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Zhe Jflora of the Most l^oihsbirc Ibills. 



By Wm. Falconer. 



WITHIN the area of the district, the flora of which I liave 

 chosen as the subject of this paper, the vegetation of 

 the hills is made up in the main of grass, sedge, moss, 

 fern, and other more inconspicuous plants. Moreover, there is 

 a striking fitness in such comparatively insignificant organisms 

 finding a home where the four winds of heaven can blow freely 

 over them. Grasses and sedges are fertilised by pollen blown to 

 them by the wind, and by the same agency the fruits and seeds 

 of many plants, and the microscopic spores of ferns, mosses, and 

 other lowlier plant-forms, are carried away to places where, under 

 favourable conditions, they will begin anew the life-cycle of the 

 respective plants from which they sprang. It is in this way that 

 rocks appearing above the surface in time become clothed, in 

 part at least, with lichen, moss, and other vegetable forms, which 

 soften and adorn their nakedness. 



It is to this garb of verdure, more or less pronounced accord- 

 ing to situation, that we owe much of the picturesqueness and 

 romantic beauty of natural scenery ; it is this emerald robe of 

 vegetation which gives so much pleasure to the eye when we gaze 

 upon wide-spreading panoramas of hill and dale, meadow and 

 wood, stream and rock. With equal readiness, and by the same 

 means, Nature, if uninterfered with, will act upon the crude and 

 neglected works of man, mantle them over with greenery, and 

 make them gay with springing flowers. 



A brief consideration of three factors which greatly influence 

 the distribution of plants will place us in a better position tb deal 

 with those which grow on the Yorkshire hills. 



(i) Elevation.— In passing from the Equator to the Poles, 

 from the Torrid to the Frigid Zones, there is, keeping equal steps 

 with the gradual change in climatic conditions, a gradual change 

 in the character of the vegetation, from the luxuriant palms, 

 banyans, and tree-ferns of the Tropics to the stunted willows and 

 birches, mosses, and lichens of the Arctic regions. In ascending 

 a mountain, a similar lowering of the temperature and a corres- 



