BOTANY 



This district of the Willow Brook is therefore drained by the main stream of the Nene 

 from Oundle to its leaving the county near Peterborough, and passes through wide alluvial 

 meadows bordered by Upper Estuarine clays and capped with cornbrash and Oxford clay. 



The Willow Brook takes its rise from the old forest of Rockingham, a narrow strip of 

 elevated ground alone forming the watershed of this and the Harpers Brook, but the former 

 takes a more easterly direction and drains the woods of Corby and Gretton, and the parks of 

 Deene and Blatherwyck and portions of the Walks of Morehay and Sulehay. It then passes 

 by Kings ClifFe, Apethorpe and Wood Newton, and falls into the Nene opposite to the village 

 of Elton. In this almost semicircular course the Willow Brook has enclosed a portion of the 

 county which itself gives rise to some small tributaries of the Nene, and these drain Morehay, 

 Southwick, Benefield and part of Brigstock Woods. Further to the east a small brook which 

 originates from marshy ground near Stamford drains part of the rich woods of the Bedford 

 Purlieus, and becoming the White Water drains Wittering Heath and Southorpe Bog, now the 

 richest botanizing locality in the county, and passing through Sutton Heath joins the Nene near 

 Wansford Station. Shortly before being absorbed by the Nene, the Whitewater itself receives 

 a brook which has drained the rich woods called the Bedford Purlieus and the interesting 

 country about Thornhaugh. The handsome park of Milton, the seat of the Fitzwilliams, is 

 drained by the main stream of the Nene. East of the Great Northern Railway the fen-land 

 is intersected with numerous dykes in which the water movement is so slow, the level of the 

 country being so nearly uniform, that any further details of its drainage will be unnecessary. 

 Here and there some small eminence rises above the dead level of the Fens and this will be the 

 site of some village. But the country which was at one time either marsh or fen with its 

 rich sedge and reed vegetation, or of bog-land over which the cotton grass waved its plumes, 

 is now a vast extent of cornfields with their rippling waves of wheat, and the deposits of peat 

 which then accumulated have now been mingled with agrestal soil ; while the atmosphere itself 

 has changed, and what was once a malarious humid air is now dry and bracing. 



The Willow Brook district has the woodland species excellently represented, and much 

 work is needed before the treasures of this part of the county can be said to be sufficiently 

 ascertained. I need only enumerate the names of the woods of Corby, Gretton, Laxton, 

 Bulwick, Harringworth, Morehay, Sulehay, Brigstock, Cotterstock, Wood Newton, Westhay, 

 Easton, and Bedford Purlieus to show what an extensive portion of the district is occupied by 

 them. 



The flora of the latter wood is particularly attractive : in places it is blue with colum- 

 bines [Aquilegia vulgaris)^ in others it is fragrant with masses of the lily of the valley {Conval- 

 lar'ia majalh), and it has a most interesting and beautiful species of melic grass [McHca nutans), 

 which has its extreme southern limit in this situation, as it is a species which has its head- 

 centre in the limestone woods of northern Britain. Here too is the deadly nightshade {Atropa 

 Belladonna), and the small-leaved lime {Til'ia parvifoUa) is indubitably a native species. The 

 recorded species include the milkwort {Polygala vulgaris), the field cress {Lepidium campestre), 

 the wild pea {Lathyrus sylvcstris), the broom (Cytisus scoparius), the greater burnet saxifrage 

 {Pimpinella major), the brambles {Rubus Schlectendalii, Weihe ; R. Bellardi, W. & N.), the 

 •wooArwS {A sperula odorata), the crosswort (Galium Crudata), the woolly-headed thistle [Cnicus 

 eriophorus), the saw-wort [Serratula tinctoria), the ploughman's spikenard [Inula Conyza), the 

 hawkweed [Hieracium horeale), the great burdock [Arctium majus), the ling [Calluna Erica), the 

 small centaury [Erythreea ramosissima or pukhella), the wood pimpernel [Lysimachia nemorum), 

 the speedwell [Veronica montana), the cow-wheat [Mclampyrum pratense), the tooth wort 

 [Lathraa Squamaria), t\\am\x\\&'\ns[Verbascum Thapsus and nigrum), t\\c gromv/eW [Lithospermum 

 officinale), the wood spurge [Euphorbia amygdaloides), the caper spurge (£. Lathyris), the aspen 

 [Populus tremula), the birch [Betula alba), the pyramidal orchis (0. pyramidalis), the fragrant 

 orchis [Habenaria conopsea), the butterfly orchids [H. bifolia and chlorokuca), the helleborine 

 [Epipactis violacea), the fly orchis [Opbrys muscifera), the herb Paris [Paris quadrifolia), the ram- 

 sons [Allium ursinum), the great wood rush [Juncoides [Luzula^ sylvaticum), the melic grass 

 [Melica uniflora), the wood poa (P. nemoralis), the small wood reed [Calamagrostis epigeios), 

 and the hard fern [Lomaria Spicant). 



The Lincolnshire Limestone and the Great Oolite are frequently only covered with a 

 slight layer of earth, so that on the grassy borders of the road sides especially in those bordering 

 on Bedford Purlieus many typical calcipetes are to be found. The grass Brach\padium pinna- 

 turn, so frequent on the oolitic tracts of Oxford and Berks is here also plentiful, and sometimes 

 is to be seen in the midst of a calcareous marsh occupying some slightly elevated and drier 

 position than the uliginal plants which grow around. The golden blossoms of the horseshoe 



75 



