Page:VCH Suffolk 1.djvu/86

 A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK As a county Suffolk may be said to be comparatively flat, falling away into marshes on the north-west and north-east ; what hills there are, are of slight elevation, and for the most part even the higher land is not more than 200 ft. above sea level. The greatest elevation occurs about 6 miles south-west of Bury : — Rede (420 ft.), Ousden (405 ft.), Depden (404 ft.), and Lawshall (347 ft.) — the River Lark rises at the last-named place. The coast line, about 50 miles in length, is also low with here and there moderate cliffs or sand dunes, as at Lowestoft Ness (the most easterly point in Great Britain), Kessingland, Easton Bavent, Dunwich, and Bawdsey. Coast erosion is very prevalent, Pakefield, Southwold, and Dunwich being amongst the chief sufferers. The principal rivers of this well-drained county are the Little Ouse and Waveney, separating it from Norfolk on the north ; the Stowe, dividing it from Essex on the south, and there are also the Gipping (known as the Orwell below Ipswich), Blyth, Deben, Ore, and Lark, all more or less important waterways. All these flow eastward except the Little Ouse and Lark, which find their way into the Wash. The lakes and broads of Suffolk cannot compare with those of Norfolk either in size or interesting features, and the lakes in the western portion have almost all been artificially enlarged, as Livermere (2 miles long) and Redgrave (46 acres). Broads of a brackish nature are Breydon Water at Yarmouth, a magnificent stretch of tidal water 5 miles long, and Lake Lothing (also tidal) at Lowestoft, 2 miles long, and separated from Oulton Broad by a lock. Fresh-water broads, some subject to inroads from the sea at excep- tional tides, are Fritton Decoy (500 acres), Barnby, Easton, and Benacre, all small broads, and Barton Mere near Packenham (12 acres). Thorpe Mere near Aldeburgh, formerly a lake of some thousand acres, is now mainly a rush-grown swamp and mud-flat. East Anglian botany may be well compared with that of low-lying Holland, at one time contiguous and now only separated by a shallow sea. If East Anglian plants are estimated at 1,350 species, and those of Holland at 1,480, about 1,120 species are common to both. The more or less Northern types, which are, or have been, found in Suffolk, such as Antennaria dioica, Scirpus rufus, and Carex limosa, occur in Holland, as well as the following species, which are almost, or entirely (*) confined to East Anglia (Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, and Essex) : — ^Silene Otites, Holosteum umbellatum, *Medicago falcata, M. minima, ^Lathyrus tuberosus'], Tillaa muscosa, Galium anglicum, Peucedanum palustre, ^Gna- phalium luteo-album, * Artemisia campestris, *Senecio paludosus, *S. pa/ustris, So/ichus pa/uslris, Melampyrum arveme, * Veronica •verna, V. triphyllos, ^V. spicata, 'Teucrium Scordium, Primula elatior, Scleranthus perennis, ^Herniaria glabra, Suaeda fruticosa, Atriplex pedunculata, Liparis Loeselii, Stratiotes a hides, * Carex ericetorum, Phleum phalaroides, "^ Apera interrupta, *Wein- gaertneria canescens, and Lastraa cristata. 48