BOTANY 



II.— THE NORTH-CENTRAL DIVISION 



This division designated hy^NC' in the tables of species is bounded on the east by a line 

 drawn from Norwich to Cromer, and on the west and south by lines from Norwich to 

 Swaffham, and from Swaffham to Burnham Deepdale and the sea ; differs in its character from 

 the Eastern Division — it has no broads and but few freshwater marshes — but it contains long 

 stretches of salt marsh, and here and there still retains boggy heaths, mostly commons, which 

 shelter samples of the original flora, and it was largely from this kind of country before the 

 enclosures took place that the plants were obtained that made Norfolk remarkable as a county 

 in the writings of the botanists of the later part of the last and early portion of the present 

 century. The quantity of this boggy land is continually decreasing, and it has happened to the 

 writer on revisiting after an interval of a few years a locality of this description to find — 

 instead of sundews (all three species), butterwort, Parnassia, dwarf willows and other marsh 

 plants — a fine crop of corn ready for the harvest. 



The salt marshes, which commence at Wey bourne where the cliffs end, extend through- 

 out this and the Western Division with occasional breaks (the most remarkable of which is 

 the celebrated Red Chalk cliff of Hunstanton) all the way to Lynn, have a special vegetation 

 of their own — acres of sea-lavenders, crabgrass [Atriplex portulacoidei), Salicornia, Suceda and 

 Juncus. There are also three remarkable grasses : Polypogon monspeliensis, P. UttoraHs and 

 Spartlna stricta. The sea-lavenders are of three species : Statice Limonium, S. aurkulafolia 

 and S. reticulata ; S. Limonium appears in two forms, the type and the variety pyramidalis, 

 Syme — this variety flowers about three weeks later than the type, and seems, in this division at 

 all events, to have been mistaken for S. rarijiora. At Wells occurs the curious variety or 

 form of Sonchus arvensis, S. anguitifolius, Mey., which was first found here in Great Britain ; 

 it also grows on the opposite coast of Holland. At StifiFkey there is plenty of Scrophularia 

 vernalts. At Holkham Gnaphalium luteo-alhum, Linn., is well established, and Erythriea 

 pulchella from one to eight inches in height, according as it grows on dry sand or in marsh, 

 abounds. Suceda fruticosa at Cley forms a thicket giving first shelter to flocks of small 

 migrating birds on their arrival. This plant is reported to have been brought hither by ship- 

 wreck, and to have spread hence along the coast. Wherever loose sand occurs it is bound 

 together by grasses, Festuca arenaria, Elymus arenarius, Agropyron (of several species), ' Mar- 

 ram ' Ammophila arundinacea (which is often planted for protection against the sea) and Carex 

 arenaria. Juncus acutus forms large clumps in the westward portion of this division, but I 

 have never seen it east of Wells. J. compressus grows at Holkham, and also a small inter- 

 mediate form between this species and J. Gerardi, which last is common in brackish marshes 

 all round the Norfolk coast, and an hybrid between J. acutifloru% and J. lamprocarpus has been 

 found in small quantity. Glaucium Jiavum, Eryngium maritimum and Volvulus Soldanella are 

 frequent just above high-water mark. 



On the sand between the actual beach and the brackish marshes, as for instance at 

 Wells, are many species of Chenopodium and Atriplex^ particularly C ruhrum and its var. pseudo 

 botryodes, and near the Watch-house is a large patch of henbane, Hyoscyamus niger, closely 

 cropped by rabbits with whom it seems, spite of its poisonous qualities, to agree well. 

 Frankenia loevis also occurs but in small quantity, with plenty of Silene maritima. 



On the cliffs between Cromer and Weybourne there are two broom rapes, Orobanche elatior 

 parasitic on Centaurea scabiosa, and 0. purpurea on Achillea Millefolium. This latter is very 

 uncertain, one year there will be hundreds, and the next hardly a single one. Silene conica is 

 plentiful, and is mixed with Diplotaxis muralis sometimes so luxuriant as to approach the var. 

 Babingtonii, Syme. 



At Cromer Medicago sylvestris was at one time abundant, but a good deal of the edge of 

 the cliff on which it grew has been removed by * improvements ' ; it was for the most part 

 rooted in almost pure windblown sea-sand, and seems both by habit and the form of its 

 legume to occupy an intermediate place between the true M. falcata, a weed of cultivated land 

 in the southern part of this division, and M. sativa in the semi-naturalized condition in which 

 the latter is often found. 



Scutellaria minor has been known in this division for from seventy to eighty years, but it 

 is very capricious, sometimes flowering profusely and at others being difficult to find, although 

 the locality remains unaltered. 



In the heaths which still remain unenclosed and untilled there are three gentians, 

 Gentiana Amarella, G. campestris and G. Pneumonanthe (but G. baltica has not at present been 



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