Page:VCH Northamptonshire 1.djvu/84

 A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE Of the plants found in between forty and sixty Watsonian vice- counties, besides the maritime and mountain species which are necessarily absent, we lack many, the most noticeable of which omissions, from their occurrence in one or more of the bordering counties, we will now con- sider. The white-flowered buttercup [Ranunculus Lenormandi), a peat- loving species, occurs in Leicester and Warwick ; the Deptford pink (Dian- thus Armeria), found in Oxford, Bucks and Warwick ; the maiden pink (D. deltoides) occurs in Beds, Hunts, Cambs, Lincoln, Leicester and Oxford, but possibly introduced to the latter county ; the small vetch (Vicia lathyroides) very likely occurs, as it is recorded for all the bordering counties ; the small gorse {JJlex Gallh), found in Warwick, commonly about Charnwood in Leicestershire, and rarely in Oxford ; the mountain cranesbill {Geranium syhaticum), reported formerly from Warwick ; the long-leaved sundew {Drosera longifolia or intermedia^, known in peat bogs in Bucks, Beds, Hunts and Lincoln, and formerly in Cambridge ; the celery [Apium graveolens), a semi-maritime species found occasionally native inland as in Oxford, Beds, Bucks and Cambridge ; the chamomile [Anthe- mis nobilis) frequents moist heathy places, and is native to Bucks, Oxford (very rarely), Warwick (very local), Leicester, Beds and Cambridge ; the sedge (Carex diandra or teretiusculd), a native of peaty pools, recorded as a very local plant in Warwick, Cambridge and Leicester ; the club- moss [Lycopodium inundatum), found on black peaty places, and recorded for all the bordering counties with the exception of Oxford ; the alpine club-moss (L. alpinum) formerly grew near the sea-level in north Lin- colnshire ; and Selaginella selaginoides formerly occurred in the same county. There are many causes which prevent the flora of Northampton- shire from being a rich one, one of the chief of these being the great extent of the county which is under cultivation. Probably no other county except Middlesex, with its enormous growth of houses, has so small an acreage of commons or waste ground. The enclosure of the commons, those happy hunting grounds for the naturalist, is nearly com- plete, and in almost all cases except Dallington Heath and Harleston Firs the condition of vegetation has been very greatly changed. The woodlands are now said to cover 25,000 acres, but this is small as com- pared with what the great forests of Whittlebury, Salcey, Yardley Chase, Rockingham, Brigstock, Morehay and Bedford Purlieus once were. Not only is the acreage of these woods much diminished, but the character of the woodland has been changed. A great portion now consists only of blackthorn thickets, or plantations of small trees, and of larch, which make excellent game and fox coverts, but have a singularly unvarying lower vegetation, and it is chiefly with nettles, herb mercury or the creeping dog rose that so much of the ground in these thickets is now covered. It is only in the remains of the older woods, as in Whittlebury, Bedford Purlieus, Geddington or Yardley Chase that any great variety of woodland plants is to be found. The absence of heaths is almost complete, and where they exist it 50