THE EXISTING FLOWERING PLANTS OF EPPING FOREST. 9
Aira caryophyllea, Linn. High Beach.
A. praecox, Linn. Rather common.
Melica uniflora, Retz. Lark's Wood, &c.
Festuca loliacea, Curtis (non Huds). Walthamstow.
Lolium temulentum, Linn. Chingford.
Agropyron repens, v. barbata, Douval-Jouve. Near Epping,
and just outside our area near Chigwell.
A few evident Aliens have been met with during my botanical
explorations in the Forest.
Claytonia perfoliata, Don., has been established in one spot
near Walthamstow for quite fifteen years. It should perhaps be
promoted to the ranks of "denizen."
Geranium striatum, Linn., has flowered regularly for twelve
years under the cover of brambles. As it is not far from a house, it
is probably a garden outcast.
Amelanchier canadensis has to my knowledge been es-
tablished as long as the preceding, near Woodford. As its blossoms
are much pulled by children, it does not increase in size.
The two plants before mentioned, Stratiotes and Damasonium,
should also in my opinion be classed with these Aliens.
All true lovers of nature will strive to preserve from extermination
the floral and other treasures of our grand hunting ground. The
Essex Field Club has done good service in this way by again and
again raising its voice against destruction and spoliation. But the
Forest has not only suffered from the ignorant and selfish plunderer,
who plucks its blossoms only to throw them down as they wither, or
digs up its plants by the roots to languish for a short time in London
gardens ; it has been damaged, from our point of view, by those who
profess to conserve it. In a district whose flora and fauna depend
to a considerable extent upon the existence of bogs and ponds, over
drainage may do irreparable mischief. The pond-hunter is painfully
conscious of the loss of good things from this cause in the southern
part of the Forest, and most of the bogs have been intersected by
straight drains. In one of the best bogs in the centre of the district
there was, a few years since, an abundance of fine Drosera and a
little of Lycopodium inundatum. On visiting it a year or two after,
it had been drained, and I could find no trace of the latter; the
spot on which it grew was dry and hard. The "Sundews" too,