508 PREHISTORIC EUROPE. 



dwarf birches and willows — such a flora, indeed, as Mr. Pengelly 

 found in the clays of Bovey Tracey in Devonshire. And per- 

 haps the nearest approach to that flora which we find at the 

 present day appears in Spitzbergen, where, commingled with the 

 prevailing arctic or glacial forms, we find certain species which 

 range south of Germany (some of them even reaching North 

 Africa), such as Taraxacum palustre, DeC. ; Eriophorum angusti- 

 folium, Roth; Poa pratensis, L.; Feshica ovina,'L.; Cystopteris 

 fragilis, Bernh. ; Equisetum arvense, L. ; E. variegatum, Schleich. 

 This land-connection of England with the Continent continued 

 to exist long after arctic conditions of climate had vanished. 

 And thus the northern and temperate species had ample time 

 and opportunity to invade the British area in force. 



Edward Forbes, in his classical essay on the geological rela- 

 tions of the fauna and flora of the British Isles, 1 has mapped out 

 the plants into five types or groups, namely, 1, the Asturian 

 flora of the west and south of Ireland ; 2, the Devonshire type, 

 occupying the south-west of England and a portion of the 

 south-east of Ireland; 3, the Kentish type, developed in the 

 south of England ; 4, the Scandinavian type, almost confined to 

 mountainous elevations ; 5, the Germanic type, occupying the 

 eastern part of the British Islands, and extending into and over- 

 lapping all the other provinces. It is this type, indeed, which 

 gives its general character to the flora of our islands. The 

 Asturian type of Ireland is represented by only a few plants 

 which occur nowhere else in our islands. These are of a 

 decidedly southern facies, most of them being characteristic of 

 the coasts of Portugal and Northern Spain, although some occur 

 also in France. Forbes was of opinion that these plants had 

 migrated from Spain into Ireland, over a sunken land, in times 

 long anterior to the Glacial Period. But our knowledge of the 

 physical history of that period has greatly advanced since Forbes 

 was lost to science, and it is very doubtful whether, if he had 

 lived till now, he would have continued to hold the same view. 

 The arctic conditions of the last glacial epoch forbid the supposi- 



1 Mem. of Geol. Survey of Great Britain, vol. i. p. 336. 



