The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Introduction
• Jeremy Bentham and James Mill
• Rationale of Judicial Evidence
• Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind
• Botanical Writings 1840–61
• Calendar of Odours April 1840
• Rare Plants In West Surrey June 1841
• Isatis Tinctoria June 1841
• Notes On Plants Growing In the Neighbourhood of Guildford, Surrey August 1841
• Cnicus Forsteri September 1841
• Additional Guildford Stations September 1841
• Polygonum Dumetorum November 1841
• Rarer Plants of the Isle of Wight November 1841
• Corrections and Additions In Mr. Mill’s List of Plants In the Isle of Wight January 1842
• The Phytologist; a Botanical Magazine December 1843
• Notes On the Species of Oenanthe February 1845
• Correction of an Error In the “notes On the Species of Oenanthe” April 1845
• Observations On Isatis Tinctoria and Other Plants May 1856
• Plants Growing Wild In the District of Luxford’s Reigate Florajune 1856
• Note On West Surrey Plants July 1856
• Reigate Plants October 1856
• Plants Growing On and Near Blackheath April 1857
• Late (early?) Flowering Plants: Plants In Flower In the District of Eltham and Chiselhurst, In November, 1857 January 1858
• Hutchinsia Petraea May 1858
• Leucojum Aestivum July 1858
• Clifton Plants July 1858
• Plants On Sherborn Sands, Blackheath, and Other Stations September 1858
• Some Derbyshire Plants September 1858
• Linaria Purpurea September 1858
• Faversham Plants October 1858
• Lepidium Ruderale April 1859
• Wallflower Growing On the Living Rock May 1860
• Spring Flowers of the South of Europe: Remarks On Some of the Spring Flowers of the South of Europe, and On Their Representatives In the British Isles October 1860
• Botany of Spain. a Few Days’ Botanizing In the North-eastern Provinces of Spain, In April and May, 1860 August 1861-february 1862
• Verbascum Thapsiforme October 1862
• Medical Reviews 1834, 1842
• Dr. King’s Lecture On the Study of Anatomy November 1834
• Carpenter’s Physiology January 1842
• Appendices
• Appendix A: Wills and Deed of Gift 1853-72
• Appendix B: the Vixen, and Circassia April 1837
• Appendix C: The Spanish Question July 1837
• Appendix D: Questions Before the Select Committee On Metropolitan Local Government 1867
• Appendix E: Mill At the Political Economy Club 1840-65
• Appendix F: Textual Emendations
• Appendix G: Index of Persons, and Works Cited, With Variants and Notes

Cnicus Forsteri

SEPTEMBER 1841

cnicus forsteri I saw growing by hundreds last month in a piece of marshy ground formerly part of Ditton Common; at least it was the plant I previously found near Weybridge and sent to Sir W. Hooker.¹ It was growing with various numbers of flowers from one up to four, each on a separate and generally a long stalk. On comparing it with the books both English and foreign, and especially with Decandolle’s description of his Cirsium anglicum² (our Cnicus pratensis), I have little doubt that it is merely a variety of that, and that C. Forsteri, as you suggested, has no existence as a species.

[1 ]William Jackson Hooker (1785-1865), one of Britain’s leading botanists, and Director of Kew Gardens.

[2 ]Augustin Pyrame de Candolle (1778-1841), Swiss botanist whose influential “natural” system of botanical classification is given in detail in the work Mill refers to: Prodromus systematis naturalis regni vegetabilis, sive enumeratio contracta ordinum generum specierumque plantarum huc usque cognitarum, juxta methodi naturalis normas digesta, 19 vols. (Paris: Treuttel and Würtz, et al., 1824-72), Vols. I-VII having appeared by the time Mill was writing. The reference is to Vol. VI, p. 650.