SOME NEW PALAEOBOTANICAL RECORDS FOR THE BRITISH IPSWICHIAN INTERGLACIAL

The new plant records described here were made during the palaeobotanical investigation of a sequence of Ipswichian and Early Devensian deposits at a site in the East Midlands of England. Although a fuller account of the geology and vegetational history of these deposits will appear elsewhere, it is necessary to preface this discussion with a brief outline of the context in which the records were made. The interglacial site lies close to the village of Wing, in the former county of Rutland, and within the triangle formed by Oakham, Stamford and Uppingham at approximately Ordnance Survey National Grid Reference SK899026. Here, on the interfluve of two small streams occupying rather broad, deeply excavated valleys, a sequence of drift deposits was encountered during a site investigation by Messrs Ground Engineering Ltd for the Water Treatment Plant for nearby Empingham Reservoir. The sequence was found to comprise the fill of a small, steep-sided basin, cut some 16 m into the solid bedrock-here about 3-4 m of strongly weathered Northampton Sand Ironstone overlying Upper Lias Clay. The basin is thought to be closed and has a diameter of approximately 100 m. Its fill can be divided into three major lithological units, which at the centre of the basin comprise:

[1]  W. J. Bean.  Trees and Shrubs hardy in the British Isles , 1936, Nature.

[2]  R. West,et al.  POLLEN SPECTRA FROM PLIOCENE CRAG AT ORFORD, SUFFOLK , 1977 .

[3]  L. Phillips,et al.  Pleistocene Vegetational History and Geology in Norfolk , 1976 .

[4]  R. West.  Bryophytes of the Pleistocene: J.H. Dickson, 1973. Cambridge University Press, London, 256 pp., 21 plates, 96 fig., 41 tables, £ 12.80 , 1973 .

[5]  F. Oldfield,et al.  FOSSIL SEEDS OF ERICA FROM THE CROMER FOREST BED SERIES , 1973 .

[6]  B. Menke.  Ergebnisse der Pollenanalyse zur Pleistozän-Stratigraphie und zur Pliozän-Pleistozän-Grenze in Schleswig-Holstein , 1970 .

[7]  F. G. Bell.  Fossil of an American Sedge, Dulichium arundinaceum (L.) Britt., in Britain , 1970, Nature.

[8]  H. Birks,et al.  AN INTERGLACIAL PEAT AT FUGLA NESS, SHETLAND , 1969 .

[9]  R. West,et al.  The subdivision and zonation of interglacial periods , 1968 .

[10]  J. Dickson.  Subfossil Meesia longiseta Hedw. in Sussex , 1967 .

[11]  P. D. Brown,et al.  Late Post-glacial Meesia longiseta Hedw. in South-eastern England , 1966 .

[12]  O. Lakela.  A Flora of Northeastern Minnesota , 1965 .

[13]  H. Crum,et al.  Illustrated Moss Flora of Fennoscandia. II. Musci. Fasc 3 , 1959 .

[14]  J. Podpěra.  Conspectus muscorum europaeorum , 1956 .

[15]  W. Steere,et al.  Illustrated Moss Flora of Fennoscandia , 1955 .

[16]  H. H. Birks.  Modern macrofossil assemblages in lake sediments in Minnesota , 1973 .

[17]  P. Fukarek.  Bemerkungen zu einigen balkanischen und balkano‐karpatischen Baum‐ und Straucharten , 1970 .

[18]  W. F. Millington,et al.  The biology of aquatic vascular plants , 1967 .

[19]  N. Stoianov,et al.  Flora of Bulgaria. , 1948 .