128 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



'PLANTS OP THE GRExiT ORME'S HEAD. 



MR. T. M. WEBB, who has written about the 

 rare plants of Anglesca (in S.-G., No. 100, 

 p. 40), inquires as to whether the local Limsyns 

 vulgaris or Chnjsocoma Linosyris still exists on the 

 Great Orme's Head, and intimates that his 

 t)otanical friends cannot noio find it. Perhaps they 

 did not know where to look, for the Orme's Head 

 occupies a considerable area, and yet one particular 

 ledge of rocks is more productive of rare plants 

 than any other. I was at Llandudno in September 

 last year, and found some fine specimens of the 

 Linosyris in flower, on the same range of limestone 

 cliffs on which the Cotoneaster used formerly to 

 grow in considerable plenty, I was at the time 

 groping among the recesses of the broken ledge 

 alluded to, wanting to see if any of the Cotoneaster 

 was left there ; but after three close searches at 

 ■the locality where, twenty years ago, a considerable 

 quantity of the plant was apparent, and in fruit too, 

 specimens of which I then gathered, I could now 

 find only one little stunted shrub, scarcely visible 

 in the crevice where it grew, which I scrupulously 

 ' left in its position ; and unless this remains safe 

 •from the rapacious hands of the unsparing collectors 

 that, unfortunately for the Cotoneaster, have visited 

 Llandudno since its rise into celebrity as a watering- 

 place, I fear that it will have to be "judiciously 

 bracketed," as Mr. Webb says, with other lost 

 habitats of rare British plants. The inquiries 

 and demands of lady botanists have, I am afraid, 

 led to the extermination of the Cotoneaster ; for, as 

 attached particularly to the Orme's Head, it has 

 -got placed as a rarity into the Guide Book of 

 Llandudno, and rocks and woods are stript of 

 •their ferns to be sold to visitors in a living state. 

 In Dr. Hooker's " Student's Plora of the British 

 Islands," it is questioned whether the Linosyris is 

 a native of Britain ; but, growing on such a locality 

 .as the Orme's Head, I can see no reason myself 

 to doubt it. A report from particular localities as 

 to the " now " existence of plants at the spot is 

 .always satisfactory, as preventing dissapointment 

 to searchers. 



On the same ledge of rocks I allude to, I observed 

 Orobanche hedera, Thttlictrum minus, Geranium 

 ■sanguineum, and abundance of Veronica spicata, 

 var. hybrida,\v\\\c\\ the Welsh have appropriated to 

 their prince Llewelyn, under the name of Lllys 

 Xlewelyn, which may be worth notice, as I think 

 Slothing has been yet done as to recording the 

 •common names of plants given by the Welsh. This 

 particular ledge of rocks, the special seat of the 

 Cotoneaster, does not face the sea, but its aspect 

 and position are shown in a woodcut in my 

 " Botanical Looker-out." 



The same side of the Orme's Head is productive 

 of other local plants, as Potentilla verna, Scabiosa 



columbaria, Reliantliemim canum, and Juniperns 

 communis. The latter clings to the rocks in a 

 prostrate state ; but when I firstvisited this remark- 

 able headland, there was evidence that the Juniper 

 had in past times grown erect and of considerable 

 size, for old decaying stems lay on the ground iu 

 several places. 



Spircca fiiipendula is particularly plentiful on the 

 turf of the hill, but in a dwarf state, as indeed are 

 most of the other plants scattered about this 

 calcareous ground. As grand masses of building 

 now front the beach, with a crowd of bathing- 

 machines, all the littoral plants that I knew there 

 in years past are swept away, and among the rest 

 Senecio riscosus, which in my former visits was 

 plentiful ; but I found that it had taken refuge in a 

 waste rubbishy spot above one of the paths now 

 leading among houses to the southern side of the 

 Head. I may also mention that the grey or small- 

 flowered Thistle {Carduus tenuifiorus), that when I 

 first knew Llandudno, was in euormous abundance 

 about the place, has now entirely disappeared, for 

 I did not meet with a single specimen. The Yellow 

 Horned Poppy (Glaucium luteum) had also been 

 banished, though I detected a colony of it in a 

 curious spot some distance from the shore, amidst 

 the debris of a quarry towards Conway. The 

 increase of population and building speculations in 

 places where Nature previously reigned in solitude, 

 causes great alteration in the stations of plants, 

 and is perplexing and annoying to the botanist. 



Between Llandudno and Conway there is a little 

 cluster of igneous hills, which may be compared to 

 large round puddings suddenly taken from the pot, 

 and one of these, more conspicuous than the rest, 

 and near to the river Conway, bears the name of 

 Craig Diganwy. At the top it has a range of pre- 

 cipitous rocks towards the river, and it was fortified 

 by the early Welsh princes ; fragmentary relics of 

 whose walls and towers yet remain hard as the rock 

 itself. W'hen I first clambered up the Craig, many 

 years ago, I was struck with the appearance of its 

 vegetation, which, being on a trappoid soil, was 

 quite a contrast to the plants on the Orme's Head. 

 The Poxglove {Digitalis purpurea) here revelled 

 in profusion, while there was not a single specimen 

 on the Orme's Head, and the rocks here were 

 sprinkled over with the Nottingham Catchfly 

 {Silene nutans) ; and one very pretty adornment to 

 the ground was the Maiden Pink {Lianthus 

 deltoides). I need not mention other plants that 

 grew here, but it was quite a botanic garden, 

 delightful to contemplate. But since my last visit 

 what an horrific change has occurred to desecrate the 

 spot. Some miserable cheese-paring Welshman has 

 inclosed and taken possession of the space on the 

 top of the Craig, formerly occupied by the keep or 

 donjon of the old castle, and which is sunk a yard 

 deeper than the rest of the area, and planted it with 



