82 Lincolnshire Notes & Queries. 



produce a great number of " weeds." One plant Polygonum 

 Fagopyrum was probably introduced as pheasant food. The 

 district, varied by woodland meadow, clay and sandy soil with 

 a small stream and mossy ponds or " pits," affords a good 

 variety of plants, the local Natural History Society having 

 collected in 1891 about 300 flowering plants exclusive of 

 sedges, rushes, and grasses. This little Society owed its 

 existence to the wheelwright, an enthusiastic botanist and 

 bird-stuffer. He was inspired at a very early age by an old 

 woman, a herbalist, to whom many came for advice, and for 

 whom he collected herbs, and thus got to know their names 

 and properties before he went to school. 



Hound's tongue still grows near the house she once occupied 

 and is thought to have been introduced by her. The wheel- 

 wright inherits from his old friend a strong faith in herbs as 

 remedies, and when through an accident he lacerated one of 

 his ringers badly, he applied a plaster of adder's tongue chopped 

 up, until the wound was healed. He is the possessor of 

 several old-fashioned botanical works, such as Withering ; 

 and was acquainted with the Lenncean system only, until 

 Bentham's excellent Annual was introduced to his notice. 

 His brother, a working farmer and excellent gardener is also 

 a botanist, and when hoeing spares any weed he does not 

 know, until it has flowered and he can ascertain its name. 

 The brothers own mowing and reaping machines and when 

 working them always look out for strange plants, especially 

 among " seeds." In these and other ways they have identified 

 several which might otherwise have been overlooked, such as : 

 Senebiera Coronopus^ Melllotus officinalis, Anthyllus l/ulnerarla^ 

 Caucalls nodosa^ Anthemis nobilis, Cnicus acaulis^ Centamea 

 nigra^ variety declpiens^ Clchorium Intybus^ Picris echioides^ 

 Campanula latlfolla^ Anagallis cterulea, Samolus Valerandl^ 

 Echuim vulgar e^ Solanum nlgrum^ and Botrychium Lunar ia^ none 

 of them common in the neighbourhood. They found other 

 rarities during their botanical rambles further afield, generally 

 on a Sunday afternoon. Walking through one of their 

 meadows one day, we came across a labourer pollarding some 

 willows -, he had left in the middle of one of them a straight 

 young tree, with bark of a different colour to the willow, and, 

 being winter, denuded of the leaves. Asked what it was, he 

 said, " a wicken tree," and that his master had instructed him 

 to leave it as a curiosity, its roots probably reaching through 

 the willow to the ground. The wicken, or mountain ash, is 



