The Presidential Address. 19
Blue-bells (Scilla nutans), Herb Paris (Paris quadrifolia),
Garlic (Allium ursinum), Wood Anemones (Anemone nemorosa),
Violets (Viola sylvatica), Woodruff (Asperula odorata), and
Kingcups (Ranunculus ficaria), would manage to live and
flower under the deciduous parts, or where some monarch of
the glen had succumbed to age or tempest. Such shade-lovers
as Solomon's-seal (Polygonatum multiflorum), Enchanter's
Nightshade (Circaea lutetiana), the Wood-sorrel (Oxalis aceto-
sella), or the Burdocks would flourish, Ivy and Sanicle may
have been as abundant as now, and the Green Hellebore still
more so ; whilst Honeysuckle (Lonicera periclymenum) and the
Bryonies (Tamus and Bryonia) would scramble towards the
light. Brambles (Rubi), Canterbury-bells (Campanula trache-
lium), Golden-rod (Solidago virgaurea) and Betony (Stachys
betonica) will flower under a tolerably thick shade ; but even
in a forest untouched by human hand there must have been
various open spaces, the close-turfed, thin-soiled down, the
natural heath, the spot trodden down and manured by the
herd of forest animals, or the swamp. As I have already said,
the area of down, for such plants as Clematis, Quinsy-wort
(Asperula cynanchica), Centaury (Erythraea), Gentian (Gen-
tiana amarella), Dropwort (Spiraea filipendula), Wild Thyme,
Bugloss (Echium), Perfoliate Yellow-wort (Chlora), Best-
harrow (Ononis), Milkwort (Polygala), Mignonettes (Reseda),
Barberry (Berberis), Vervain (Verbena), Juniper, the Clustered
Bell-flower (Campanula glomerata), the Pasque-flower (Anemone
Pulsatilla), Saxifraga tridactylites and our rarer Orchids, in
our county must have been small; but probably such flower-
ing plants as these were better able to contend against the
spreading growth of the social grasses when the downs were
not kept closely nibbled down by flocks of sheep, or the still
more destructive goats.
It would be just on the edge of the forest, where it
abutted vpon down or heath, that such plants as the vetches,
Bromfield l'a combattu dans le 'Phytologist' (1830, p. 796)...... Le
Mezereum est indique comme rare, ou assez rare, mais spontane dans les
bois en Normandie...... Je ne voit pas pourquoi il n'en aurait pas
ete de meme primitivement en Angleterre."—DeCandolle, op. cit., p. 684.