204 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL chap. 



Coming now to the endogenous plants, we find equally 

 remarkable deficiencies. No daffodil, snowdrop, or snow- 

 flake is to be found wild in all North America, neither is 

 there any crocus, wild hyacinth, colchicum, or lily-of-the- 

 valley. The beautiful genus Ophrys, containing our bee, 

 fly, and spider orchises, is quite unknown ; and such 

 familiar plants as the black-briony of our hedges, the 

 flowering-rush of our streams and ditches, and the curious 

 butcher's broom of our dry woods, are nowhere to be met 

 with. 



Now the important thing to be noted is, that most of 

 these plants are not only abundant and familiar in many 

 parts of England, but are widely spread throughout 

 Europe, and the larger part of them belong to groups 

 which extend into Northern Asia, and often reach the 

 eastern extremity of that continent. If we were to in- 

 clude less important or less familiar plants this list might 

 be doubled or trebled ; and it might be still further ex- 

 tended if we took account of genera which range widely 

 over Europe and Asia, but happen to be rare or altogether 

 wanting in England. Such, for example, are the follow- 

 ing well-known garden flowers. The white and yellow 

 asphodels of South Europe ; the red valerian (Cen- 

 tranthus), naturalised in many places on our chalk cliffs 

 and old walls ; the cinerarias, the gum-cistuses, th'e cycla- 

 mens, and the daphnes ; the true pinks (Dianthus) ; 

 the numerous dwarf brooms (Genista) ; the corn-flags 

 (Gladiolus) ; the candytufts (Iberis) ; the lavender and 

 the rosemary ; the ox-eye daisies ; the stocks ; the Star- 

 of-Bethlehem ; the poeonies ; the mignonettes ; the garden 

 rue ; the various soap-worts ; -the tulips, the periwinkles, 

 and a hundred others. 



It must always be remembered, that the British plants 

 noticed above as being absent from the indigenous flora 

 of the United States are abundant Avith us and form 

 characteristic features of our flora ; that the larger por- 

 tion of them range widely over Europe and Western Asia ; 

 that more than half of them extend across Northern Asia 

 to the Pacific and often to China and Japan ; while several 

 extend over the greater portion of the eastern hemi- 



