THE STATE PROTECTION OF WILD 



PLANTS 



By A. R. HORWOOD 



Leicester Museum ; Recorder, Plant Protection Section, Selborne Society 



If there be one direction in which the British Isles is particularly 

 behindhand, it is in the matter of preserving and protecting the 

 native flora. This is the more apparent when it is observed that 

 Germany or rather, it should be said, Prussia, has a well-organised 

 State Department for this purpose, whilst we in England have 

 neglected to take any such precaution. 



Nor is Prussia the only country that has realised the necessity 

 of giving State protection to wild plants, many other continental 

 nations having adopted this measure and America has also 

 realised its importance. As if to emphasise the need at home, 

 many of our own Colonies have already adopted temporary or 

 partial means of preservation or protection in special cases, by 

 establishing reservations and by other methods. 



It is proposed to examine the peculiar circumstances which 

 make State protection necessary in this country and to describe 

 the temporary expedients resorted to already to prevent the 

 extermination of plants. 



The principal causes at work contributing to the complete or 

 local extermination of wild plants are : 



Smoke ; atmospheric abnormalities ; drainage ; cutting down 

 of woods ; desiccation ; drought ; cultivation ; building opera- 

 tions; sport; hawking and collecting; professional collecting; 

 nature-study operations. 



Dealing seriatim with each of these major factors, the first, 

 smoke, is undoubtedly more potent than most of the others. In- 

 dustrial activities are continually enlarging the area of operations 

 in which the consumption of fuel is a necessary factor, the effect 

 being to transform completely the character of the open country 

 to the north-east of large towns and coalfields, in fact wherever 

 centres of industry have been established. Cryptogams more 

 especially, as I have shown elsewhere, have exhibited a marked 



decrease in number and character all over the country. 



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