306 ADDRESS OF THE EDITOR. {January, 



by one of our correspondents (it will appear in the ' Pliytologist/ 

 if it be not there already) , that a basket of wild flowers was dis- 

 qualified for competition at a flower-show because it contained 

 among them the common Foxglove^ the exhibitor being unable 

 to prove to the satisfaction of the judges that the said flower was 

 wild in that covmty. Our correspondent, a Lincolnshire botanist, 

 states that he never saw it wild there. It is absent from Cam- 

 bridge, Huntingdon, and Northampton, or at least it is so stated 

 on good authority. It does not appear that its absence from 

 Lincolnshire was known till the fact was communicated in our 

 pages. 



The qu(Sstiones veocatce what plants are common and what ai'e 

 scarce, what plants are completely and what plants are but par- 

 tially naturalized, can only be resolved satisfactorily by the ob- 

 servations and statements of local botanists. The writer of this 

 article had no hesitation, more than thirty years ago, to admit 

 Impatiens fulva and Iscitis tinctoria among the number of natu- 

 ralized British plants, for the common reason, better than a wo- 

 man's reason (because), that " seeing is believing." He saw the 

 plants growing there spontaneously ; and the oldest inhabitants, 

 who had observed these plants, did not remember a time when 

 they were not certainly to be found growing in the same places. 

 Twenty years ago the same observer had no misgivings about 

 Corydalis lutea being entitled to a place in any British Flora; 

 but less than half-a-dozen years ago he did not know, neither 

 from observation nor from testimony, that the near relative of 

 the last-mentioned plant, C. solida, was truly naturalized. The 

 reason was obvious enough. He had never seen the latter but 

 in situations where it had been planted, viz. the borders of gar- 

 dens, and he never saw any botanist who had seen it except in 

 similar localities. About two years ago he saw it growing spon- 

 taneously in profusion, and, like the Impatiens and Isatis of 

 Guildford, it appeared to have been there from a period anterior 

 to the memory of recent generations. 



The frequency, infrequency, the abundance and rarity of a 

 species cannot be inferred from the census affixed to its name in 

 the London Catalogue, nor from its range or area, as published 

 in the ' Pliytologist,' copied, with the permission of the learned 

 author, from the ' Cybele.' Botrychium Lunaria has a provincial 

 area of 18, or, in plainer terms, it is found in all the eighteen 



