Outlines of the Botany of the Isle of Wight. 499 



7. A last section includes such species as evince a certain partiality 

 for the sea-coast, without being absolutely restricted to the shore 

 itself. 



Coronopus didyma. 

 Cerastium tetrandrum. 

 Erodium maritimum. 

 Smyrnium Olusatrum. 

 Apium graveolens. 

 Samolus Valerandi. 

 Carduus tenuiflorus. 

 Linaria repens. 



Scirpus Savii. 



Tabernaemontani. 

 Briza minor. 

 Gastridium lendigerum. 

 Medicago denticulata. 

 Erythraea pulchella. 

 Trigonella ornithopodioides. 

 Festuca arundinacea. 



The points best deserving of a botanist's attention are \-Brading 

 Harbour and St. Helen's Spit. In various places along the shores of 

 the haven, will be found nearly all the plants enumerated in List 3. 

 Curiously enough, Statice rariflora and Spartina stricta are missing, 

 though they occur in all the other creeks : Inula crithmoides, too, is 

 peculiar to Cowes and Newtown. 



Most of the plants are sufficiently abundant, and do not require any 

 particular directions to their localities, except that Alopecurus bulbosus 

 and Carex divisa chiefly occur in the low meadows of the south side, 

 and with them will be gathered the velvet-leaved Althaea and Carex 

 distans. Sclerochloa Borreri grows in the same marsh upon places 

 occasionally flooded ; with it is S. procumbens, and sparingly S. dis- 

 tans. 



At Brading Quay will again be found S. Borreri, and on the land- 

 ward slope of the embankment Medicago denticulata. The marsh on 

 the north side is remarkable for the prevalence of Hordeum pratense 

 and H. maritimum, and in the ditches will be seen Ranunculus Baudotii, 

 R. Drouetii, Potamogeton pectinatus, and lower down the same stream 

 Alisma ranunculoi'des and Hippuris vulgaris. 



The banks, which are covered at spring-tides, nourish an abundant 

 growth of Statice and Armeria, Salicornia radicans, Halimus portula- 

 coi'des. Sclerochloa maritima, &c., and Zostera nana, is the prevailing 

 species on the mud flats. 



But it is upon the tract of " Dunes " or Sandhills, lying immediately 

 below St. Helen's, that the principal harvest will be made. This small 

 piece of ground, not exceeding probably 40 or 50 acres, has been ascer- 

 tained to yield no less than 250 species of flowering plants, that being 

 nearly \ of the whole Flora of the Isle of Wight : and among these not 

 the least interesting are twelve out of thirteen indigenous Trefoils. 

 Indeed, the abundance of Leguminosae and Caryophylleae is the most 

 striking feature of the Sandhills, and brings to mind the use which has 

 been made of the prevalence of these two families of plants, to charac- 

 terise a region warmer than our own. The two Stone-crops also might 

 suggest a resemblance to the arid sands of the Deserts, were it not for 

 the Rein-deer Moss, which is the next plant to meet the eye. 



2K2 



