A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



Of the plants found in between forty and sixty Watsonian vice- 

 counties, besides the maritime and mountain species which are necessarily 

 absent, we lack many, the most noticeable of which omissions, from their 

 occurrence in one or more of the bordering counties, we will now con- 

 sider. The white-flowered buttercup [Ranunculus Lenormandi), a peat- 

 loving species, occurs in Leicester and Warwick ; the Deptford pink (Dian- 

 thus Armeria), found in Oxford, Bucks and Warwick ; the maiden pink 

 (D. deltoides) occurs in Beds, Hunts, Cambs, Lincoln, Leicester and Oxford, 

 but possibly introduced to the latter county ; the small vetch (Vicia 

 lathyroides) very likely occurs, as it is recorded for all the bordering 

 counties ; the small gorse {JJlex Gallh), found in Warwick, commonly 

 about Charnwood in Leicestershire, and rarely in Oxford ; the mountain 

 cranesbill {Geranium syhaticum), reported formerly from Warwick ; the 

 long-leaved sundew {Drosera longifolia or intermedia^, known in peat bogs 

 in Bucks, Beds, Hunts and Lincoln, and formerly in Cambridge ; the 

 celery [Apium graveolens), a semi-maritime species found occasionally native 

 inland as in Oxford, Beds, Bucks and Cambridge ; the chamomile [Anthe- 

 mis nobilis) frequents moist heathy places, and is native to Bucks, Oxford 

 (very rarely), Warwick (very local), Leicester, Beds and Cambridge ; 

 the sedge (Carex diandra or teretiusculd), a native of peaty pools, recorded 

 as a very local plant in Warwick, Cambridge and Leicester ; the club- 

 moss [Lycopodium inundatum), found on black peaty places, and recorded 

 for all the bordering counties with the exception of Oxford ; the alpine 

 club-moss (L. alpinum) formerly grew near the sea-level in north Lin- 

 colnshire ; and Selaginella selaginoides formerly occurred in the same 

 county. 



There are many causes which prevent the flora of Northampton- 

 shire from being a rich one, one of the chief of these being the great 

 extent of the county which is under cultivation. Probably no other 

 county except Middlesex, with its enormous growth of houses, has so 

 small an acreage of commons or waste ground. The enclosure of the 

 commons, those happy hunting grounds for the naturalist, is nearly com- 

 plete, and in almost all cases except Dallington Heath and Harleston 

 Firs the condition of vegetation has been very greatly changed. The 

 woodlands are now said to cover 25,000 acres, but this is small as com- 

 pared with what the great forests of Whittlebury, Salcey, Yardley Chase, 

 Rockingham, Brigstock, Morehay and Bedford Purlieus once were. Not 

 only is the acreage of these woods much diminished, but the character of 

 the woodland has been changed. A great portion now consists only of 

 blackthorn thickets, or plantations of small trees, and of larch, which 

 make excellent game and fox coverts, but have a singularly unvarying 

 lower vegetation, and it is chiefly with nettles, herb mercury or the 

 creeping dog rose that so much of the ground in these thickets is now 

 covered. It is only in the remains of the older woods, as in Whittlebury, 

 Bedford Purlieus, Geddington or Yardley Chase that any great variety of 

 woodland plants is to be found. 



The absence of heaths is almost complete, and where they exist it 



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