^ PREFACE. 



The natural (and politically adopted) division of the island 

 into the two great and very nearly equal hundreds or liberties 

 of East and West Medina, by the river of that name, suggested 

 the distribution of the localities or stations for the several spe- 

 cies under two sections, designated by those districts, as facili- 

 tating reference to the map at the head of this work. It will he 

 seen presently that these hundreds differ from each other almost 

 as much in their botanical as in their geological character, and 

 very widely in their more obvious external or physical aspect. 

 The two nearly insulated districts of the island, at its eastern 

 and western extremities, known in former times, and noted in 

 the older maps * as the Isles of Bembridge and Freshwater, 

 have, under these revived names, furnished minor divisions, of 

 no less convenience than the larger in the classification of the 

 above-mentioned stations or localities. 



Of the phffinogamous plants and ferns described in our Flora, 

 a much smaller number of doubtfully indigenous or certainly 

 introduced species will be found to swell the list than usually 

 occur in works of this description. Of these dubice cives, some 

 have obtained a right to insertion by prescription and immemo- 

 rial custom, but which would not on that account have saved 

 them from rejection here, had they not become so far com- 

 pletely or partially naturalized as almost to obliterate the 

 remembrance of their acknowledged foreign descent, as in the 

 case of Acer Pseuclo-platanus, Datura Stramonium, Linaria 

 Cymhalaria, Papaver somniferum, Borago officinalis, &c. 



Others, perhaps not less questionably native, have been 

 retained from the difiiculty of striking the balance between 

 their contending claims to admission on the score of naturaliza- 

 tion, and disqualification as suspected or convicted aliens. Of 

 this class are Vinca major, Centranthus ruber, Pyrethrum Par- 

 thenium, all of which, though more or less abundant and even 

 spontaneous, can hardly be regarded but as escapes from culti- 

 vation, at periods not very far back. To this list we should 

 perhaps in strictness join, so far at least as concerns this island, 

 Cheiranthus Cheiri and Antirrhinum majus, which with us are 

 never found remote from habitations, though occasionally pre- 



* Vide Jiilin Speed, ' A Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World.' 

 Loud. 1631, fill, (with maps). 



