Johnson : ' Good King Henry. ' 



373 



late appearance, and the Greater Celandine [Chelidoninm majiis) 

 either hovers around the outskirts of hamlets in such a manner 

 as to sug"g"est its immig-ration along with early Teutonic settlers, 

 or clings to the garden hedge like a runaway that has not quite 

 made up its mind to desert its adopted home. Whether Good 

 King Henry is in like case or not, — and the problem is much 

 complicated by the admitted influence of human agency in 

 certain localities, the writer is bound to say that whenever he 

 has found the plant at some distance from a garden plot the 

 circumstances have suggested an artificial origin. In Lincoln- 

 shire this has almost certainly been the case. Of other localities 

 personally noted, not too numerous, I may mention Crosby, in 

 the Isle of Man, where two or three roots w^ere growing in 

 August, 1897, at the foot of a wall enclosing a farmyard, whilst 

 at that time there was no bed of Marquery in the garden a score 

 of yards away. In July, 1896, I found a specimen near a very 

 old garden wall at Mortlake, Surrey, and this plant most 

 probably arrived there by accident, since there must always be a 

 considerable interchange of stock in districts devoted to the 

 growth of vegetables and flowers, and stray plants will appear 

 even though not actually cultivated. Brewer's ' Flora of 

 Surrey' (1863) gives about half a score of localities in the 

 county, chiefly near churchyards and old walls, but it would now 

 be difficult to find Marquery in the places mentioned. Curiously 

 enough, one haunt, Battersea Fields, about a mile from where 

 these lines are penned, now forms the site of the beautiful 

 Battersea Park. The record may indicate former cultivation of 

 Marquery in the parish, for Battersea was long famed for 

 asparagus and other garden vegetables. De Crespigny's ' New 

 London Flora,' compiled much later (1877), cites several Surrey 

 habitats of the herb, and notes its occurrence as 'frequent.' 

 In company with a botanical friend, during the summer of 1904, 

 I paid a visit to some of these places, but the quest was un- 

 successful. There was abundance of C. album and some 

 C. riibriun, but no Good King Henry. In one locality, Thames 

 Ditton, there was, indeed, a Goosefoot with the halberd-like 

 leaves of Marquery, but the thin, poor foliage, quick to wilt and 

 shrivel, the lack of mealiness with the consequent absence 

 of the soapy touch, the excessive branching, and the general 

 aspect, showed that it was an impostor. It happens that Syme 

 and Sowerby describe a variety of C. en-riihriLm, which they call 

 Psetido-botryoides, and mention Thames Ditton as a locality. 

 From a study of the plate accompanying the letterpress it looks 



1904 December i . 



