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

Notes on the Species of Oenanthe

FEBRUARY 1845

the readers of The Phytologist, and all botanists, are much indebted to Mr. H.C. Watson for his careful, and I believe accurate investigation, in the January number, of the three species of Oenanthe, hitherto confounded under the names of peucedanifolia and pimpinelloides (Phytol. ii. 11).¹ I have long been convinced that there was some unknown quantity to be determined among the English species of this very interesting genus, which has until lately received very little critical investigation in this country. It is not generally known that one of these three species grows abundantly in so familiar and much frequented a locality as Battersea fields. I have observed it there for more than twenty years past, in a small patch of grass land, which is passed through in crossing the fields diagonally from Nine Elms, at an acute angle with the direction of the river. Valeriana dioica and Polygonum Bistorta grow copiously near the spot. I have never yet been able to procure the fruit, as the grass is always cut before the plant is out of flower. But the leaves, the tubers, and the bracteae, agree in their characters with Mr. Watson’s Oe. Smithii, and quite differ from those of Oe. Lachenalii. The same plant, or one apparently the same, has been seen by me many years ago, as well as lately, in meadows adjoining the river Wey, near Weybridge. Neither of these stations appears to be known to Mr. Watson; to whom I can also contribute an authentic station for his Oe. pimpinelloides, viz. a maritime bog at the little village of Bishopstone, near Seaford, in Sussex, where I gathered unquestionable specimens in July, 1827.²

While I am on the subject of this genus, I should be glad if any of your correspondents could inform me whether they have ever found the Oe. crocata with the yellow acrid juice, which until lately has been attributed to it by all botanists. I have examined numberless living specimens of the plant in Surrey, and other counties around London, for the express purpose, and have never, in any one single instance, discovered the smallest vestige of such a juice. The assertion is a curious example of the servile manner in which even scientific observers copy each other’s statements, without verifying them.

[1 ]Hewett Cottrell Watson (1804-81) known as the father of British topographical botany, “Some Account of the Oenanthe pimpinelloides, and peucedanifolia of English Authors,” Phytologist, II (Jan. 1845), 11-15.

[2 ]For Mill’s journal of the walking tour in 1827 during which he collected specimens, see CW, Vol. XXVII, pp. 455-75.