E. A. PRYOR — BOTANICAL WORK OF THE PAST SEASON. 



67 



A very small portion of Hertfordshire, about Totteridge, comes 

 into the basin of the Brent,* and is thus especially connected with 

 Middlesex. This is one of those rivers ' ' which rise in the several 

 Borders of this County, and immediately leave the same."t It 

 eventually terminates at Brentford. 



Finally, the Lea, "the greatest River" of those "which run 

 thro' the Body of the County," of which it drains the central and 

 eastern districts, fully half of its entire extent, after ' ' severing 

 the Counties of Essex and Middlesex, .... loses her name in 

 her confluence with the Thames "| at Bow Creek, a little east of 

 Blackwall. 



We have thus six natural districts ; but, leaving out of question 

 the great inequality of their size, so large an amount of valuable 

 work would be lost by their adoption as they stand (the carefully 

 prepared lists of desiderata in the ' Flora Hertfordiensis ' having 

 been drawn up for double the number), that it seems at once the 

 most logical and convenient course to break up the two largest, 

 those of the Colne and Lea, and to take the basins of their several 

 tributaries as ultimate divisions in their stead. 



The complete scheme will then stand as follows : — 



A. orsE. 



B. THAMES. <; 



( I. IVEL. ... 1. IVEL. 



\ II. CAM .... 2. Cam. 



r III. THAME . . 3. Thame. 



f 4. Upper Colne. 



I 5. Ver. 



IV. COLNE. <[ 6. BuLBORNE AND Gade. 



I 7. Chess. 



(^ 8. Lower Colne. 



V. BRENT . . 9. Brent. 



f 10. Upper Lea. 



I 11. MiMRAM. 



I 12. Beanb. 

 1^ VI. LEA. i 13. EiB. 

 I 14. Ash. 

 I 15. Stort. 

 (_16. Lower Lea. 



The area of each district averages a little less than forty square 

 miles. § 



For the present purpose it will not be necessary to entei- iato any 



* Although by far the smallest of our divisions, the flora is not the least 

 characteristic, and is probably of a more southern tj'pe than that of the county 

 generally. Mnmex pnlustris, Sm., Chenopodium glaucum, L., A.ctinocarpus 

 Bamasoninm, E.. Br., with the naturalized Lilium Martagon, L., and Acorus 

 Calamus, L. (with the exception of the Lilium, all Middlesex plants), are peculiar 

 to this district. 



t Chauncy, I.e. + ib. 



§ Of generally recognised species, which are indubitably native, forty are at 

 present known to occur in one only of the districts. It is worth noticing that 

 twenty-two of these, or fifty-five per cent., are aquatic or palustral in their 

 character, a ratio almost double of that which prevails in the flora as a whole ; 

 and that of a still larger number the localities are confined to quite the confines 

 of the county. 



