59 



Hairy violets (V. hirta), and the lurid four-leaved Parises (very abundant) have in 

 a great de-ree passed off. Roses and Sweet-briars now rise in beauteous pro- 

 fu,ion-the Rosa micrantha and R. villosa especially-about the Wenlock lime- 

 stone quarries ; and we have also the rare R. sepiumat Little Malvern For Rubi. 

 I need only refer you to my "'Botany of Malvern," where there are prickles 

 enou-h sharpened up and described perhaps "too numerous" for any but the 

 enthusiastic thicketeer to encounter. For perhaps you may say, with Dr. Warren 

 in his "Ten Thousand a Year," " He wants me to scratch my hands in a bramble- 

 bush only to get blackberries for himself." 



But the beautiful Wood-vetch cannot be easily passed by. This fills the hilly 

 woods near Ledbury with its graceful tresses, hanging in festoons about the trees, 

 its purple-streaked blossoms fitted, as Scott says, to canopy Titan.a's bower. 

 Then on the exposed limestone the golden Uistus in profusion, the Bee-orchis, and 

 the purple Pyramidal show beautifully, with the Yellow-wort and Picris hiera- 

 coides ■ while extensive masses of the great purple Knap- weed (Centaurea Scabiosa), 

 the bright Saintfoin, and the yellow flowers of the Melilotus officinalis combine in 

 spreads of gold and purple to adorn the undulating scene of hUl and dingle. 



Among the few bogs yet remaining, where springs gush out to murmur along 

 the deep limestone gullies or old hollow ways, the purple Pinguicula appears with 

 the red viscid Sun-dew, the delicate pale Bog-pimpernel, and a few-very few- 

 Cotton-gras.ses, with many Carices and Blysmus compressus, that have escaped 

 destruction from the too-rapacious hands of the exterminators, who too often 

 strip bare the bosom of the earth as remorsely as geologists tear out its entrails. 

 (A laugh. ) 



The natural crest of the Ridgeway in Eastnor Park, splendidly wooded as it 

 is on either side, with the grand Camp Hill towering above, once covered with 

 painted Britons under the eye of Caractacus, is invested with exciting interest 

 both to the geologist and the botanist. Eari Soiners has most judiciously retained 

 this old British roadway always bare at the summit, as a Nvinding drive to the 

 Castle from the Chance Pitch Lodge. Gloomy Yews of indigenous growth, that 

 have outlived many an eagle's life, and certainly exceeding five hundred years m 

 age overshadow parts of the road like a glen devoted to the Furies ; in other 

 parts glaucous-green Junipers adorn the scene ; Oaks everywhere robe the acclivi- 

 ties and in one secluded spot appears high up on its supporting dryad, that 

 "aureus ramus ^' of mythologic fame, honoured by the Druids as " Pren A^vr," or 

 the celestial plant, because believed to have dropped from Heaven, though now 

 known only as the Mistletoe, or mingled bush. 



But to return to the subject of plants particulariy attached to a calcareous 

 soU. From numerous plants having been observed to be almost peculiar to lime- 

 stone, it has been suggested that geological formations exercise such a remarkable 

 influence upon vegetation, that they may.be discriminated thereby ; and some 

 attempts have been made to do this, but close examination proves the idea unsus- 

 tainable, as the influence exercised on vegetation appears to be really mmeralogical 

 and chemical. Thus the Lady's finger ( Anthyllis Vulneraria) and the Clematis are 



