NATURAL ASPECTS OF HULL AND DISTRICT. 193 



will scarcely be expected to see much in a large and busy 

 place like Hull ; and yet it is quite possible to find between 

 two and three hundred different species during the year. 

 True, they are " aliens and strangers," incidentally brought 

 to the port by ships from all lands, and are welcomed by no 

 one but the botanist, who often finds them beautiful, and 

 always interesting. They occur in profusion on the waste 

 land of the dock reservations, particularly on the west side 

 of the city, their seed having been dumped down there with 

 rubbish and sweepings from mills and dock sheds. 



Leaving the city to search the various areas above 

 referred to, we find that each has its own group of plants, 

 dominant or rarer examples of which may now be mentioned. 

 Beginning with the Holderness Coast, with its clay cliffs, 

 one finds plants that apparently prefer clayey soil : such are 

 the ivy -leaved ranunculus (R. kederaceus), the smallest 

 flowered geranium (G. pusillmn), chicory, and the bucks-horn 

 and seaside plantains. On the small and only sand dune 

 tract between Withernsea and Spurn Head, another group, 

 sand and salt loving, have sway and are very distinct in appear- 

 ance from plants of the clay. The most conspicuous perhaps, 

 after the three blue-green, seaside grasses including Elymus 

 arenarius, the large rose-pink flowered species of creeping 

 convolvulus known as Soldanella, the sea holly (Eryngium), 

 sea buckthorn Hippophae, the dune-thorn of the Dutch Coast, 

 and the seaside sedge (Carex arenaria). All this group have 

 the characteristics of seaside sand plants — fleshy glaucous, 

 (blue-green) leaves and great ramifications of underground 

 root and stem systems which effectively bind the loose sands 

 together. 



From Spurn, along the North bank of the Humber, for 

 many miles, indeed, up to Hull and beyond, the plants are 

 estuarine in character, being fleshy, salt-loving, and aquatic. 

 Wild celery (Apium graveolens) now so much cultivated and 

 blanched in the sandy tract near Selby, is perhaps the 

 most noticeable plant ; but with it grow sea-southernwood 

 {Artemisia), samphire (Salicornia) often pickled locally, and 

 very sparingly the beautiful sea lavender (Statice Limonium) 

 and many rushes and sedges, some of considerable rarity, 

 like Carex divisa. 



Inland, the water-courses, streams, drains, dykes, ponds, 

 and other watery places may be inspected, and quite other 

 sets of plants would appear, a very large list of which might 

 be given. White flowered water crowfoot in about a dozen 

 forms (sub-species) is the most conspicuous plant on the 



