YORKSHIRE NATURALISTS' UNION, 5 1 



THE MOSS FLORA OF THE EAST RIDING. 



By H. franklin PARSONS, M.D., F.G.S., Goole, 

 Secretary of the Botanical Section. 



Of the three divisions of Yorkshire the East Riding has been, 

 botanically, by far the least thoroughly investigated. No writer 

 has yet arisen to treat of its flora as that of the North Riding has 

 been dealt with by Mr. Baker, or that of the West Riding in the 

 'West Yorkshire' of Messrs. Davis and Lees. To supplement 

 this deficiency is a work which may usefully be undertaken by the 

 members of the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union, and as a first 

 instalment towards it the following list of the mosses hitherto 

 ascertained to occur as inhabitants of the region has been compiled. 

 This catalogue however can make no pretension to anything like 

 completeness^ many parts of the Riding being as yet quite unex- 

 plored, and the remainder with few exceptions worked but very 

 imperfectly. The total number of species hitherto ascertained is 1 75, 

 about an average number for a lowland district, and almost exactly 

 the same as that (174) given by Mr. Boswell for Oxfordshire. 



The Moss flora of the East Riding is far less numerous in 

 species than that of either of the other Ridings, for not only is 

 the East Riding the smallest of the three divisions of Yorkshire, 

 but it presents the least variety of surface and elevation, and its 

 physical conditions are the least favorable to the growth of mosses. 

 It has no mountains, the highest elevation being 815 ft. above the' 

 sea, the climate is dry, and the surface in great part consists of 

 highly cultivated arable land. On the Chalk Wolds which stretch 

 through the Riding in a curved direction from the Humber to 

 Flamborough Head, the dry calcareous soil is little adapted to 

 the growth of mosses, and the alluvial and drift peninsula of 

 Holderness to the east has been but little explored. The most 

 favorable localities in the Riding are the belt of undulating lime- 

 stone country on the western edge of the Wolds, formed by the 

 outcrop of the oolites and lias, and the wet sandy commons and 



