362 THE USES OF A FOREST FLORA. [March 



THE USES OF A FOREST FLORA. 



AN EDITORIAL NOTE. 



GEOGRAPHICAL botanists of the school of Cottrell Watson, 

 will doubtless protest much against some of the peculiar 

 features of Mr. Webster's list of Carnarvonshire plants. Aliens, 

 garden escapes, and, beyond all, exotic forest trees may be found in 

 it. Of what use, then, is such a list to the straight-laced scientist 

 anxious only to spell out the many pre-adamic oscillations of 

 land and sea occurring ere Wales received its present native flora ? 

 To all such objectors from the point of view of botanical geography, 

 we reply, " Look at the title, ' Forest Flora ; ' " then tell, if such a list 

 may not be turned to solve problems equally important with such 

 as confine the inquiries of plant lovers to the demarcating influences 

 of watersheds, mountain ridges, or river basins ? Take important 

 meteorological questions alone, such as those of Sir Robert Christison 

 on tree-growth. First, then, say if from this point of view the 

 persistent growth of even foreign species in certain localities is not 

 forestally important ; and further, why should there be doul:its 

 about the synonymy of such a well-lvuown variety as the Hungary 

 oak, invalidating in some measure observations of growth made in 

 different countries ? Morphologists need to be told that their studies 

 do not embrace all botanical science. 



But to inquire how certain trees persistently live in a district, is 

 really to trace the history of forestry in our island. This has been 

 well shown in Professor Boulger's Presidential Address to the Essex 

 Field Club, "On the Influence of Man upon the Flora of Essex." Very 

 early these Palreolithic men roamed through forests of Scotch and 

 spruce firs. Later still the forest extended to the very banks of 

 the Thames, the Lea, the Blackwater, and the Stour ; and its trees 

 were the oak, yew, holly, hazel, hornbeam, birch, ash, hawthorn, 

 alder, willows, aspen, spindle-tree, cornel, buckthorn, elder, AVych 

 elm ( Ulmus montana). Guelder rose, maple, apple, mountain ash, sloe, 

 bullace, and, Boulger believes, the beech and the wild cherries. 

 There might not be a linden or a common elm (Ulmus Campcstris), 

 and possibly no privet, which appears indigenous in the south of 

 Ireland, and perhaps on the Sussex Downs, but hardly in Essex, 

 The elm, a hedgerow rather than a forest tree, is confined to the 

 south of England, and may have been introduced with the vine Ijy 

 the Romans. The beech and lime may have been introduced by the 

 Celts ; while the Romans in all probability introduced the cultivated 

 cherry. 



The Mongolian neolithic with polished celt, gold ornaments, flocks 



