CAREX ERICETORUM, AND PSAMMA BALTICA, IN ENGLAND. 1 7 
The earliest recorded is Teucrium scordium in Turner’s names ; 
i.e., “ The Names of Herbs,” by William Turner, 1548. In 
his “ Libellus de re herbaria novis,” 1538, not one of the 
28 species are mentioned. 
More particularly I have been much disappointed in trying 
to trace back the rare Fen species. In old accounts of the 
Fen-land there seems to be no actual reference to the vegetation 
as it existed before drainage was commenced. In the 
Chronicles of William of Malmesbury, written about 1200, and 
translated into English in 1596 by Sir Henry Saville, there 
is given a word picture of the Lincolnshire Fens : “ The fens 
were a very paradise and seemed a heaven for the delight and 
beauty thereof ; in the very marshes bearing goodly trees 
which for tallness (as also without knots) strived to reach up 
to the stars. It is a plain countrie, and as level as the sea, 
which with green grass allureth the eye. There is not the 
least portion of ground that lies waste and void there ; here 
you shall find the earth rising somewhere for apple-trees ; 
there you shall have a field set with vines, which creep upon 
the ground or mount high upon poles to support them.” 
Later (1799) a very different view is given of the state they 
had relapsed into. In Young’s ‘ View of the Agriculture of 
Lincoln ’ we read : “ There are about 300 acres of land in 
East Fen, where cranberries grow in such abundance as to 
furnish a supply for several adjacent counties. They are so 
plentiful that one man has got nine score pecks in a season.” 
A most interesting account of the Fens, by Mr. Southwell, 
will be found in the ‘ Transactions,’ pp. 610-630, 1884. 
Another similar interesting article from the pen of the late 
Mr. John Cordeaux of Great Cotes on “Lincolnshire,” in 
the ‘Naturalist,’ pp. 1- 15, 1886, where he gives a large number 
of references to the Fen literature. 
In the part of the ‘ Transactions,’ 1907-8, p. 534, by some 
accident all mention of Norfolk is left out under Scleranthus 
perennis. I here supply the distribution in the County. 
Norfolk E. Co. 27. 
Kelling. Rev. R. Forby, Bot. Guide (1805), 431. 
Alderford. Rev. K. Trimmer, FI. Norf. (1866), 53. 
VOL. IX. 
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