Types of British Vegetation

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1911 edition. Excerpt: ...shrubs are removed an herbaceous marsh association, consisting of most of the ground vegetation of the alder-willow association, is left. The increase of light increases the vigour of the herbaceous vegetation, which generally closes up, and resembles the fen association in many respects (see p. 230). Since this marsh association has not been specially studied, no list will be given. If alluvial land is drained, good semi-natural permanent grassland may be produced, which in this country is generally used as pasture, and is very characteristic of the low-lying alluvial flats bordering the slow streams. It has the vegetation of neutral pasture (see p. 85) with a preponderance of damp-loving species. Alluvial meadows cut for hay generally have a richer flora than alluvial pasture, presumably because the constant pasturing of the latter exterminates a certain number of species. The lighter alluvial soils are frequently used for market gardening in the neighbourhood of the great cities situated on the flood plains of the larger rivers. CHAPTER IX THE VEGETATION OF PEAT AND PEATY SOILS--MOOR, FEN AND HEATH PEAT is one of the most distinctive of soils and the plant-communities which it bears are extremely wellmarked. For this reason the tracts of peatland in northwest Europe possess very old distinctive names. Language rarely separates the common name of a well-characterised type of ground from that of the vegetation which covers it, --the common people make, and rightly make, one entity of the two together--and the English and German word Moor, like the French tourbiere, applies alike to the peat soil and to the plant covering which it bears. The German word " Moor " however applies to all soils of deep, nearly pure, peat, and to...