BOTANY Isoetes lacustris, which are not now natives of Norfolk, and among them is the special Norfolk rarity, Naias marina, not found now in any other part of Britain, although Mr. Reid records it as fossil (p, 159) from ' Hert- fordshire Inter-Glacial ' and ' Glamorgan Neolithic ' deposits. As Mr. Reid writes (p. 35) : 'As far as the plants now inhabiting Britain are concerned history begins with the Cromer Forest Bed, all before is prehistoric and speculative.' Norfolk (and Suffolk) can claim the earliest flora at present determinable in Britain. In the Early Glacial period which followed, Mr. Reid records (p. 52) as being found on the Norfolk coast, Betula nana and Salix polaris, two very characteristic species of arctic flora, the former still remaining as far south as Northumber- land, but the latter, once abundant even in the south of Devonshire, now no longer remaining in Great Britain though it still exists in Scandinavia. How the existing flora was developed after the Glacial period had passed away must in the present state of our knowledge of topographical botany be only matter of conjecture and hypothesis. Norfolk has been called the ' meeting-place of north and south,' and surely a county in which Andromeda polifolia and Microcala Jiliformis meet justly merits this title. There do not appear to be any means of comparing accurately the respective floras of Norfolk and the adjoining counties of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire ; for this purpose lists up to the present date and based on the same nomenclature and division of species would be required. Our table of species is based on the London Catalogue of 1895, while Dr. Hind's Flora of Suffolk is dated 1889, and Professor Babington's Flora of Cambridge was published in i860. But from these floras compared with Topographical Botany, 1883, it is possible to indicate a few salient points of difference. Suffolk has between sixty and seventy miles of open sea coast, comparing not unfavourably in this respect with Norfolk, and in addition the estuaries of the rivers Stour, Orwell, Deben and Aide, whilst Cambridgeshire has only one side of a part of the estuary of the Nen. Cambridgeshire is thus at a disadvantage as to number of maritime plants, but it has (or had) one which is absent from Suffolk, viz. : Statice reticulata. Suffolk has Lathyrus maritimus and Diotis maritima (extinct V) which are absent from Norfolk, whilst Norfolk has Sonchus angustifolius, Statice auriculafolia and S. reticulata, Polypogon Monspeliensis and P. littoralis and Ammophila baltica, all of which are absent from Suffolk. Norfolk has the following, all absent from both Suffolk and Cam- bridgeshire, Draba muralis, Lathyrus montanus (?), Sedum rupestre, Crepis paludosa, Andromeda polifolia, Pyrola minor, Microcala fliformis, Teucrium Chamadrys, funcus acutus, Naias marina, Eriophorum vaginatum, Carex paradoxa, C. ligerica and C. trinervis, Lycopodium Selago and Lychnothamnus stelliger. Suffolk has, absent from Norfolk and Cambridgeshire, Genista pilosa, Vicia lutea, Orobanche caryophyllacea, Scrophularia umbrosa, Utricularia neglecta. Orchis hircina, Damasonium stellatum (extinct) and Anthoxanthum Puellii. 43
