207
Progress towards a Contemporary Bryophyte
Flora of Essex
By K. J. Adams and J. M. Adams
The Bryophyte Flora of Essex (Pettifer, 1968) has summarised
most of the available records for the period circa 1800 to 1967.
Apart from a few records made by John Ray in the late 17th cen-
tury, nothing earlier has been traced. Despite a comparatively
dense population and ready access from London, even today
virtually nothing is known, of the status of Essex bryophyte
species outside the well worked Epping Forest area; bryologists
have regarded Essex as a dull county and turned their attentions
elsewhere.
To alleviate this deficiency the present authors initiated a
mapping scheme in June 1967 with the ultimate intention of
producing a detailed 'present day flora'. This will be of particular
historical interest as recent developments in Essex are leading to
the wholesale destruction of the remaining habitats of the more
interesting species.
Historical Changes Affecting the Flora
The 400 year Roman occupation must have seen the clearance
of considerable tracts of the primeval Essex forest, and some
attempts at drainage, but with their departure much of it returned
to a semi-natural state. A further period of extensive clearance
accompanied the rise in population preceding the first catastrophic
bubonic plague of the mid 14th century but much of the cultivated
land was abandoned as the population fell. By the late 16th
century the population had recovered its former density and
by the early 17th the 'Forest of Essex' had been pushed back to
the south-west corner of the county, most of the east and the
boulder clay areas being free of extensive woodland. A consider-
able proportion of the so-called forest (mainly Waltham Forest)
was also under some form of patchy cultivation.
The loamy readily worked soils of the chalky boulder clay
and the drift gravels of north Essex have been cultivated since
very early times, the low rainfall favouring the ripening of cereals;
whereas the heavy London clays of the south, originally heavily
wooded (predominantly with oak), largely resisted the plough,
although extensively cleared and enclosed for sheep pasture when
wool was in demand during the 14th and 15th centuries. With
the rise in corn prices in the latter half of the 18th century most
of the lighter soils of the south-east were also ploughed up, but
tended to fall out of cultivation as cheap corn began to arrive
from abroad, and a general decline in agriculture followed the
industrial revolution. In the last 200 years Greater London has
made enormous inroads into the remaining 'forest' area of the