310 



The Flora of Wiltshire. 



South Division. 



1. South-east District, " Clarendon wood where it was very 

 plentiful in the autumn of 1867," Mr. II. Reader. (Perhaps only 

 naturalized.) 



Bare and local in Wilts. Stem 3 feet high, glaucous, purplish 

 red, smooth as is the whole plant. Leaves dark green, glaucous, 

 pointing four ways ; sometimes tinged like the stem with purple. 

 Umbel rarely 2-or-3-stalked. A stately and ornamental plant 

 long cultivated in gardens in many parts of the county. 



\_Buxus sempervirens, common Box, Engl. Dot. t. 1341, has long 

 been planted in shrubberies, and has occasionally become naturalized 

 in hedges, but is nowhere truly wild in Wilts. J 1 



Mercurialis, (Linn.) Mercury. 

 Linn. CI. xxii. Ord. vii. 



So named because the god Mercury is said to have discovered the 

 virtues, of what kind soever they may be, of this plant. 



1. M. perennis, (Linn.) perennial or Dog's Mercury. Engl. 

 Dot. t. 1872. 



Locality. Woods and shady places. P. El. April, May. Area, 

 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 



Common in all the Districts. About 1 foot high. Leaves mostly 

 on the upper part of the stem, ovate or lanceolate serrate. Both 

 kinds of flowers are in axillary lax spikes. The plant when drying 

 often becomes of a bluish or blackish green. 



2. M. annua, (Linn.) annual Mercury. Engl. Dot. t. 559. 

 St. 29, 16. 



air upon their dormant seeds. This has before been alluded to, and students 

 will do well to hear it in mind when searching in their recorded stations for 

 any of the following species: — Turritis glabra, Reseda Luteola, Dianthus 

 Armeria, Lychnis diurna, Geranium columbinum, Ervnm hirsutum and tetra 

 spermum, Conium Maculatum, Arctium majus, Senecio sylvaticus, Erythrcea 

 Centaur eum, Myosotis arvensis (the wood variety), Verbasam Thapsus, 

 Digitalis purpurea, Melampyrum pratense, Chenopodium polyspermum, and 

 Euphorbia Lathyris. 



1 " Box, a parish so-called in North Wilts, neer Bathe, in which parish is our 

 famous freestone quarre of Haselbery : in all probability tooke its name from 

 the box trees which grew there naturally, but now worne out." Aubrey, Nat. 

 Hist. Wilts, p. 55. 



