340 EXTRACTS FROM CORRESPONDENCE. [November, 



almost quite, flat. The Colne and its tributary streamlets water 

 the meadows, and this season (1860) they were watered rather 

 abundantly ; the flood had not only submerged much of the mea- 

 dow land, but a considerable part of the corn land. The shocks 

 in a field near Wraysbury station were standing several inches 

 deep in water about the latter end of August. 



At Midsummer some of the meadows, or their margins at 

 least, are gaily decorated with the bright purplish-blue flowers of 

 Geranium pratense. Here the plant is nearly as abundant as 

 Buttercups are in May. In the latter end of August this plant, 

 or rather its flowers, had disappeared, and its place was but very 

 partially supplied by Lysimachia vulgaris, a plant which is far 

 from common, although this property might be inferred from its 

 name, vulgaris. About Horton a hundred examples of Gera- 

 nium pratense might be counted for one of Lysimachia vulgaris. 

 The letter is not only unfrequent, but it is anything but vulgar 

 or common in its appearance. It produces a fine, tall, straight, 

 bushy stem, with trusses of elegant, bright-yellow flowers at its 

 summit. It is a patrician among the subjects of Flora's domain ; 

 noble and graceful, seldom mingled with the humbler denizens, 

 but growing apart among compeers suitable to its own dignity, 

 the aristocratic occupants of the moist hedge-bank. This stately 

 plant grows between Horton and Datchet, on the left-hand side 

 of the road to Windsor. 



Butomus wnbellatus, the Flowering Rush, is another grand aqua- 

 tic plant belonging to Horton, The Yellow Loosestrife is not, 

 strictly speaking, an aquatic, but rather a marsh plant. The 

 Flowering Hush is strictly an aquatic. This handsome plant 

 grows close to the village, on the left side of the road to Stanwell, 

 close to the bridge over the Colne, and near the mill. 



A little further on the road from Horton to Stanwell there is 

 a marshy waste bit of ground called the Gravel-pit, partly peaty, 

 where gravel is sometimes dug (at present it is full of water), 

 bounded by the road to Wraysbury station and the StauAvell 

 road above mentioned. In the marshy parts of this small space 

 there grow the following plants : — Sium angustifolium, a common 

 plant in many places ; Pedicularis palustris, a plant which grew 

 not very long ago on Wimbledon Common, in the ravine between 

 the windmill and the village. It has disappeared (?) in the latter 

 station, which is now undergoing extensive alterations, not re- 



