254 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
The interesting Cotyledon Umbilicus, L., a plant delighting in a 
cool and moist climate, is wonderfully abundant and luxuriant in 
our two south-western counties. Its juice formerly had medicinal 
properties attributed to it, and even so recently as 1849 it was re- 
commended for epilepsy by a writer in the London Medical Journal. 
Its having been prescribed for such a complaint at the date given 
is a matter of surprise to me, and taken in conjunction with what 
follows, in the Flora Vectensis, seems rather curious. " None of 
the old authors I have consulted," says Dr. Bromfield, " ascribe any 
efficacy in this complaint to the Cotyledon, the use of which was 
first communicated to the public in an old number of a magazine, 
and said to be the contribution of the celebrated John Wesley." 
This statement suggests an application to Notes and Queries for the 
title and number of the magazine. I remember to have seen, when 
a little boy, its round juicy leaves, locally called " Penny Pies," 
gathered for steeping in vinegar to serve as an application to corns 
or bunions. Are any medicinal properties still attributed to this 
plant, and to the allied Sempervivim tectorum, L., the Houseleek, 
in this part of the country 1 ? 
Important questions as to species distribution arise from the 
ranges of many of the Umbelliferce. With one or two exceptions 
all those that occur in Devon and Cornwall possess differences so 
essential as to preclude critical questions of species separation or 
combination. It is to a large extent the same with the British 
representatives of the Order as a whole. We find in it many 
genera, with, as a rule, few species ; whilst the extremely limited 
ranges, or local occurrence of the latter, are noticeable features. In 
the case of Eryngium campestre, L., we find a species occupying in 
the whole area of Devon and Cornwall only a few yards of old 
limestone pasture and rock, where, however, it has a recorded 
history of more than two hundred years, and has probably existed 
for ages. The resistance it offers at the present day to opposing 
influences arising from the proximity of its habitat, near Stone- 
house, to three large and increasing towns, and the pertinacity with 
which it keeps its place among the vegetation of a much-frequented 
spot, weigh, with other considerations, in the assigning it the 
position of a native species. That it is indigenous anywhere in 
Britain has been questioned, probably by reason of its paucity, and 
the knowledge that, of its half dozen stations, one or two in the 
northern part of the kingdom are, or have been, ballast hills, and so 
