Outlines of the Botany of the Isle of Wight. 517 



brilliantly contrasted hues, like strangers in a foreign soil, still dressed 

 in the colours of their own sunny clime. 



Towards Shorwell Cotyledon Umbilicus grows on the sandstone 

 rock, and Rosa spinosissima fills the hedges. On the church at Shor- 

 well is Asplenium Trichomanes. 



Brighstone produces Mentha rotundifolia, Tanacetum vulgare, 

 Filago spathulata, and F. minima, abundance of the commoner Ferns, 

 and a curious variety of Polypodium vulgare, approaching P. cambri- 

 cum. Lathyrus hirsutus was once picked in a corn-field close to the 

 village. 



The "Moor-town Moors," the name of the tract of marshy meadows 



nd willow-thickets which skirt the little stream, are well worth investi- 



ation : Osmunda, Blechnum, Scirpus Savii, Equisetum palustre, and 



E. Telmateia, Chrysosplenium oppositifolium, and many other bog 



plants occur here, and the shaded dell where the spring gushes in a 



clear stream from the foot of the chalk, is well worth a visit. 



Brook yields Erodium maritimum, Medicago maculata, &c. 



The Sand-cliff in Compton Bay, Trifolium scabrum, and a few other 

 species found in Sandown Bay. 



DIVISION V. 

 PLANTS OF THE UNDERCLIFF AND OF THE DOWNS ABOVE IT. 



The southern chalk downs, though of considerably less extent than 

 those of the main range, attain a much higher elevation. 



In a geological point of view they differ, by preserving a nearly 

 horizontal position, so that the underlying strata are found in the 

 natural order of sequence ; but from the chalk being continually carried 

 down by the rain, and owing to the presence of limestone rock in the 

 lower greensand itself, the Undercliff presents a Flora less decidedly 

 "sandy" than might be expected; indeed it is the "Lime-loving" 

 species which predominate throughout, though there is no want of 

 a considerable admixture of sand-loving plants such as the Yellow 

 Weazel-snout, &c., which add to the interest and variety of its 

 botanical productions. 



At the top of Boniface and Shanklin Downs, instead of the usual 

 close and elastic turf which clothes the rounded summits of the other 

 range, the ground is covered with thick beds of Bilberries, Heather, 

 and Dwarf Furze, which in autumn present a most gorgeous mixture of 

 purple and yellow, too bright for the eye to rest upon. Moor plants are 

 the most conspicuous, such as the Rein-deer Lichen, Carex binervis, 

 and C. pilulifera, Agrostis setacea, Hieracium umbellatum ; and where 

 the surface is strewed with loose flint-stones and in part nearly bare, a 

 scanty growth of neat little sand plants, as Aira praecox, Moenchia 

 erecta; so that the summit presents something of the wild and desolate 

 aspect of a mountain moor ; while as a contrast lie extended at our 



