ADDITIONS TO OUR NATIVE FLORA 107 



purpose." This beautiful plant, common in the north 

 of England, and also to be found in the neighbouring 

 counties of Wilts, Dorset, Surrey, and Berks, is un- 

 known in Hampshire; but it is an interesting fact, 

 that the late Lord Chancellor Selborne once told the 

 writer that about the year 1870 he had found a speci- 

 men of Parnassia in the bogs of Oakhanger, which in 

 White's time formed part of the parish of Selborne. 

 It is not impossible that Gilbert White was more suc- 

 cessful than he imagined, and that Lord Selborne's 

 plant was a descendant of the seed scattered by the 

 great naturalist a hundred years before. Another 

 instance of a similar attempt to assist Nature occurred 

 in 1848, when the distinguished author of the Flora 

 Vectensis planted some roots of the handsome sea 

 spurge in the loose sand of St. Helen's spit in the 

 Isle of Wight. Till then this beautiful plant, though 

 abundant on the other side of the Solent, had been 

 unknown in the island, but Dr. Bromfield's plants 

 flourished and established themselves ; and now 

 Euphorbia paralias is one of the most conspicuous 

 species to be seen growing on the sandy shore of 

 Bembridge Harbour. Once again, when last autumn 

 the writer visited the historic ruins of Colchester 

 Castle, he was surprised to find on the crumbling 

 walls of the ancient Norman keep a number of speci- 

 mens of Silene Otites, or the Spanish catch-fly. The 

 plant, though found in Suffolk, was not known to 

 exist in Essex ; but there, all along the broken 

 masonry at the top of the tower, it was growing 

 abundantly. It turned out, however, upon inquiry, 

 that some few years ago certain local entomologists 

 introduced the plant in order to furnish food for their 

 caterpillars. It has now settled comfortably in its 



