166 Natural History in the English Counties. 



jS'tilix pentandra - - Binley. 



Osmundfl! regalis - - Coleshill Heath. 



Botrychium Lunaria - Oversley Hill, Mr. Purton, 



Lycopodium clavatum - Coleshill Heath. 



mundatum - - Shores of Coleshill Pool. 



(Selago - - Bog below Coleshill Pool. 



Aspldium lobatum * - Allesley, Meriden, &c. 



Oreopteris - - Coleshill Heath, &c. 



TTielypteris - - In a boggy pit, Allesley. 



Pilularia globulifera - Coleshill Pool. 



Tetraphis pelliicida - - Allesley. 



Trichostomum fontinaloides In the Avon at Warwick and Bidford. 



Neckera heteromalla - Allesley. 



jHypnum loreum - - Woods, Allesley. 



dendroides - - Allesley, &c. 



fflopecurum - - Allesley, &c. 



j^ryum bfcolor - - Walls of Warwick Castle. 



aureum - - Shores of Coleshill Pool. 



Peziza epidendra - - Allesley, Coleshill. 



punicea - - Coleshill Heath. 



Nidularia striata - - Allesley. 



laeVis - - Coleshill. 



Reticularia Lycoperdon - Allesley, Coleshill. 



for the following reasons : — In some districts (e. g. in some parts of North 

 Wales, and in the neighbourhood of the lakes in the north of England) it 

 is the most prevailing kind, constituting, as it were, the staple growth of the 

 country, almost to the exclusion of the other species, Q. ^obur. In these 

 situations we should hardly suspect that the trees had been planted by the 

 hand of man, nor have they that appearance ; but, on the contrary, seem to 

 be the spontaneous produce of the soil in which they grow. I have also 

 observed, in various places, trees of the sessile-flowered oak, which, I should 

 conclude, must be of some hundred years' growth. In this county, which 

 formed a part of the woody and extensive district, anciently called the 

 Forest of Arden, the oak in question is chiefly to be met with in woods, 

 some of which almost entirely consist of this species, and exhibit evident 

 marks of great antiquity, as well in other respects, as in the large hollow 

 stools of oak which frequently occur in them. It is by no means an im- 

 probable supposition, that our Warwickshire woods may, at least in some 

 mstances, be portions of the original unreclaimed land, existing now in 

 nearly the same state as before the country was cleared to its present extent 

 for agricultural purposes. The reviewer, above referred to, very justly re- 

 probates the practice of cultivating Quercus sessiliflora as a tree, on account 

 of the comparative worthlessness of its timber. Where woods, however, 

 are periodically cut, and chiefly employed as copse, and the oak poles (with 

 the exception of such samplers as are left for timber) felled at about twenty 

 years' growth for the use of the coal pits, the sessile-flowered oak, as being 

 of quicker and cleaner growth, answers the purpose well, and is perhaps pre- 

 ferable to the other. So at least our woodmen would argue, who have a 

 common saying among them, that " a quick ninepence is better than a slow 

 shilling." I will only add, that this spurious species will attain to a very 

 large size, and is extremely handsome in its foliage. As a timber tree, how- 

 ever, its culture cannot be recommended ; and more especially ought the 

 " impostor " to be extirpated from the royal forests and other woods which 

 are to supply our navy. 



* Very common in this county, but generally confounded with the nearly 

 allied species, A. aculeatum, from which, however, it is quite distinct. Ray's 

 St/nopsls may be usefully consulted on this fern. 



