1 6 Origin of the British Flora. 



ancient forests, partly because of the extensive planting, 

 which has introduced trees belonging to other districts 

 and has profoundly modified our woodland flora. To take 

 one or two instances, the Hornbeam is one of the principal 

 ancient trees of Essex and other south-eastern counties; 

 but in the New Forest it only occurs sporadically, near 

 houses and villages, and such would seem to be its ordinary 

 mode of occurrence in most parts of Britain. We cannot, 

 however, say positively that it can only be reckoned as 

 indigenous over a certain limited area, though the evidence 

 points in that direction. The Scotch Pine is equally 

 doubtful, for it was abundant throughout Britain when 

 our existing peat-mosses began to form ; it afterwards 

 disappeared throughout the south of England ; but now 

 that it has been re-introduced it seeds freely and is fast 

 spreading, especially in Hampshire and Dorset. It is 

 probable that as far back as Roman times trees were 

 planted round the villas for shade and beauty, and Roman 

 officers would probably have given preference to southern 

 forms which reminded them of their native lands. Thus 

 such trees as the Horse Chestnut, Spanish Chestnut, 

 Sycamore, Lime, and probably the Vine and Fig-tree, 

 would be introduced. Some of the trees died out, others 

 established themselves from seedlings and still remain; 

 but except through the negative evidence of the geological 

 record there seems to be no satisfactory way of telling 

 which of our rarer trees were thus introduced. 



Besides the forest-trees, we have a large number of 

 plants which are confined to woods ; we have also several 

 species of land-snails, which are similarly restricted to 

 ancient forest and are not found in modern plantations. 

 The moisture and shelter of our woods make the general 

 character of the undergrowth fairly uniform throughout 

 Britain ; though we possess a large number of woodland 



