248 
THE FLOEA OF HAMPSHIRE 
solely as a preventive measure of a sanitary nature that burning the 
dead, in the opinion of so many, already calls for serious considera¬ 
tion ; and in the hope that the subject will be received by this 
influential Society as one worthy of debate, I have ventured to 
bring it before you, that your thoughts may, as Matthew Arnold says, 
“ play freely round it,” untrammelled by prejudices unworthy of 
philosophers. 
THE FLOEA OF HAMPSHIEE.- 
Perhaps no local flora was ever more anxiously awaited than the 
Flora of Hampshire, which was known to be in preparation by 
Mr. Frederick Townsend. The extent of the county itself, containing 
as it does not only the sylvan recesses of the New Forest, with the 
extensive Sphagnum swamps and dry heathy uplands covered with 
bracken, almost concealing the splendid Gladiolus and handsome 
Club Moss, the extensive littoral tract, and the woods of Selborne, but 
also the chalk downs of the north and the Isle of Wight in the 
south—all these made it probable that the flora of this county 
would contain almost the largest number of species of any in Britain, 
and the high reputation of the author as a critical botanist, 
caused, as has been stated, a considerable amount of expectation. 
Nor on receiving it has there come any feeling of disappointment; on 
the contrary, one feels how much more has been given than even the 
most sanguine imagination expected, as will be to some extent shown 
when its contents are glanced at. In a book of over 500 pages, with¬ 
out superfluous matter, 1,114 species of plants found in Hampshire are 
enumerated, with 202 varieties, 28 species not sufficiently vouched, 
and 153 excluded species, so that the flora is unmistakably the 
largest in Britain. 
Mr. Townsend has divided the county into twelve districts, founded 
on the river basins, as follows:—1. The Trent and Stour district; 
2. The Avon ; 3. The New Forest; 4. North Wight; 5. South Wight; 
6. The Teste ; 7. Itchen ; 8. East Solent; 9. The Arun ; 10. The Wey; 
11. The Lodden ; and 12. The Kennet. With respect to these divisions 
4 and 5 (North and South Wight) would possibly have been clearer if 
put as 1 and 2, or 11 and 12, instead of in the midst of the mainland 
districts; and again, the south portion of 6 district is quite typical of 
the New Forest from which, however, the drainage rather artificially 
separates it. 
Districts 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 are subdivided into two, and No. 8 into 
three portions, so some idea may be formed as to the amount of work 
necessary to trace the extensive list of plants enumerated through all 
these divisions. Perhaps it may be suggested that the districts under 
each plant would have been more clearly shown if the river from 
The Flora of Hampshire, by Fred. Townsend, M.A., F.L.S. London; 
L. Reeve and Co., Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, Price 16/- 
