BOTANY 



Isoetes lacustris, which are not now natives of Norfolk, and among them is 

 the special Norfolk rarity, Naias marina, not found now in any other part 

 of Britain, although Mr. Reid records it as fossil (p. 159) from ' Hert- 

 fordshire Inter-Glacial ' and ' Glamorgan Neolithic ' deposits. As 

 Mr. Reid writes (p. 35) : 'As far as the plants now inhabiting Britain 

 are concerned history begins with the Cromer Forest Bed, all before 

 is prehistoric and speculative.' Norfolk (and Suffolk) can claim the 

 earliest flora at present determinable in Britain. In the Early Glacial 

 period which followed, Mr. Reid records (p. 52) as being found on the 

 Norfolk coast, Betula nana and Salix polaris, two very characteristic species 

 of arctic flora, the former still remaining as far south as Northumber- 

 land, but the latter, once abundant even in the south of Devonshire, now 

 no longer remaining in Great Britain though it still exists in Scandinavia. 

 How the existing flora was developed after the Glacial period had passed 

 away must in the present state of our knowledge of topographical botany 

 be only matter of conjecture and hypothesis. Norfolk has been called 

 the ' meeting-place of north and south,' and surely a county in which 

 Andromeda polifolia and Microcala filiformis meet justly merits this title. 



There do not appear to be any means of comparing accurately the 

 respective floras of Norfolk and the adjoining counties of Suffolk and 

 Cambridgeshire ; for this purpose lists up to the present date and based 

 on the same nomenclature and division of species would be required. 

 Our table of species is based on the London Catalogue of 1895, while 

 Dr. Hind's Flora of Suffolk is dated 1889, and Professor Babington's 

 Flora of Cambridge was published in i860. But from these floras 

 compared with Topographical Botany, 1883, it is possible to indicate a few 

 salient points of difference. Suffolk has between sixty and seventy miles 

 of open sea coast, comparing not unfavourably in this respect with 

 Norfolk, and in addition the estuaries of the rivers Stour, Orwell, Deben 

 and Aide, whilst Cambridgeshire has only one side of a part of the 

 estuary of the Nen. 



Cambridgeshire is thus at a disadvantage as to number of maritime 

 plants, but it has (or had) one which is absent from Suffolk, viz. : Statice 

 reticulata. Suffolk has Lathyrus maritimus and Diotis maritima (extinct ?) 

 which are absent from Norfolk, whilst Norfolk has Sonchus angustifolius, 

 Statice auriculcefolia and S. reticulata, Polypogon Monspeliensis and P. littoralis 

 and Ammophila baltica, all of which are absent from Suffolk. 



Norfolk has the following, all absent from both Suffolk and Cam- 

 bridgeshire, Draba muralis, Lathyrus montanus (?), Sedum rupestre, Crepis 

 paludosa, Andromeda polifolia, Pyrola minor, Microcala filiformis, Teucrium 

 Chamcedrys, funcus acutus, Naias marina, Eriophorum vaginatum, Carex 

 paradoxa, C. ligerica and C. trinervis, Lycopodium Selago and Lychnothamnus 

 stelliger. 



Suffolk has, absent from Norfolk and Cambridgeshire, Genista pilosa, 

 Vicia lutea, Orobanche caryophyllacea, Scrophularia umbrosa, JJtricularia 

 neglecta. Orchis hircina, Damasonium stellatum (extinct) and Anthoxanthum 

 Puellii. 



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