xxviii Journal of Proceedings.
highest point, and away to the south stretched the flat region of the
weald clay with the undulating country of the Hastings sands, near the
Sussex border, in the south-east of the county. To the north of the
chalk downs, i.e., behind us, lay the London basin of tertiary clays and
sands, so that perhaps no county more temptingly suggested a geological
basis for its sub-division. There is, however, one great objection to this,
namely, 'outliers,' i.e., detached patches of tertiary clays, for instance,
scattered over the chalk hills. I have discussed the matter with Mr.
Beeby, one of the authors of the proposed Flora, and we are agreed that
it will be preferable to divide the county into eight districts, based upon
the river basins. We can hardly hope to obtain the same results in the
valleys of our small Thames tributaries that have been found in the
case of those of the great River Amazon, where each tributary valley has
a distinct flora; the flora of the Wey valley is not likely to be very
different from that of the Mole valley, but still I am not without hope
that when our flora is studied critically, when brambles, willows, and
other difficult groups have been properly worked, we may get similar
results on a small scale. We propose, then, to make eight districts,
grouped in two provinces, the first seven draining into the Thames and
the last into the Channel. The first district is that of the Blackwater in
the north-west, a tributary of the Loddon, and so indirectly of the
Thames. The large valley of the Wey we propose for convenience to
divide into an upper and a lower portion, mainly by that well-marked
narrow chalk ridge, crowned by the road between Guildford and Farn-
ham, known as the Hog's Back, which separates the weald valley from
the London basin. Similarly we propose to divide the valley of the
Mole into upper and lower parts by a line along the crest of those chalk
hills, through which, as we have seen to-day, the stream cuts its way in
a steep-sided gorge. The sixth district is that of the Wandle and other
small streams in the north-east of the county ; the seventh, that of the
Eden, which, as part of the Medway basin, is likely to yield some plants
not in the first six districts, whilst this result is still more to be expected
from the eighth, a small district in the south of the county, draining
into the River Arun, and so into the Channel. Of course, Box Hill is far
afield for dwellers in Richmond, but there is plenty for them to do
nearer home, and as there are few natural-history societies in the
county, it is their duty to help in this county work. Mr. Nicholson
could tell you of many interesting plants in the riverside ditches between
Richmond and Mortlake, and some years ago Mr. Britten published a
list of good things that he found growing on the parish dust-heaps of
Kew. Compilers of floras always find a difficulty in tracing through a
large county the relative abundance of the commoner plants. Plants
may be very common in one part, as is the little Squinancy-wort (Asperula
cynanchica) hereabouts, and quite rare elsewhere, and local residents can
easily help in this part of the work. The thunderstorms have prevented
us from seeing much of the rarities of Box Hill to-day, and we have not
found the almost unique Sage (Teucrium botrys), only known in England
from there and from a locality near Croydon. Nor have we seen many
of the orchids, of which no less than twenty species are found either on
or near the hill, but there is one other plant we certainly saw, one that
is seldom seen in such luxuriance, and that is of great interest—the
box. Whenever this tree was introduced, if it ever was introduced,
it was all cut down during the last century, so that there are no very
old trees there now, nor, as it grows very slowly, any very large ones.
The name of the place occurs, I believe, in Doomsday, giving his
name to a knight, and there is at least one other place in England,
Boswell in Gloucestershire, that takes its name from the box. On the
other hand, there is a story of the trees having been planted within the