Wicken Fen. 
65 
Ridge” and outcrops of Cretaceous rocks, but is open to the south, 
where it was formerly continuous with Adventurers’ Fen, Burwell 
Fen, &c., see Text-fig. 9. 
Although lodes and drains bound the Fen, and also intersect 
it in various directions, Wicken Fen is still practically undrained, 
as it is only the surplus rain-water which finds its way via Reach 
Lode into the River Cam. There is no artificial pumping of water 
from the system of lodes with which the Fen is connected. It 
seems to be therefore generally supposed that Wicken Fen is still 
in a primitive condition. 1 But when we speak of “ primitive 
conditions,” it must be remembered that Wicken is one of those 
areas which, fringing the more permanent dry land, have alternated 
in past times between the two extremes of swamp and forest, with 
of course all kinds of intermediate stages. It is indeed probable 
that at all times the vegetation, like the physical conditions which 
have influenced it, has been in a gradual but continuous state of 
change. 
But whatever its exact past history may have been, Wicken 
Fen at the present time exhibits all the features of a drying-up 
marsh; in fact, as will be seen below, it may almost be said to be 
verging on another forest period. 
General Aspect of the Fen. 
Wicken Fen itself “ appears during most seasons of the year 
as a brown waste dotted with bushes ” 2 (see PI. IV., Fig. 1). In the 
winter, as but few of the plants are evergreen, practically the whole 
Fen acquires the nearly uniform dull brown of the dead vegetation. 
If visited in May, however, the vivid greens of the newly foliated 
bushes, rising above the herbaceous vegetation, afford a pleasing 
contrast to the sober browns of the sedges and grasses. As the 
summer wears on, the contrasts are subdued, for while the leaves 
of the bushes darken, the mass of the vegetation assumes a 
distinctly greenish tinge. But even now the general effect is brown 
rather than green, for the reason that the dominant plants are 
grass-like Monocotyledones, the leaves of many of which have the 
curious habit of early dying off at the tip, while the rest of the leaf 
remains green and functional. Before the sombre hues of winter 
are reached again, the prevailing browns may be relieved in autumn 
by the gold of the withering reeds, and the splashes of red where 
fruiting bushes of Viburnum , &c., rise above the dying sedge. 
1 C. Kingsley. The Fens, in Prose Idylls, p. 91 (1889 edition), 
also Marr and Fearnsides, l.c., p. 6. 
2 Wallis, l.c., p. 220. 
