VEGETATION SURVEY OF NORFOLK. 
749 
Heath (No. 86), St. Faith’s Common (No. 209), and Newton 
Common (No. 163), natural regeneration of pine is taking 
place. Horsford Heath was formerly manorial waste subject 
to common rights ; the trees were suppressed as a matter of 
policy by the common-right holders, and villagers now living 
remember it an open heath. Since its allotment to the poor at 
the enclosure, the trustees have protected the seedling trees, 
and it is now open canopy forest, the small annual produce 
being divided amongst the poor. Abrupt changes in vegetation, 
so noticeable at Weston and Ringland, and to be seen wherever 
soils of markedly different texture are in juxtaposition, seldom 
show in more startling contrast than in a small wooded area 
north of Horsford Castle Hill, when approached from the east. 
The “Thicket” (No. 834) is a mixed wood dominated by oak 
standards, with a coppice of birch and hazel, grass and bracken 
giving tone to the floor. Walking westwards in the early 
summer, one passes almost at a step from the soft green tones 
of this wood to what is most appropriately called “ Black 
Park,” where grey peaty sand carries heather, with Molinia, 
Sphagnum, and Juncus squarrosus in the damp hollows, and 
Scots pine as the dominant tree. 
The only observed case of natural regeneration of spruce fir 
( Picea excelsa ) was in the Big Plantation, Felthorpe (No. 318). 
Presumptive evidence was furnished by the position of many 
trees which were growing where no forester would have planted 
them; actual proof followed in December, 1911, when many 
spruce, pine, birch and beech seedlings were seen a few inches 
high in a small clearing where young trees averaging 10 feet 
high were protected by netting. In the following April, when 
the netting was removed, thirty spruce seedlings were counted, 
but by November half had disappeared. 
Many well-grown trees occur in the hedgerows and planta- 
tions. An oak near the four cross-ways between Weston and 
Lyng had a girth of 13 ft. 8 in. and estimated height of 90 ft. 
Oaks at Honingham and Lenwade had girths 19 ft. 4 in. and 
14ft. 4 in., and at Taverham a birch ( B . verrucosa) 9ft. Sin. 
at 3| feet from the ground, the spreading branches having a 
