia, D. intermedia, and Wiyncosjjora alba grew 

 in abundance. But they did not know Gentiana Pnewnonanthe, 

 nor the Utricularias , nor the Water- Violet ; they had never heard 

 anybody speak of these plants, and they did not know where to 

 look for them. The youths did not mislead me, which is more 

 than could be said of the older men of Walton. 



I have had many unsuccessful hunts for this plant in Sussex 

 as well as in Surrey, but the above may be sufficient to show 

 that it does not now grow on every moist heath, nor even on 

 every part of the heath where it does grow. 



The place where we found the plant last Friday, the 21st of 

 September, 1860, was discovered accidentally by some children 



