Mar. 1911.] BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH 165 
rather than of a brownish colour, and showing a decided 
alkaline instead of an acid reaction, while it burns with a 
somewhat unpleasant and by no means aromatic smell. It is 
composed of sedges (Cladium and Carex), reeds, grasses, 
hypnum, and various other plants, instead of heather, 
sphagnum, and the like, as in the north.t 
Whittlesey, Ramsey, Soham, and other more ancient 
meres have long been drained; and the only considerable 
piece of true fen is that adjacent to the village of Wicken, 
between Cambridge and Ely. <A disconnected “ valley fen ” 
lies close to the village of Chippenham, and small patches 
of a similar nature are still to be seen at the Firelots near 
March, at Soham, Quy, Sawston, and elsewhere; while Wood- 
walton Fen in Huntingdonshire ought perhaps to be men- 
tioned, though it can hardly be considered to fall within 
our limits. Almost all the Fenland proper is in Cambridge- 
shire, and, unless otherwise stated, all the subsequent 
paragraphs refer to Wicken Fen, still in a state of nature, 
and extending over an area of more than a square mile.’ 
A Fen in Cambridgeshire still means, as of old, a sedge- 
fen; and the general aspect of Wicken Fen is that of a 
fairly uniform crop of brownish sedge, some three feet high, 
now studded with, and in parts choked by, bushes or clumps 
of Willow (Salia cinerea), the Common and Alder Buck- 
thorns (Rhamnus catharticus and R. Frangula), Guelder 
Rose (Viburnum Opulus),and Hawthorn. The sedge proper 
of the Fens—and also of the Broads of Norfolk—is Cladiwm 
Mariscus, said to be called the “mother sedge,” though this 
does not appear to be a Cambridgeshire name. The wide 
channels of Burwell Lode and Wicken Lode bound the Fen 
on two sides, with smaller lodes in the other directions and 
cross-dikes between them. The chief waterways are con- 
tinually cleaned out, and produce little of interest to the 
botanist except species of Potawmogeton and Nitella; but 
1 My friend Dr. C. E. Moss, who has been analysing the peat, tells me 
that there is much more ash in that of the Fens than in that of the 
north, and that the former contains a great amount of mineral salts, of 
calcium, potassium, and sodium. 
2 Strictly speaking, the Fens encroach slightly on nearly all the sur- 
rounding counties, while the south of Lincolnshire consists largely of 
fenland. The latter, however, is hardly reckoned as part of the Fenland 
proper in modern parlance, probably as not being included in the same 
system of drainage as the Bedford Level. 
