HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



243 



been cut down and the stumps of the trees burned, 

 a race of deciduous trees succeeded to the 

 pines. I may instance what M'Gregor has stated 

 in his " British America," that wherever the original 

 forest is destroyed in America, and the land left un- 

 cultivated, trees of a different species spring up to 

 what were there before. This is likewise observed 

 where lands have heen laid waste by fire. The first 

 year tall weeds and raspberry and bramble bushes 

 shoot up ; then cherry-trees, white birch, silver firs, 

 and white poplars appear, but seldom any tree of 

 the genus previously growing on the space laid open 

 by the fire. Sir Alexander Mackenzie also observes 

 that the banks of the Slave Lake, in Labrador, 

 formerly covered over wholly with spruce-fir and 

 birch, having heen laid waste by fire, "produced 

 subsequently nothing but poplars." These records 

 of plants and trees springing up on the ground 

 after woods have been burned down, and the soil 

 undoubtedly subjected to great heat, proves that 

 seeds buried probably some inches deep are not de- 

 stroyed by the high temperature, and the thick 

 layer of dead leaves would offer some protection, 

 even though the leaves were reduced to ashes. 



Some plants rejoice in a high temperature, and it 

 has been stated that after the Great Eire of London 

 in 1666, Sisymbrium Irio sprang up abundantly 

 among the ruins, though it is now so rarely to be 

 found that it is considered by Watson as only a 

 " denizen " in Britain. 



It may not be inappropriate to notice a few 

 instances of the reappearance of plants in woodland 

 ground after the felling of timber that had shadowed 

 the ground so continuously for many years as 

 utterly to have prevented their growth. White 

 mentions in his " History of Selborne," that part of 

 a steep wood in that parish had been called, tra- 

 ditionally, the " Strawberry Hanger," although no 

 persons then living remembered gathering straw- 

 berries there, and no plants were apparent ; but, on 

 the wood being cut down, strawberry plants re- 

 appeared in the greatest profusion, justifying the 

 name of the Hanger. A Shropshire friend has 

 mentioned to me a wood in that county closely 

 shadowed by oaks ; and when these were felled 

 numbers of raspberries (Rubies ideeus) quickly 

 occupied the ground, though none had previously 

 been observed in the wood. Mr. Jesse, also, in his 

 " Gleanings of Natural History," relates that after 

 a coppice in Devonshire had been felled, the ground 

 it occupied became covered with the blue-flowered 

 columbine, not before known as existing near the 

 spot. I, not long since, noticed the ground of a 

 felled coppice to appear at a little distance as red 

 as blood from a crowded growth of the Lychnis 

 diuma, where previously only a stray plant had 

 been noticed on the edge of the coppice. Bare 

 orchids, growing in woody places, often disappear 

 when the foliage of the wood becomes very dense, 



and the following instance came under my own 

 notice. In Minnery Wood, near Worcester, some 

 years since, a considerable quantity of Epipactis 

 media was growing ; but as the foiiage of the trees 

 became thicker, and the shade darker, the plants 

 became less in number every year, till at last none 

 at all could be found. But they will probably re- 

 appear when in the course of time the wood is cut 

 down. These and similar instances go to prove 

 that seeds deposited in the soil can maintain their 

 vitality for a long period, although when preserved 

 above ground old seeds, as experiments have shown, 

 become unproductive with age. The famous case 

 in which raspberry seeds that were taken out of 

 an ancient Briton's stomach, buried for centuries 

 in a barrow, and which, when sown in a garden, 

 vegetated, has had doubts thrown upon it ; but a 

 similar case is mentioned by Gaertner, as having 

 happened in Germany, where seeds taken from the 

 graves of ancient Gauls, buried, as it was thought, 

 in the fourth century, produced Heliotropium 

 vulgare, Centaurea cyanus, and Trifolium minimum. 

 But the testimony of the late Dr. Lindley may be 

 deemed the most reliable. He has stated that the 

 seeds of the atriplex or orach " will lie in the 

 ground for centuries without perishing." A few 

 years since a layer of seeds was found in Scotland 

 below a considerable bed of sand; they must, 

 therefore, have been buried a great number of years. 

 A portion of the seed was sent to Dr. Lindley, and 

 on being set in the Horticultural Garden they pro- 

 duced the spreading orach. When the first railway 

 was made at Worcester, I noticed an enormous 

 quantity of Atriplex hortensis and Beta maritima 

 springing up in the excavation made across Shrub 

 Hill. It is possible that an old garden had been 

 there, but even if so the seeds of the plants must 

 have remained many years under ground. 



Burnt soil does not appear to be uncongenial to 

 some forms of vegetable life, but rather the contrary. 

 I have often noticed that the spots where charcoal 

 had been burned in Wire Eorest soon get covered 

 with a close growth of Marchatitia polymorpha, and 

 an excessive quantity of the hygrometric moss 

 (Funaria hygrometrica). Elowering plants of dif- 

 ferent species quickly follow, while, as might be 

 expected, fungi revel in that peculiar pabulum, as 

 Polyporus perennis, and Agaricus carbonarius, as 

 well as the scarlet patches of Thelephora carbonaria, 

 always following the track of fire. 



RAMBLES AFTER FOSSIL PLANTS. 



IN one of my rambles during our recent holidays 

 in search of coal plants in the neighbourhood 

 of Halifax, Yorkshire, I met with a nodule of 

 the same character as those found near here, and 

 which I have described in a former number of 



M 2 



