1858.] BOTANICAL NOTES, NOTICES, AND QUERIES. 597 



There is another paper in this tract, on microscopical analysis. 



The readers of the '^ Phy tologist ^ will be pleased with this 

 short though valuable contribution to botanical and histological 

 science, and their thanks are hereby respectfully tendered to the 

 author by the Editor. 



BOTANICAL NOTES, NOTICES, AND QUERIES. 



Orchis apifera. 



Two or three years ago I found an abundance of OrcJiis pyramidalis 

 on the sand-hiUs of the Lincolnshire coast near Saltfleet, and was much 

 sui-prised some weeks ago at the receipt of a beautifid specimen of 

 Oplirys apifera from the same station. These hiUs consist solely of 

 drifted sand. This is a fact for the explanation of which we must look 

 to our ultra-geological botanists. W. E. 



St. Bees, August 21, 1858. 



Elowers of THE Olden Time. 



(More " Things not Generally Known") 



The floral beauties of Britain were confined to those wild-flowers 

 which are today the delight of childhood. The eyes of the " bar- 

 barians" looked upon the modest Daisy, which then presented the same 

 simple form which it does today. Primroses, nursed in the recesses of 

 gnarled roots of trees, came forth in abundance in the spring ; so did the 

 Bluebell and the Violet. These familiar flowers, with Dog-Eoses, Fox- 

 gloves, Traveller's-joy, flowering Heaths, and Water-Lihes, were the chief 

 beauties of the bouquet of ancient Britain. Fuchsias, Balsams, Dahlias, 

 Auriculas, Hyacinths, Pinks, Tulips, Koses, and a host of other beauties 

 that now adorn our gardens and dwellings, were then quite unknown. 

 Even the Wallflower and Mignonette were strangers to our land ; and 

 the Honeysuckle, which is now a common inhabitant of the hedges, came 

 to Britain a stranger, and stole out of the confines of a garden to share 

 the fortunes of our native wUd-flowers. Nor was the state of the British 

 Flora peculiar to the earliest period. It prevailed, with only slight ad- 

 ditions and improvements, down to the sixteenth century ! — Fhilp's 

 History of Frogress. 



Extracts from Correspondence. 



... I have made my projected exciu-sion to Faversham, and have 

 been rewarded by finding Peucedanum in the very place mentioned in 

 Smith's ' English Flora,' a veiy little way out of the town, on the east 

 bank of the river or creek which descends from it to the sea. It is so 

 abundant as to be in no danger of extirpation, and, as you have never 

 been there, it is worth while going to see it. The other plants I found 

 in that neighbourhood are Calamintha Nepeta, almost as profusely as you 

 have described your having found it in Essex ; Verbascum LycJmitis on a 



