The valley of the Avon is characterized, as may be expected, by the commoner species, which are to be found in such situations. Here, and in the adjoining cultivated parts, which once were more or less a part of the Forest, we find the soap-wort (_Saponaria officinalis_) and the thorn-apple (_Datura Stramonium_), and those colonists which always harbour close to the dwellings of man. Other considerations remain. The situation and climate of the New Forest, of course, have a great effect on its plants.[279] The two myrtles and the sweet-bay grow under the cliffs of Eagleshurst, close to the Solent, unhurt by the hardest frosts. The grapes ripen on the cottage-walls of Beaulieu nearly as early as in Devonshire. I have seen the coltsfoot in full blossom, near Hythe, on the 27th of February; and the blackthorn flowers at Wootton on the 3rd of April. The area of the New Forest comes under Watson’s Subprovince of the Mid-Channel, on the Southern belt of his Inferagrarian zone. Its position lies exactly half-way between his Germanic and Atlantic types. The former shows itself by _Dianthus Armeria_, and _Pulicaria vulgaris_, growing near Marchwood and Bisterne. The latter by such examples as _Cotyledon_ _umbilicus_, _Pinguicula Lusitanica_, _Briza minor_, and _Agrostis setacea_. The “British” and “English” types are, of course, plentifully represented.[280] Looking, too, at the trees and shrubs which are indigenous, we shall find them also eminently characteristic. In spite of what Cæsar says, the beech is certainly a native, pushing out in places even the oak. The holly, too, grows everywhere in massy clumps. In the spring, the wild crab (_Pyrus Malus_) crimsons the thickets of Brockenhurst, in the autumn the maple. The butcher’s broom stands at the foot of each beech, and the ivy twines its great coil round each oak, and the mistletoe finds its home on the white poplar. After all, the trees, and not the flowers, give its character to the New Forest. In the spring, all its woods are dappled with lights and shades, with the amber of the oak and the delicate soft-gleaming green of the birch and beech. In the autumn, the spindle-tree (_Euonymus Europæus_) in the Wootton copses is hung with its rosy gems; and the trenches of Castle Malwood are strewed with the silver leaves of the white-beam.