112 THE WILD-FLOWERS OF SELBORNE 



In addition to the New Forest, Hampshire possesses 

 several other large tracts of forest and moorland, the 

 happy hunting-grounds of many naturalists. The 

 Forest of Bere, to the north of Portsdown Hill, still 

 includes some eleven thousand acres, in one spot of 

 which, known perhaps only to the writer, the beautiful 

 snowflake may be seen in blossom every spring. In 

 Gilbert White's time, " the royal forest of Wolmer 

 extended," he tells us, " for about seven miles in 

 length by two and a half in breadth, and consisted 

 entirely of sand covered with heath and fern, without 

 having one standing tree in the whole extent." Since 

 then, part of the forest has been enclosed and planted 

 with oak, larch, and Scotch fir, which has considerably 

 curtailed its former dimensions. Abutting on Wolmer, 

 the Forest of Alice Holt still covers over two thousand 

 acres; and Harewood Forest, near Andover in the 

 north of the county, is about the same extent. Waltham 

 Chase, the haunt, in the early years of the eighteenth 

 century, of a famous gang of poachers known as the 

 " Waltham Blacks," is now enclosed, and broad acres 

 of strawberries and fruit-trees now flourish where once 

 the wild deer roamed. The county, too, is further 

 enriched with a large " littoral " flora, which adds con- 

 siderably to the number of its species. Not to include 

 the coast of the Isle of Wight — for in this paper we 

 are mainly concerned with the plants of the mainland 

 of Hampshire — the sea-board stretches from Emsworth 

 to Bournemouth, embracing the sandy shores of Hay- 

 ling Island, where many a rare plant is to be found ; 

 the muddy creeks of Portsmouth Harbour, where, on 

 the sea-banks, especially in the neighbourhood of Port- 

 chester, the golden samphire will be seen ; the low- 

 lying cliffs of Hillhead and Lea-on-the-Solent, and 



