92 Plant-life of the Oxford District 



examples of the drier well-drained stations are seen at Headington Quarry ; 

 in the damper levels of the alluvium, Elm, Ash, Poplar and Willow follow 

 on in the course of time. 



Dry high pastures on light sandy soils produce Gorse and traces of 

 Heather (Pickett's Heath, Bagley Wood), but the latter is conspicuously defi- 

 cient in the district, and even Gorse is scanty. Wet, low-lying undrained tracts 

 produce fancus, also dominating the ground-flora ; butjuncus, owing to its close 

 growth, affords little opportunity for the germination of tree-seedlings. Willows 

 and Alder are more usually added as they germinate at the flood-line on river 

 and ditch-bank. 



An interesting example of the later stages of Thorn-scrub, with Bracken 

 and broad-leaved trees, is seen at the University Enclosure, Shotover, no longer 

 grazed. In many parts the tree-canopy is making close-contact, and the 

 Bracken is dominant in 'the interspaces. To the trees are added Ash, Oak, 

 Sycamore. The progression has been hastened by the planting of additional 

 forms (Pinus, Populus, Pyrus Aucuparia, P. Aria), but these are still small, 

 and the effect of Oak-Bracken Woodland, with its usual associates and sub- 

 dominants, is within reasonable view, so long as it is let alone. 



Although the general phases of retrogression can be thus indicated by the 

 comparison of local examples, direct observation and record of special tracts 

 over a period of many years will be of greater value. It is in this respect that 

 departmental organization is essential. It is in fact the business of a Botanical 

 Department to keep such a record of local changes, probably never so rapid 

 or far-reaching as at the present time, by which the general aspect of the 

 surrounding country has been completely changed within living memory. 1 



1 To those who mourn the past rather than praise the present, the verses of Matthew Arnold 

 afford a melancholy review of changes for the worse. A more progressive generation will acclaim 

 the great increase in the population, with associated gas-works, water-works, railways, market- 

 gardens, allotment-areas, not to mention the new Corporation and Rural Council houses, the tarred 

 roads and the fast motor traffic, which now dominate the outskirts of the City. 



There is little detailed information as to the condition of plant-life in the district in early times, 

 beyond a few references in Plot (1705), and what can be gathered from Sibthorp (Flora Oxoniensis, 

 1794), with the localities given for a large number of forms now extinct. 



Mediaeval scholars entered Oxford over Shotover, down a horse-path through the thick forest to 

 Magdalen Bridge and the East Gate of a walled city. Even the traditional Oxford Country of 

 Shelley and Matthew Arnold in the early nineteenth century has been greatly changed during living 

 memory, and it will be probably increasingly improved by speculative building in the next fifty years. 



Since 1850, the introduction of the Railway, by solving the problem of food-transport, in 

 quantity far beyond the capacity of the local area to supply, has affected local architecture, as well 

 as the general conditions of agriculture. Until this time, Oxford was still in its main aspect a 

 mediaeval city ; on all sides, except where it touched the railway, the city area terminated abruptly, 

 and one came suddenly to meadows. The poorer streets were faced with wash and ' pebble-cast '. 

 Beyond Magdalen Bridge, Iffley Road was bounded by corn-fields, and unenclosed meadow stretched 

 to Littlemore. 



Children no longer gather violets in the Iffley Road, within sight of Magdalen Tower ; nor do 

 budding botanists seek ' the lone alehouse in the Berkshire Moors '. Surrounding villages and farms 

 (with few exceptions) express rather the decadence of an older system of agriculture than any modern 

 efficiency. It is already curious to read of Dr. T. Arnold (1819) expressing a wish to take ' one 

 more look at Bagley Wood, and the pretty field and the wild stream that flows down between 

 Bullingdon and Cowley Marsh ', or ' the little valleys that debouche on the valley of the Thames 

 below the Hinkseys'. 



Two well-known elegiac poems of Matthew Arnold 'The Scholar-Gipsy ' and 'Thyrsis' (1861) 

 are valuable as depicting, among a somewhat muddled blend of- classical allusion, the general aspect 

 of the open country around Oxford in the early nineteenth century. A tree is still pointed out as the 

 ' Glanvil Elm ', ' Umbrella Tree ', or Matthew Arnold's ' signal tree ', a conspicuous landmark on the 

 hills to the west ' bare on its lonely ridge '. A favourite walk of this time was to follow the old 

 pack-horse track straight up from South Hinksey over Boar's Hill to Wootton and Besselsleigh. 

 On turning down Lake Street from the Abingdon Road, this tree is curiously centred at the end of 

 the vista of small houses and the Waterworks, and on crossing the ' Lake ' (City Reservoir), and the 

 Railway (by 'Jacob's Ladder'), is still straight ahead on the edge of the ridge. Passing over the 

 causeway ('Devil's Backbone') to South Hinksey, and going up through the crops (mangels, 

 potatoes, and barley) of the small holders, the tree is again centred at the top gate to the ' Happy 

 Valley '. The path continues past Chilswell Farm, rising over the hill (400 ft.) formerly used as 

 a Golf-course, and ahead will be noticed a conspicuously isolated tree, standing out against the sky, 

 in the hedge- waste about 1 50 yds. left of the foot-path. 



The tree is a tall, badly stag-headed Oak, pillared with epicormic shoots, the trunk 2 ft. in 



