256 The New Forest : its History and its Scenery. 



bridges grows the common scale-fern, whilst in the meadows 

 of the Avon springs the adder's-tongue's green spear. 



Nor must we forget the brake, common though it be, for this 

 it is which gives the Forest so much of its character, clothing it 

 with green in the spring ; and when the heather is withered, and 

 the furze, too, decayed, making eveiy holt and hollow golden.* 



And now for some other plants, without reference to their 

 species, but simply to their beauty. On Ashley Common and 

 the neighbouring grass-fields gi-ows the moth-mullein ( Vcrhascnm 

 Blattaria), dropping its yellow flowers, as they one by one 

 expand. In the neighbouring pools, as far as Wootton, the 

 blossoms of the gi'eat spearwort {Ranunculus Lingua) gleam 

 among the reeds. There, also, the narrow-leaved lungwort 

 (Pulmonaria angustifolia), with its leaves both plain and spotted, 

 opens its blue and crimson flowers so bright, that they are 

 known to all the children as the " snake flower," and gathered 

 by handfuls mixed with the spotted orchis. And the ladies' 

 tresses, too {Spiranthes autumnalis), shows its delicate brown 

 braid on every dry field on the southern border. 



Besides these, the feathered pink {Dianthus plumarius) 

 blooms on the cloister-walls at Beaulieu ; and the Deptford pink 

 {Dianthus Armeria) in the valley of the Avon at Hucklebrook, 

 near Ibbesley. The bastard-balm {Melittis Melissophyllum) 

 flaunts its white and pui-ple blossoms over the banks of Wootton 

 plantation, whilst at Oakley and Knyghtwood the red gladiolus 

 crimsons the green beds of fern. 



* Besides these we have all over the Forest Lastrea Filix-mas, and dilataia, 

 and Asplenium adiantum nigrum, and Pohjstichum angulure, with its varieties, 

 (nigrintatnm and uculeatum, found near Fordingbridge. My friend, ]\Ir. Rake, 

 who discovered angustatum, found also, in February, 1856, near Fording- 

 bridge, Lastrea spimdosa, but it has never since been seen in the locality. 



256 



