Outlines of the Botany of the Isle of Wight. 5 1 5 



Bidens, Carex Pseudo-Cyperus, Menyanthes trifoliata, Veronica scutel- 

 lata, and Mentha rotundifolia, are among the best of the marsh plants. 

 Oxalis corniculata is a weed in the mill garden. 



The oaks in Bordwood are mostly Q. sessiliflora. Orobanche 

 caerulea, Hieracium tridentatum, and H. boreale also grow here. 



At Knighton is a thicket absolutely filled with Lastraea Thelypteris, 

 and it is here only that has been found the rare Arundo Calamagrostis. 

 Many other bog plants occur in the same spot Veronica scutellata, 

 Mentha rotundifolia, &c. ; and Zannichellia chokes the mill dam. 



Newchurch y Parsonage Lynch, is the station for Carex Bonning- 

 hausiana. The two Ribes, nigrum and rubrum, Equisetum sylvaticum, 

 Epilobium obscurum, Scirpus sylvaticus, Luzula sylvatica, are some of 

 the other rarities that occur here. At Longbridge, Utricularia minor 

 and Nasturtium terrestre ; and in a field close by, Echium vulgare 

 grows in such profusion as to render the ground one mass of blue. 

 Thlaspi arvense is plentiful in the vicarage glebe, Anthemis arvensis 

 at Vinnicombe Barn. 



Apse Castle is the spot where Dr. Bromfield first observed that 

 curious Luzula which he named L. Borreri, and a short passage from 

 his own pen will best describe one of his favourite resorts. Dr. Brom- 

 field thus writes in the Phytologist, vol. iii. p. 534 : " This is simply a 

 thickly wooded eminence about one mile W.N.W. of Shanklin, com- 

 manding a fine view and flanked on one side by a deep ravine, along 

 whose bottom winds a clear but shallow brook overhung by precipitous 

 banks covered with trees and shrubs, the natural growth of the place. 

 A more delightful scene can hardly be imagined than is offered by this 

 fresh and verdant spot, when, on some radiant morning in April or May, 

 we tread the solitary mazes of Apse Castle, a blooming wilderness of 

 primroses, wood-anemones, hyacinths, violets, and a hundred other 

 lovely and fragrant things, overtopped by the taller and purple-stained 

 woodspurge, early purple orchis, and the pointed hoods of the spotted- 

 leaved wake-robin; the daisy -besprinkled track leading us upward, 

 skirted by mossy fern-clad banks on one hand, and by shelving thicket 

 on the other, profusely over-shadowed by ivy-circled oak and ash, the 

 graceful birch and varnished holly, beneath which spring the berry- 

 bearing alder, hazel, spindle-tree, the dogwood and guelder rose, with 

 here and there the ' bonnie ' broom and a mountain-ash, airy as a 

 sapling, over all which the woodbine creeps profuse, and the black 

 bryony loves to twine, displaying its hand-broad overlapping leaves of 

 translucent green, that, bright and polished as a mirror, glance and 

 glisten to the sun like a descending stream of foliage." 



In these woods will be found Pyrus aucuparia, all the Luzulae, 

 Prunus avium, Androsaemum, Rubus suberectus, and R. Salteri, Aira 

 flexuosa; and on the adjoining Ninham Heath, Vicia angustifolia, 

 Cerastium tetrandrum and C. semidecandrum, Echium vulgare in pro- 

 fusion, Myosotis collina, Filago minima, &c. In the farm -yard of 

 Apse grows Pulicaria vulgaris, and there are here some of the finest 

 Wych elms to be seen in the Isle of Wight. 



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