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ESSEX FIELD CLUB: REPORTS OF MEETINGS.
BOTANICAL RAMBLE IN THE EPPING AND COOPERSALE
DISTRICT. (487th MEETING).
SATURDAY, 11TH MAY 1918.
A bright sunny day, following a period of cold dull weather, tempted
some 30 members and friends out into the pleasant Essex country, now clad
in its fresh greenery of Spring. Ostensibly a botanical ramble, undertaken
(in the words of the circular calling the meeting) "for the purpose of studying
the Spring Flora of this beautiful District "whan comon is the May,'"
the expedition resolved itself into a general nature-study ramble in the true
Gilbert. White spirit, the birds, now in their full song, the flowers, the mosses,
the mycetozoa, and the insects, all claiming their votaries.
The party assembled at Epping station at 11.8 o'clock and at once,
under the guidance of the Acting Hon. Secretary, struck eastwards through
the fields, and along a delightful, though muddy, bridle-path, until the
"Theydon Oak" at Coopersale Street was reached, crossing a tract
cf country confessedly new to most of the company. The Lesser Peri-
winkle (Vinca minor) in flower, was growing at Steward's Green; and
many flowers of Hawthorn, almost all proving to be the variety eu-oxy-
acantha, with two styles, were examined critically for varietal determina-
tion.
Ascending the winding road by Coopersale House and Church, past
roadside cottages with trim gardens, Coopersale Common was reached
soon after 1 o'clock, and lunch was voted imperative: this al fresco meal
being partaken of to the charming accompaniment of the songs of two
nightingales in the near bushes—"smale fowles maden melodye." In
the afternoon, the ramble was continued into Birching Coppice, where
large patches of Lily of the Valley (Convallaria majalis), just coming
into flower-bud, delighted the eyes of the botanists, and the ornithologists
were gratified by the abundant singing of the Wood Wren and other
songsters.
Two species of mycetozoa, Reticularia lycoperdon and Lycogala epiden-
drum, the latter in both the coral-pink plasmodium stage and with mature
aethalia, were met with, while the antheridia of Polytrichum formosum
claimed the attention of other members of the party. A nest of the
black ant was "bagged" as a great prize, and the protective resemblance
of the common grasshopper, Tettix bipunctatus, to the dry leaf frag-
ments and bare turfy soil which it frequents, was commented upon,
and specimens secured for the Club's museum. Burrows of the Tiger
Beetle larva were noticed in the sandy soil, and the pools on Cooper-
sale Common yielded the Bladderwort (Utricularia vulgaris), the moss
Hypnum aduncum, and other treasures, including various aquatic insects,
such as the voracious larva of Dytiscus, the Water-scorpion (Nepa), Whirli-
gig beetles (Gyrinus), and others.
On the way back to Epping town, the not-common caryophyll, Moen-
chia erecta, was seen growing in the grass of Epping Plain.
Tea was taken at the Thatched House Hotel at Epping. After tea,