42 



Pawson : Mouiitain Plcuits at the Seaside. 



or on the mountains of the district which Hes between. The 

 presumption is ahnost strong- enough to form a conviction that 

 once upon a time these Arctic plants flourished in all this middle 

 reg-ion, and the geological record informs us that the necessary 

 climatic conditions once existed there : so that it has been fairly 

 concluded that, when the Ice Age had passed away, these few 

 northern plants now on the Alps were driven to these inhospit- 

 able heights by the grosser flora of a warmer climate. 



This comparison with the Alps enables us to theorise more 

 confidently about our own mountain plants, and here we are not 

 troubled with the question of the Alpine flora since ours is all 

 Arctic. The Swiss may settle their own quarrels. 



Once then, long ago, when the glaciers were grinding 

 boulder clay and playing at bowls with erratics, a climate 

 prevailed in this country not much dissimilar from that which 

 now reigns on our mountain summits, and the plants were 

 those that the climate suited. Then gradually a warmer era 

 set in and a larger and more robust type of vegetation began 

 to invade the lower and the richer levels and to press hard upon 

 the aborigines, who at length could only maintain themselves in 

 the ground least coveted. 



Plants are strangely like human beings. We seem to be 

 talking of the retreat of the Celts before the Teutons, and 

 I would fain find another point of resemblance between our 

 antique flora and these ancient ancestors of ours. The 

 Britons, flying before Saxon and Dane, took refug"e in the 

 high mountains of Wales, and some of them on the flat shores 

 of Anglesea, both remote districts uncoveted by the invaders ; 

 and we have with us now, as remnants of this old Arctic flora, 

 one or two plants very well known to botanists which seem to 

 have behaved in a similar way, for they exist at present only on 

 lofty mountains and by the sea-shore. You will search for 

 them in vain in the land that lies between. These plants 

 are : — Cochlea n'.a officinalis, Si/e/ie luaritima, Armeria inavitima , 

 and Phi nf ago maritiuia. 



I cannot find any likeness in the plants themselves which 

 might explain their association in such diff"erent positions. No 

 two of tliem are of one family, or even of the same order. The 

 Plantain and the Thrift, both small herbs whose grass-like leaves 

 are all radical, are the most alike, and they often grow together 

 on the edges of sea-cliffs as turf-plants. On a muddy rocky 

 shore the Thrift will grow down to high water mark, while on 



Naturalist, 



