66 E. A. PEYOR — BOTANICAL WOEK OF THE PAST SEASON. 



wards lost in the ancient channel of the Ouse at a spot formerly 

 called Harrimere, a little to the south of Ely. 



It will be seen that the two districts thus defined do not cor- 

 respond precisely with those of Messrs. Webb and Coleman. Their 

 floras should be compared with those of Bedfordshire and Cambridge 

 respectively.* 



By far the larger portion of the county, however, belongs to the 

 basin of the Thames, and is drained entirely by four of its affluents 

 — the Thame, the Colne, the Brent, and the Lea. 



Our connexion with the first of these is but slight. The waters 

 of a small district to the north of Tring, which are mostly inter- 

 cepted by the reservoirs that supply the Grand Junction Canal, 

 unite in the Thistle Brook, in its present state an insignificant 

 tributary of the Thame, but at one time perhaps a stream of 

 greater importance. Prompted no doubt by some sort of patriotic 

 enthusiasm, our great county historian saw in this petty streamlet 

 one of the principal sources of the Thames itself. "The Thame,'''' 

 he says, "the most famous River of England, issues from three 

 Heads in the Parish of Tring ; the First rises in an Orchard, near 

 the Parsonage house, the second in a place called Dundell, and the 

 other proceeds from a spring named Bulbourne ; which last Stream 

 joyns the other Waters at a place called Neiv Mill, whence all 

 gliding together in one Current thro' Puttenham in this County, 

 pass by Aileshury .... to Thame . . (which borrowed its name 

 from this River), hastneth away to Dorchester . . and then con- 

 gratulates the Isis ; but both emulating each other for the Name. 

 and neither yielding, they are complicated into that of Thamisis.^'j 

 Apart from the direction of the drainage, the physical and geo- 

 logical features of this outlying tract confer upon it an interest 

 quite disproportionate to its actual extent. Its botanical import- 

 ance may be readily anticipated. 



The Colne, which receives the drainage of the whole of the 

 western division of the county, with the exception of the Tring 

 peninsula, divides in the lower part of its course into numerous 

 irregularly anastomosing channels, and "serving the Town of 

 TJxbridge, it denominates that of Colnbrook, and . . disembogues 

 itself into the Thames"! by several outlets in the neighbour- 

 hood of Staines. 



* Of several interesting plants which are peculiar to the Ouse division, three 

 — QSnanthe Lachenalii, Grael , Samolus Valeraiidi, L., and Cnrx (iisfntis, L. — 

 arc especially deserving of notice, as being the only representatives in the countj' 

 of that type of vegetation which is most at home in the neighbourhood of the 

 sea, although not always necessarily exposed to its immediate influence, and 

 which may be conveniently called semi-maritime. It would perhaps hardly be 

 safe to conclude that their presence in this instance was connected with some 

 former submergence of the fens. Canz dist<uis has been doubted as a Hertford- 

 shire plant, but Mr. Coleman's original specimens, which have been kindly placed 

 at my disposal, have been submitted tore-examination by a competent authority, 

 and are undoubtedly correctly named. It is to be feared, however, that it has 

 become extinct in the only known locality, as Ashwell Common has been some 

 years since drained, and entirely brought under cultivation. 



t Chauney, I.e. % ib. 



