2 FLORA OF THE LAKE DISTRICT. 



tion. By a ' Colonist' is meant a well-established weed of 

 corn-fields and arable land ; by a ' Denizen,' a plant that now 

 looks quite wild, but may perhaps have been originally intro- 

 duced by human agency ; and by an ' Alien,' a species estab- 

 lished less thoroughly, which, without doubt, has strayed from 

 cultivation. The fault of botanists of small experience, or 

 sometimes of small conscientiousness, is, that in making local 

 catalogues they swell their lists by mixing up these Aliens, 

 which are often extremely fugitive in their stations, and 

 placing them on a level with the really wild plants. As all 

 readers of Winch and Watson and the old series of the 

 ' Phytologist ' are well aware, in the Lake district perhaps more 

 than anywhere else in the country, confusion has been made 

 in this way. 



Maritime and Xerophilous Plants. — A considerable number 

 of plants grow only on the seashore. These I have indicated 

 by inserting the word ' Maritime ' after the class of citizenship. 

 A certain number of others are almost restricted to the lower 

 limestone hills which surround on all sides the central slate 

 mountains of the Lake district. These latter are catalogued 

 as 'Xerophilous.' 



Types of Distribution. — The types of distribution, as worked 

 out by Watson, furnish a ready means of indicating the dis- 

 tribution of species through Britain as a whole. The types 

 are as follows, viz. : — 



i. British Type. — Species which are spread at shore-level 

 through the length and breadth of the island. 



2. English Type. — Species which have their headquarters 

 in the south of England, and become rare and run out in the 

 north of England or south of Scotland. 



3. Germanic Type.— Species that have their headquarters 

 in the east of England, and become rare or run out altogether 

 in the western counties. 



4. Atlantic Type.— Species that have their headquarters in 

 Wales and the west of England, and run out eastward. 



