AUGUST. 



359 



Braunton Burrows, Devonshire, near the estuary of 

 the river Torridge. It is, however, difficult for a 

 stranger to find the locality of this rush without spe- 

 cific directions. Eor when I was at Ilfracombe, in 

 1S43, on making an excursion to " the Burrows ' at 

 Braunton, I found an extent of waste, sandy, and 

 marshy ground disposed in flats, hummocks, and hol- 

 lows here arid and dreary, there green and marshy 

 to the amount of more than two thousand acres, and 

 bounded westward by the sea. I made many traverses 

 across it in vain; and some botanists, disappointed 

 like myself, reported it as lost at the station by an 

 inroad of the sea. A second visit, though fruitful in 

 some respects, failed to reveal the Scirpus ; until 

 passing over the Burrows a third time, on my way 

 to the singular embankment of pebbles called the 

 Poppleridge, on the opposite shore of the estuary, I 

 quite accidentally encountered the rarity that had so 

 long eluded my search. The future explorer, then, 

 may profit by my experience. Let the botanist keep 

 to the southern side of the Burrows, within a quarter 

 of a mile of the twin light-houses, but farther from 

 the river than they are ; here is a line of little pools 

 and marshy hollows, abounding with Teucrimn Scor- 

 dium, Littorella lacustris, Anagallis tenella, &c. and 

 two of which were almost filled up with aquatic 

 mosses and a profuse growth of Epipactis palustris, 

 finely in flower at the time of my visit. Following 

 the line of these damp hollows towards the sea, they 

 terminate in a little marsh impinging upon the sands, 

 and here the rare Scirpus Holoschcenus grows luxuri- 

 antly, forming almost a close thicket when I was 

 there, four or five feet high, but entirely confined to a 



