XCVIL— THE CORALWORT. 
Dentana bulbifera Linne. 
S OME of our woods in the south-west of England have a special beauty of their 
own in the possession of the rare, or rather local, Coralwort (JDentar'ia bulbifera 
Linn^). In a wild state it is probably, with us, confined to Buckinghamshire, 
Hertfordshire, Middlesex, Surrey, Kent, and Sussex ; whilst though it is recorded 
from most countries in Europe and from Western Asia, it does not extend into 
Northern Scandinavia. 
It was first recorded as a British plant by Parkinson in his “ Theatrum ” (1640). 
He writes of it : — 
“ Dentaria. Toothed Violets, or Coralworls. There be divers sorts of these toothed Violets, differing one from another 
eyther in roote or leafe or both. . . I. Dentaria bulbifera, Bulbe bearing toothed Violets, 
“This toothed Violet shooteth forth one or two winged leaves, upon long brownish footestalkes, which in their rising up 
out of the ground, are as it were doubled or foulded downewards, and then open themselves into seaven leaves most usually, 
and sometimes but five, each whereof is somewhat long, dented about the e<lges, and pointed, of a sad greene colour, and set 
on both sides of the middle ribbe one against another : the stalke that beareth flowers riseth up in the same manner with the 
leaves, and is bare or naked of leaves unto the middle thereof, where it shooteth forth a leafe, and so one or two more up 
higher, each consisting but of five leaves, and sometimes but of three, having also the uppermost single, at each whereof 
commeth forth a small round Bulbe, cloven, or as it were divided into some parts or cloves, of a sad purplish greene colour, 
which being ripe and put into the ground, will grow to be a roote, and beare leaves like as the Bulbes of a red bulbed Lillie 5 
about which at the very toppe stand foure or five flowers in long huskes upon short footestalkes, opening into foure leaves, of a 
purplish colour, very like unto the flowers of Stocke Gilloflowers, or Dames Violets 5 after which come small long homes or 
cods pointed at the ends, wherein lye such like seede, as are in the cods of Dames Violets, which will as soone as it is ripe, 
breake the podde and fall out : the roote is very white, smooth and shining, made of divers small round knobbes set together 
not growing downewards, but lying along, and encreasing under the upper crust of the ground, having very few fibres thereat : 
the taste both of leafe and roote is somewhat bitter, hot and sharpe like Raddish ... at Mayfield in Sussex, in a wood called 
Highreede, and in another wood there also called Foxholes. " 
In 1734 John Blackstone found it abundantly in the Old Park Wood, near 
Harefield, Middlesex, where it still grows in profusion, forming dense patches 
amongst Wild Hyacinths and Dog’s Mercury, in the humus of Beech trees, on a 
chalk sub-soil. It also extends along the Chilterns into Hertfordshire and Buck- 
inghamshire ; whilst Parkinson’s Sussex record, which Blackstone doubted, has 
also been abundantly confirmed in the neighbourhood of Tunbridge Wells. 
Lord Avebury writes of the plant as growing 
“ in damp woods, and like other inhabitants of such localities** having “ large, flat, delicate leaves. As, moreover,’" he adds, 
“the leaves inhabit places where, and appear at a season when, the leaf supply is abundant, the plants run their risk, and need 
no special protection from browsing quadrupeds. In dry, arid regions where the food for goats, sheep, etc., runs short, they 
would not last a day.’* 
His lordship then enumerated as in the same category Honesty, Herb Paris, 
Dog’s Mercury, Lords-and-ladies, and Butter-bur ; but we should ourselves 
describe the habitats of the first four of these and of the Coralwort as shady rather 
than damp woods, since they are generally on a light, porous sub-soil. The leaves 
of Dentaria^ though delicate, are moreover not very large. 
The genus Dentaria, which is named from the tooth-like processes on the 
rhizome, comprises some twenty species, natives of North Temperate regions. It 
is distinguished from Cardamine mainly by one character, viz. the possession of a 
