Page:The New Forest - its history and its scenery.djvu/269

Rh Flora of a district, yet we might always be able, by its help and that of the latitude, to give the typical plants. Close to the chalk, the Forest possesses none of the chalk flowers. No bee-orchis or its congeners, although so common on all the neighbouring Wiltshire downs, bloom. No travellers'-joy trails amongst its thickets, although every hedge in Dorsetshire, just across the Avon, is clothed in the autumn with its white fleece of seeds. No yellow bird's-nest (Monotropa Hypopitys) shades itself under its beeches, though growing only a few miles distant on the chalk.

Still, here there are some contradictions. The chalk-loving yew appears to be indigenous. Several plants which we might reasonably expect, as herb-Paris, the bird-nest orchis (Neottia Nidus-avis), and the common mezereon (Daphne Mezereum), are wanting.

Owing to the want of stiff clay, no hornbeams grow in its woods, except, perhaps, a few in one or two cold "bottoms." No Solomon's seal or lilies of the valley whiten its dells. No meadow-geranium waves its blue flowers on the banks of the Avon.

On the other hand, the plants too truly tell the character of the soil. In the spring the little tormentil shows its bright blossoms, and the petty-whin grows side by side with the furze, and the sweet mock-myrtle throws its shadow over the streams. In the summer and autumn the blue sheep's-bit scabious and the golden-rod bloom, with the three heathers. In the bogs the round-leaved sundew is pearled with wet, and 251