76 in. INTRODUCED SPECIES. 



accidental causes. Most of their localities, in whicli tliey 

 are recorded as wild with more or less confidence, are 

 either near existing houses, or about the sites of former 

 houses, or else in spots to which the bulbs might readily 

 have passed from gardens ; where their rapid increase 

 leads gardeners to be careless of them, and perhaps often 

 purposely to dig them out as superfluities. And further, 

 they never appear so really wild, and so affecting places 

 remote from the abodes of man, as (for example) the 

 Hyacinthus nonscriptus and Allium ursinmn are observed 

 to be and to do. The proper inference from these facts 

 and conditions appears to be, that the Ornithogalum and 

 Galanthus are very probably not native in most of their 

 present localities, are doubtful in others, and indisj)utably 

 native in none. This sort of evidence and inference is 

 most decided against the former. It is somewhat less so 

 against the snowdrop, or at least is thought to be less so 

 by several botanists. — Vinca minor and Sedum reflexum, 

 plants of a different character in their growth, are well 

 ada^Dted to spread over any favorable spot to which they 

 are carried either by natural causes or by human agenc}'. 

 There can be no reasonable groimd for denjdng that 

 many of their present localities, along hedgerows and 

 near the sites of gardens, have originated through the 

 frequent culture of these species as ornamental garden 

 plants. But some others of their localities are confi- 

 dently declared by various botanists to be truly natiu'al ; 

 those of the periwinkle especially being so regarded. — 

 Viola odorata and Helleborus viridis seem to have yet 

 clearer claims to be held native in some of their localities; 

 although these two species have certainly been spread to 

 many other places, and have attained a much wider area 

 of distribution, simply as introductions or as escapes from 

 cultivation. Believing them natives in some spots in 



