Ufajic/iesicr Memoirs, Vol. xlvii. (1902), No. "J. 



II. On the Adventitious Vegetation of the Sandhills 

 of St. Anne's-on-the-Sea, North Lancashire 

 (Vice-County 60). 



By Charles Bailey, M.Sc, F.L.S. 



Received and i ead Octohei 21 si, igo2. 



The shore-line north and south of St. Anne's-on-the- 

 Sea is bounded by a series of drifted sandhills, behind 

 which lies flat land of but slight elevation above the sea- 

 level, and unbroken by any pronounced irregularity of 

 surface due to hills, valleys, brooks, or dikes. There is an 

 absence of agricultural soil upon its surface, and the 

 sandy nature of the soil gives little expectation of yielding 

 the rich flora which subsists upon it. 



Until quite recent years the district was almost unin- 

 habited ; in a Poulton-printed book of two generations 

 back the site of St. Anne's [the Star-hills] is thus described 

 by the Rev. William Thornber, A.B. : — " The currents 

 of the winds whistling among the Star-hills cannot fail to 

 remind us, as we wander amidst their winding solitudes, 

 of the awful moans of the ' Phantom Voice,' especially as 

 we approach the Cross-slack" (^' An Jiistorical and de- 

 scriptive account of Blackpool and its Neighbourhood" page 

 342, Poulton, 1837).* Even yet St. Anne's contains no 

 windmills or cornmills, from the refuse of which so many 

 vegetable waifs get distributed. No local industries are 

 in operation which are likely to lead to the introduction 

 of foreign seeds. No ships stay on its portless shore to 



* Its author was the incumbent of Blackpool, which he describes on 

 page 112 asahamlet, and on pages 229 and 266 as a village. He records 

 the census of the visitors and inhabitants of Blackpool on the 17th August, 

 1837, as 2,566, of which 1,856 were visitors, thus leaving 710 adults and 

 children as the number of permanent inhabitants. 



December ijth, igo2. 



