2 RANUNCULACEAE 



4. Kennet. Sparingly between Hungerford and Riever Wood. 



Lambourn. Shefford. Weston. W. Ilsley. Hodeott. Kintbury 

 in Irish Wood, &c. It is absent from a considerable portion of 

 the Kennet valley, uitd doos not occur on Greenhani or Crook- 

 ham Common. 



5. Loddon. Sonning, Ruclge, in Herb. Brit. Mus. i8oo. Freqvient near 



Marlow, Mill. Blackwater river, Well. Coll. List. Wargrave, 



Melvill. Twyford. Quarry Wood. Ashley Hill. About Park 



Place there are some specimens of very picturesque growth, 



which may be seen climbing up the trees in the avenue to a 



height of 70 feet. Maidenhead. Stubbings Heath. Near White 



Waltham. By the railway between Twyford and Maidenhead. 



The Clematis is not a very variable plant except in size, and the 



more or less entire leaves. The form with entire leaves, the var. 



integrafa, DC, which is probably identical with the Vilis nigra of Fuchs, 



is occasionally met with, as at Ilsley; the variation may be owing to 



the plant growing in a more open and drier situation than usual. 



The railvray cutting near Goring is covered with a small prostrate 



form which appears to be near the sub-var. prostrafa of 0. Kuntze ; see 



Monograph of the genus Clematis in Verhandlungen des Bot. Ver. 



Prov. Brand, xxvi. (1884), loi. 



The distribution of Clematis in Berkshire is rather peculiar. A 

 person might walk from Lechlade through the meadows to Oxford, or 

 from Shrivenhain through the vale to Abingdon, or from Hungerford 

 down the Kennet valley to Reading, or across the commons of Green- 

 ham and the sandy heaths of Finehampstead, Sandhurst, Ascot, and 

 Bagshot, and remark that Clematis was not to be seen in the county. 

 Another traveller journeying along the Faringdon road, or from 

 Wantage to Ilsley or Streatley, or from Streatley to Reading, or from 

 Reading jiast Sonning and Wargrave to Henley, or from Henley to 

 Marlow and Maidenhead, might say with equal truth : 'What a con- 

 spicuous feature in the vegetation of Berkshire is the Clematis ! * 



Its distribution is influenced by the soil. It is practically absent 

 from the Oxford and the Kimmeridge Clays. It is frequent on the 

 Coralline Oolite. It is abundant on the Lower and the Upper Chalk 

 except where the latter is covered by tertiary deposits ; but when 

 these deposits are rich in calcareous matter the Clematis is found, as in 

 the sandy lane by Bradley Farm. It is absent from the greater por- 

 tion of the area of the Bagshot and the Reading beds, except where 

 these are covered with drift of a calcareous nature. To this its 

 occurrence at White Waltham, &c., is probably due. 



The Clematis is found in all the counties bordering Berkshire. 



In the Systema Plantarum (1735) Linnaeus, following Tournefort and other 

 ancient writers, including Dioscorides, wrote the name Clematitis. This 



