164 Alexander Goodman More. [i86i 



an d 9 w ill you kindly say whether they are at 



home or not ? I am getting in all returns as hard as I can, 

 so as to draw out a list of all doubtful points and deside- 

 rata, which I hope to get filled up during the ensuing 

 season. Then for the printer, at last. You will think me 

 very dilatory ; but I am sure it is best to wait till one more 

 spring is past." 



More disquieting than the delay to the Bird-paper was 

 the check sustained by the " Supplement to Flora Vec- 

 tensis," on which he had now been three years at work. 

 For in May, Vectis Lodge was to be given up, and he was 

 peculiarly anxious to accomplish all he could at the Isle of 

 Wight Flora before shifting to "pastures new." 



He had just at this time been curiously led to a dis- 

 covery of some interest in British botany, through being 

 sent for examination a plant which had six years pre- 

 viously been gathered in the island. 



On November 1 4th ( 1 86 1 ) he received from Mrs. Phillipps 

 (of Reigate, Surrey) a dried specimen of a Gladiolus, which 

 that lady had found at Shanklin, near Ventnor, as far back 

 as the summer of 1855. No such plant had hitherto been 

 recorded for the Isle of Wight, but as Gladiolus imbricatus 

 was enrolled (in 1856) in the flora of the New Forest, the 

 occurrence of the same species across the Solent did not 

 seem very improbable. However, on receipt of the dried 

 specimen, " careful comparison of the plant with its de- 

 scription" convinced him that it was not G. imbricatus, 

 but to all appearance belonged to G. illyricus, a species 

 having a somewhat different European distribution. That 

 one kind of Gladiolus .should grow in the Isle of Wight 

 and another in the New Forest seemed, however, highly 

 unlikely ; a series of specimens from Lyndhurst was there- 

 fore examined, and to his great satisfaction he found these 

 also to conform exactly to the description of Gladiolus 

 illyricus. This name therefore, after consultation with 

 Professor Babington, who agreed with him, he pro- 

 posed as the more correct designation of the English 

 plant, in a paper read to the Linnaean Society, April 3rd, 

 1862 ; Mr. Babington making the same change of name 

 in the fifth edition of his Manual, published about this 



