330 NATURAL HISTORY 



Serapias latifolia, helleborine, in the High Wood 

 under the shady beeches ; 



Daphne Laureola, spurge laurel, in Selborne Hanger 

 and the High Wood ; 



Daphne Mezereum, the mezereon, in Selborne Hanger 

 among the shrubs at the south-east end above the cot- 

 tages ; 



Lycoperdon tuber, truffles, in the Hanger and High 

 Wood; 



Sambucus Ebulus, dwarf elder, wall wort, or Banewort, 

 among the rubbish and ruined foundations of the 

 Priory. 



Of all the propensities of plants none seem more 

 strange than their different periods of blossoming. Some 

 produce their flowers in the winter, or very first dawn- 

 ings of spring ; many when the spring is established ; 

 some at midsummer ; and some not till autumn. When 

 we see the Helleborus fcetidus and Helleborus niger blow- 

 ing at Christmas, the Helleborus hyemalis in January, 



end, antl beginning to bristle or protrude young fibres near the extremity. 

 By further research, I clearly ascertained that the plant dies after flower- 

 ing, but is capable of reproducing a new plant from the point of each of 

 its fibres, after they have fallen apart, the extreme point becoming the eye 

 or shoot, which increases in size till its maturity, and the lateral bristles 

 becoming the fibres by which the plant is to be nourished, and afterwards 

 propagated. The young roots continue thus to increase in bulk under 

 ground till they come to the flowering age, when they push up vigorously, 

 die, and spawn again in the same extraordinary manner. The disap- 

 pearance and reappearance of the plant is thus completely accounted for. 

 I did not make a memorandum of the number of different sizes, but if I 

 recollect right they are five years old when they flower. I potted several 

 of them, which flowered in the green-house, but all that were left in pots 

 out of doors were killed by frost. Though ophrys and orchis roots abide 

 the severest winter in their native situation, if planted in pots and left 

 out, they will certainly be destroyed by frost. The dead leaves or turf 

 protect them where they grow. 



It is not generally known that the Orchis b\folia, or white butterfly 

 orchis, is the most fragrant of flowers, and that two or three of them in a 

 pot will perfume a whole house at night. They are scentless by day. 

 They will flourish in any part of London, if the pots are kept in the room 

 with little water in the winter, and the plants allowed a little air at the 

 window when growing. W. H. 



