A DAY’S BOTANIZING ABOUT TRING. 105 
genera of plants, viz. Spartium, or orraprov, from ometperv, to sow, 
because it is self-sown, and Genista, from gignor, genitus, self-pro- 
duced, as twigs usually are. Spartiwm junceum yields a fibre 
which is, like flax, capable of bemg manufactured into cloth. 
Captain Stevens, in his dictionary of the Spanish language, informs 
us that gramen sparteum is a soft rushy shrub, common in Italy 
and Spain, in which latter country they make ropes, mats, and 
baskets of it, and many other things. From sparteum, or spartium, 
or oraprov, the transition to sprat or sprotis obvious: the terms 
have the same signification, viz. a binding material. ‘The ear- 
hest sorts of cordage were made of plants; the plants from which 
bands were made received the names of the articles which were 
produced from them. This is further evident from juncus, rush, 
from jungo, I join; junctus, or junctum, the thing joined or 
twisted, and ozaprtos, the thing platted, etc. 

Notes of a Day's Botanizing about Tring, Herts, June 29, 1855. 
(From a Correspondent.) 
On the last Friday in June,—an unlucky day in popular belief, 
and especially so reckoned among seafaring people,—we (there 
were two) left London by the Euston-square terminus (station) 
of the London and North-western Railway at cight o’clock, and 
reached Tring about ten o’clock. The train was not a fast one. 
Though, like many of our countrymen, disposed to grumble most 
when there is the least cause, we could not, and cannot now, help 
remarking, that the present mode of travelling, even by a slow 
train, is very much superior to the travelling of former days, and 
especially for botanical objects. We were able to accomplish in 
one day what twenty years ago would have occupied three, and at 
a cost of a few shillings, say seven or eight, what at that not 
very remote period would have cost us five times this sum. In 
fine, we breakfasted in London, travelled about forty miles down, 
botanized eight hours, and returned home to dinner. Our whole 
expenditure, exclusive of our railway fare, was eightpence for a 
pot of beer and a cigar. We state these small matters minutely, 
in order to induce the fraternity to avail themselves of the faci- 
lities which quick and cheap travelling to all parts of the country 
offer for the promotion of botanical knowledge. And something 
MR AIO P 
