100 Natural Habitats and Nativeness. 
‘Therefore it must have been a very poor pasture indeed before it 
reached its present state of fair productivity. 
Now while it remained unenclosed and fairly natural, it 
would certainly be the “ native ”—I can find no other word but 
“ natural’’—home of such species as are now forced to survive on 
the working face of the old gravel pit. 
This excavation is only one instance of many similiar 
phenomena scattered all over the county. Because the circum- 
stances are purely artificialat the spot named it has been purposely 
selected ; the more complicated the problem the better as an 
illustration. In many places there are natural escarpments much 
steeper and more varied than the one in the Newstead gravel pit, 
and everywhere like circumstances are producing similar results. 
In all such places the so called ‘‘ doubtful native species ” live on, 
contending for a footing with the most adverse conditions in the 
face of more predominant species. They do more. They are 
ever ready to colonise any bare spots or “ open turf” in their 
neighbourhood, as broken ground on escarpments, beck bank, &c., 
which even in flat Lincolnshire are not so uncommon, as might be 
imagined, from purely natural causes. 
All the nine species named above from the old pit are met 
with as Frequenters of very poor sandy pasture, and of broken 
ground, nearly all as Followers (2) of cultivation. All are to be 
discovered in artificial combinations where they meet with less 
powerful competition. Yet if they be sought for in their native 
habitats, seaside sand dunes, inland dunes, beck banks and 
escarpments, that is, in the naturally open turf of poor soils or 
broken ground, they can be proved to be as truly native as 
anything we have in our existing flora, which, to say the truth, is 
now wholly artificial. ‘These species, and others like them, we may 
candidly admit, are most certainly dependent on man generally 
under existing circumstances for the chance of growth; but they 
are just as certainly “truly native” at the right place in the floral 
cycles of such soils as suit their specific requirements. Yes, but 
only a careful Rock-Soil analysis, which not only considers all 
localities separately, but also the different circumstances of each 
set of similar localities separately too, can demonstrate their 
nativeness with scientific precision, 
