A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



As regards the plants to be met with, it may be noted that, begin- 

 ning from the Hampshire border, we have Stansted Forest and Charlton 

 Forest, both to a great extent planted. In these we have striking 

 patches of the rosebay [Epilobium angustifolium), and beds of the 

 meadow thistle [Carduus pratensis). Stansted contains some of the 

 rarest of our helleborines, and near Colworth, in 1885, I found the 

 very rare lesser winter green {Pyro/a minor) growing in isolated 

 patches. In St. Leonards Forest are the lovely ivy-leaved bell-flower 

 {Campanula hederacea) and the bog pimpernel [Anagallis tenella). The 

 columbine {Aquilegia vulgaris), both white and purple, occurs here, and 

 the scarce intermediate winter green {Pyrola media) in considerable 

 plenty. Large beds of the lily of the valley {Co?2vallaria majalis) are 

 one of its features, and in sandy bogs are the small chaffweed [Centimculus 

 minimus) and the least gentianella {Cicendia fliformis), with the least 

 spike rush [Eleocharis acicularis). In the forest meadows occurs the 

 pale narcissus [N. biforus), and in various places near Horeham grows 

 the wild service-tree [Pyrus torminalis), rare westward. Ashdown 

 Forest, which contains about 10,000 acres, was at one time an immense 

 uncultivated tract, but it is now partly brought into tillage and partly 

 broken up into separate forest districts. From its name it might be 

 naturally supposed to be favourable to the growth of ash timber, but 

 amongst the trees growing in some parts of the forest an ash is scarcely 

 to be found,' while pine, beech and oak, some of the latter of extreme 

 antiquity, abound. Here there were formerly many ironworks, and in 

 the old Hammer ponds occur several very rare plants. In one of these 

 at Buxted, in 1827, Borrer discovered the marsh isnardia [Isnardia 

 palustris), previously unknown in Great Britain, and of this I have 

 specimens taken from that place in my herbarium. He afterwards 

 found it on Petersfield Heath in Hants, where it is now apparently 

 lost by drainage. It has however been rediscovered in Hants, and 

 although now considered lost in Sussex, it is to be hoped that therein 

 also it may be met with afresh. Sussex and Hants are the only counties 

 in which it has as yet been found. In the Forest the raspberry 

 {Rubus Idceus) occurs in quantity, undoubtedly wild. Worth, Tilgate, 

 and Dallington Forests were all to a great extent denuded of their timber 

 by the Sussex ironworks. On the shore of the great pond at Tilgate 

 Borrer found the hexandrous waterwort {Elatine hexandra), one of the 

 scarcest species in our flora ; the plantain shoreweed {Litorella lacustris) 

 occurs at Piltdown ; and in Tilgate Forest we have the beech fern {Poly- 

 podium Phegopteris), and three of the club mosses {Lycopodium clavatum, 

 L. inundatum and h. Selago). Waterdown Forest approaches the border 

 of Surrey, and here may be sought the bristle-leaved bent grass {Agrostis 

 setacea), the wood small reed {Calamagrostis setacea), and the white beak 

 rush (Rhyncospora alba). 



In my Flora of Sussex I instituted a comparison with it and that 

 of the adjacent counties of Hants, Kent and Surrey, which need not here 



' Rev. E. Turner, S.A.C. xiv. 39. 

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