457 

 BOTANICAL NOTES FROM THE LANCASHIRE COAST. 



J. A. WHELDON, F.L.S., 

 Liverpool. 



Botanists will regret to learn that extensi\e schemes are in 

 contemplation for the further exploitation of the Lancashire 

 coast. Ainsdale is to be converted into a thriving- watering- 

 place, with a pier and extensive promenades, and connected 

 with Formby on one side and Birkdale on the other by electric 

 tram lines. 



Those who visited Southport during- the recent meeting- of 

 the British Association would sadly note how bricks and mortar 

 and dreary promenades had encroached on the flowery sandhills. 

 As a matter of fact, for some time now Formby and Ainsdale 

 have afforded better results to the plant collector than the, 

 classical Southport dunes. If the projected new watering-place- 

 thrives as well and grows as rapidly as our other Lancashire 

 coast resorts have done, another decade will witness the dis- 

 appearance of several plants from this, their last, stronghold in 

 the district. Those which delight in the drier parts of the 

 sandhills will no doubt linger for many years, but those 

 dependent oh the spongy, marshy hollows will soon disappear 

 before any extensive scheme of drainage. The most interesting 

 plants of the latter class are confined to a somewhat narrow belt 

 of ground, and as seaside towns are prone to extend mainly in 

 a thin line along the sea front, there can be little doubt that the 

 vegetation will be rapidly affected in an adverse manner. Field 

 clubs would be well advised to secure specimens of the rarer 

 insects and plants for the local museums before it is too late, as 

 appears already to be the case with Erythrcea littoralis Sm. and 

 Spiranthes aiitumnalis. Plants doomed to very early destruction 

 are Cochlearia miglica and danica, Scirpus rufiis and Chara con- 

 traria ; and Viola Curtisii is much less abundant than of old. 

 The following plants still grow, some of them in great abundance, 

 near Formby and Ainsdale : Pyrola rotundifoLia, Hypopitys multi- 

 flora, Cenhinciiliis mininuts, EiythrcFa littoralis and E. pulcJiella, 

 Epipactis paltistris and latijolia, Eleocliaris uiiiglumis, Scirpus 

 cernuns, S. caricis, and rufns, Carex CEderi, Eqiiisetiim varie~ 

 gatiun and Selaginella sclagiitoides. These aire all plants that 

 the proposed new conditions are bound to affect, as also the 

 curious manv-flowered maritime form of Paruassia palustriSy 



iqo^ December i. 



