ACCOUNT OF A BOTANICAL 
are stated to eat it greedily, and for all 
these purposes it is regularly mown at the 
end of September, at which time large 
. quantities may be seen lying on the shore 
. to dry, previous to carting. Hardly a sin- 
. gle accessible patch either on the upper or 
3 station is suffered to remain uncut, 
so that it is a plant of real economical uti- 
ity. I tl that itis known amongst 
the inhabitants by any other name than 
that of Sedge. 
Southampton, Oct. 29, 1836. 
———— —— 
ACCOUNT OF A BOTANICAL 
EXCURSION INTO BRITTANY, 
IN A LETTER ADDRESSED TO 
THE EDITOR. 
By Joseru Woops, Esq., F.L.S. 
My dear Sir William, 
You did me the honour to insert in the 
Companion to the Botanical Magazine 
. My journal of a little tour in the North of 
.. England. Perhaps some of your readers 
; may find advantage in perusing the follow- 
x ing memoranda of an excursion in Brit- 
. any. I, at least, should have been very 
glad of some such intimation respecting the 
nature of different parts of the country, and 
of the points to which, as a Botanist, I 
might, with the best hope of success, di- 
Nel my attention. But neither in books, 
Previous to leaving England, nor on the 
hus by oral communication, could I ob- 
tain any satisfactory information. I do not 
sg : be able fully to supply the defi- 
E s something towards it will, I 
ES RN in the following pages. 
ns comae the 2nd of May, and on 
Cose over to the Isle of Wight, 
angi : na angustifolia. I fol- 
es ~ to Brading for about two 
E all, where the plant begins to 
bin = xtending itself in great abundance 
cm e; enin acres of woodland. 
Sitting a med to Portsmouth, ex- 
the “eg at morning to Havre; but 
AM ad been retarded in its home- 
a passage by a strong North wind, and 
EXCURSION INTO BRITTANY. 263 
did not return till the following day. Mean- 
while I took such a walk on the shore at 
Portsmouth as the weather would permit, 
Cerastium semidecandrum grows in great 
abundance on the ramparts, C. tetrandrum 
on the shore. The latter is a more loose 
and straggling plant, and its leaves are 
smaller in proportion to its general size ; 
but in depressed spots I could find speci- 
mens of an intermediate appearance, which 
seemed to differ only in the number of 
stamens; and this difference is not con- 
stant, as flowers with four and five stamens 
may sometimes be seen on the same plant. 
All the sepals in both are scariose at the 
tip; while the outer sepals, at least, of C. 
vulgatum are, I believe, never so. The 
bracteas are not scariose in either species, 
but in C. viscosum the upper bracteas are 
perhaps always scariose at the margin. 
Duby mentions a variety of C. semidecan- 
drum, in which the sepals are scariose at 
the tip, (this, with me, is a character of the 
species,) and another in which the bracteas 
are scariose. 
Our voyage to Havre took twelve hours, 
which is probably about an average pas- 
sage; for though we had a head wind, the 
sea was quiet; and on the 6th I crossed 
the estuary of the Seine to Honfleur. A 
steam-packet passes every tide, and a dili- 
gence attends to receive the passengers for 
Caen. A diligence from Rouen to Caen 
also starts about noon, Honfleur is a de- 
lightful town ; orchards cover the steep 
slopes of the neighbouring hills, and these, 
at a distance, give place to forests; and the 
noble estuary of the Seine spreads itself 
before the eye, chalk cliffs or steep woody 
banks, breaking down, in many places, to 
the water’s edge. 
I shall say nothing of the two magnifi- 
cent churches at Caen, built by William 
the Conqueror and his Queen, as an atone- 
ment for their marriage within the forbid- 
den degrees of consanguinity ; nor of the 
later edifice of St. Peter, which is, never- 
theless, a fine and interesting building. 
These are foreign to my present subject. 
The Botanic Garden is in a young state, 
but promises well. Fedia carinala 1s 
