20 COLIN CLOUT'S CALENDAR. 



bough. When I break off the smaller branches I can see 

 by the bright green and sappy look of the inner bark 

 that the bushes are actively engaged in putting forth 

 chlorophyl, arid that a few days more of these warm 

 westerly breezes will bring out the buds into leaves, at 

 least in the sheltered southern hollows and combes. 



This wide difference of climate between the Atlantic 

 slopes open chiefly to the influences of the Gulf Stream 

 and the warm breezes which blow across it and the east- 

 ern half of Britain, which lies right in the teeth of the 

 Siberian east winds, has even stamped itself permanently 

 on the character and distribution of our flora. Many of 

 our plants of warmer types are only found in the south- 

 west. The high moor, on which I have come out to-day 

 for my morning's stroll, covered even now by little white 

 and short-stemmed daisies they will grow taller- and 

 pinker as the spring advances is Claverton Down ; and 

 Claverton Down is the only station in England for a 

 particular species of hairy spurge, of which in fact I am 

 now in search. 



It is not in itself a particularly interesting plant, being 

 very little different from the other spurges, all of which 

 are mere rank woodland or wayside weeds, with curious 

 green and black flowers, more noticeable to the botanist 

 than to the ordinary observer. But the fact that it is 

 found nowhere else in Great Britain except on this spot, 

 one of the warmest and most forward hill districts in the 

 south of England, gives it an adventitious value for every 

 collector, and a real one for the student of botanical his- 

 tory. Evidently, the hairy spurge grows here, and only 

 here, because, being a mountain species of warmer cli- 

 mates, Claverton Down is the only hill in Britain at once 

 high enough and warm enough to suit it. This explana- 

 tion sufficiently accounts for its absence elsewhere, but 



