INTRODUCTION TO THE FLORA. 23 1 



Pyrethrum inodorum, and the Nettles, which though most fre- 

 quent in cultivated ground, are also to be met with in quarries 

 and along the sea-shore, about road-sides and on waste ground, 

 and which, by a little more stringent interpretation of the 

 probabilities which point towards introduction, would be added 

 to the Colonist list. All except four of our Colonists are plants 

 of but annual duration. Many of them are of very frequent 

 occurrence, and it is probable that a large proportion of them 

 are plants which have had their original home in those lands 

 where the Cereal Grasses were first cultivated, and that their 

 seeds have been carried about with corn-seed from country to 

 country. The Denizens, with the exception of one or two trees, 

 and possible introductions along with ballast, are the well- 

 established certain or probable introductions of Horticulture, 

 and are mostly either ornamental plants, the common trees or 

 shrubs with eatable fruit which are grown in gardens, or plants 

 of real or supposed medical utility. Populus alba, Sinapis 

 muralis, Daphne Mezeremn, Pi~unus avium and Chelidoniuin 

 niajus are typical representatives of these five classes of character. 

 It is to the Denizens, as the term is here employed, that 

 M. Alphonse I)e Candolle* would restrict the use of the term 

 'naturalized,' denying it to the Colonists, but with us in Britain 

 the word has been used with great looseness of application. 

 The Aliens are plants which either make or have made their 

 appearance in cultivated fields, casual stragglers from garden 

 cultivation, imported trees not sufiiciently established to take a 

 place amongst the IJ)enizens, or else species which have been 

 introduced with ballast either from other parts of Britain, or 

 from the European Continent. Of the Agricultural Aliens, 

 Melilotus vulgaris and Bromus arvensis are examples : of the 

 Horticultural Aliens, Eranthis hyemalis and CheirantJnis Cheiri : 

 of the trees, Carpinus Betulus ■xwiS. Castanea vesca : of the ballast 



* In M. DeCanclolIe's elaborate handbook, entitled 'Geographic Botanique Raisonn(5e,' 

 as well as in Wat.son'.s ' Cybele Britannica,' most of the matters are discussed in detail 

 whith ill this chapter arc just touched upon. These arc the books which any of my readers 

 who may wish to follow up the subject ought to procure. 



July 1889. 



