III. INTRODUCED SPECIES. 81 



nous area of tlie species cannot now be pointed out, apart 

 from the extension given thereto through escapes from 

 garden cxilture. If not a native of the same part of 

 England, Rihes Grossularia has become best established 

 there ; being scarcely more than an occasional straggler 

 elsewhere. Considering how much the Gooseberry and 

 Currants are cultivated, how freely they are eaten by 

 various birds, and how plentifully they spring up from 

 seeds dropped in gardens and about houses, it seems 

 remarkable that they should be found so sparingly in 

 hedgerows, coppices, stream-sides, and other such situa- 

 tions. They do occasionally occur in scanty numbers in 

 such places ; but far more sparingly than might be ex- 

 pected of really native shrubs so much assisted in their 

 dispersion. 



5. Culinary and Medicinal herbs. — Like the fruit trees 

 and ornamental garden jjlants, some of these may have 

 been native species brought under cultivation, w'hile 

 others may have been originally imported, and have since 

 become seemingly wild by diffusion from gardens only. 

 The difficulty of finding another origin for Brasslca ole- 

 racea, may help to fix its aboriginal habitat on the coasts 

 of Britain and elsewhere in Western Europe. The in- 

 land localities cited for it, such as the rocks about old 

 castles, may be deemed non-native with little doubt or 

 question. Even the sea-cliffs abcwt towns and other 

 buildings may properly be regarded with some suspicion, 

 when cited as the natural localities of a plant so abun- 

 dantly and anciently cultivated. — Smyrnium Olusatrum 

 occurs under conditions and in places very similar to 

 those where the Cabbage grows. Though now seldom or 

 never cultivated for use, it still lingers about old build- 

 ings, and often in abundance, near to which it likely 

 enough was cultivated in former years. It may indeed 



VOL. IV. M 



