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

Reigate Plants

OCTOBER 1856

this list of plants is in a great degree superseded by the new Reigate Flora, just published by Mr. Brewer;¹ which, as might be expected, contains most of the plants which I have mentioned, with many others which I had not detected. I had however the good fortune of finding some which have escaped even Mr. Brewer. Of one of these (Catabrosa aquatica) I have observed a new station, much nearer to Reigate, even since the publication of Mr. Brewer’s work, viz. in the swamp at Whiggey, on the west side of the Brighton road, at a very short distance from the stile: so difficult is it to exhaust this rich botanical district, in which I do not believe there is anywhere a square quarter of a mile not containing one or several rare plants.

Might I take the liberty of asking Mr. Brewer, through your journal, whether Alchemilla vulgaris is set down as growing in “damp meadows on the banks of the Mole, and in other places in the neighbourhood of Dorking,”² from his own observation, or on the authority of Luxford’s Flora?³ I have always suspected a mistake on the part of Mr. Luxford’s informant, not as to the plant, but the locality, as I can hardly imagine that a plant so conspicuous, and incapable of being mistaken for any other, can exist in some abundance in that neighbourhood without my having seen it in thirty-five years’ botanical knowledge of the locality.

Permit me to ask a similar question respecting Carex teretiuscula near Whiggey, which has been suspected to be an error of Mr. Luxford.⁴

Mr. Brewer locates Carex ovalis in “damp situations on Reigate Heath and Redhill.”⁵ To these may be added Earlswood Common, which is at present covered with it.

In my list I omitted one of the habitats of Sagittaria sagittifolia—near the Merstham ponds.

Has any of your correspondents attended to Veronica with the variegated corolla of V. agrestis and the large flower of V. Chamaedrys? It is not very uncommon in Surrey, and I last year observed it in great abundance in cornfields on the heights overtopping Smitham bottom, between Croydon and Beggar’s Bush. Is this a permanent variety of agrestis? and is it not often mistaken for V. Buxbaumii, reports of which are now starting up everywhere, though wanting not only the uniformly blue colour of Buxbaumii, but the broadly divergent lobes of the fruit?

[1 ]A New Flora of the Neighbourhood of Reigate, Surrey, Containing the Flowering Plants and Ferns of the District, with Their Localities, Times of Flowering, etc. And a List of the Mosses (London: Pamplin, 1856), by James Alexander Brewer (1818-86). The work was reviewed in the same number of the Phytologist, pp. 434-5, with a reference to Mill’s article of June, “Plants Growing Wild in the District of Luxford’s Reigate Flora,” pp. 268-74 above.

[2 ]Brewer, A New Flora, p. 19.

[3 ]Not located.

[4 ]Not located.

[5 ]Brewer, A New Flora, p. 123.