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VI. — Rare Plants in the neighbourhood of Gallington. 



SOME of our rarest plants are fortunately so abundant in the 

 localities in which they are found, that there is not the 

 slightest possibility of their extermination. This is the case with 

 the Physospermum Cornubiense, which abounds in every bushy field 

 in the valleys and on the hills in a direct line between Halton 

 Quay on the banks of the Tamar and Newton Ferrers on the 

 river Lynher. There is nothing attractive about the plant, which, 

 in its general characteristics, bears a close resemblance to many 

 other members of the tribe Umhellifer(E, which are remarkable for 

 their family likeness. This may account for the fact that it has 

 hitherto (so far as I am aware) escaped notice in the above-named 

 locality. In the botanical works to which I have been able to 

 refer, with one exception, ''near Bodmin" is given as the only 

 locality in this country in which it grows; Mr. Johns, in his 

 Flowers of the Field, adds "Tavistock, Devon." It was formerly 

 called Ligusticum Cornubiense, but is now rightly named Physo- 

 spermum, from the inflated bladder-like form of the seed, which is 

 a distinguishing feature of the plant. Lysons, in his Magna 

 Brit: Cornwall, p. 198, says : "There are a few plants which may 

 " be considered as peculiar to this county, having been foiJ^nd in 

 " no other part of England, as the Ligusticum Cornubiense, Erica 

 "vagans, and Illecebrum verticillatum. We saw the Ligusticum 

 " growing abundantly on the skirts of St. Margaret's Wood, about 

 " a mile north of Bodmin, where, having been lost to the botanists 

 " ever since Eay's time, it was re-discovered by Mr. Pennington 

 "of the Priory, about 25 years ago. We heard of it also as 

 " growing plentifully between Dunmere Wood and the river ; but 

 " it has never been found except within a few miles of Bodmin." 

 A little further on he adds : " It may be remarked that several of 

 "the rarer plants found in this county are, strictly speaking,' 

 " natives of the south-east parts of Europe ; Sihthorpia Europma 

 " being found in Crete and Thessaly, and Ligusticum Cornubiense 

 "on Mount Athos." My attention was first drawn to this plant 



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