Bdtany. 243 



ensis," will be found in " The Jenyns Library,'' at the Institu- 

 tion. 



The two great factors in the geographical distribution of 

 plants — climate and soil — have secured for the Bath district 

 a tolerably rich, but not very uncommon Flora. As the 

 Geology of this district is fully treated of in a previous; 

 chapter, it is only necessary to observe, that, belonging, 

 as it does chiefly to the Great Oolite, which forms the 

 uppermost stratum of the surrounding hills, and the Lias 

 which occupies most of the valleys, the Flora of Bath is not 

 so diversified as that of Bristol, where a larger intermixture 

 of the older rocks, the presence of a tidal river, of salt 

 marshes and brackish ditches, afibrd habitats for several 

 maritime plants, which are not to be met with in the Bath 

 district. For these reasons, it is not surprising that the 

 Bristol Flora numbers some fifty plants more than that of 

 Bath. There is, however, one locality in the neighbourhood 

 of Bath, the well-known Wick Rocks, distant some four 

 miles from the city, where the plants are somewhat 

 peculiar, owing to the presence of the Carboniferous 

 Limestone. There are few places in the vicinity of Bath 

 so well worthy of a visit by the botanist as this. The 

 pedestrian will reach it in the shortest time, by travelling by 

 the Midland Railway to Bitton or Warmley : a walk of half- 

 an-hour from either station will bring him to the Rocks. 



Three plants growing in the neighbourhood of this city, 

 seem to call for special notice. These are Euphorbia 

 pilosa, L., Lysimachia thyrsiflora, L., and Ornithogalum 

 pyrenaicum, L. Lobel, writing in 1576, describes the 

 first of these plants under the name of Esula major 

 Germanica, and speaks of it as plentiful "in a wood 

 belonging to John Coltes, near Bath." It is unfortu- 

 17* 



