Page:VCH Worcestershire 1.djvu/74

A HISTORY OF WORCESTERSHIRE of land called Feckenham Bog, long since brought under cultivation. Here have been recorded Alisma ranunculoides, Anagallis tenella, Cnicus pratensis, Carex distans, Cladium Mariscus, Pinguicula vulgaris, Schcenus nigricans and Zannichellia palustris. All these plants have disappeared. Cradley Park, between Stourbridge and Halesowen, before it became absorbed into the Black Country, nourished some rare plants so lately as 1832, among them Carex distans, C. strigosa, Pyrola media and Sambucus Ebulus. Of a list of plants growing at the Lickey in 1834, the following, through drainage or other causes, have vanished, Andromeda polifolia. Erica Tetralix, Parnassia palustris, Potentilla comarum, Vaccinium Oxy coccus and Scirpus ccespitosus. Anagallis tenella remained here up to 1890. In its course through the county the Severn has worn for itself a deep channel in the red marl of the district through which it flows, while above Holt precipitous banks of red sandstone in places bound its course. Below Worcester flat meadows stretch out on either side of the river. The sandstone cliffs are frequently clothed with woodland, notably at Shrawley and Stagbury, below and above Stourport respec- tively, on its right bank. The red marl banks are not productive of any especially rare plants, except in the case of the Mythe Toot at Tewkesbury, on which precipitous cliff Isatis tinctoria flourishes abundantly. This locality, however, though nearly surrounded by Worcestershire territory, is locally in Gloucestershire, and the former county can lay no claim to the plant. At Tewkesbury the Severn receives on its left side the river Avon, which comes down in wide meanders from the Lias country to the north and west of the Cotswolds. No other stream of any size joins the river on the same side till Hawford, some miles above Worcester, is reached. Here it receives the Salwarpe, and by its side the canal from Droitwich, which follows the course of the river. The Salwarpe comes down from the western slopes of the Lickey some fifteen miles away, and is joined below Salwarpe Church by Dordale Brook, which rises in Pepperwood and receives streams from the Randans and Chaddesley Woods. Further to the north, at Stourport, the Stour falls into the Severn on the same side, having been joined at Hoobrook, below Kidderminster, by a number of streams that converge there coming from the higher land in the neighbourhood of Clent ; and on the same side of the Stour, just above Kidderminster, at Broadwaters, more streams from the same district join its course. These streams flow through a country nearly entirely situated on the new red sandstone, except the highest portions of the Clent Hills, where Permian sandstones and breccia are met with. Above Kidderminster the Stour, leaving on its right bank the sandy district of Blakeshall Common, passes out of this county into Staffordshire, joining Worcestershire again near Stourbridge, whence for some distance it forms the boundary of the county, with the detached portion of Dudley to the north of it. At Halesowen the Stour again enters Worcestershire, passing over the coal measures to find its sources on the north-eastern slopes of the Clent Hills. We have here reached the easternmost part of the watershed of the Severn ; further on 36