476 KEViEws. [March, 



Chelmsford, on the way to Ongar, and it is nowhere found in England 

 except in that neighbourhood." 



We hope that the following prediction may soon be a fait 

 accompli, and not a future event, as all predictions necessarily 

 are : — 



" The appearance of the volume we are considering is a good omen, 

 and if it is received with the favour it deserves, we shall soon see a second 

 edition, with additions. For, notwithstanding all the endeavours of its 

 author to make the work complete, and notwithstanding the assistance of 

 fifty gentlemen, who have contributed more or less to it, there is still a 

 list of fifty-seven plants which are supposed to be natives of Essex, but 

 are not recorded as having been found there. We are much mistaken if 

 we have not seen two or three of them a few years back, and intend, now 

 we know how rare they are, to keep a good look-out for them. 



" Cicuta virosa was contained in the beautiful collection of wild flowers 

 exhibited by Miss Marriage at the Exhibition of the South Essex Horti- 

 cultural Society in June, 1859 ; we believe it was gathered in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Danbury. Poisonous plants like this are happily become 

 very rare in the county. Cultivation of its fields, and the diminution of 

 woods, doubtless have done much in altering its botanical features. Thrift 

 Wood, in the neighbourhood of Chelmsford, formerly rich in rare plants, 

 is no longer what it was, and what is left of it can hardly be traversed by 

 a botanist, unless he is prepared to face a man with a gun, who will 

 order him off the ground with a threat of prosecution if he venture there 

 again. It is commonly believed that any cause which is prosecuted will 

 prosper, and perhaps it would awaken a zeal for botany if some enter- 

 prising young gentleman were to be sent to gaol for gathering flowers in 

 Thrift Wood. Daffy Wood, on the contrary, is so much frequented that 

 every Dafl'odil is plucked as soon as it is in bloom, and Helleborus viridis 

 is likely to be lost. Indeed, we could not find it there in 1861, though 

 we saw it the year before. We suspect, nevertheless, that some plants 

 may be found in the Chelmsford district, which are not recorded as be- 

 longing to it in the work before us. Tragopogon porrifoUus grew abun- 

 dantly for some years on a bank which formed the approach to a bridge 

 over the railway, on the road to Writtle, out of the London Eoad, Chelms- 

 ford. It was found there in 1858 by E. Copland, Esq., who brought it 

 to the botany class which then was held in the Chelmsford Institute. Of 

 eight species of Ranunculus formerly confounded under the name of R. 

 aquatilis, only one is recorded in the Chelmsford district. But there is a 

 lane at Great Baddow which contains two ; the flowers in the pond on 

 one side of the way being evidently distinct from those in the ditch on the 

 other. When we consider, however, that this is the first edition of a 



