256 The New Forest : its History and its Scenery. 



bridges grows the common scale-fern, whilst in the meadows 

 of the Avon springs the adder's-tongue's green spear. 



Nor must we forget the brake, common though it be, for this 

 it is which gives the Forest so much of its character, clothing it 

 with o-reen in the spring ; and when the heather is withered, and 

 the furze, too, decayed, making every holt and hollow golden.* 



And now for some other plants, without reference to their 

 species, but simply to their beauty. On Ashley Common and 

 the neighbouring grass-fields grows the moth-mullein {Verhas- 

 cum Uattaria), dropping its yellow flow^ers, as they one by one 

 expand. In the neighbouring pools, as far as Wootton, the 

 blossoms of the great spearwort {Banunculus lingua) gleam 

 among the reeds. There, also, the narrow-leaved lungwort 

 {Pulmonaria angustifolia), with its leaves both plain and spotted, 

 opens its blue and crimson flowers so bright, that they are 

 known to all the children as the "snake-flower," and gathered 

 bv handfuls mixed with the spotted orchis. And the ladies' 

 tresses, too {Spirantlics autumnalis), shows its delicate brown 

 braid on every dry field on the southern border. 



Besides these, the feathered i?ink {Dianthus plumarius) 

 blooms on the cloister-walls at Beaulieu ; and the Deptford 

 pink {Dianthus armeria) in the valley of the Avon at Huckle- 

 brook, near Ibbesley. The bastard-balm {Melittis melissophylhtni) 

 flaunts its white and purple blossoms over the banks of Wootton 

 plantation, whilst at Oakley and Knyghtwood the red gladiolus 

 crimsons the green beds of fern. 



* Besides these we have all over the Forest Lastrea Filix-mas, and dilaiata, 

 and Asplenium adiantnm nigrum, and Polydichum cmgidare, with its varieties, 

 aiigustutum and aadeatum, found near Fordingbridge. INIy friend, ]\Ir. Rake, 

 who discovered angustatum, found also, in February, 1856, near Fording- 

 bridge, Lastrea spinulosa, but it has never since been seen in the locahty. 



