Order ZOOPHYTA. Genus Tioibora, one species. Ge nus illadrepora, one species. Genus Millepora, nine spe cies; a variety of M. fascialis is found on the coast of Cornwall ; M. alga is found on the same coast. Genus Cellepora, one species. Genus Gorgonia, three species; G. placomus and G. verrucosa are found off the coast of Cornwall. Genus .4/cyonium, six species ; A. schlosseri is found on the coast of Cornwall and Wales ; and A. ascidiocles off the former coast. Genus Spongia, nine species. Genus Flustra, eight species. Genus Tubula ria, seven species; 'F. indivisa is the largest ; T. flabel liformis is found at Milford haven. Genus Corallina, seven species ; C. squamata, C. elongata, and C. cornicu lata are principally met with off the coast of Cornwall. Genus Sertularia, 48 species; S. pustulosa is found off the isle of \Vight. Genus Pennatula, one species. Ge nus Hydra, eight species; H. Cereus, H. Bellis, and H. Gemmacea are found on the coast of Cornwall.—It is un necessary to specify the genera and species of the order Infusoria, as they arc met with in water, or in infusions made with vegetable and animal matter, and conse quently not properly natives of any country.
IT would far exceed our limits, as well as be going be yond the object and nature of this article, to particularize the plants which are natives of England : Referring our readers, therefore, to the article BOTANY, where the ha bitats of English plants are given, or at least such as arc natives of England arc specified, we shall content our selves here with a general description of English botany ; and this description we shall borrow from Mr Aiken, as being at once concise, accurate, and elegantly written.
" Among the numerous species of vegetables which are natives of England, scarcely any are adequate to the sustenance and clothing of man. Our frequent rains, our blasting winds, and the scanty portion to which we are stinted of the light and heat of the sun, deprives us entirely of those vegetable treasures, which, in the tropi cal climates, offer themselves, in overflowing exuberance, to satisfy the wants and luxurious desires of their human inhabitants. The never•failing verdure of our plains and hills, covered with a rich carpet of grasses and pa pilionaceous plants, shews how admirably our country is qualified for the support of graminivorous quadrupeds ; and we find, accordingly, that our ancient forests abound ed in stags and roe-deer, as our cleared and cultivated lands do now with sheep and cattle.
The flora of England, though it cannot boast the most splendid and exquisite of vegetable productions, yet con tains as great a variety of genera and species as any other country of equal extent. The investigation of indigenous plants is continually carrying on here with increasing ardour, and every year brings new accessions to our crowded ranks of native vegetables.
The first for importance and variety is the family of grasses. Almost every part of the country that is not under tillage, is principally covered with grass. Under almost all the differences of soil and situation, we find the chief covering of the richest, as well as of the most barren tracts, made up, for the most part, of these plants. To these we are indebted for the luxuriant ver
dure of our pastures—for the close velvet carpeting of our downs and sheep walks—and the more scanty cloth ing of our mountainous districts. Twenty-seven genera, and 110 species of grass, are natives of our island, most of them of common occurrence in situations where they are found at all. None of them have been proved to be poisonous, either to man or beast ; on the contrary, whether fresh or dried, they furnish a grateful food to all our domestic cattle. The must important grasses in meadows and pastures, are the meadow foxtail grass ; two or three species of hair-grass and meadow grass ; the cocks-foot fuscue, and oat grass. Other species are na tives of marshes and wet places : These are generally the largest and most luxuriant ; and if in quality they be somewhat inferior to the preceding, yet the defect is probably more than compensated by the quantity of her bage which they supply. Light sandy soils, especially the flat parts of the southern and eastern coasts, abound in grasses that are hardly to be met with in the interior of the island : the herbage of these affords a coarse and scanty pasture, and they are eminently distinguished from their kindred species by the length and strength of their creeping roots. Upon the sides and summits of our mountains are found a few grasses that-do not appear elsewhere, mixed with some others of more general occurrence. As, however, in these bleak and elevated situations, covered with snow for some months in the year, and shrouded with clouds for the principal part of the remainder, it would be scarcely possible for these plants to bring their seeds to mature , we observe in them a wise and striking deviation from the common course of nature : like the rest of their tribe, they throw up flowering stems, and bear blossoms ; but these are succeeded, not by seeds, but by bulbs, which in a short time vegetate, and are already furnished with a leaf and roots before they fall to the ground. All the viviparous grasses, except one, (Festuca vivipara,) if transplanted to a lower and warmer situation, accommodate them selves to their new climate, and produce seeds. Besides these, there are others of a more hardy constitution, which appear to be the true natives of the mountains, and multiply their species by seed in the usual way. Nearly allied to the grasses, in general habit, are a num ber of species, natives of moors, bogs, and pools. These serve to give consistency to the deep mud, or peat, in which they are rooted, and, when young, afford a coarse pasture to sheep and cattle. Several of them are used for matting, thatching, and for chair bottoms. The stately Typha (Bull rush)is one of the principal orna ments of our fens and neglected pools ; and the several species of cotton grass enliven many a dreary mile of bog, by their gracefully pendent tufts of snowy white.