BOTANY 



in all its localities, but Aspidium angulare is finely developed in some of the water-worn ravines 

 that are found in the Lickey district. 



The more common ferns of Britain are very abundant, especially Nephrodium Filix-mas, 

 Polypodium vulgare, and Pteris aquilina. Polypody sometimes fringes in great quantities the 

 banks of the deep-cut lanes in the red sandstone, and bracken grows to a great height in many 

 of the woods in the Severn district. Nephrodium dilatatum is common in moist woods, and 

 Nephrodium spinulosum occurs frequently in coppices on drier soil. The lady-fern, Asplenium 

 Filix-fcemina, is frequently found in such damp places as it loves ; but the most widely diffused 

 fern in the county is the male-fern, Nephrodium Filix-mas. Ophioglossum vulgatum is common 

 in the upland meadows of the Lickey district, and is fairly abundant elsewhere. Botrychium 

 Lunaria has also been recorded in every district. This fern formerly grew in quantity and 

 very finely on the upper Lickey, but disappeared ; it has just been rediscovered in its former 

 locality after an absence of twenty-three years. It exists also in other places in the same 

 neighbourhood. 



The Horse-tails are well represented in Worcestershire, Equisetum arvense indeed in 

 many cases too much so, being an ineradicable field weed, especially in the sandy districts. 

 Equisetum maximum perhaps attains its highest development in Fenny Rough in the Severn 

 district, where its luxuriance is truly tropical. Equisetum hyemale is reported in all the districts 

 except Avon ; in the Lickey district it has been discovered in two localities, and as well grew 

 formerly at Moseley Bog. 



Of the four club-mosses recorded for Worcestershire two are extinct. These are Lyco- 

 podium Se/ago, which formerly grew at Moseley, and Lycopodium complanatum, which was 

 gathered in 1836 on Hartlebury common, and of which the specimen still exists, though 

 it is now contended that it is not true L. complanatum. The stag's-horn club-moss, Lycopodium 

 clavatum, grows also on Hartlebury common, but is less abundant than formerly was the case. 

 It has also been found on the upper Lickey, in Bewdley Forest, and at the Randans ; and on 

 Walton Hill, in Clent, it maintained a struggling existence till 1882, when the turves on which 

 it was growing were taken by a rustic to mend a neighbouring hedge-bank. Lycopodium inun- 

 datum still occurs on Hartlebury Common. 



A COMPLETE LIST OF THE PLANTS OF 

 WORCESTERSHIRE 



OBSERVATIONS 

 The order and nomenclature of this list are those of Sir J. D. Hooker's Student's 

 Flora, 3rd edition, 1884. The numbers after the names of species are taken from the 

 London Catalogue of British Plants, 9th edition, 1895, and are intended to form a scale of 

 rarity, or frequency, in relation to Britain as a whole, expressing the number of counties or 

 county divisions, 112 in all, in which the species has been reported to occur, as set out in 

 Watson's Topographical Botany, 2nd edition, 1883. The letter C or I indicates that the plant 

 occurs in a wild state only in the Channel Islands or Ireland respectively. 



A, Avon District ; 5, Severn District ; M, Malvern District ; L, Lickey District. 



* Extinct plants ; t Doubtful for any cause ; % Not native ; § Require recent confirma- 

 tion. 



These marks when necessary are affixed to the localization of the plants in the several 

 districts, but must not be taken to be exhaustive in any sense. 



The numbers before the names of orders are those of the Student's Flora. 



This list of Worcestershire plants has been taken chiefly from Mr. Edwin Lees's Botany 

 of Worcestershire (1867), so carefully analyzed by Mr. William Mathews in vols. x. to xvi. 

 (1887-93) of the Midland Naturalist, with additions from the Transactions of the Worcester- 

 shire Naturalists' Club, and the Reports of the Botanical Exchange Club ; and from the 

 observations of Mr. J. E. Bagnall, Mr. John Humphreys, Mr. Carleton Rea, and Mr. 

 R, F. Towndrow, from all of whom I have received great assistance in forming this list. 



There are six plants marked in this list as belonging to Worcestershire for which no 

 districts are assigned. These are Arabis hirsuta, Cerastium pumilum, Cerastium tetrandrum, 



45 



