THE FLORA OF LEICESTERSHIRE 27 
calluna heath, with whortleberry and ling forming hummocks on high 
ground, with heath hair grass, mat grass, and purple moor grass, 
etc., as at High Sharpley, gradually being dominated by bracken, and in 
process of elimination. Here is the only station now for the crowberry, 
Empetrum nigrum, much endangered by quarrying operations, and petty 
whin, Genista anglica, a plant which has become very rare in the county, 
elsewhere recently seen only at Six Hills. For the rest the characteristic 
species resemble those of High Sharpley, occurring in different degrees of 
frequency, with birch and pine here and there, becoming locally abundant, 
and the same applies to contiguous tracts at Charnwood Heath, just above 
the Hanging Stone, where formerly grew the hare’s tail cotton grass, 
which was, no doubt, once dominant there, and probably helped along 
with sphagnum, to contribute to the moor peat cover of these ancient 
rocks. This peat layer has become so thin and desiccated that it can no 
longer support its characteristic vegetation—heather moor or calluna 
heath—and is now being further altered by the growth of bracken, 
calluna and whortleberry, with the absolute elimination here and every- 
where else on the higher ground of North-west Charnwood, of the purple 
heather (not seen since 1886), which was, no doubt, as common once as ling 
to-day in places. Much of this ground is now calluna heath or dominated 
by grass types and grass heath, siliceous grassland, with here and there 
holly, rowan, woodsage, seedling pines, Ulex, mat grass, purple moor 
grass, etc. Timberwood Hill adjoining, now planted up with larch at 
800 ft. on Felsitic agglomerate and Beacon beds, is of similar type, with, 
on the open moorland, whortleberry dominant, and bracken likewise here 
sub-dominant, and aggressively destroying the other natural vegetation, 
of heather moor, etc., which includes the other common species, heath 
rush, ling, heath bedstraw, gorse, mat grass, purple moor grass, 
heath hair grass, sheep’s sorrel, etc. Sundew once here has gone, like 
most of the other rare plants recorded in 1745-47 by Dr. Richard Pulteney, 
as found on Charnwood. This was largely, no doubt, due to the Enclosure 
in 1829, when great ploughs drawn by eight horses were used to fit for 
cultivation an area once forest or ‘ waste.’ 
Of woodland, Copt Oak at 700 ft. O.D., on Beacon beds, is a sessile oak 
wood, with sessile oak, birch, holly, rowan, and alder, with various 
forest Rubi, and in the ground flora bracken is dominant, but there is also 
much whortleberry, purple moor grass, heath hair grass, bog violet, 
soft grass, heath bedstraw, tormentil, heath wood rush, mountain 
fern (becoming scarce), bluebell, foxglove, woodsorrel, etc., and in an 
adjoining covert, oak-birch heath, with the two birches dominant, some 
sessile oak, bracken, buckler ferns, ling ; in swampy, peaty places, creeping 
forget-me-not, marsh willow-herb, hard fern, bell heather, purple 
moor grass, marsh pennywort, etc. 
Swithland Wood, at about 300 ft. O.D., partly on Keuper Marl, 
surrounding the Swithland Slates, is a damp oakwood, or oak hazel, with 
bluebell, great wood rush, a little bracken, hazel, cow wheat, dog’s 
mercury, ramsons, wood anemone, yellow dead nettle, primrose ; and 
around the slate pits, on the Swithland Slates, birch is dominant, whilst 
amongst the slates in clefts grows navelwort (Cotyledon Umbilicus), 
