56 KENTISH BOTANY. [February, 



clothed with the vegetation which still covers it. This cannot 

 be a permanent station ; it must soon disappear in the sea, which 

 here is incessantly encroaching. 



We have still to record a few important species which were 

 observed about the shore between Reculver and St. Nicholas. 



The first of these is Sambucus Ebulus, which grew in a ditch 

 beside the ancient wall of this interesting remnant of Roman 

 dominion, and of early Anglo-Saxon piety .^ This locality will, 

 by some botanists, be reckoned among the loca susjjectiora (spu- 

 rious localities) . 



Near Reculver, outside the sea-wall, i. e. between the sea-wall 

 and the beach, there grew abundance of Ruppia, but whether 

 R. marina or R. rostellata we could not determine, for want of 

 suflEiciently developed fruit. In the same ponds there was also 

 plenty of Zostera, but without the slightest vestige of fruit. 



From Ptcculver, and all along the shingly beach for a mile or 

 so towards St. Nicholas, the usual beach plants, such as Glaucium 

 luteum, Salsola, Salicornia, Siatice. Glaux, Arenaria marina, etc., 

 abound. Carex distans also occurred, and the much rarer 

 C. extensa, a Carex hitherto, so far as known to the writer, un- 

 reported in the ' Phytologist.' 



One of the principal objects of our recent visit to this remote 

 nook of Kent was to trace the anciently-known river, or rather 

 rivulet, Wantsume, from the Stour to the sea. 



The ancient historians of England, beginning with the Vener- 



* The sole remnant of tlie church of Reculver, one of the most ancient in Kent, 

 is the west gable, flanked by the " sister spires," '^ a venerable memorial of bygone 

 times. It is preserved from falling into utter ruin by the Trinity House Corpora- 

 tion, because it is a good sea-mark to the mariners navigating that part of the Ger- 

 man Ocean. The north and east walls have long disappeared. The exterior wall 

 of the ancient Roman fortification is only visible on the west ; all the rest have 

 been swallowed up by the sea centuries ago. 



In the Bibliotheca Topographica Antiq. Kent, there is a long description of the 

 church and monuments then existing, and there it is mentioned that the Fig and 

 Dwarf Elder grew among the ruins : — 



" The Fig-tree, Ficus Carica, appears among the bushes along the south wall, and 

 the dwarf Elder, Sambucus Ehulus, abounds there. — William Boys, Sandwicli, 

 1783" (Bib. Topogr. Antiq. Kent, No. 18). 



" There is a legendary story or a tradition that these twin spires were erected by 

 a lady of some Religious Order, whose sister, an abbess, perished opposite Reculver. 

 To commemorate her sister's fate and her own escape, and to preserve others from 

 a similar fatahty, it is said that she caused to be built the Sister Spires. 



