liv FLORA OF BERKSHIRE 



tion of the district of the Kennet numbered 'Thames 4 ' in the Flora of 

 Wiltsliire, and of the portion called ' 12, The Kennet,' in Townsend's 

 Flora of Hamj^shire. 



5. The Loddon and Blackwater or the Lower Thames, the Berk- 

 shire continuation of the district number * 11. The Blackwater,' of the 

 Flora of Hampshire . and also a small portion of Berkshire, from which 

 a stream flows into the division ' C ' of Brewer's Flora of Surrey. 



1. The Isis or Upper Thames. This rather small and narrow 

 district consists of two parts : one drained exclusively by the main 

 stream of the Thames, and occupying almost the whole northern side of 

 the county ; the other a small strip of unequal width drained by the 

 Cole, and situated on the northern and western side of Berkshire. This 

 latter portion of the country might have been more properly treated 

 as a separate district, since its geological character is very varied, 

 consisting as it does of the Upper and Lower Chalk, the Upper and 

 Lower Greensand, the Gault, the Kimeridge Clay, the Coralline 

 Oolite, and the Oxford Clay. But the third division of the Flora of 

 Wiltshire consists of the country drained by the Thames and its tributary 

 the Cole, so that district No. i, as now arranged, will coincide with 

 the third district of that Flora. The portion of the district drained 

 by the main stream is much less varied in its geological character, 

 since it consists almost entirely of the Coralline Oolite and the Oxford 

 Clay. 



The boundary of the district is as follows : from Lechlade to Oxford 

 the Thames divides Berkshire from Gloucestershire on the north, and 

 afterwards from Oxfordshire. The southern boundary, unlike that on 

 the north, is not a natural one ; but since the road from Oxford to 

 Faringdon, which passes through the villages of Cumnor, Appleton, 

 Longworth, and Hinton Waldridge is i>ractically on the top of the 

 watershed of the Coralline Oolite ridge for the greater part of the way, 

 this road has been chosen as the line separating this district and that 

 of the Ock, instead of a purely natural drainage boundary, because it 

 gives a definite line which can be easily seen and remembered. A small 

 portion of the north side of the 'fir-topped' Cumnor Hurst, which 

 drains into this district, is disregarded, and is put with the rest of 

 Cumnor Hill in the Ock district. So far, therefore, our frontier-lines 

 have been very simple and easy to trace, the Thames being the 

 boundary on the extreme north and east from Lechlade to Oxfoi'd, and 

 the road from Oxford to Faringdon being the southern boundary : 

 from Faringdon south-westwards they are rather more difficult to 

 follow. From Faringdon — where Pye, the Poet Laureate, lived in 

 Faringdon House, which he built, and where he wrote the poem called 

 ^ Faringdon Hill,' in which he says, 'White Horse sends presents to 

 the Thames bj' Ock, her only flood ' — to Little Coxwell the boundary 



