Alexander Goodman More. [1559 



mum and Euphorbia peplis ; the short turf of the com- 

 mon, Herniaria ciliata ; several bits of waste ground, 

 Gnaphalium luteo-album. Lagurus ovatus abounded; Cen- 

 taurea isnardi peculiar to Guernsey of "British" islands- 

 was gathered at Vazon Bay, where also in the borders of 

 the reed-beds was found Carex punctata. The sight of 

 " Cyperus longus in every wet meadow," was delightful to 

 a botanist from the Isle of Wight, where the same plant 

 struggled under conditions so severe to maintain its 

 foothold. Papaver lecoqii is also among the forty-five 

 species named in his notes as observed in Guernsey not 

 as a rarity, but because he had for some time been 

 engaged in correspondence with Professor Babington and 

 Mr. Newbould, on the subject of the proper distinctive 

 marks of this poppy. 



But the group of plants at which he was now working 

 with the greatest zest was the Lepigona. In his Journal 

 of the tour round the Isle of Wight, it may be remembered 

 that he described* with some minuteness a sandwort, 

 which he then called " Arenaria rubra pinguis," found on 

 cliffs, near Niton, and at the Needles. This was in July, 

 1857 ; and that he had not, in the meantime, forgotten the 

 peculiarities of the little plant is proved by an entry in his 

 Journal of a visit to Ventnor, on August 28th, 1858: 

 " Along shore, in the afternoon, I saw the same Arenaria 

 rubra pinguis which I had gathered at Niton, and 

 curiously enough almost every seed-vessel was occupied 

 by a fat white beetle larva." Also on October i8th, he 

 made a note of the same plant growing at Scratchell's 

 Bay ; but having now ceased to believe in its being a form 

 of Arenaria rubra,f he called it dubiously Spergularia 

 rupestris. 



Spergularia rupestris was a species up to that time 

 marked in the "London Catalogue" (5th edition, 1857) as 

 peculiar to the Channel Islands, so that its discovery in 

 the Isle of Wight, making it a genuine British plant, was 

 a matter of great interest. It was not, however, until 

 three months after his visit to Guernsey that, comparing 

 his Scratchell's Bay sandwort with some Sarnian speci- 



* Page 94. t Lepigonum rubrum. 



