THE
ESSEX NATURALIST:
BEING THE
Journal of the Essex Field Club
FOR 1892.
THE EXISTING FLOWERING PLANTS OF
EPPING FOREST.
By J. T. POWELL.
With Map, Plate I.
[Read September 28th, 1889; Revised 1891.]
BY this title I wish to imply that the plants existing to-day in the
Forest are but a remnant, though a considerable remnant, of
the former flora ; that, of the species recorded by Warner in his
"Plantae Woodfordienses" of 1771, and even of those noted by
Edward Foster and other botanists in the early part of the present
century, a good number are probably extinct.
How large is this surviving remnant ? This is not an easy
question to answer. One pair of eyes, occupied only on odd half
holidays, may, over this large area, miss many things. This is
perhaps why, although I have botanised over the district for the last
eighteen years, I have not found some fifty or more of the species
included in the tolerably full list given in Mr. Buxton's capital book
on the Forest. Still, something fresh turns up almost every season.
For example, not until 1889 did I find Rhamnus frangula, which I
had long sought, in E. Foster's station (Snaresbrook), where it may
still be correctly reported "not common."
Until recently I was in some doubt as to what might fairly be
considered the boundaries of the Forest for natural history pur-
poses, and confined my researches strictly within the limits of the
portions preserved to the public. Latterly, however, I have gone
somewhat over these limits, working down the slopes, wherever