6 FLORA OF THE LAKE DISTRICT. 



alpinum and chrysanthum, and Thalictrum alpinum, have 

 their headquarters, and the highest springs of the main peaks, 

 bordered with Montia, Chrysosplenium, and Stellaria uliginosa, 

 and beds of such mosses as Hypnum commutatum, Bartramia 

 fo7itana, and Bryum pseudo-triquetrum, interspersed with 

 Cochlearia alpina, Epilobium alsinifolium, Saxifraga aizoides, 

 and Saxifraga stellaris. 



Zone 4 — Watson's Mid-arctic zone — includes the hill-tops 

 that reach over 2700 feet, that is to say, the summits of 

 Scawfell Pike, Scawfell, Helvellyn, Skiddaw, Bowfell, Great 

 Gable, Pillar, Fairfield, Blencathra, Grassmoor, and High 

 Street. Here there is nothing but bare rocky hill-top, with 

 a very scanty vegetation of any kind. The only two plants 

 which at the Lakes are characteristic of this zone are Salix 

 herbacea and Carex rigida, which grow on nearly all the hills 

 just mentioned, and are the two most decidedly arctic plants 

 of the Lake flora. A large number of the other boreal species 

 do not ascend into this zone at all, not because they could 

 not bear its climate, but simply because there are amongst the 

 loose piles of heaped stones no fit stations for them to grow 

 in. The Lakes are the only part of England in which this 

 Mid-arctic zone is represented. 



The following Table shows the statistics of the vegetation 

 of these climatic zones for Britain as a whole, and for the 

 Lake district as compared with the north-eastern counties : — 



