S25 
AN ACCOUNT OF SOME OF THE 
RARER PLANTS FOUND IN AND AROUND 
SPILSBY, NORTH LINCOLNSHIRE. 
ji Tc BURGESS, LERLCP, EES, 
Spilsby. 
THE work of a busy medical man in a country practice offers special 
facilities for the observation of the indigenous flowers abounding 
within his botanical district, which is the ten-mile radius surrounding 
the place where he dwells. I myself can vouch that many a journey, 
otherwise weary and monotonous, has been made interesting and 
Profitable by allowing the thoughts to be attracted to these beautiful 
wildings of nature. For the past fifteen years I have, in a quiet sort 
of way, been observing and recording the various natural phenomena 
of the district, such as the arrival and departure of the migratory 
birds, the advent of insects, the first opening of flowers, and all the 
peculiar freaks of nature in the floral and animal world. 
What is more to the point in the present paper, I have ever been 
on the look-out for our less common plants and unrecorded varieties. 
Altogether I have observed nearly 450 species and varieties, and 
_ these I have carefully painted i in water-colours from living specimens. 
_ The collection formed in this manner has received very flattering 
‘Rotice from the many naturalists who have inspected it, and this has 
Prompted me to publish the following list. It consists of a selected 
hundred of the rarer plants, most of which are found in the Spilsby 
district, but in order to include specimens from the shore and 
_ estuaries, the area has been extended another five or six miles in 
. a direction chiefly N.E., E., and S.E. In choosing this number 
ao i Bales pleased to find that some of them are still ‘ first records,’ which _ 
& remarkable, considering the many years I have delayed in 
_ Surprisingly full of ‘new records.’ 
__ The Spilsby district, I ought to say, ‘oie special fwellies to the 
turalist and botanist, on account of its diversity of configuration 
oo il. It is made up of wold, with both sand and chalk oindiag 
. tion ; of fen—peat-—with its artificial drains; of marsh—silt—with 
its innumerable watercourses and, allowing for an extended area © 
eastward, of shore, with its boundary of sand and shingle ; and lastly, 
__ Of estuary, with its stretch of muddy flats; all these replete with 
3 pes: life, more or less peculiar, of their own. : 
publi hing and the late date of Mr. Lees’ ‘Outline Flora,’ which i . . as 
not claim to say actually PEE every” oe : -o 
collection, as I have | n much assisted by the efforts 
