23. LEGUMINOS.E. '289 



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places by the South-western Rail, where it flourished 

 during the formation of the line, it has gradually disap- 

 peared. Mr. Coleman found it near the gas-works, at 

 Hertford, on the gravel heaps thrown up in digging a caual. 

 Miss Bell found it among lucerne, at Hilgay, iu Norfolk; 

 and Hooker records it from the denes, at Yarmouth. Mr. 

 Charles Prentice informs me that it abounds in one spot on 

 the railway embankment, between Swindon and Birming- 

 ham ; and it may be an old inhabitant of Warwickshire, 

 for the Rev. W. T. Bree enumerates the M. officinalis among 

 plants varying with white flowers, about Coleshill, in the 

 first volume of the Magazine of Natural History. The 

 Rev. J. Shawe sent me a specimen which he had found in 

 a clover field, near Leominster. Mr. Gutch enumerates it 

 in his second list of Swansea plants, as occurring on bal- 

 last heaps, near the West Pier. Found near Warrington, 

 by Dr. Kendrick. Occurs near Bishopsthorpe and else- 

 where, according to the Flora of Yorkshire, without au- 

 thority. Mr. Storey and Mr. R. B. Bowman both send 

 me specimens fi'om the ballast hills of the Tyne province. 

 In the Isle of Man, according to Mr. Forbes. Localities 

 are given in the Flora of Berwick, for this species, under 

 the name of Trifolium officinale, in a quarry, in a wood, 

 and in plantations. Mr. Lloyd is stated to have found it 

 in corn-fields, at Aberlady, in Haddingtonshire. The late 

 Professor Graham found it abundantly in a deserted quarry 

 on the banks of the Union Canal, near Edinburgh, Most 

 of these, it will be granted, are highly suspicious localities, 

 when the question of nativity is under consideration. The 

 habitat of " ballast heaps " can weigh nothing in favour, 

 and much against. Fields of" clover" and "lucerne" are 

 almost equally to be suspected • because the seeds for 

 sowing are frequently imported. To " quarries " this Me- 

 lilotus might readily be conveyed among clover, or other 



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