INTRODUCTION. xxii 
border counties, those counties are quoted, unless the plant is 
common and is found in all of them. 
1. The Stour district contains only about six square miles 
of country, in the extreme north-west of Oxfordshire ; it is 
bordered on the west by Warwickshire, on the north-east by the 
turnpike road from Brailes to Tadmarton Camp, a portion of 
which is included in it ; on the south it is limited by the turnpike 
road from Tadmarton Camp, by Mill Farm, to Holly Hill Farm, 
to the Warwick boundary. This small triangular district is 
drained by the Stour, which rises, at Stour’s well, from the high 
ground near Tadmarton, and runs thence westward to the county 
boundary, receiving near Temple Mill a small stream, which 
rising near Tyne hill, passes through Birdrupp and Sibford 
Ferris, and is itself recruited by another brook, flowing from 
Handywater Farm. The eastern side of this Stour district is 
formed by the escarpment of the Tadmarton range of hills, and 
had not the top of Tadmarton Camp covered as it is with the 
Northampton sands been included, there would be scarcely an 
interesting plant found in it, consisting as it does of an area of 
arable land (with the exception of a bushy common) entirely 
under cultivation. Tadmarton Camp, however, forms one of the 
richest tracts for the Botanist in north Oxfordshire. On its sandy 
soil occur Yeesdalia Iberis, DC, Filago minima, Gnaphalium 
sylvaticum, Filago apiculata, Ulex nanus, Ornithopus per pusillus, 
Avena precon, A. caryophyllea, A. flexuosa, Cuscuta epithymum, 
Hypericum humifusum, Galium saxatile, Rubus Idoeus, Sisym- 
brium thalianum, Cerastium arvense, Stellaria graminea, Sper- 
gularia rubra, Sarothamnus vulgaris, Rubus pallidus, Hieracium 
Pilosella, Erica tetralix, E. cinerea, Erythrea pulchella? Digita- 
lis, Euphrasia, Pedicularis sylvatica, Calamintha Acinos, Echium 
vulgare, Myosotis collina, M. versicolor, Sagina ciliata, Carex 
pilulifera, Sawifraga granulata, Hieracium boreale, Festuca 
ovina, and Agrostis vulgaris. Mentha sylvestris grows in the 
lane adjacent. 
2. The Ouse district isa small tract situated in the north- 
east of the county, about 8 miles long, and varying from 2 to 5 
miles broad. Its boundaries are difficult to describe, but 
roughly they may be said to follow a line beginning on the 
table-land about half a mile east of Somerton, and turning 
