A HISTORY OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 



Near Water Stratford the pondweed Potamogeton alpinus grows in the river, and the 

 marshy ground near yields Polygonum mite. In the low fenny ground near Simpson the celery 

 (Apium graveolens) is probably native. The reed-mace (Typha angustifoHa) and a somewhat 

 intermediate form grows near Bletchley, and in arable fields a form of the bur parsley (Caucalis 

 nodosa var. pedunculata) grows with the umbels distinctly stalked. By a brook near Salford the 

 willow herb (Epilobium roseum) grows with some hybrids with E. paruiflorum and E. obscurum, 

 and a willow which is a triandra hybrid. In the Moulsoe woods the violet {Viola sylveitrii) is 

 frequent. 



The sawwort (Serratula tinctoria) grows in some wet meadows near Brickhill, and the 

 local Scirpus sylvaticus is also found. 



Near Sotilbury in some marshy ground, partly woodland, there is a luxuriant growth of 

 the great horsetail (Equisetum maximum) the marsh lousewort (Pedtcularh palustris), the sedges 

 Carex distant, C. fava, C. ecbinata, the cotton grass (Er'wphorum angustifolium), and the small 

 club rush (Scirpus setaceus). 



Near Linslade there is an abundant growth of a rush which by many botanists is 

 considered to be a hybrid of Juncus glaucus with J. efusus, i.e. the J. diffusus, and with it 

 grows in an unusual station the heath stitchwort (Stellaria graminea) as a very broad-leaved 

 form. 



There are not many introduced species in this district ; such as occur are chiefly near 

 flour mills, where the siftings of foreign wheat containing seeds of such plants as Brassica 

 elongata, Setaria viridis, Sisymbrium altissimum occasionally germinate in the vicinity. 



The railway lines have been the means of bringing in the rocket (Diplotaxis muralis) and 

 the eastern vetch (Vicia villosa), which grows near Leighton Buzzard. 



The winter heliotrope (Nardosmia or Petasites fragrant) is naturalized near Wavendon, 

 and in waste places about Woburn Sands Atriplex bortensis var. rubra t Oxalis corniculata, 

 Hespcris matrona/is, grow. 



3. THE THAME DISTRICT 



This district takes its name from a stream whose waters in part rise from the Oolitic 

 rocks of Quainton, partly from Stewkley Hill and in part from the Cretaceous hills near Tring, 

 and in its feeders in their early course cut across several different strata, uniting near Aylesbury. 

 The main stream passes through Lower Winchenden to Notley Abbey, where a small 

 brook which has come from Brill and Waddesdon joins it, and just before reaching Thame it 

 is reinforced by the Ford brook which has drained the Gault meadows from Bishopstone to 

 Tythrop. There are also several brooks which issue from the base of the Portland stone 

 on the western side of Brill and Chilton and flow into Oxfordshire, joining the Thame in the 

 neighbourhood of Shabbington and Worminghall. 



The Thame district of Buckinghamshire has its counterpart in my Flora of Oxfordshire, 

 but in the plan adopted here for Bucks there is included a small piece of country which, 

 belonging as it does to the Ray drainage, had a separate district No. 4 in my Flora of Oxford- 

 shire, and belongs to the Cherwell basin. It would have been more accurate to make the 

 portion of Bucks drained by the Ray a district or a sub-district, but the limitations of it 

 shall be described, and as it is of small extent and since it closely resembles in soil the adjacent 

 country drained by the tributaries of the Thame, and because the Cherwell itself belongs to 

 the main drainage of the Thames, there appear no sufficiently cogent reasons for keeping it 

 distinct. 



The Thame district is thus defined : On the north it is bounded by the Ouse district 

 already described, that is from Poundon to Stewkley. On the west it is limited by the county 

 of Oxford, from near Poundon to Piddington and Brill ; then the boundary passes to the west 

 of Boarstall, so that the interesting decoy and the remains of the fortified house are included in 

 Bucks ; it then traverses a very secluded sylvan district by Studley and Shabbington Wood to 

 Worminghall and Thame, the stream itself for the last four miles having been the boundary. 

 From Tythrop the boundary is an artificial one. The separating line from Oxfordshire is 

 traced to the Common Leys near Towersey, and then by Shittle Green to Bledlow Cross, 

 where its western boundary to Radnage is my division No. 7, the Lower Thames of my 

 Oxfordshire Flora. It then takes the summit-level of the Chilterns in an easterly direction 

 towards Lacey Green, the southern boundary being now the water parting of the Thame 

 on the one side, and the tributaries of the Wycomb stream on the other as far as 

 Hampden, when the water parting of the tributaries of the Amersham water and the 

 Chess replace that of the Wycomb stream as far as the border of Hertfordshire near Tring 



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