Aliens and Adventives 99 



textile, as ropes for tying (only replaced by the introduction of TiUa, as the 

 ' Line-tree ' for Bast-ropes giving efficient haulage material). The flexible 

 stout basal shoots of the Hazel afforded the first bows; as the slender 

 beautifully straight first year's shoots were the only local material from which 

 an arrow could be trimmed with little difficulty by a flint-knife. There was 

 still no sharper edge than a flaked flint : oyster-shells from the coast, or mussel- 

 shells from the river, are only efficient for minor purposes. Ash might give 

 a tougher shaft for tools and weapons, but required more trimming, as 

 pollarded Yew ultimately replaced other staves for bows. The introduction 

 of domesticated cattle brought with them pasture-grasses, and the weeds of 

 waste-heaps from Central Europe. The addition of food-g;rains implies all the 

 weeds of the corn-fields of Europe, due to imperfectly winnowed seed. No 

 boat could come from Spain without bringing Chestnuts as common food, and 

 ships from the Mediterranean probably brought a greater variety of plants than 

 came by land ; e. g., ship-transport of cattle implies some sort of hay or fodder 

 with its seeds and weeds ; the mild winter climate of S. England encourages 

 the plants of S. Europe, which may fail in a more ' continental' winter of 

 N. Germany. Only climatic conditions would prevent the establishment of seeds 

 of the Date and Fig. 



To this period may be probably referred the first introduction of the weeds 

 of waste and foul ground around dwellings, as the establishment of many 

 Chenopods, Polygonums, and Docks, which pass as indigenous, and are similarly 

 associated with man on the main continent of Europe. The Sting Nettle 

 (Urtica dtoica], probably indigenous, as one of the last herbaceous repre- 

 sentatives farthest north of a distinctly tropical family, has always been one of 

 these assisted associates, primitively utilized as a textile, before the introduction 

 of Hemp (oriental) and Flax (N. African). 



In later millennia, as indicated by the culture of the early British before the 

 time of Julius Caesar, extensive connexion with the East, either by overland 

 migration, or by means of navigation from the Mediterranean, is shown in 

 economic plants of the time ; though the connexion of the South Coast with 

 the Midlands may have been but slight. The cultivation of forms of Wheat, 

 the use of Woad (Isatis), and the cult of the Mistletoe which as Viscum album 

 replaces the Loranthus europaeus of the Evergreen Oaks (Quercus Ilex) of 

 Thessaly may preserve evidence of overland migrations to the North and 

 West, as does the gradual dissemination of the use of bronze as a special type 

 of alloy, and the use of horses. On the other hand, the Flax-plant of Egypt 

 and N. Africa, as also the Saffron Crocus of the Eastern Mediterranean, may 

 indicate commerce by sea. The cornfields of cereals from Western Asia still 

 harbour the weeds of N. Africa ; and the majority of ' naturalized ' weeds, 

 still unable to make good in woodland, were undoubtedly well-established long 

 before the historical epoch. More efficient tools led to the introduction of 

 soft-wooded trees, Salix alba, Populus m'gra, and possibly Tilia and the 

 Sycamore, as more easily worked. 



The four centuries of the Roman occupation, with their increasing civiliza- 

 tion, saw the Common Elm, Sycamore, Lime and Poplar well-established as 

 timber-trees ; and undoubtedly all the economic plants of S. Europe that would 

 grow at all were in general cultivation. With seed-corn and hay from Gaul, 

 Italy, and N. Africa, came further weeds of cultivation ; and with the families 

 of officials and soldiers retired on the land, garden-flowers, herbs, and vegetables 

 of S. Europe and the East; a few of which may still survive as naturalized 

 in the South, or as strays in the vicinity of Roman centres, in virtue of their 

 successful perennation-stages. This applies more particularly to the decorative 

 flowers of early spring (Snowdrops and the early Crocus of the Eastern 

 Mediterranean, Leucojum vernum, L. aestivum, and all Narcissi beyond the 

 common Daffodil): the Box (Buxus), utilized for its timber, and medicinal 

 plants of established classical value, as described in Dioscorides (Paeom'a, 

 Helleborus, Aconiium), as also the ' Glastonbury Thorn '. Economic plants as 

 Vitis, Ficus, and Onions were undoubtedly grown, but would soon die out 



