Page:VCH Norfolk 1.djvu/94

 A HISTORY OF NORFOLK its bed soil, its temperature, its depth, its flow. A large herbarium may be made of these varying forms. The Characes have, as has been said before, one determined characteristic. They object to share their home with any other plant. ' All or nothing ' is their maxim. As soon as other aquatics begin to assert their existence in the ditch, drain or pool, occupied by Charas they retire, and only appear again when spade and shovel have effected a thorough cleaning out of the old home. The plants recorded in the following census have been verified by Messrs. H. and J. Groves, to whose labours and investigations we owe almost all that English botanists know of this interesting Order of sub- merged aquatics. DISTRIBUTION OF CHARACE^ IN NORFOLK Chara fragilis, Desv var. Hedwigii, Kuetz. . var. delicatula, Braun. — connivens, Braun — aspera, Willd var. desmacantha, H. & J. Groves — polyacantha, Braun. . — papillosa, Kuetz. . . . ? — contraria, Kuetz — hispida, Linn — vulgaris, Linn E SC (V E w E E E sc E SC E sc E E sc E sc w E sc w Chara vulgaris (continued) var. longibracteata, Kuetz var. papillata, Wallr. . — canescens, Loisel. . Lychnothamnus stelliger, Braun. Tolypella glomerata, Leonh. . — prolifera, Leonh. . Nitella tenuissima, Kuetz. — mucronata, Kuetz. — translucens, Agardh. . — flexilis, Agardh. — opaca, Agardh. SC sc SC SC W W W W W MOSSES {Musci) The literature relating to the mosses of Norfolk is extremely scanty. It is confined, indeed, as far as can be ascertained, almost solely to the following three lists : — (i) A list of mosses, with localities, in the Sketch of the Natural History of Yarmouth and its Neighbourhood, by C. J. and James Paget, 1834. (2) An unlocalised list of species in the Rev. Geo. Munford's List of the Botanical Productions known or reported to inhabit the County of Norfolk, 1864. (3) A similar list by Miss A. M. Barnard, compiled for Geldart's article on Botany in Mason's History of Norfolk. The two later lists are based very greatly on the first ; and Miss Barnard's list, though compiled many years later, adds very little to what is already recorded in the others ; for practical purposes we may therefore say that during the latter half of the century bryological investigation has been at a standstill. In fact, with the exception of a few scattered records, the only available material additional to these lists consists of two or three collections made within the last year or two, viz. : [a) A list of mosses collected in east Norfolk, in 1898 and 1899, by Mr. W. H. Burrell, comprising about 50 species, {b) A collection of about 30 species (kindly made for the purposes of this article) principally from the neighbourhood of Hunstanton, by Mr J. W. Bodger, in 1900. {c) A collection similarly made by Mr. E. M. Holmes, mostly in the neighbourhood of Holt, in 62