134 KENTISH BOTANY. [May, 



in this condition till Edward l.'s reign, when the river Limeni0C 

 Rother was forced from its old channel by a itempeisty which de- 

 stroyed great part of the town, and several adjoining villages;; 

 " After this calamity the town never regained its former conse- 

 quence, but continued to decay from time to time afterward sj^/nfi 



In its early days it had four churches besides the present one, 

 and contained eighty-five burgesses. It has nowy 178fi, one huu-i 

 dred houses and five hundred inhabitants."^ srft .srv ^>{oo>t sw sno 



The list of the scarce plants found growing^ in or near tliii 

 place in Ray^s time, the seventeenth century, is not a long one, 

 but some of them are: found theSpe no more, viz. Urtica.ronmna., 

 Roman Nettle, Bifolium palustre, Marsh Ophris, or Twayblade, 

 Mercurialis annua glabra vulgaris, French Mercury ; near Brook- 

 land, in this marsh, Buglossum parvum longifolmm, minimo fi6r:p\ 

 the little long-leaved Bugloss, with a very small flower. (Merrett's 

 ' Pinax,^ p. 17.) Asperugo procumbens ? Halimus sive Fortulaca 

 marina, common Sea- : Purslane ; -in : Romney Mairsh> \iil!riplea? 

 portulacoides: (Ray, 153^): /'•!.)().'.' ■■(: ■■.■.' > -■- .'fn j.u »; ?.i i;Mr 



In Leland's ' Itinerary,' qwiotfed' in Gough's '^ GamdeV there is 

 the following notiqe.of this auicjienfe(tmeo*bePiof .thetGiaiqueiPbrtsj 

 alas ! a port no longer : — " Rumeney is one of the V. poYts, arid 

 hath bene a metely good haven, yn so much that withyn remem- 

 brance of men, shyppes have cum hard up.to the itbwiie and cast 

 ancres in one of the churchyards. The se is ilow a ii. rayles from 

 thetowne, so sore thereby now decayed that where there wer iii. 



* " New Eomney (eitlieV 'bhe'Ola or tlie Ivew) seems to be tlie port; of "the Romans, 

 so termed, and that either from the Greet Limeen, a port accordhig to Lclaiid, or 

 Limeeii-palNS, a moor or fenuish place, as the soil hereabout for many miles is 

 noue other, which Ethelwerd's ' Linneus Portus,' and the old writings of the parish 

 and deanries name of Limne or Limpne, seem to favom*. Bomuey, I say, as I 

 conceive, was that Roman port Lemaiiis, which, although at present and for some 

 htmdreds of years lying dry and unbestead of any channel of fi-esh water to serve 

 it, yet had of old a fair and commodious river running along it, and unlading or 

 emptying itself into the sea, in those days nothing so remotely from the town as 

 (by the sands and beach in process of time cast up and imbeaten by tlie sea, and 

 for the want of the fresh to repel and keep it back, stopping up the harboui*) since 

 and now it is. This river, the Rother, flowed by Appledore, and from theifce to 

 Romney." — Somner on the Roman Ports and Forts in Kent. ■■■ ; / r ' f , i . i ! 7 ■ > j- ^ '^ 



IN^ote to Somner's assertion that Ronmoy is Portus Ivovusof,thg!^n^^n^,-7T-BotJlj 

 Lambarde and Camden give this honour to Hythe, and their view is favoured by 

 etymology, viz., Greek, Limeen Kainos ; Latin, Portus Novns ; Anglo-Saxon, Hyllie. 

 The modern Lym or Lympne, West Hythe, and Ilytho, are still in existence, to 

 testify to the accuracy of our great antiquary, Camden. 



