The Romance of a Wayside Weed. 63 



purple viper'^s-lDugloss has been driven to the very 

 -extremity of Britain at Penzance ; while the various 

 kinds of rock-cistus, the Steep Holme paeony, and the 

 Cheddar pink linger on each only in a single inac- 

 cessible spot in the south-western peninsula of England.' 

 These are clear evidences that they form the last 

 stragglers of a vanquished flora, not the vigorous 

 vanguard of a victorious and aggressive race. 



And now we are in a position fairly to settle the 

 problem where the hairy spurge and its fellqws have 

 corne from, and how. they got here.: People who 

 recognise the fact that Britain was once joined to the 

 Continent are too apt to fancy that it was joined only 

 by a sort of narrow bridge between-Dover and Calais. 

 The aspect of the shore on either side, the high bluffs 

 of Shakespeare's Cliff >and Cap Grisnez, the geological 

 continuity between the chalk and the other formations 

 on the two coasts, all forcibly suggest that France 

 and England must; once have been joined there— 

 as, indeed, they undoubtedly were. But we are all 

 inclined mentally to minimise the amount of connec- 

 tion ; we stick in an isthmus, just sufficient to carry 

 the South-Eastern Railway across to Boulogne, and 

 then we are fully satisfied , with , our new geography. 

 In reality, hOAvever, the ol^ land connection was sorne- 

 thing far more complete and Universal than .that. 



