66 A HANDBOOK FOR SOUTHPORT. 



wild surface into lawn, park, and garden, has tended to 

 diminish the primitive abundance of the indigenous wild- 

 flowers; and in many localities, once noted for their plenty, 

 the flora of half-a-century ago has entirely disappeared. 

 It is difficult, however, for man to eradicate any plant that has 

 once been well established in a given district. Not a single 

 species can be supposed to be wholly lost from the Southport 

 flora. Undisturbed localities still exist, a little further off it 

 may be, but to be found by searching for; and very curious is 

 it to observe how often, in the most highly cultivated spots, 

 the aborigines re-appear, the seeds having been buried in the 

 earth at depths too deep for them to vegetate, and biding 

 their time until the spade of the gardener brings them near 

 enough to the surface to be excited by the sunshine and 

 the rain. 



The peculiar physical geography of Southport gives the 

 flora a distinctly two-fold character. First, there is the sand- 

 hills section, including the maritime plants which grow within 

 actual reach of the tide, and to which may be added the very 

 interesting group of semi-palustral plants observable in the 

 " slacks " among the sandhills the depressed and often low- 

 lying hollows which become perfectly dry only in the middle 

 of the hottest summers. Secondly, there is the purely meadow, 

 pasture, and inland wayside section, to which may be added 

 the vegetation of the ponds and ditches, and that of the 

 local piece of reclaimed moorland called " The Moss. " The 

 aggregate amounts, it would appear, to about 300 different 

 species, or about a fifth of the entire number of flowering 

 plants accounted indigenous to Great Britain. 



Of native trees and shrubs the number is, of necessity, very 



