6 LOCALITIES OF RARER BRITISH PLANTS 
Oswestry church is remarkable for two things: the first is its 
great breadth; we did not however measure it, but it is a very 
large church. The second thing connected with this sacred edi- 
fice, and more interesting to botanical tourists, is a growth of 
Yews on the ledges, gutters, roof, and walls of the buildmg,— 
everywhere except on the doors and windows. The tower had 
especially a large crop of this funereal tree. These Yews were of 
various sizes, from a few inches to a few feet high. Here it may 
be recorded that Meivod church produces a large crop of Ash- 
trees, which have found a locality, even here, for their partial 
development. All plants growing on artificial erections are not 
on this account to be deemed pseudo-British. Neither the Yews 
of Oswestry church nor the Ashes of Meivod were introduced 
into their present localities by human agency. But, even if they 
” were so, they are likely to endure as long as the erections on 
which they grow. Hedge-plants are not justly to be branded as 
aliens because they grow in hedges. Our commonest hedging 
stuff is not only planted, but raised in nurseries; but Hawthorn, 
Holly, and Yew are not on that score denied a place in our cata- 
logues of British plants. But Lonicera Xylosteum and many 
other, species are excluded, because they grow only in places where 
they might have been planted, and probably were planted. 
We started from Oswestry for Llansanfraid about nine o’clock 
on the morning of the 13th, and as there had been a rather heavy 
shower the previous night, the walking was very agreeable; dust, 
the usual concomitant of pedestrians, never annoyed us in Wales 
as it often does in England. On the left side of the road to the 
above-named place, on the very skirts of Oswestry, we observed 
a profusion of Anchusa sempervirens (Evergreen Alkanet), enough 
to supply all the botanists of England with specimens, and to 
leave some for future supply. This plant, we believe, never occurs 
but near or close to human dwellings. We saw it at Cuxton, 
near Strood, in Kent, in 1841, in a station mentioned by Ray; 
and we have seen it in Reigate churchyard, as stated by Luxford 
m his ‘ Reigate Flora.’ There are many British plants which 
evince this preference for nitrogenized soils, viz. the Greater Ce- 
landine, Borage, and even the common Nettle, Good King Henry, 
several Docks, and the Greater Plantain. The claim of these 
latter to rank among British plants has never been questioned. 
Alkanet and Borage are considered as doubtful natives of Eng- 
