A BOTANICAL TOUR IN HEREFORDSHIRE, MONMOUTHSHIRE, 

 AND SOUTH WALES; 



WITH INCIDENTAL NOTICES OF THE SCENERY, ANTIQUITIES, &C. 



By Edwin Lees, F.L.S. & F.E.S.L. 



Any observations that may tend more completely to elucidate the Botany of Great 

 Britain, and accumulate materials for a correct geographical distribution of its plants, 

 cannot but be regarded with interest by the inquisitive Naturalist, as additional 

 links in the scientific chain. This applies, too, more particularly to the district I 

 have just cursorily examined, which appears most unaccountably to have been 

 greatly neglected by botanical observers, if we except Mr. Dillwyn, who, in the 

 first edition of the Botanists Guide through England and Wales, has recorded 

 the stations of many plants in Glamorganshire. Respecting the vegetation of the 

 other South Welch counties, little seems to be known ; for my friend, Mr. Hew- 

 ett Cottrell Watson, in his recent and excellent New Botanist's Guide to the 

 Localities of the rarer Plants of Britain, has left Radnorshire an entire blank ; 

 stating that the Old Botanist's Guide contained localities for three cryptogamic 

 plants only in that county, and that " not any other stations" were known to him. 

 And while he has only given thirteen plants to Monmouthshire, four of which 

 were communicated by myself, he remarks, under Pembrokeshire — " For this and 

 other counties of South Wales, I have to regret the very incomplete lists it is in 

 my power to give. Indeed, there is, probably, no other part of Britain, in which 

 half-a-dozen counties together are so little known botanically. It is much to be 

 wished that some botanical tourist would diligently explore them." This, I think, 

 must be allowed to furnish me with a very sufficient text for illustration and re- 

 mark ; and having occasion for a little mental and bodily renovation, I resolved 

 that while I inhaled the sea breezes on the one hand, I would, if possible, scent out 

 some plants on the other. 



Now, then, for the detail of operations. I will first, however, mention, that, 

 to prevent trouble and render my researches more accessible, when any plant 

 noticed by me is unrecorded by Mr. Cottrell Watson, as located in that vicinity, I 

 shall prefix an asterisk to it. 



I entered Herefordshire by the pass through the sienitic chain of Malvern 

 Hills, at the northern base of the massive serrated Herefordshire Beacon. Having 

 before, in Loudon's Magazine of Natural History, vol. iii., in Hastings's Illus- 

 trations of the Natural History of Worcestershire, and in Mr. Watson's New 

 Botanist's Guide, detailed all the plants of the Malvern Hills that I was ac- 

 quainted with, I here refer to those publications for the Malvern plants, and 

 hasten upon new ground. As a lover of justice to fellow-labourers in the same 

 vol. i. 2e , 



