Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 9 (1871).djvu/383

 ON THE BOTANY OF THE LIZARD PENINSULA. 335

perhaps, have been a more natviral northern boundary for our list than the one we liave taken. North of the creek, the space between the eastera and western shore of the promontory is not less than ten miles, and there is in the centre a tract of undulated s;ranite-country that stretches from Constantine and Helston beyond our bounds into the centre of the county, and on the east of this, stretching down to the shore of Falmouth, ex- tends a tract of still more decidedly sylvan and sheltered Devonian country which furnishes a marked contrast with the Serpentine. Here are situated, on the sloping banks of a small stream, opening out towards the south- east to the mouth of Falmouth harbour, the garden and grounds of Pen- gerrick, the residence of K. W. Fox, Esq., F.R.S., in which are cultivated in the open air a large number of trees and shrubs of delicate constitution, that cannot be grown without winter-shelter round Loudon. We saw here a llhododendron, measuring ISO feet in circumference, and well- established trees or bushes, grown without shelter, of Erica arborea, Laiirun Camphora, various species of Eucalyptus, Mctrosuleros, and Mela- leuca, several of the long-leaved Mexican Pines and Sikkim Rhododen- drons, ChaiiKerops humUis, Beutltamia, Arhntas, and Pernttlya with ripe fruit, a tree of Pruiins Laurocerasns, 40-.50 feet high, with a trunk as thick as a man's body, flowering tufts of I*liorm'mm ieiiax, bushes of blue- flowered Ilydrangi-as growing by dozens like Willows by the stream-siile, Aponoijelon diduchymn producing copious flowers and fruit, acclimatized I'leris crelica, and IFoodwnrdia radicans, S(dnrj'mc;lla KruHssin)ia making itself quite at home amongst the grass of the lawn mixed with indigenous llypmim and PtagwcJiila, EcJwveria glauca growing out permanently in beds with Canarian ScmpervicHm and Cape Mesembryanlhemuvis, and many other interesting indications of what horticulture may accomplish in a climate where the thermometer seldom sinks below freezing-point, and bedding Geraniums {Pdanjoniam zonale) hist sometimes through winter without drooping their leaves.

In the following catalogue we have noted only those species which we saw ourselves in an excursion of four days' duration, during which we directed our attent ion specially to the dispersion of the mass of species, in preference to spending our time in searching minutely for rarities already recorded. At the time of our visit, of course some of the early-flowering plants were no longer recognizai)le. For instance, we could not make out at Caerthilian the three rare Trefoils {Buccoiil, atrictum, and Molh/erii) which grow there in company on an exposed sandy bank, and are in perfection in June. I liave noted also in their regular sequence several jilants which we expected, i)ut failed to see, as many conunon species fall under this head, and there can be no doubt that the desiderata of this Lizard flora furnish one of its most remarkable characteristics. It is likely that the plants which we failed to see are at most comparative rarities, but I hope that those who follow us into the district will take our catalogue as a basis, and place their additions to it upon record, aiul that botanists of the P(Miinsula, residents and visitors, will bear in memory that an interest- ing question in English botanical- geography, about which as yet very little has been said, in addition to what Mr. Watson has summarized by gathering together the plants of a strikingly eastern plan of dispersion under his Cicrmanic type of distriijiition, is how many plants common enough all through the centre of England run out more or less decidedly in the south-west.

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