Page:A Short Account of the Botany of Poole.djvu/8

8 Longham, Cudnell, and Ensbury. These places afford the plants of woods, coppices, and shady places; and at Sturminster Marshall, Corfe Mullen, Wimborne, Canford, and Longham, the course of the Stour and its meadows yield the river and meadow plants. The soil covering the chalk in these fertile districts is shallow, the chalk itself appearing at Lytchett and Studland, about six miles distant from Poole. These are its nearest points. At a little farther distance in either direction, chalk downs and consequently chalk plants become abundant.

It remains to speak of the maritime botany of Poole. The harbour is a large sheet of water, which, though containing deep channels, is for the most part very shallow, the tide when it falls leaving immense tracts of mud which are covered with Zostera marina, Lin. In some situations where small streams empty themselves into the harbour, meadow land occurs, the lower parts of which are frequently covered with the tide, affording salt marshes with their plants. The rest of the shore of the harbour varies much, but in general it is muddy. There is abundance of Salicornia, the maritime grasses, and other maritime plants.

A piece of land at Baiter, which is an island at high water, on which stands the "Powder House," is very interesting in its botanical productions;—its vegetation consisting almost entirely of Chenopodium fruticosum, Schrad., Atriplex portulacoides, Lin., Cochlearea danica, Lin., C. anglica, Lin., Statice armeria, Lin., and S. Limonium, Lin. The Chenopodium fruticosum is very ornamental, the plants being very numerous: they are shrubby and evergreen and somewhat resembling the juniper at a little distance. They average two feet in height and are some of their very old, having very hard wood, about two inches in diameter near the root.

Poole harbour contains several islands, all of the plastic clay formation, which, though picturesque, and beautifully situated, afford little variety of indigenous species. The very