Page:The New Forest - its history and its scenery.djvu/272

Rh umbilicus, Pinguicula Lusitanica, Briza minor, and Agrostis setacea. The "British" and "English" types are, of course, plentifully represented.

Looking, too, at the trees and shrubs which are indigenous, we shall find them also eminently characteristic. In spite of what Cæsar says, the beech is certainly a native, pushing out in places even the oak. The holly, too, grows everywhere in massy clumps. In the spring, the wild crab (Pyrus Malus) crimsons the thickets of Brockenhurst, in the autumn the maple. The butcher's broom stands at the foot of each beech, and the ivy twines its great coil round each oak, and the mistletoe finds its home on the white poplar.

After all, the trees, and not the flowers, give its character to the New Forest. In the spring, all its woods are dappled with lights and shades, with the amber of the oak and the delicate soft-gleaming green of the birch and beech. In the autumn, the spindle-tree (Euonymus Europæus) in the Wootton copses is hung with its rosy gems; and the trenches of Castle Malwood are strewed with the silver leaves of the white-beam.

To return, however, to the plants, let us notice how some particular families seem especially to like the light gravelly soil of the Forest district. Take, for instance, the St. John's-worts, of which we have no less than six, if not more varieties. The common perforated (Hypericum perforatum) shines on every dry heath, and the square-stalked (quadrangulum) in all the damp boggy places. The tutsan (Androsæmum) is so common round Wootton that it is known to all the children as "touchen 254