THE OLD WALLS OF WINCHESTER 53 



noticed beneath the shelter of the Dean's garden wall a 

 fine plant of Atropa Belladonna, or the deadly night- 

 shade. It is, of course, a rare species and as poisonous 

 as it is rare, but it is to be found in some plenty on a 

 weird and desolate warren some three miles from the 

 Cathedral city. In what manner the plant found its 

 way into Winchester I will not venture to declare ; 

 perhaps a bird carried the seed which, in the undis- 

 turbed seclusion of the Dean's garden, had germinated 

 and flourished. There, at any rate, the plant stood, 

 with its large, egg-shaped leaves and lurid purple 

 flowers, an unwonted resident in the Cathedral Close. 



But a still more interesting discovery awaited me in 

 College meads. Beneath the shelter of an ancient wall, 

 close to a branch of the River Itchen, which, after flow- 

 ing through the Close and the warden's garden, makes 

 its way past the playing-fields, I found a fine clump of 

 the yellow balsam. I was naturally surprised, for I had 

 never met with the species before in Hampshire. So 

 taking a specimen home, I carefully examined it ; with- 

 out doubt it was Impatiens noli-me-tangere, L. Turn- 

 ing to the Flora of Hampshire, I found that it was un- 

 recorded for the county, but in a footnote enclosed in 

 square brackets there was a statement to the effect that 

 in an old copy of Smith's English Flora there was to be 

 seen the following entry in the handwriting of a " Miss 

 Barter," doubtless the warden's daughter : " The 

 Warden's garden, Winchester, quite wild, about 1835." 

 Was it possible that the plant still existed as a weed in 

 the warden's garden ? If so, its presence beneath the 

 college wall would be explained. Without delay I 

 hastened to the sacred enclosure, and there, beside the 

 flowing stream, were numbers of balsam plants, grow- 



