BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 
19 
on the western side of the common, from which it is sepa- 
rated only by a few sandy fields, feeds and shelters the most 
interesting fern in these parts, and amidst a luxuriant profu- 
sion of the ferns already mentioned, as well as of Equisetum 
sylvestre and fluviatile, whose elegant fronds, “ mirnick 
dwarf Pine trees.” The fern to which I am alluding is 
Osmunda regalis, whose large and beautiful fronds — the 
nearest British approach to the palms of the south — rise in 
thousands in the interior of this otherwise uninteresting wood. 
I have not noticed that these ferns are much used in the 
neighbourhood for economical purposes. But it is well 
known, that most of them possess other useful properties 
besides that of preparing the soil for more perfect plants, a 
property which is common to them with the mosses and 
many other Cryptogamous groups. Several more northerly 
districts, however, exhibit these properties, and in many 
cases, not without an adequate reward. 
II. Monocotyledonous (or Endogenous) Plants. 
In this division, the grasses are the most numerous, as 
well as the more useful species ; and form, in all temperate 
climates particularly, the principal clothing of cultivated 
districts. 
The common, with its bogs and neighbouring woods, as 
well as the sandy and loamy fields which surround it, furnish 
a vast variety of British grasses. Indeed, there are not many 
indigenous species, fond of similar localities, that may not be 
detected here. 
In the meadows, the more favoured sorts are, Lolium 
perenne, Cynosurus cristatus, Dactylis glomerata, when 
kept well down by sheep, with some species of Agrostis, Poa, 
Festuca, and Bromus. Idolcus mollis, and Alopecurus pra- 
tensis, although very common, are not much prized. And 
Hordeum pratense indicates a cold clayey soil, not easily 
fertilised. 
In corn fields, the most troublesome grasses are Lolium 
temulentum, Alopecurus agrestis or black grass, and 
Triticum repens, or twitch, sometimes called couch grass. 
Clayey soils are particularly obnoxious to these weeds, from 
which no ordinary pains will free them. 
The Orchidem, in vast abundance, and in great variety of 
c 2 
