Page:VCH Buckinghamshire 1.djvu/94

Rh (Hottonia palustris), the water starworts (Callitriche obtusangula and hamulata), the frog-bit (Hydrocharis Morsus-ranæ), the bladderwort (Utricularia vulgaris), the medic (Medicago arabica), the star of Bethlehem (Ornithogalum umbellatum), the dodder (Cuscuta europæa), and the barberry (Berberis vulgaris).

Dropmore Park has enclosed within its domain some very interesting botanizing ground, where the marsh St. John's wort (Hypericum elodes), the violet Viola lactea, the shoreweed (Littorella juncea), the marsh honewort (Apium inundatum), the sundews Drosera rotundifolia and D. longifolia, the horse-tail Equisetum sylvaticum, and other local species flourish.

Bulstrode Park, once the home of the botanist and patron of botanists, the Dowager Duchess of Portland, and where Doctor Lightfoot, the author of the Flora Scotica, was her librarian, has altered very much since that time. The old mansion, in the courtyard of which John Hill, the author of Flora Britannica, about 1760 noticed the small dodder (Cuscuta Epithymum) growing upon ' mother of thyme,' was burned down many years ago, but the ornamental waters have growing by them the yellow loosestrife (Lysimacbia thyrsiflora), the water soldier (Stratiotes Aloides), and the milk parsley (Peucedanum palustre), which are doubtless relics of the botanical collection made by her Grace. The old chalk pit near Gerrard's Cross, so well known to the seventeenth and eighteenth century botanists, is probably now enclosed in the park, but is very much altered for the worse, as a growth of grass has apparently destroyed the orchid Herminium Monorchis, which has disappeared, but the park still affords the hawkweed (Hieracium murorum), the bramble Rubus rudis, the calamint (Calamintha Nepeta), and the neighbourhood affords the broom-rape (Oronanche Rapum-genistie), the climbing bindweed (Polygonum dumetorum), the pink (Dianthus Armeria), the catchfly (Silene anglica), and the crane's-bill (Geranium pyrenaicum).

About Beaconsfield, Wilton Park and Seer Green occur the Solomon's seal (Polygonatum multiflorum), the wood-rush (Juncoides or Luzula Forsteri), the sandwort (Arenaria tenuifolia), the rose Rosa systyla, the eyebright (Euphrasia stricta), the hawkweed (Hieracium sciaphilum), the black spleenwort (Asplenium Trichomanes), and the charad (Nitella flexilis). Lepidium ruderale occurs by the roadsides, Chenopodium hybridum in garden ground, and Barbarea intermedia in arable ground.

At the historic Salt Hill where Sir Joseph Banks used to botanize and where he gathered specimens of the clover Trifolium subterraneum, which still grows there, with T. striatum and T. arvense, the buck's-horn plantain (Plantago Coronopus), the bird's-foot (Ornithopus perpusillus), the bur parsley (Anthriscus vulgaris), and till lately the brown-rape Orobanche Rapum-genistts.

The arable fields here are noticeable from the abundance they contain of the nettle Lamium hybridum, which is so rare in the greater part of the county. They also contain the parsley (Carum Petroselinum), the larkspur (Delphinium Ajacis), the goosefoot (Chenopodium polyspermum and C. murale), the grasses Panicum Crusgalli and Setaria viridis, the caraway (Carum Carvi), and the calf's-snout (Antirrhinum Orontium).

The meadows between Eton and Wyrardisbury have a considerable growth of the bellflower (Campanula glomerata), the great burnet (Poterium officinale, the dropwort (Spiræa Filpendula) and the grass Kæleria cristata.

The extensive brickyards at slough have much changed the surface of the sopil, and large quantities of street sweepings and rubbish are brought in from London and deposited here, with the result that a large number of adventitious species appear from time to time, and a few species become permanently established. The foremost of these is the cress Lepidium ruderale, which has spread for considerable distance, and less frequently the flix-weed (Sisymbrium Sophia), and the goose-foots Chenopodium opulifolium, C. ficifolium,C. Vulvaria and C. murale. Among the casuals noticed have been Coronilla varia, Setaria viridis, S. Glauca, Sisymbrium altissimum,S. orientale,Camelina sativa, Medicago Falcata,Melilotus arvensis and M. alba, Slavia verticillata, Euphorbia Esula var., Bunias orientalis, Lepidium Draba, Phalaris canariense, Linum usitatissmum,Cannabis sativa,Amsinckisa lycopsioides,Œnothera odorata,Datura Stramonium and D. Tatula, Pancium Crus-gali, and P. miliaceum.

The ranl luxuriance of Chenopodium rubrum,Polygonum maculatum and the Atriplices is a strikign feature of these malodorus heaps of rubbish. The railway has been the means of conveying the Oxford Ragwort (Senecio squalidus) into our area, and in fact it has now spread to Southall in Middlesex. A sedum (S. Cepæa) is said to grow near Bulstroed Park, where it is doubtless an escape from cultivation, and an Indian spiræa has naturalized itself near Stoke Common. By the railway near Messrs. Veitch's nursery the Californian Escholtzia has also established itself.

On rubbish heaps near Eton Mr Everiit has found Plantago arenaria, Asperula arvensis,