4 8 
THE GARDENS OF WARLEY PLACE. 
rare British plant or an interesting alien. Some species have 
“ crossed ” with other plants, affording most erratic results, ex¬ 
tremely puzzling to the British botanist. This wild garden is 
beautiful at all times of the year, and the surroundings lend 
themselves charmingly to the natural effect. Bounded on the 
east by a wood, the view to the south is typically Essex, afford¬ 
ing a landscape such as Wimperis loved to paint, widening over 
a broad stretch of country away over the marshes and across the 
Thames to the Kentish Hills. There is that mysterious blue-steel 
haze so often seen in Essex, and which is, perhaps, peculiar 
to the Eastern Counties, giving a character and charm to the 
landscape which cannot be surpassed. It is quite impossible 
to enumerate the plants naturalized in this wild-garden, but 
some thousand species are represented, and many have come 
from great distances to their new home. And often a plant 
believed to have been smothered out is again found springing 
up in some unexpected spot. 
There is the Teazle, the cultivated variety of which is used 
in dressing cloth, though now almost superseded by machinery. 
Bupleurum falcatum, our Essex rarity, from Norton Mandeville, 
which, though scarce in England, is common on the continent. 
Lathyrus tuberosus from Fyheld, probably first introduced into 
Essex by Dutch labourers employed in embanking the marshes 
of the Thames, 5 and the third rare Essex plant, honoured with 
coloured illustrations by Gibson in his Flora of Essex, while 
Lathyrus hirsutus is here from Rayleigh with L. nissolia. The 
“ Bardheld Oxlip ” of Essex has crossed with some Ural Mountain 
Primulas, and so created a beautiful and striking race of brilliantly 
coloured flowers. Osmunda re galls and Lastrcea thelypteris from 
Warley Woods, with Convallaria majalis and Chrysosplenium 
oppositifolium from the same locality. “ White-Heather ” from 
Coombe Green, with Scabiosa succisa and white forms of Ononis 
arvensis and 0 . spinosa from Upminster Common. Ulex nanus and 
Hypericum pulchrum from Warley Common ; Sedum telephium 
from the Magpie Wood,with Prunus padus and Pyrus torminalis 
and P. aria ; the latter from near Felix Hall. Lamium galeob- 
dolon still grows where Gibson found it in 1862, and Sonchus 
palustris has been introduced from marshes of the Medway. 
5 “ Lathyrus Tuberosus in Britain,” by Miller Christy, Jonrn. of Botany, vol. xlviii., 
pp. 170-177.' 
