58 



It seems odd enough that while a decided woodland plant like the 

 columbine is branded as introduced, no mark at all appears against 

 the wall-flower (Cheiranthns Cheii-i), which no botanist in this 

 country ever affected to find except upon " old walls." Several 

 other plants of walls and ruins, though evident immigrators at some 

 former period, are allowed to pass muster with the oldest natives : 

 thus the star becomes a mere capricious mark of opinion instead of 

 conveying the knowledge of a decided fact. 



I remember a remark made by some botanical writer' (I think Mr. 

 Watson), that localities of plants once recorded need not be repeated; 

 but it seems necessary to do so when elucidatory observations of 

 value made in other publications are entirely lost sight of by the con- 

 cocters of general floras, even in their latest amended editions. That 

 a flora need not be cumbered with the localities of plants pretty gene- 

 rally distributed we may fairly allow ; still false impressions should 

 not be permitted to remain, and the range of remarkable plants given 

 where possible. Now the woad {Isatis tinctoria) is an historical 

 plant, interesting as having furnished the blue dye with which the 

 ancient Britons painted or rubbed their naked bodies for terrific 

 eff"ect. It would seem likely that the woad was really a native in 

 those early times to be generally employed as described, or the Bri- 

 tains might have cultivated it : any locality then suggestive of long 

 occupation would seem highly curious. The only information given 

 in the work of the learned authors alluded to is the old story of" cul- 

 tivated fields about Ely, Durham, &c." An " &c." may be compre- 

 hensive or not, but the impression given to a student undoubtedly is, 

 that the woad is confined to the eastern side of England, and only 

 found casually in cultivated fields there. Now it grows abundantly 

 in the chalk-pits of Surrey, whence I have specimens, and at a spot I 

 am about to indicate in the west of England, where it has grown wild 

 beyond the memory of man. Dyer mentions it in his ' Fleece ' as if 

 he considered it a native, and his observations on pastures and vege- 

 tables are generally very correct. 



" Our valleys yield not, or but sparing yield 

 The dyer's gay materials. Only weld, 

 Or root of madder, here, or puiple woad, 

 By which ournaked ancestors obscur'd 

 Their hardy limhs, inwrought with mystic forms, 

 Like Egypt's obelisks." 



Possibly the star may have been aflixed to the woad in reliance on 

 the opinion given by Mr. Watson in ' Cybele Britannica,' that the 



