24 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE 
often rambled, with profit and delight, when railroads ex- 
tend into this, the metropolitan Botanist’s favourite locality, 
overturning and obliterating some of nature’s choicest pro- 
ductions ? Our only alternative in this matter, will be to 
work together in order to arrive at the greatest accuracy, and 
produce a plan or plans of the nature here exhibited ; that at a 
future period when railroads, and such like public under- 
takings, have demolished our richest locality in the imme- 
diate neighbourhood of this metropolis, we shall have at 
least a plan to show our descendants that a place existed 
which abounded in so profuse a supply of plants at a stone’s 
throw from London ; with this view it was, that I under- 
took the execution of the map, or plan, and hope that this 
rough sketch, as an example, will be followed up by the 
members ; so that, in the course of a short period, we may 
have in our possession, plans exhibiting the distribution of 
plants through at least England, Wales, and Scotland, as 
well as those of the continent, and, finally, in whatsoever di- 
rection our working members may be called.* 
Annexed will be found the summary of the whole of the 
flowering plants, which are, and have been, known to grow 
there, under their respective Natural Groups. Of the one 
hundred and four natural orders of British flowering plants, 
mentioned in Dr. Lindley’s First Edition of his Synopsis of 
British Flora, sixty are found in this locality. Of the five 
hundred and three genera of British flowering plants, two 
hundred and fourteen are here distributed; and, lastly, 
out of the one thousand five hundred estimated species 
of British flowering plants, four hundred and six are 
here found dispersed ; thus in this piece of ground, which I 
believe measures one mile and a half in length, and one 
mile in breadth, we have more than one-half of the British 
natural orders, as sixty to one hundred and four, not quite 
half of the genera, in the ratio of two hundred and fourteen 
to five hundred and three, and rather better than one-fourth of 
the species in the ratio of four hundred and six to one thou- 
sand five hundred ; the localities of which were published 
in the Flora Metropolitana, 1836 , 
* Since the above paper was read, Mr. M. H. Cowell has produced a map 
illustrating the Flora of Faversham, Kent, and Miss C. Perry has also forwarded 
a map exhibiting the distribution of plants in the neighbourhood of Haslemere, 
Surrey, in which the localities of the plants are marked off. 
