A HISTORY OF SUSSEX As regards the plants to be met with, it may be noted that, begin- ning from the Hampshire border, we have Stansted Forest and Charlton Forest, both to a great extent planted. In these we have striking patches of the rosebay [Epilobium angustifolium), and beds of the meadow thistle [Carduus pratensis). Stansted contains some of the rarest of our helleborines, and near Colworth, in 1885, I found the very rare lesser winter green {Pyro/a minor) growing in isolated patches. In St. Leonards Forest are the lovely ivy-leaved bell-flower {Campanula hederacea) and the bog pimpernel [Anagallis tenella). The columbine {Aquilegia vulgaris), both white and purple, occurs here, and the scarce intermediate winter green {Pyrola media) in considerable plenty. Large beds of the lily of the valley {Co?2vallaria majalis) are one of its features, and in sandy bogs are the small chaffweed [Centimculus minimus) and the least gentianella {Cicendia fliformis), with the least spike rush [Eleocharis acicularis). In the forest meadows occurs the pale narcissus [N. biforus), and in various places near Horeham grows the wild service-tree [Pyrus torminalis), rare westward. Ashdown Forest, which contains about 10,000 acres, was at one time an immense uncultivated tract, but it is now partly brought into tillage and partly broken up into separate forest districts. From its name it might be naturally supposed to be favourable to the growth of ash timber, but amongst the trees growing in some parts of the forest an ash is scarcely to be found,' while pine, beech and oak, some of the latter of extreme antiquity, abound. Here there were formerly many ironworks, and in the old Hammer ponds occur several very rare plants. In one of these at Buxted, in 1827, Borrer discovered the marsh isnardia [Isnardia palustris), previously unknown in Great Britain, and of this I have specimens taken from that place in my herbarium. He afterwards found it on Petersfield Heath in Hants, where it is now apparently lost by drainage. It has however been rediscovered in Hants, and although now considered lost in Sussex, it is to be hoped that therein also it may be met with afresh. Sussex and Hants are the only counties in which it has as yet been found. In the Forest the raspberry {Rubus Idceus) occurs in quantity, undoubtedly wild. Worth, Tilgate, and Dallington Forests were all to a great extent denuded of their timber by the Sussex ironworks. On the shore of the great pond at Tilgate Borrer found the hexandrous waterwort {Elatine hexandra), one of the scarcest species in our flora ; the plantain shoreweed {Litorella lacustris) occurs at Piltdown ; and in Tilgate Forest we have the beech fern {Poly- podium Phegopteris), and three of the club mosses {Lycopodium clavatum, L. inundatum and h. Selago). Waterdown Forest approaches the border of Surrey, and here may be sought the bristle-leaved bent grass {Agrostis setacea), the wood small reed {Calamagrostis setacea), and the white beak rush (Rhyncospora alba). In my Flora of Sussex I instituted a comparison with it and that of the adjacent counties of Hants, Kent and Surrey, which need not here ' Rev. E. Turner, S.A.C. xiv. 39. 50
