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Notes preliminary to a proposed Flora of Gloucestershire, 



commimicated to the Annual Meeting of the Cotteswold Naturalist's 



Field Club, 1877, by 



G. S. BouLGER, F.L.S., F.G.S., 



Scientific Club, Savile Row, W. 



It is strange that a large and important county such as this, 

 the home of one of the oldest field-clubs in the kingdom, and 

 of many competent naturahsts, should never have obtained a 

 county Flora. True, there are Floras of Bristol and of 

 Cheltenham, one of Clifton in preparation, and allusions to 

 Gloucestershire localities in Floras of Worcestershire, Oxford- 

 shire and Bath ; yet I venture to think the county as a whole 

 worthy of a Flora of its own. 



The most obvious objection to this, as to all other county 

 Floras, is the artificial, arbitrary character of our county- 

 boundaries. England may be naturally divided into five or six 

 botanical provinces ; but these to be properly worked must be 

 sub-divided, and here no system is available, the river-drainage 

 basins being too large. We therefore fall back on the civil 

 divisions-^the counties. 



Even if a permanent resident in Gloucestershire, I could not, 

 single-handed, undertake to work up the Flora of so large an 

 area. One of my chief objects then in bringing forward these 

 preliminary notes is to obtain assistance in the work and to 

 sketch my proposed ' modus operandi.' 



I propose to take Messrs. Tkimen and Dyer's Flora of 

 Middlesex as my general model, since it is, in my humble 



