MR. W. G. CLARKE’S BOTANICAL NOTES FROM BRECKLAND. 15 
Orchis latifolia, L., Molinia varia, Schrank (in abundance), 
and Equisetum limosum, Sm., 3 feet high. The flora of 
Bio’ Norton and Thelnetham fens appeared to be very 
similar to the fenny portion of Hinderclay, Poterium officinale. 
Hook., 3 feet high, and Pinguicula vulgaris being noted on the 
former. 
With regard to trees in Breckland, owing to the fact that 
until within the last 150 years it was for the most part an 
almost treeless waste, there is a vague idea that the soil is 
unsuitable for timber. On typical sandy soil, however, on 
West Harling Common, I measured a bifurcated oak, of which 
one trunk two feet from the ground was 17 feet 8 inches in 
circumference, and the other n feet 8 inches ; a beech by the 
roadside in Shadwell Forest, -z\ miles from Thetford, 16 feet 
3 inches in circumference three feet from the ground, and 
another 15 feet 9 inches ; and a Scotch fir (Pinus sylvestris), 
one-third of a mile south-west of Little Lodge Farm, Santon 
Downham, had a girth of 16 feet two feet from the ground, 
with six huge limbs each as big as an ordinary tree, towering 
to a height of over 60 feet.* On oaks at Santon and Santon 
Downham we noticed man}^ leafy-bud galls produced by 
a Wasp, Aphilothrix genuine, with which the trees seemed 
to be infested. 
Mr. W. H. Burrell, F.L.S., has supplied me with a list of 
the mosses and liverworts he found in the district, to the 
number of forty-two. Of these the following eleven had not 
previously been recorded for West Norfolk : — Grimmia 
apocarpa, Hedw., on brick, St. Helen’s well, Santon ; Tortula 
papillosa, Wils., Thetford and Kilverstone ; Orthotrichum 
Lyellii, Hook & Tayl., Hargham ; Orthotrichum diaphanum, 
Schrad, Hargham and Mount Ephraim, Weeting ; 
* Dr. Augustine Henry, Reader in Forestry at Cambridge University, 
tells me (in hit.) that the only records he possesses of larger trees of 
this species are — (1). At Blickling, Norfolk, in 1907, 96 ft. high, and 
17 ft. 1 in. in girth. (2). At Guiscilan, Inverness-shire, in 1907, 54 ft. 
high, and 15 ft. 7 in. in girth. (3). At Branshell Park, Hants, 80 ft. 
high, and 16 ft. girth. Girths are taken at 5 ft. from the ground, an 
impossibility in the Santon Downham specimen, because of its branching. 
