(2) Leaves and bark fragments recognised by their external appearance
(3) Seeds and fruits.
1. The results obtained by the examination of the numerous twigs and branches are somewhat disappointing. As an analysis of Table I shows, these results tend more to indicate the general prevalence of certain well-known indigenous trees—some probably pre-glacial—than to afford evidence of the presence in Britain at the period of the Roman occupation of this station of species of exceptional interest. Thus, although a great number of twigs and branches have been examined, and the species of plant to which they belong ascertained, I am only able as a result to tabulate some seven separate species of trees, and these are kinds which have always been considered to be indigenous.
The number of specimens which turned out to be hazel was remarkable. The bulk of the twigs and branches among the material from the pits were of this tree, although twigs and branches of birch also were fairly common. Oak was less frequently found, and in most instances the specimens of this wood were in the form of chips of large timber. This is interesting, because while hazel fruits and birch catkins were found, no acorns or small twigs of oak were discovered among the material submitted. It may be noted that pieces of oak bark were recognised, and Mr. Curle, in a letter to me, says that 'oak must have been fairly plentiful, I think, at Newstead. All along the west side the early rampart appeared to lie on a double layer of oak branches.' As Table II shows, ash was employed as shafts and handles of implements, but there is no evidence that it was procured locally. In two cases only was ash wood found not associated with implements. A piece of wood from Pit XVI[1] proved to be ash, and a portion about two inches long of a branch about an inch in diameter, without bark, was found among the earliest material received. These may have been pieces of broken or discarded implement handles. A few specimens of branches of the rowan (Pyrus Aucuparia) and of the white beam (Pyrus Aria) were found, and there seems little doubt that these trees have been wild in Scotland from very early times. One or two specimens of the wood of alder were encountered, and similarly a few of poplar (or willow).
Thus it will be seen that the trees, recognised by the wood anatomy of twigs and branches, with portions of bark, which one may regard as growing locally at Newstead at the time of the occupation of the Roman Camp, number seven only: oak, birch, hazel, willow or poplar, alder, rowan, white beam.
2. Leaves and the soft parts of plants were not sufficiently well preserved in most cases to enable one to identify them. However, a few remains of this nature were in fairly satisfactory condition, and among them I was able to identify leaves of hazel, leaves of birch, the stem and leaf-base of an umbelliferous plant, leaves of various grasses and sedges, leaves and flower parts of the common ling, stems and flower parts of nettles, the stems and leaves of a species of dock, a frond of the common bracken, the rhizome and leaf rhachis of a fern, probably the species just mentioned, and several
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