10 
LOCAL OCCURRENCES IN NATURAL HISTORY. 
intellect” the advance of drainage seems in the present day to have brought to 
a complete halt; the once active ghost is now laid quiet with the extinguishing 
of “ Hobbimy’s Lantern ;*** and as the bogs and morasses have been drained and 
cultivated, Puck , Mab, and Friar s Lantern have all resigned their pretensions 
to any further feats among the dull matter-of-fact operatives, who have given 
up the old honoured “nut-brown ale,” in exchange for the “total-abstinence 
principle.” 
Plants, however, often distinctly intimate the former or recent aspect of any 
district; and the numerous marine species that still occur so far inland, seem to 
indicate the not remote time when the waves of the ocean spread their surges 
over the now green and luxuriant meadows of the vale of Severn. In the vicinity 
of the residence from which I date, Samolus valerandi and Rumex maritimus 
occur, and on the common between the Rhyd and Great Malvern, a rare saline 
plant, Bupleurum tenuissimum , has been gathered.f The front of the Red-Marl 
precipice at Tewkesbury, called the Mithe Tout, abounds with another coast 
plant, Smyrnium olusatrum , in immense profusion; and the wood at Sarnhill, on 
the opposite side of the river, is filled with thickets of the foetid Iris or Gladwyn 
{Iris fcetidissima ), a plant that affects its most luxuriant development in the 
vicinity of the sea, and is of rare occurrence remote from the coast. Lastly, in 
the two orchards next adjoining my present residence at Forthampton, on the 
West bank of the Severn, opposite Tewkesbury, I last Summer (1838) observed 
such quantities of the Parsley-leaved Water Dropwort {QLnanthe pimpinelloides), 
as to form a considerable ingredient in the hay of the meadows, and I noticed all 
the hedge-banks of the vicinity to abound with it, in the compass of about a 
mile. Now this plant is generally confined to salt-marshes, and is a very rare 
inland product. 
Having thus dwelt so much at length to establish the original sub-marine , and 
next littoral aspect of the district I have ventured to dilate on, I must reserve for 
another communication the consideration of the alluvial soil deposited by the 
Severn, and the present aspect presented by its stream. 
I am, &c. &c. 
E. L. 
Forthampton , near Tewkesbury , 
April 30, 1839. 
* See the curious feats of “ Hob and his Lantern mentioned by Mr. J, Allies in his pamphlet 
on the Old-Red-Sandstone, from papers read to the Worcest. Nat.-Hist. Soc. 
t By William Addison, F.L.S., of Malvern. 
