SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE FLORA AND 

 FAUNA OF FLOODED FENLAND. 



By F. R. PETHERBRIDGE, M.A. 



{School of Agriculture, Cambridge University.) 



On Januaiy 3rd, 1915, the Little Ouse burst its right bank not 

 far from the Feltwell 2nd District Pumping Station, and as a result 

 thousands of acres of feuland became flooded. The portion of the 

 flooded land on which the following observations were made is a 

 part of Southery fen situated near Southery, Norfolk. It lies between 

 Peckett's Farm and Turf Fen Farm, and belongs to the Norfolk County 

 Council. This land is some distance from the place where the burst 

 occurred, and as a consequence there was no deposit of silt. The 

 height of the flood here was about nine feet. The water was gradually 

 pumped oft" and the land cleared by September, 1915. 



Heavy rains kept patches of the land very wet until December, 

 1915, when the following observations were made. After the water 

 had all been cleared from the land, the most striking feature was that 

 a large portion of the land was completely covered by the alga 

 Cladophora flavescens, known locally as "blanket" or "carpet weed." 

 This mat of the dead and dying alga was about an inch thick and could 

 be lifted up from the soil in the same way as a carpet can be lifted from 

 the floor (PI. \'. tig. 1). When dry this carpet made ploughing very 

 tedious, as the plough frequently became clogged. On some of the 

 fields it was raked into heaps and burnt before ploughing. 



Ill the damper spots small patches of Vaucheria (erreslris and 

 Enteromorpha intcstinalis were found togetlier with the Cladophora. 



Another noticeable feature was the presence oiPoh/gonum amphibium 

 in great abundance. Some fields were so thick that from a distance 

 the reddish brown colour of these plants only was noticeable, the 

 blanket weed being underneath. 



