BOTANY II.— THE NORTH-CENTRAL DIVISION This division designated by * iVC ' in the tables of species is bounded on the east by a line drawn from Norwich to Cromer, and on the west and south by lines from Norwich to Swaffham, and from Swaffliam to Burnham Deepdale and the sea; differs in its character from the Eastern Division — it has no broads and but few freshwater marshes — but it contains long stretches of salt marsh, and here and there still retains boggy heaths, mostly commons, which shelter samples of the original flora, and it was largely from this kind of country before the enclosures took place that the plants were obtained that made Norfolk remarkable as a county in the writings of the botanists of the later part of the last and early portion of the present century. The quantity of this boggy land is continually decreasing, and it has happened to the writer on revisiting after an interval of a few years a locality of this description to find — instead of sundews (all three species), butterwort, Parnassia, dwarf willows and other marsh plants — a fine crop of corn ready for the harvest. The salt marshes, which commence at Weybourne where the cliffs end, extend through- out this and the Western Division with occasional breaks (the most remarkable of which is the celebrated Red Chalk cliff of Hunstanton) all the way to Lynn, have a special vegetation of their own — acres of sea-lavenders, crabgrass {Atriplex portulacoides), Salicornia, Suceda and Juncus. There are also three remarkable grasses : Polypogon monspeliensh, P. littoralis and Spartina stricta. The sea-lavenders are of three species : Statice Limonium, S. auricultefoUa and S. reticulata ; S. Limonium appears in two forms, the type and the variety pyramidalis, Syme — this variety flowers about three weeks later than the type, and seems, in this division at all events, to have been mistaken for S. rariflora. At Wells occurs the curious variety or form of Sonchus arvensis, S. angustifi/ius, Mey., which was first found here in Great Britain ; it also grows on the opposite coast of Holland. At Stifflcey there is plenty of Scrophularia vernalis. At Holkham Gnaphalium luteo-alhum^ Linn., is well established, and Erythraa pulchella from one to eight inches in height, according as it grows on dry sand or in marsh, abounds. Suaeda fruticosa at Cley forms a thicket giving first shelter to flocks of small migrating birds on their arrival. This plant is reported to have been brought hither by ship- wreck, and to have spread hence along the coast. Wherever loose sand occurs it is bound together by grasses, Festuca arenaria, Elymus arenarius, Agropyron (of several species), ' Mar- ram ' Ammophila arundinacea (which is often planted for protection against the sea) and Car ex arenaria. Juncus acutus forms large clumps in the westward portion of this division, but I have never seen it east of Wells, y. compressus grows at Holkham, and also a small inter- mediate form between this species and J. Gerardi, which last is common in brackish marshes all round the Norfolk coast, and an hybrid between J. acutijlorus and J. lamprocarpm has been found in small quantity. Glaucium Jiavum, Eryngium maritimum and Volvulus Soldanella are frequent just above high-water mark. On the sand between the actual beach and the brackish marshes, as for instance at Wells, are many species of Chenopodium and Atriptex, particularly C. rubrum and its var. pseudo hotryodes, and near the Watch-house is a large patch of henbane, Hyoscyamus niger, closely cropped by rabbits with whom it seems, spite of its poisonous qualities, to agree well. Frankenia Icevis also occurs but in small quantity, with plenty of Silene maritima. On the cliffs between Cromer and Weybourne there are two broom rapes, Orobanche elatior parasitic on Centaurea scabiosa, and O. purpurea on Achillea Millefolium. This latter is very uncertain, one year there will be hundreds, and the next hardly a single one. Silene conica is plentiful, and is mixed with Diplotaxis muralis sometimes so luxuriant as to approach the var. Babingtonii, Syme. At Cromer Mcdicago sylvestris was at one time abundant, but a good deal of the edge of the cliff on which it grew has been removed by ' improvements ' ; it was for the most part rooted in almost pure windblown sea-sand, and seems both by habit and the form of its legume to occupy an intermediate place between the true M. falcata, a weed of cultivated land in the southern part of this division, and M. sativa in the semi-naturalized condition in which the latter is often found. Scutellaria minor has been known in this division for from seventy to eighty years, but it is very capricious, sometimes flowering profusely and at others being difficult to find, although the locality remains unaltered. In the heaths which still remain unenclosed and untilled there are three gentians, Gentiana Amarella, G. campestris and G. Pneumonanthe (but G. baltica has not at present been I 49 »
