THE
ESSEX NATURALIST:
BEING THE
Journal of the Essex Field Club
VOLUME XXVI.
THE WATER VIOLET IN EPPING FOREST.
By GULIELMA LISTER, F.L.S.
THE frontispiece to the present volume of the Essex
Naturalist is a reproduction of a water-colour sketch by
my sister, the late Isabella S. Lister. It represents a colony of
the Water-Violet, Hottonia palustris, growing in one of the
Epping Forest ponds, and was painted about 1890, in early
summer, when the plant was in full flower. The pond is in
Gilbert Slade, north of the Snaresbrook road, and is screened on
one side by oaks and low hornbeams. It is one of a group of small
gravel-pit ponds in most of which Hottonia flourished at that
time ; throughout the year its rosettes of rich green pectinate
foliage could be seen through the clear water, while in summer
grew up the tall scapes bearing many whorls of pale mauve
Primula-like flowers.
A series of dry summers has led to the disappearance of the
Water-Violet from these little ponds, which are now almost
filled with the tall water grass, Glyceria aquatica, Reed-mace
and rushes ; but further north in the Forest, Hottonia still thrives
in many of its old haunts.
In the early copies of Richard Warner's 'Plantae Wood-
fordienses,' printed in 1771,1 no mention is made of the Water
Violet: the edition published in 1784, the year after Warner's
death, includes "Additions" to his list, by Thomas Furly Forster,
of Walthamstow, one of three brothers well known for their
interest in Botany"; amongst the "Additions" Hottonia is
recorded as growing " in marshy ditches near Lea Bridge, and
"Hilliers Quay" [where the Ferry Boat Inn now stands]; "in
"many gravel pits near the Windmill on the Forest" [this
stood near the Napier Arms, Woodford].
1 I learn from Mr. Percy Thompson that a MS. copy of 'Plantae Woodfordienses' now in
the possession of Wadham College Library, Oxford, contains a note by R. Warner recording
Hottonia for his district.
A