IT] WOODLAND ASSOCIATIONS 63 
Very few of the rare and characteristic herbaceous species 
of the Scottish birch woods occur in Great Britain so far south 
as Derbyshire. For example, the following species, which 
occur in the Scottish birch woods (R. Smith, 1900 6) are 
absent from Derbyshire :— 
Pyrola secunda Linnaea borealis 
P. rotundifolia Corallorrhiza trifida 
Moneses uniflora (=C. innata) 
(=M., grandiflora) Goodyera repens 
Of the above, the coral-root stops at the Border: Goodyera 
almost stops at Cumberland, but has outlying stations in 
Yorkshire and Norfolk: Moneses (Pyrola) uniflora is unknown 
in England: P. secunda and Linnaea are rare in northern 
England; and P. rotundifolia is a very local plant throughout 
southern Britain. Lvstera cordata and T'rientalis europaea, 
which are found in birch woods in Scotland, exist on the 
Pennines only as moorland plants’; and, even on the moors, 
they are rare and local. Pyrola media and P. minor appear, 
in fact, to be the only species of this class which are typical of 
both the Scottish birch woods and the upper woodland zone of 
northern England; and even these species are rare and local 
throughout the whole of England. 
The Primitive Birch-Forest 
Judging from the timber which is not infrequently found 
buried under the peat of the Pennines, it is certain that in former 
times a very extensive upland zone of birch woods existed on 
the Pennines; and the meagre birch woods which now occur 
on the Pennines are to be regarded as the vestiges of a former 
widespread plant association (cf. Smith and Rankin, 1903: 160). 
Although birches are quite commonly met with under the 
peat on certain of the moors of the district, one hesitates to 
refer to such a layer as a continuous forest bed. The layer is 
1 Tt has recently been stated (Williams, 1910: 127) that Trientalis europaea 
grows ‘‘in woods”’ at Halifax, which is the southern British limit for this plant. 
As a matter of fact, the plant in that locality is confined to a small space where 
it grows among bilberry and mat-grass on a treeless hill side. Wheldon and 
Wilson (1907: 239) state that on the Pennines further north the plant grows 
on ‘*moorlands amongst bilberry, bracken, and heather.”’ 
