62 Flowers and their Pedigrees. 



account for — at least ninety species, all told ; which 

 is a prodigious item to set down to the chapter of 

 accidents. For the distance from Bordeaux to Kerry 

 is really 700 miles, while the distance from Portugal 

 to the Azores (which are peopled with plants and 

 animals in the most fragmentary manner) is only 900 ; 

 and we can hardly suppose that so large a number of 

 southern plants could permanently establish them- 

 selves (against the prevailing winds) in a country 

 already occupied by a flourishing native flora. But 

 two more fatal objections are these : First, our southern 

 plants are only found in the extreme south-west, and 

 not in the warmest parts of the Isle of Wight, of 

 Kent, or of Hampshire. Even at Bournemouth and 

 Ventnor we meet with none of them. And secondly, 

 they are all evidently dying out ; they represent an 

 old flora which is no longer adapted to the country, 

 not a new flora pushing its way vigorously into regions 

 occupied by less congenial plants. Every year they 

 are disappearing before our very eyes, and many of 

 them are from time to time now being expunged from 

 our floras. The Kilmington lobelia is getting rarer 

 as every summer passes ; the wild asparagus, once 

 common on the Lizard promontory, is now only to be 

 picked, at the imminent risk of life and limb, amongst 

 the crannies of a rocky islet at Kynance Cove ; the 



