UlmUS.] ULMACE.E. 451 



wild hops are colleoled, I am informetl, by the country people here as a substi- 

 tute for the more expensive growth of Kent and Surrey, and according to the 

 author of the ' Flora Hiberniua they are perfectly efficient for the purposes of 

 brewing' beer. The cultivation of the Hop in this island is now quite abandoned, 

 though it appears to have heea attempted some years since on a limited scale 

 near Kerne, which is the only place where 1 have heard of a hop-gardeu having 

 been ever established. 



Many persons, with Sir James Smith, have doubted the indigenous orisrin of 

 the Hop in Britain, though on what grounds I couless myself unable to conjec- 

 ture, as few plants have a more extensive range over the globe than this. Like 

 the Elder, the claim of which to aboriginalily has been questioned by some, it 

 may safely be pronounced truly wild at least iu the S. of England, and Mr. 

 Mackay is of similar opinion respecting its title to rank as a genuine native of 

 Ireland. It occurs with us, as does the Elder, in places the most remote from 

 cultivation, in the innermost recesses of woods, and is widely distributed over 

 Europe, Asia and America, ranging in the Old World as high as lat. 63" or 64", 

 and, though common throughout a great part of Siberia (Gmel. Fl. Sib.) scarcely 

 reaches the 50th degree in the New Continent, according to Dr. Richardson (Fl. 

 Bor. Am.) 



Order LXIX. ULMACE^, Mirb. 



"Flowers perfect or polygamous, not in catkins. Perianth 

 membranous, inferior, campanulate and 3 — 8 cleft, or 5 -partite ; 

 segments imbricated in asstivation. Stamens definite, inserted 

 into the base of the perianth, as manj' as and opposite to its seg- 

 ments. Anthers 2-celled, erect in aestivation. Ovary free, 1 — 2 

 celled. Ovules solitary in each cell, pendulous or suspended. 

 Stigmas 2, distinct, elongated. Fruit 1-celled, 1-seeded, indehis- 

 cent, dry or drupaceous. Seed pendulous, Tvithout or with little 

 (fleshy) albumen. — Trees or shrubs, tvith scabrous, alternate, dis- 

 tichous, leaves." — Br. Fl. 



I. Ulmus, Linn. Elm. 



" Floioers perfect. Perianth persistent, with 3 — 8 divisions, 

 campanulate or conical at the base. Stamens 5. Filaments 

 straight in aestivation, not bending back elastically. Ovary 2- 

 celled. Capsule compressed, winged all round." — Br. Fl. 



The synonyms of this genus are so confused, and ihe limits of the Euiopean 

 species at least so ill understood, that I shall confine myself to the view taken, of 

 such as we possess, by Lindley, Smith, and other British botanists, however much 

 at variance with the descriptions of continental authors, being jiersuaded, from the 

 discrepancies that exist amongst these latter, that they are as little advanced 

 towards the determination of the several species as we are.* 



I am disposed to think that all our British elms might without risk be reduced 

 to two, each bearing the impress of specific distinction in a degree and with «. 

 constancy that seems to admit of no doubt on that point.f 



* The late Mr. Knight, of Downton castle, as I learn from Mr. Benthara, 

 raised several of the supposed species of Elm linm the seed of one kind alone. 



f Of these two, U. montana is perhaps the only really indigenous or aboriginal 

 species; the other, for which I would retain the not unexceptionable name of U. 



