32
THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB.
Saturday, 13TH March 1915.
On this afternoon, the Geologists' Association paid a visit to the
Museum. The members were received by the President and Officers of
the Club, and a general demonstration was given of the plan and contents
of the Museum by the Curator and others.
The rooms of the Technical Institute were thrown open for inspection
by invitation of, and under the personal conduct of, the Principal, Mr.
J. R. Airey, M.A., B.Sc., the Departments likely to interest the visitors
being shown and explained by him. At about 5 o'clock the members of
the Association were entertained at tea as guests of the Club.
CRYPTOGAMIC FORAY IN EPPING FOREST.
20TH March 1915.
Undeterred by a sharp snowstorm in the early part of the day, a
score of devoted members met, as arranged, at Theydon Bois station at
11 o'clock, prepared to brave the elements in the pursuit of various
kinds of Cryptogamic plants. The small band was under the very capable
leadership of Miss A. Lorrain Smith, F.L.S. (who acted as referee for the
lichens), of Miss G. Lister, F.L.S. (who stood sponsor for the myxomycetes),
of the veteran Mr. E. M. Holmes, F.L.S., and of Mr. Sherrin, F.L.S. (who
jointly took charge of the mosses and hepatics). Mr. A. Bruce Jackson,
who was to have helped as conductor, was unfortunately prevented from
joining the party.
Almost immediately on entering the woodland, the President (Mr.
S. Hazzledine Warren, F.G.S.) discovered a prehistoric cooking-site,
as evidenced by the quantity of calcined flints ("potboilers") noticed in
the banks of a little Forest stream. Mr. Warren remarked that several
such sites were known to him in the Forest, usually close to the streams
for convenience of obtaining water for this primitive cookery.
The morning and afternoon were spent in rambling about the portions
of the Forest lying between Oak Hill, the main Epping Road, and Epping
Thicks, collecting meanwhile; and at 5 o'clock the party adjourned to
Oak Hill Farm for tea.
After tea, an informal meeting was held to discuss the day's finds, the
President being in the chair.
Miss Lister reported that, as she had anticipated, the number of
Myxomycetes recorded during the day had been extremely small, only four
species being met with. The months of March and April were invariably
the least productive of the whole year : several of the autumn forms
lingered on into January and even February, but after that ensued a
dull season until the warm spring rains quickened other forms into activity
in May. Miss Lister especially regretted that rigorous search for
Colloderma oculata about the base of a stump near Genesis Slade, where
this form was met with last December, had proved unsuccessful.
Miss Lorrain Smith reported a small yield of lichens, the most notable
forms being Baeomyces rufus, Cladonia florkeana, Lecidea granulosa
L. uliginosa, Peltigera polydactyla (not fruiting), and P. spuria. Miss