QUERIES IN LOCAL TOPOGRAPHICAL BOTANY. 255 
spots to which it is nearly certain to have been brought from the 
Continent. What changes have taken place around its local 
station since the day, July 7th, 1662, when one of the greatest 
English naturalists, John Eay, a man as good too as he was great, 
with his companion, - Sir Francis Willughby, found it and the 
" Erythrodanum " or Rubia peregrina, L., in returning from their 
tour in Cornwall. Where they found them the two plants exist 
still. Kay, in describing the appearance of the neighbourhood, 
does speak of some objects that are yet familiar ones; but how 
different must the face of the country generally have appeared 
220 years ago ! He had a sight of Mount Edgcumbe, as we have, 
then in his estimation " a brave house and well situate, belonging 
to Mr. Edgcumbe, a gentleman of great estate." He and Willughby 
had too " a view of the little island in the mouth of the river in 
which " was " a good fort." Besides were "three other castles near 
the entrance of the haven or Key of Plymouth on the west side of 
the town." Ray considered it " a great and rich town, inferior in 
trade, riches, and bigness to none in the west except Bristol," yet 
" with no fair and uniform streets in it," but " two churches, one 
half built." It altogether made " a very fair show at a distance as 
you " went " to Ouston ; a good large town on the harbour, a mile 
to the east." The presence of Eryngium campestre tells us of a past 
immeasurably more distant, possibly of a period when there was no 
English Channel, but a continuity of land between France and the 
English shore ; for the species is a common one in Normandy and 
other parts of France. Its appearance in Kent as well as in our 
neighbourhood adds weight to the conjecture. 
Helosciadium inundatum, L., affords an example of a species of 
very local occurrence. It grows in the south-east of Devon, also 
near Torquay and Kingsbridge, not, if absence of records are to be 
trusted, to appear again until we get to the far south-west of Corn- 
wall. One would have supposed the bog-pits of Dartmoor would 
have produced it, especially as it is frequent in Ireland. On the 
other hand, in Chcerophyllum temulum, L., we see probably the 
most abundant umbelliferous plant in Devon and Cornwall, but 
this in Ireland is " very rare." 
In Sison Amomum, L., we have a species fairly general in low- 
lying and warm parts of South Devon until we approach Plymouth, 
where it becomes local, and further west, in Cornwall, extremely 
rare. This does not reach Ireland. At one time Watson felt dis- 
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