Flora and Fauna of Cornwall - Flora

Flora

Botanists divide Cornwall and Scilly into two vice-counties: West (1) and East (2): the boundary runs irregularly from Truro to Wadebridge.

The standard flora is by F. Hamilton Davey Flora of Cornwall (1909). Davey was assisted by A. O. Hume and he thanks Hume, his companion on excursions in Cornwall and Devon, and for help in the compilation of that Flora, publication of which was financed by him. Davey gives an account of all the reports of Cornish plants from 1576 until his own time and divides the county into eight districts. The Isles of Scilly are covered by the Flora but not very thoroughly: there is a good Flora of Scilly by J. E. Lousley. Edgar Thurston and Chambré C. Vigurs published a supplement to the flora in 1922 and in 1981 L. J. Margetts and R. W. David published A Review of the Cornish Flora. 1980 Pool: Institute of Cornish Studies ISBN 0-903686-34-1. A supplement to this for 1980-1991 by Margetts and K. L. Spurgin appeared in 1991.

Another useful source of botanical information is The Flowers of the Field, by C. A. Johns (1853): it treats the country as a whole (with a supplement on grasses), but Johns was a Cornishman and very knowledgeable about its flora and fauna. The Rev Charles Alexander Johns, F.L.S. (1811–1974) is also responsible for calling the attention of botanists to the very specialised flora of the Lizard in A Week at the Lizard, 1848, written when he was a teacher at Helston Grammar School.

Plants of the environs of Tintagel

"Within easy reach of Tintagel at least 385 varieties of flowers, 30 kinds of grasses, and 16 of ferns can be found ... a 'happy hunting ground' for botanists" and a list of thirty-nine of the rarest is given. (Contribution by E.M.S. to W. J. C. Armstrong's Rambler's Guide, 1935.)