QUERIES IN LOCAL TOPOGRAPHICAL BOTANY. 125 
of tidal waters. Being to a considerable extent plants of rather a 
a South European range the fact of the climate of the coast and 
its neighbourhood being more mild and equable than that of inland 
places of corresponding latitude has probably much to do with 
causing this partiality. Notwithstanding the preference these 
species evince for warm spots, the annual ones among them are 
liable to suffer from drought, and the moist atmosphere of maritime 
localities may be another reason for their liking to grow in them. 
Some of the Leguminiferce are much frequented by insects, and 
observations might be directed with profit as to the various sorts of 
bees that visit the several species found in our neighbourhood. 
The elastic stamens met with in Medicago seem themselves to 
suggest the possibility of at least certain of the order being depen- 
dent on insects for fertilization. How interesting would it be to 
search for and succeed in rinding clear connections existing between 
the respective ranges of certain plants and certain insects ! Some 
of the Leguminiferce are much fed on by larvae, and a poetic 
imagination might consequently regard the perfect insects when 
seen fertilizing their flowers as acknowledging and compensating 
for the benefits they themselves received from the plants in an 
earlier stage of their own changing existence. In Medicago doubt- 
less animal agency comes into play in extending the distribution of 
some of its species ; viz., those furnished with hooks to the legumes, 
or provided with spirally twisted ones. So formed, they are ad- 
mirably fitted to become attached to the wool of sheep or coats of 
other animals, and by their means to be carried to new spots. We 
may truly say we find wheels within wheels at work in the complex 
machinery of Nature's kingdom. 
Two interesting species of the genus Lotus — L. angustissimus, L., 
and L. hispidus, Desf. — are plants either of the sea-banks of our 
coast or of its neighbourhood around Plymouth. The causes sup- 
posed to act in determining the range of the Trefoils are likely to 
prevail also as regards these their allies. About our town I have 
never seen the angustissimus more than half a mile from tidal 
water, and have found the hispidus much within this distance only ; 
but in the parish of Trusham, and some adjoining ones lying 
between Dartmoor and Exeter on the south-west side of the Haldon 
Hills, my friend, the Rev. W. Moyle Rogers, has found angustissi- 
mus at nine miles distance from the sea coast at Dawlish, with the 
crests of the Haldons lying between. Mr. Rogers, in the Journal 
