JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
abounds in the youth of pastures, from two to four years after the 
seeding out. 
If we notice a few of the grassy weeds which follow our pasture 
lands, Achillea millefolium should perhaps come first. It is at 
once one of our most common and one of our most valuable plants 
in sheep pastures. It has a singular drought-resisting property, 
and abounds in the richest meadows of Devon and Cornwall. A 
very conspicuous plant near the gateways and along the paths of 
all our grass-fields is Plantago major. Plantago lanceolata, Rib- 
wort Plantain or Eib Grass, is also plentiful with us, though rarely 
here, I believe, cultivated with clover as a field crop for sheep, as 
the custom was in Yorkshire and elsewhere. 
Passing over many well-known denizens of our pasture lands, 
we will notice the cheerful little Centaury, and simple Eyebright, 
which is the Euphrasy of Paradise Lost. Two other plants are 
far from common ; namely, Verbena officinalis, which has found a 
place in Roman story and in the apothecary's shop, and that 
capricious little flower, Ladies' Tresses, Neottia spiralis, whose 
unexpected presence in certain pastures, and equally sudden dis- 
appearance, have never been explained. That sweet straggler, the 
Almond-scented Convolvulus, or Hedgebells, Convolvulus arvensis, 
is often found gadding over our thinner grass lands, where also we 
are sometimes greeted by the pale blue petals of Linum tenuifolium, 
side by side with the glowing lips of sturdy Rest Harrow, Ononis 
arvensis. 
One word for our artificial pastures. It is the custom, with 
little variation, through all our parishes for the farmer, when 
seeding out, to sow Red Clover mixed with Eaver. Now the 
cultivated Red Clover is common to every country in Europe ; 
but what is Eaver'? Search the dictionaries of science, and you 
will hardly find it. But then we know that the Welsh farmers 
call the Darnel weeds, or wild Rye grasses, Hever, and the French 
call the same Ivraie ; and our West Country Eaver is no other 
than the dressed seeds of Lolium pereune, the Ray or Rye Grass 
which first came out of county Norfolk. 
Neither Burnet, Poteriurn sanr/uisorba, so dear to the flocks of the 
South Downs; Saintfoin, Hedysarum onobrychis, the Holy Hay 
of France, which so adorns the Cotswold Hills ; nor Lucerne, 
Medicago saliva, have been much cultivated in the south-west, 
where Italian Rye has long been a favourite, and Succory, 
