389 
BOTANICAL NOTES, NOTICES, AND QUERIES. 
Sir,—In the December Number of the ‘ Phytologist’ (p. 190) you ask 
for some particulars about Phalaris paradoxa. 1 must refer you to the 
‘London Journal of Botany’ for the year 1847, in which its discovery 
was first made known, under the name of “ Alopecurus utriculatus,” for 
which Grass it was then mistaken. Mention was also made of it in the 
former series of the ‘ Phytologist.’ Phalaris paradoxa is of course de- 
scribed in the ‘ Flore Francaise’ of Lamarck and De Candolle, and in other 
Continental Floras. 
As I am writing I may mention that I have observed, at various times 
since 1849, the American species Claytonia perfoliata established in a 
hedge-bank at the entrance of Bure-lane, from Mudiford, near Christ- 
church, Hants. The garden of the late Sir G. Rose is in the neighbour- 
hood; but the old gardener to whom I showed the plant was not ac- 
quainted with it, and had never grown it during the long period that he 
had worked for his employer. I saw abundance of the plants there a few 
days since, and consider the species to be more than imperfectly naturalized 
in the locality.—Very truly yours, James Hussey. 
Salisbury, Feb. '7, 1856. 
In reply to “ Viator” (p. 279), respecting the Glastonbury Thorn, I beg 
to send the following note. The historic evidences are numerous and 
authentic, that when St. Joseph of Arimathea, with his companions, pro- 
ceeded from Palestine, they passed up the Great Western Channel of 
Britain, and landed on the Island of Avalon, so named by the Romans— 
“Insula Avalonica,” being surrounded by water from the Western Chan- 
nel. The place where St. Joseph landed is recorded and known by the 
existing remains of an enbankment, denominated in the ancient maps of 
Avalon, the Sea-wall. It is situated on the northern side of a hill for- 
merly called Worral Hill, or Weary-all Hill, at the present time a park, 
now or lately belonging to William Strade, Esq.; and on the western 
eminence of this mount was erected the first Christian standard in Bri- 
tain, the exact spot having been commemorated at a very early period by 
the planting of a Hawthorn-tree brought from a southern climate, which 
put forth its flowers about the advent of the Christmas festival, that being 
in fact the period at which it blossoms in its native country of Palestine. 
An ignorant and credulous age did not lose sight of so extraordinary a 
phenomenon, and accordingly it was speedily invested with the obscurity 
of a superstitious legend. The tree was cut down in the reign of Charles 
the First by a Protestant soldier, it being regarded as a relic of Papal su- 
perstition ; the stump, or root, remained visible so late as the year 1750, 
the spot where it grew being marked by a stone fixed in the ground, 
bearing this inscription: I. A.A.D.XXXI. Several trees have since been 
propagated by means of grafts from the original: the oldest at present 
existing, and taken from Worral Hill, stands near St. John’s church, at 
Glastonbury, and was planted about the year 1600; others are preserved 
in the town and country adjacent; and there was a person in the neigh- 
bourhood who lately had a nursery, and sold them for a crown apiece. 
