550 BOTANICAL SKETCHES. [September, 



or supped, and thence to Rochester, where their botanizing really 

 began. The account of these ancient excursions has been re- 

 printed, and is sold at 45, Frith Street, London. 



Our botanizing began at Snodland, where we crossed the 

 Medway by a ferry and walked along the dyke or bank to 

 another \dllage, Burham, nearly opposite Snodland. 



On this bank we saw plenty of Thalictrum flavum, Meadow 

 Rue, and the narrow-leaved Water Dropwort, CEnanthe Lachenalii; 

 also Ranunculus hirsutus, not a common plant, but plentiful in 

 many parts of the Thames valley below London. There was a 

 fine colony of Reeds {Arundo Phragmites) on our right-hand, and 

 in the midst of these, unseen, not unheard, the reed-warbler 

 warbled forth his melodious notes. We soon left the shores of 

 the Medway, and stretched out to the ridge of chalk hills, which 

 extend between Rochester and Maidstone. Our grand object 

 was the Spider Orchis, Ophrys aranifera, which we had heard 

 grows there, but which, we are sorry to say, we did not see. 



But there are many objects worth seeing on Boxley Downs. 

 I am not certain that this is the correct appellation of this ridge ; 

 I call it so because the pretty village of Boxley lies almost in 

 the bosom of the chain of hills or in one of its lateral combs. 

 We mounted the ridge rather too early for Orchids, none of which 

 appeared till we nearly reached that part which overhangs Boxley 

 Abbey. We saw among the Juniper-bushes Aceras anthropophora, 

 the Green Man-Orchis, after leaving the village afore-mentioned, 

 and while ascending to the ridge of the hill. 



On a brow of the hill we hghted on a fine colony of Columbines, 

 " stone-blue or deep night-brown.^' Ours were blue, deep sky- 

 blue, or white ; the brown we did not see. There is a question 

 about the nativity of this plant, a question which I will not 

 \ answer. I can safely affirm that it is of spontaneous growth on 

 1 these chalk downs of Kent. It is to be found for miles, not 

 always or everywhere equally plentiful; usually in the woods, 

 but sometimes, as in the above-mentioned locality, on the bare, 

 bleak brow of the hill. It is common on similar places in Surrey, 

 as on the downs between Dorking and Guildford. It abounds 

 in Rockingham Forest, not far from Oundle, and there it is 

 oftener " night-brown" than blue, as the shepherd-poet of North- 

 amptonshire describes it. This part of the country is on the 

 oolite. The same plant grows well enough in woods on the iron- 

 sand near Godalming. 



