Page:The New Forest - its history and its scenery.djvu/271

Rh blossoms. The beautiful maiden's-hair fern, once so plentiful on the neighbouring coast of the Isle of Wight, is also from the same cause wanting.

Still, great beauty blooms on the Forest streams and shores. In the latter part of the summer, the mudbanks of the Beaulieu river are perfectly purple with the sea-aster, whilst the sea-lavender waves its bright blue crest among the reed-beds washed over by every tide.

The valley of the Avon is characterized, as may be expected, by the commoner species, which are to be found in such situations. Here, and in the adjoining cultivated parts, which once were more or less a part of the Forest, we find the soap-wort (Saponaria officinalis) and the thorn-apple (Datura Stramonium), and those colonists which always harbour close to the dwellings of man. Other considerations remain. The situation and climate of the New Forest, of course, have a great effect on its plants. The two myrtles and the sweet-bay grow under the cliffs of Eagleshurst, close to the Solent, unhurt by the hardest frosts. The grapes ripen on the cottage-walls of Beaulieu nearly as early as in Devonshire. I have seen the coltsfoot in full blossom, near Hythe, on the 27th of February; and the blackthorn flowers at Wootton on the 3rd of April.

The area of the New Forest comes under Watson's Subprovince of the Mid-Channel, on the Southern belt of his Inferagrarian zone. Its position lies exactly half-way between his Germanic and Atlantic types. The former shows itself by Dianthus Armeria, and Pulicaria vulgaris, growing near Marchwood and Bisterne. The latter by such examples as Cotyledon 253