Page:A Short Account of the Botany of Poole.djvu/6

6 perfectly spontaneously, add greatly to the beauty of these fertile tracts. Though there are no rivers very near Poole, there are at about two miles distant occasional small streams and two ponds or tarns, one at Parkstone, and the other at Creekmoor, the latter containing abundance of the beautiful white water lily. In all these situations the Scutellaria minor, Lin., abounds.

But meadow land is not so general a result of our springs as bogs, of which we have an immense extent, and all the varieties denominated moist heaths, turfy bogs, spongy bogs, &c., and in many parts there are large tracts of peat as perfect as I have seen in Scotland or Ireland. Between the roads to Longham and Christchurch, and within four miles of Poole, are hundreds of acres of peat; one of the most remarkable instances of which is to be seen on the former road, about three miles and a half from Poole, where it passes over the small stream of Bourne. There is here a deep ravine about half a mile broad, in which lies an immense quantity of peat, containing large trees in a bituminous state. The peat here is fifteen feet deep. In many parts of Longfleet, Hamworthy, and Purbeck, are large tracts of the same kind of soil. In all these situations the Rhynchospora alba, Vahl., and Rhynchospora fusca, Lin. abound, with many other of the Cyperacæ of which the most general is Schœnus nigricans, Lin. The heaths blossom freely in these districts, particularly the Erica tetralix, Lin., and the botany of them in general is very similar to that of the more northern regions. I do not mean to infer that the rarer northern plants are found with us, but that the bulk of vegetation in these situations is much the same as in similar soil, in Cumberland and Scotland, as for example, the two Ericæ and the Calluna grow in profusion, with the Melica cœrulea, Lin., and Myrica gale, Lin., of which there are hundreds of