520 



shown this habitat to several who did not recognize the plant. It 

 was growing in patches, under the shade of fir-trees ; and, as Mr. 

 Edwards is said, at p. 675, to have stated in a former volume (Phytol. 

 i. 579), it was growing in the highest part of Caen Wood, between 

 Hampstead and Highgate. I have little doubt that the habitat that 

 was shown to me is identically the same that Mr. Edwards must have 

 found many years back. Having seen the Maianthemum bifolium, 

 as it is more generally called abroad, growing in abundance, as well 

 as having found large patches of Convallaria majalis in woods in Swit- 

 zerland, I have seen them both in native habitats ; and certainly I 

 have not the least doubt about the patches I saw being Maianthemum 

 bifolium, although, on account of the late season of the year, they were 

 all out of bloom. It is rather a peculiar circumstance to my mind 

 that they are growing under the shade of firs, for they almost invari- 

 ably grow under the firs in Switzerland ; and I think this would be 

 in favour of their being indigenous in that locality. Indeed, from 

 their manner of growth and this other circumstance, I very much 

 doubt of their having been naturalized there ; but of course I leave it 

 to more able botanists to decide. 



H. L. DE LA ChAUMETTE. 



Church Street, Stoke Newington, 

 March 16, 1852. 



[To some of our readers the following notes and references will be 

 of interest : — 



" It groweth in moist shedowie and grassie places of woods in many 

 places of the Realm." — Parkinson, Theatr. 505. 



" Monophyllon groweth in Lancashire in Dingley wood, six miles 

 from Preston in Aundernesse ; and in Harwood neere to Blackbume 

 likewise." — Ger. Em. 409. 



" My friend the Rev. Osd. Head, of Howick, discovered it growing, 

 rather sparingly, under the shade of a wide-spreading beech, in one of 

 the woods at Howick." — R. Embleton in Phytol. i. 520 ; also in Ann. 

 Nat. Hist. 



" In 1835, I detected several patches of the plant, apparently well 

 established and really wild, under the shade of fir-trees, growing near 

 the highest parts of Caen Wood, the property of the Earl of Mansfield, 

 between Hampstead and Highgate. A year or two before that time, 

 I had also observed it under fir-trees in Aspley Wood, Bedfordshire." 

 — E. Edwards in Phytol. i. 579. 



See also a note by Mr. Forbes, Ann. Nat. Hist. 1843, p. 158 j 



