PHANEROGAMS AND FERNS OF SOUTH ARDGOIL. 5 
The following are two lists "from the alder-hazel wood :— 
1. Aspidium Oreopteris. 2. Aspidium Oreopteris. 
Oxalis Acetosella. Ranunculus repens. 
Mosses, with scattered Mercurialis perennis. 
plants of :— Allium ursinum. 
Galium saxatile. Lysimachia nemorum. 
Primula vulgaris. Primula vulgaris. 
Agrostis 4 
Potentilla Tormentilla. 
Viola sylvatica. 
In the alder-hazel wood group (1) asserts itself over the 
drier parts of the wood floor, group (2) over the moister. 
Even in the alder-hazel wood, wherever the grouping or the 
spacing of the trees permits the ingress of sufficient light, the 
bracken at once springs into dominance. It would appear 
from this phenomenon that the companionship of bracken and 
birch is dependent on light rather than soil. 
Bracken.—Outside the woodlands a striking feature is the 
strong development of bracken over the open hillsides. While 
the tops of knolls and crags may often be crested with heather 
or covered with grass, the sides of the hills are almost invari- 
ably clothed with bracken up to an altitude of about eight 
hundred feet. At low levels the flatter wet parts are usually 
occupied by tracts of bog myrtle, and at higher levels by 
rushes, which also dominate the wet slopes, so that the 
appearance is that of a mosaic of bracken, myrtle, rush, grass, 
heather, and lichen-covered rock. Above eight hundred feet 
the development of the bracken weakens in the exposed parts, 
but still remains strong in the sheltered hollows up to about 
eleven hundred feet, where the bracken completely ceases. 
The shade afforded by the bracken naturally causes an associa- 
tion of shade loving, or shade tolerating, plants to spring up. 
At one place, at two hundred feet, the association was :— 
Bracken (dominant). Veronica officinalis. 
Aspidium Oreopteris. Potentilla Tormentilla, 
Blechnum boreale. Galium saxatile. 
Oxalis Acetosella. Linum catharticum. 
Ranunculus acris. 
Rusa.—From sea-level upwards, but especially from about 
four hundred feet, that is, above the woodland strip, consider- 
able tracts of the wetter parts of the hillside are covered with 
