second flowering at this season, and during many winters continues in blossom pretty freely, until the more abundant flowering in the spring, when it is the great ornament of our hills and hedges, and produces a general fragrance every where. Many other plants continue to flower through the whole autumn, and during the early winter months. There are generally violets during the Christmas week and on New Year's day, and many exotics are frequently tempted to blossom, at this season, as the Persian Lilac, Syringa persica, Lin., and the Laburnum, Cytisus laburnum, Lin.: Myrtles and Pomegranates also stand the winter in the open ground. Indeed the whole winter here is remarkably mild. There is comparatively little snow in the immediate neighbourhood of Poole, rain frequently falling here, whilst there is snow at only a few miles distance.[1]
With regard to the botany of Poole, in relation to the tables of Mr. Watson, it may be observed, that in the immediate neighbourhood it is rather British, than exclusively English; and rather a larger proportion of western plants occurs than might be expected. The existence, (on a sandy portion of the beach at Studland,) of the Cynodon Dactylon, Pers., hitherto found only on the coast of Cornwall, is an interesting fact.
The subjoined list is similarly marked to that published by the Botanical Society of Edinburgh; for considering it desirable that some general standard should be made use of in undertakings of this sort, I have adopted this, and recommend the same practice in other localities. I have, however, added similar marks after the names, indicative of a shorter distance,[2] and have chosen that of eight miles as
- ↑ To the mild climate of Poole is to be ascribed its peculiar salubrity, though doubtless also much is due to the cleanliness of the inhabitants. We are subject to no endemic disorder, and epidemics are never so severe in this as in most places. This was strikingly the fact with the influenza, which, though here as every where else very general, was in no instance fatal. Poole, though lying low and thickly populated, is very little subject to typhus or intermittent fevers.
- ↑ The Society's list is marked in reference to a distance of 16 miles from Edinburgh.
