40 FLOWERS OF THE BOGS AND MARSHES 



Golden Dock (Rumex maritimus, L.) 



This is one of those marsh plants that commonly occur in ancient 

 deposits, being found in Preglacial, Early Glacial beds in Norfolk, 

 Interglacial beds in Suffolk, and Late Glacial beds in Suffolk. To-day 

 it is found in the North Temperate Zone in Europe, N. and W. Asia, 

 N.W. India, N. America. In Great Britain it is found in Somerset, 

 Dorset, Sussex, Kent, Surrey, S. Essex, Middlesex, Berks, Oxford, in 

 Anglia except W. Suffolk, in Worcester, Warwick, Stafford, Salop, the 

 Trent province, the Mersey and H umber provinces except in S.W. 



fhoto. Horwood 



GOLDEN DOCK (Rumex maritimus, L.) 



Yorks, or from Northumberland to Kent and Somerset; and in Ireland 

 and the Channel Islands. 



Native in marshes but rare, the Golden Dock has within recent 

 years become widely distributed, in ballast and otherwise, around the 

 shores of reservoirs and other tracts of water, as well as in waste places 

 here and there. In the past it was dispersed doubtless with other 

 plants by wildfowl. 



The stem is tall, erect, branched, reddish, furrowed, and rough. 

 The radical leaves are stalked, oblong-lance-shaped, narrowed at the 

 base, bluish-green, flat, wavy, scalloped, the upper leaves linear-lance- 

 shaped, incurved upwards. 



The flowers are yellow, in a panicle with spreading branches, with 

 3 enlarged petals, with hair-like bristles on each side of a tubercle, as 



