Two very able professors of botany have just formed under
the Council for the Preservation of Rural England, a Wild Plant Conservation Board ; and they have begun their work by epitomizing into a model pamphlet their views on the subject. The Protection of Wild Flowers (C.P.R.E., 17 Great Marlborough Street, London, W. 1.) They see that you cannot save the soul of the country by legislation. The chief hope is to breed a desire to preserve, however much may be done by flower sanctuaries, by national parks, by local gardens. Nothing interferes with preservation, as with progress, like not wanting to do it. What are the facts? Four, or perhaps, five species of English wild flower are totally extinct. They have gone the way of the pine marten and the honey Buzzard. Several others—including two charming pinks—are on their last legs : visits to their habitat have to be made in utter secrecy, and the secret is not breathed even to the very elect. They represent among flowers the nests of the chough or phalarope, but there is no one to. endow a watcher, such as preserves the home of the rarer birds. A good many flowers—it is alleged nearly three hundred sorts—and more ferns (which are especially popular —in the Tulliver sense—in the north-west) have vanished locally. Ferns suffer from uprooting ; but lack of seed may cause the commonest plants to vanish in an absurdly short space of time. An astonishing instance of this was the foxglove in one part of Bedfordshire. If it did not seed freely, it became extinct. One recalls in this reference that ingenious emendation of the careful—and flower loving—Tennyson. In the revised version " fifty " was multiplied, at the instance of a scientific critic, by several figures : " Of myriads brings but one to birth,"
and indeed a mere fifty seeds may be quite insufficient ; conversely, certain plants, especially the Pasque flower, . increased astonishingly during the War, owing to the absence of trippers.
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