1859.] WANDSWORTH PLANTS. 331 



not made up of guesses and inferences, however ingenious ; it is 

 the systematic arrangement of facts." 



The locality of the plants entered in the following list, is a 

 waste piece of ground between the steamboat-pier, Wandsworth, 

 on the west, and Messrs. Watney's granaries, distilleries, or recti- 

 fying establishment, etc., on the east. It is bounded by the river 

 Thames on the north, and by a row of cottages on the south. 

 Since 1856, much of the ground has been used for the extension 

 of the buildings used by Messrs. Watney, on the one end, and 

 by a coal-wharf on the other. Originally a large portion of it 

 was a swamp, twice in twenty-four hours filled with the tidal 

 water. Till very recently the tide had free access to the depressed 

 part, which was at no distant period the ancient shore of the river, 

 which has now been contracted by a stone pier, whereby the 

 water is confined to a narrower channel. The extent of the 

 whole might have been, ten years ago, two or three acres. But 

 its former dimensions have been considerably circumscribed by 

 the encroachment of buildings. 



The Battersea plants grew on the soil, mud, etc., which was all 

 brought up the river and laid on the surface of the new park to 

 elevate the ground which is now converted into roads and shrub- 

 beries. 



The few plants observed at Pimlico grow where the ground 

 had been disturbed at the mouth of the Grosvenor canal, now 

 in the process of conversion into the West London Railway, 

 mostly where fresh earth had been laid down. 



The ancient descriptive expressions, viz. " escapes from cultiva- 

 tion," or the " remains of garden plants," " introduced in bal- 

 last," etc., will not denote the causes for the appearance of these 

 strangers in any of these localities. The Wandsworth locality was 

 at no very distant period a part of the ancient strand of the river. 

 At high tides the water flowed up to the cottage-doors, and some- 

 times into the dwellings. There are gardens there, as there are 

 everywhere else in England where there are cottages; but none 

 of these plants grew in them except accidentally. 



Few of them have been at any time in cultivation anywhere, 

 but least so in cottage gardens, where objects of utility or of 

 ornament are preferred to such uninviting things as compose the 

 following list. 



This place is a good mile from the Chelsea Botanic Garden, 



