3O Alexander Goodman More. [1352 



never ceased to regret. But he was far too familiar with 

 the checks and frustrations incidental to feeble health to 

 give way to depression of spirits. Activity was to him 

 recompense for almost any vexation. " Happy," he once 

 wrote, " are you strong fellows, who can be always active, 

 always hard at work"; and it truly conveyed his ideal of 

 enjoyment. 



Through the summer of 1853 he stayed at Vectis Lodge, 

 "not good for much walking/' as his journal records, and 

 so hampered in his attempts at specimen-hunting. " Pro- 

 gress in botany," he remarks, was " not very extensive," 

 but consisted "chiefly in more careful comparison of plants 

 with their descriptions/' The phrase was committed to 

 paper almost apologetically ; but this " careful compari- 

 son " was the very point in which, as Mr. Barrington says, 

 " his critical eye subsequently excelled, and in which he 

 had few equals." 



One botanical excursion, however, he succeeded in 

 making, which afforded him great pleasure. This was to 

 Ape's Down Farm, a spot in the vicinity of Carisbrook, 

 renowned by Dr. Bromfield's discovery there, in 1843, f 

 the only British station for Calamintha sylvatica, while in 

 its immediate neighbourhood lay also one of the very few 

 localities known in Britain for the rare Cyperus longus. 

 On September i2th he and his sister made their way 

 together through Newport and Carisbrook to this interest- 

 ing spot, where he was rewarded with the sight of " Brom- 

 field's Calamint" in perfection, presenting, as he describes, 

 " a most beautiful object, with blossoms far larger and 

 handsomer than those of C. officinalis," and " in some 

 places quite colouring the more open spaces in the copse, 

 close under the Down." After some time spent in admir- 

 ing those long strips of copse, with their ground carpeted 

 with the purple hue of the handsome calamint, a hasty 

 adjournment was made to the spot where, by Dr. Salter's 

 directions, he hoped to find the Cyperus. In this, after a 

 long and careful search, he succeeded ; but the appearance 

 of the Galingale was in strongly marked contrast with that 

 of the flourishing Calamintha: for, alas! Cyperus longus 

 " was in very poor and depauperated condition, and had 



