96 DR. J. W, HESLOP HARRISON ON 



where reeds are very far from being familiar factors in the 

 landscape. And their novelty becomes only the more vivid 

 as their setting gradually passes from the gold of the spring- 

 time Marsh Marigold and Celandine to the lemon of the 

 Globe flower, yielding in its turn to a tangle of blues, pinks 

 and purples derived from Orchids, Scabious, Valerians, 

 Willowherbs, Ragged Robin and the like. These are 

 succeeded for one only too brief week by the delicately 

 moulded Grass of Parnassus with its greeny white, replaced 

 in the end by the yellow of the Fleabane. Hours could be 

 spent in describing all these changes, which I have followed 

 week by week as the year swung round, without exhausting 

 them, so I must hasten to a more particular description of the 

 plant communities. 



The Plant Conmmnities. 



An accurate mapping out of the various associations quickly 

 forces itself upon one as being of an intricate, nay even 

 impossible, nature, a state of aff'airs brought about by two sets 

 of circumstances. In the first place, owing to varied choice 

 of moisture conditions offered, coupled with the effects of 

 periodic human interference in the way of firing and cutting 

 the reeds, in many places other than the reed beds, dominant 

 species occur in every possible proportion mingled with 

 associates of diverse types and in equally baffling percentages. 

 The second disturbing factor arises from the fact that the 

 deep water of the lode is so sharply cut off from the marsh 

 by the embankment that one is at a loss in deciding whether 

 we are to regard the whole as one, i.e., the Marsh Formation, 

 or to look upon it as two, the reeds forming a definite element 

 of the Aquatic Formation. Although in all probability the 

 Reed Swamp is truly transitional, it seems advisable in view 

 of its standing constantly in a fair depth of water, added to the 

 obvious connection with the vegetation of the lodes, to treat 

 it as an essential feature of the Aquatic Formation. 



We have therefore to deal with two formations (i) The 

 Aquatic Formation, (2) The Marsh Formation. 



