©riginal Jlrticlcs. 



LINCOLNSHIRE COAST PLANTS. 



By the Rev. W. Fowler, M.A. 



Were we to make a pilgrimage round the coast of Great Britain, we 

 should in all probability come to the conclusion, that the Lincolnshire 

 portion thereof was in most respects less inviting than any other. No 

 one but a naturalist cares to investigate muddy flats and barren sand- 

 hills, or to walk for miles at the foot of sloping banks, artificially 

 made for the purpose of protecting the land behind them from being 

 overflowed by the sea. Anything more dreary to a lover of fine 

 scenery can hardly be imagined ; and from Grimsby to the border of 

 Norfolk there is nothing else to be seen. Sometimes the sandhills 

 form the principal features, at others the banks and mud-flats, but 

 with this exception every mile, so far as scenery is concerned, is like 

 every other. To the lover of nature, however, no part of the coast is 

 without interest, and I therefore hope that the readers of the 

 Naturalist will be glad to learn something of the flora of a county of 

 which Mr. James Britten has said, " There is probably no county of 

 similar extent of which so little is known, botanically, as that of 

 Lincoln." (Paper on the Botany of Lincolnshire, in White's Direc- 

 tory for 1872.) With the exception of a few miles north of Skegness, 

 the whole of the Lincolnshire coast has, at one time or another, been 

 visited by the writer, and few plants reported in Mr. Britten's list as 

 growing there, have not been seen by him. These are Statice Caspia, 

 Spartina stricta, Grambe maritlma, Siletie maritima, Sagina maritima. 

 Lathy rus maritimusy Phleum arenarium, Ranunculus Jiirsutus^ Rumex 

 mai'iiimus, and Ituppia spiralis. All, however fexcept perhaps the last, 

 for which Babington gives " salt marshes in the south,") are likely 

 enough to occur. Statice Caspia is said to grow at Frieston, and no 

 doubt does, a specimen having been sent to me by Mr. Blow, from 

 Hunstanton, in Norfolk, at the opposite side of the Wash. Silene 

 maritima was seen near Cleethorpes by Dr. Lees in 1870, but it 

 cannot be plentiful on the coast, or it would not have escaped me. 



Having said thus much by way of preface, I will now give the 

 results of my own observations, dividing my list into two sections — mud 

 lovers and sand-lovers — and leaving it to be understood that, except 

 when localities are given, the plants are common all along the coast. 



I.— MUD-FLAT PLANTS. 



Cochlearia officinalis, south of Chenopodium rubrum. Salt- 



Wainfleet fleetby 

 C. anglica, do. Atriplex littoralis 



K S., Vol. iil, Apr., 1878. 



