LATHYRUS TUBEROSUS IN BRITAIN 171 
this fact was practically unknown to eee hope ala for these 
other localities were either recorded in ost unsatisfactory 
manner or were totally unrecorded. It will ey well to state the 
facts as far as they can now be ascertaine 
n the 31st August 1860, ten days after Corder had published 
his pene already quoted, the late Mr. H. W. King (1816- 1893), 
of Leigh, Essex, long well known as Ho ee Bacrebary of the 
Essex Archeological Society, wrote as follow 
“From the description recently given in re Gandaieg Chronicle, 
and inserted in your last Gazette,+ of a supposed new British 
plant growing at Fy field, I believe it to be the same plant which 
grows in great eheag i in a certain marsh in Canvey Island, 
y a ey pecia by a 
pecs of Dutchmen who eobeblishodl.4 themselves there in 1622,} 
I concluded, when I first saw the plant, that it had been most 
probably introduced by them, especially as I lene evidence of its 
existence on the spot for the space of nearl century. On 
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. Lathyrus tuberosus, and told me it was br ought from Holland 
out the year 1506,§ thus confirming my con jecture. 
s it is confined to a single marsh, which is completely over- 
run with it, it was no doubt originally sown there for some specific 
use—perhaps (as the roots are said to be edible||) for food; and 
[it] may have been introduced into r the same purpose, 
and very likely about the same period.{ The roots descend ig so 
plant on mt Island. Indeed, Mr. King’s record has been 
y 
* Essex and vo Suffolk Gazette, 14 Sept. 1860, p. 8. His remarks (which 
were signed ‘“‘H.W.K.” merely) were reprinted in The Cottage Gardener, 
25 Sept., p. 391. 
+ 31 "Aug. 1860, p 
t Apparently they came at least one year earlier, for the date = ie appears 
on one of the ouses ’’ which still remain on the 
§ 
© See English Botany, i iii. p. 106 (1864 pike is count nea 
known as “ Dutch mice” rt dardanen Chronicle, Shot 860, p. 774). 
* Whether the marsh is so called because, in summer, it is (or was) “gay” 
with the y very beautiful flowers of of this pea, T can not sa aay 2 
o2 
