92 Alexander Goodman More. [1857 



was flitting, as at Castle Taylor, from bush to bush among 

 the hazel. Clematis everywhere. The great thistle dis- 

 appointed me for height, being not a yard high, but some 

 primordial heads measured even 3^ inches in diameter. 

 They are very handsome, and appear to be much sought 

 after, as I found many, and indeed most of them, on our 

 second visit, had been cut off, whether for curiosities or 

 for eating ? Close to the thistle were just one or two 

 bushes of Rosa rubiginosa, whose deep-red flowers at- 

 tracted notice. I believe here decidedly wild, and why so 

 scarce in the Island I do not know. I should have expected 

 this rose (rather than micrantha) to grow in the Chalk pits 

 in many places, and yet Bromfield would never have 

 overlooked its deep-red flowers when in bloom. The Bern- 

 bridge locality is less certainly natural. ... I had almost 

 given up Inula helenium, but we found it at the very end 

 of the Landslip among bushes close to the footpath, and 

 under a wall : not nearly so natural a locality as where I 

 found it this spring at Luccombe, amongst the roughest 

 wild ground to the north of the Chine. Artemisia absin- 

 thium is abundant here, as it is one of the most striking 

 and common species all along the Undercliff. After lunch 

 I proceeded to Steephill to visit Arum italicum, which the 

 gardener showed me. 



"To find the 'poverty-weed 5 the great object of my 

 walk we examined the corn above Steephill, with no 

 success till, on following the edge of a field towards 

 St. Laurence, I first picked a small bit not in flower, 

 and then about half a dozen plants in good order ; but 

 for the whole way along the corn bordering the cliff's 

 crest, I did not find more than one plant, which shows 

 the weed is no longer abundant here. I descended on 

 St. Laurence's Church, and was not long in finding 

 Geranium rotundifolium, and with it Silybum marianum, 

 which the old woman asserted to be the ' sovereignest 

 thing for salves and ointment you knows on/ ... I 

 left the road again to follow the path through Pelham 

 Wood, a beautiful wild place. A tiny bit of Melampyrum 

 near the gate ; but at the other end, just where the path 

 comes out upon the Down, there was quite an abundance 



