MALVA SYLVESTRiS 93 



world heavy stocking is the rule, with enclosures full of cattle and 

 sheep, so that there are no natural habitats left. 



Its first record in the past for England is that of my kind 

 correspondent, Mr. Clement Eeid, for Roman Silchester, which 

 could hardly be called " a natural habitat." There is no place 

 known to me in Lincolnshire, nor its seven surrounding counties, 

 in which from soil requirements M. sylvestris can grow " in ideal 

 conditions," though it is found in all. In semi-natural habitats, 

 though they also are strictly limited, when the soil is right and 

 unstocked or lightly stocked, it flourishes "like a native." The 

 only unstocked localities I can find are overgrown quarries, 

 churchyards, and the banks of embanked lowland streams. For 

 the Mallow, as for all species of the same requirements, these are 

 practically the only semi-natural habitats left in this highly culti- 

 vated county. In meadows and orchards, either in or away from 

 villages, it is quite unknown on account of the mowing and after- 

 math stocking. 



Though it is evidently a lime lover, the Mallow can do with 

 fairly little of this substance, for it is sometimes found on tilth 

 grass-roads on peat, where the soil is rarely or never stocked, 

 where the ruts have been repaired with limestone of various kinds. 

 This is the only compound soil I have found it on, with the excep- 

 tion of old road-mud caps on stone walls, where it flourishes 

 where its enemies cannot reach it. In tilth pure and simple it 

 cannot be expected, being a perennial with highly developed 

 requirements. 



The earliest Lincolnshire record for the Mallow is Sibthorp's 

 " In sylvis," 1780. This is as much as saying " in bushy places," 

 for the enclosures had not come then on the chalky boulder clay 

 he referred to. In old quarries, churchyards, and stream banks, 

 it shows the same love of direct sunlight and protection from 

 winds as in villages and along roads, and I have notes of it as a 

 plant five feet high. The white-flowered form is recorded for 

 the Louth neighbourhood, by the Rev. J. H. Thompson," in the 

 MS. notes of Watson's Top. Bot. in the British Museum. I per- 

 sonally have never met with it. I have full notes on it on thirty- 

 one out of the fifty rock-soils of this county. It will be found on 

 others, for some fifteen are quite untouched yet. It is also dis- 

 tinctly a "light soil" lover, i.e., shows a preference for alluvial 

 soils, decaying limestones, sands and sandy gravels, or the un- 

 trodden or light root-soils of old clay lands. I have proof that 

 cattle and sheep are its enemies. On the road side of the hedge 

 it may be the predominant species, though eaten off through the 

 fence as far as the stock can reach ; while on the pasture side of 

 the fence not a single plant can be found. Its seeds are water- 

 carried for a considerable distance without hurt. The unfertilized 

 flowers close and hang their heads even at a slight shower of rain ; 

 in dull, cloudy, uncertain weather and at night they close, but do 



• Can anyone give me any facts about this correspondent of Watson ? 



