FLORAL CHARACTERISTICS. 29 



and marsh plants from the district. The sole representative 

 of the natural order Ericacem is one plant of Callunci erica 

 (vulgaris). The so-called " heaths " of the neighbourhood are 

 usually beds of Post-Glacial gravel, with disused pits, possess- 

 ing none of the characteristics of true heather-land, except the 

 gaunt forms of Pinus sylvestris. It is, moreover, strange that 

 species so generally distributed as Saxifraga tridactylites, 

 Pedicularis sylvatica, Polystichum angulare, Athyriuin Filix- 

 fwmina, and Asplenium adiantum-nigrum should be amongst 

 the local rarities ; and when we turn to the Flora of the 

 marshes, where the frequent occurrence of typical plants might 

 be reasonably expected, we find that though records are given 

 for some of them, yet, on the whole, they are now seldom seen. 

 This is probably due to the effective system of drainage, which 

 was established about thirty years ago ; for in the " good old 

 times " the Bladderworts, the Water Soldier, and many other 

 interesting plants gladdened the eyes of the fortunate ob- 

 server ; but, while they still linger in higher parts of the 

 Waveney valley and are to be found in the lower' reaches of 

 the river, they are known to us no more. 



The district nevertheless is abundant in species belonging 

 to the natural orders Geraniacece, Leguminiferce, Rubiacece 

 and Scrophularinece. It is especially rich in the Monocotyle- 

 donous orders Orchidacece, Iridece, Amaryllidece and Liliacew, 

 the chalky clay seeming to favour the growth of bulbous 

 plants. Forty -six species, belonging to these last-named orders 

 are reported in the latest lists of Norfolk plants : thirty-seven 

 species have already been observed in the neighbourhood of 

 Harleston, including the two new plants Ornithogalum pyre- 

 naicum and Narcissus biftorus, but exclusive of Narcissus 

 major and Asparagus officinalis, established in a wild locality 

 for nearly a century.* 



As the surface soil of the district mainly consists of the 

 chalky boulder clay before mentioned, we might expect to 

 find that some of those plants which have a preference for the 



* The habitats of these two plants the large hedgebank on Beacon Hill 

 above Shotford Bridge, and the clump of trees a short distance eastward, 

 called Mendham Grove, Norfolk are interesting. By their Flora they sug- 

 gest the existence in former days of gardens, and tradition asserts that in the 

 last century two halls, one of them perhaps never completed, stood on these 

 spots. An old map of the year 1795, however, shows no such dwellings there, 

 and the oldest inhabitant of Harleston, Mr. Barber, who remembers the 

 locality as it was in 1810, can give no information respecting them. It is, 

 perhaps, possible that at one or other place stood WHICHENDON, or WHITE- 

 HILLS HALL, the family seat of the Frestons, to whom the manor was 

 granted in the first year of the reign of Edward VI. The family, whose 

 history is traced by Blomefield (Hist. Norfolk, Vol. V., p. 377), held an im- 

 portant position during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but now 

 not even the name much less the site of their ancestral mansion is remem- 

 bered in the neighbourhood. 



