348 WANDSWORTH PLANTS. [November, 



immigrations which^ like Buttercups in May and June, " will be 

 seen, whether we will or no/' 



The readers of this periodical are hereby invited and encour- 

 aged to look after their stray species, and to record them with 

 all their attendant accidental circumstances of place, origin, and 

 duration. Genuine botanists are cosmopolitans in the most com- 

 prehensive sense of this hackneyed term. They do not ignore a 

 plant merely because it did not happen to exist in a given place 

 in the remote ages when Ray, Johnson, and Gerarde were the 

 great lights of the botanical firmament. Some plants, it may be 

 surmised, might possibly have eluded the keen glance of these 

 worthy and sharp-sighted fathers of the past and present genera- 

 tions of plant-seekers. 



The writer of this, who is an old stager, though in a quiet 

 way, takes the liberty of exhorting his younger brethren to avoid 

 pedantry, which abounds in botany as in eveiy other science. It 

 is not convenient to dogmatize about the nativity of a newly ob- 

 served or discovered plant. Young reporters scarcely know the 

 difference between spontaneous and indigenous. Let them, as 

 they love science and dislike contention, eschew the latter and 

 cleave to the former term. Let them use spontaneous, about 

 which they need never be in hesitation, and avoid indigenous as 

 they would shun acrimonious disputes. A moderate degree of 

 circumspection will be sufficient to determine if the plant be 

 spontaneous, while no amount of historic and scientific know- 

 ledge will suffice to prove that any plant is an aboriginal in- 

 habitant. It may be indigenous or aboriginal, but it is not sus- 

 ceptible of absolute proof. It may probably be assumed that 

 there are aboriginal species here ; but our most learned and pro- 

 found botanists have not yet agreed among themselves about the 

 plants entitled to the honourable station of ancient natives. 



The following particulars about newly observed species are 

 worth reporting, viz. : — 



1st. The duration of the immigrant, whether annual or per- 

 ennial. The great proportion of the new arrivals are annuals, 

 but some of recent introduction are perennial, viz. Mimulus 

 luteus, Lepidium Draba, and Poa sudetica. Some annuals appear 

 only at intervals or periods of a few years, and are generally seen 

 in certain crops ; such are Bupleurum rotundifoliwn, Petroselinum 

 segetum, etc. 



2nd. The extent of ground occupied by the new species should 



