51 



common flowers which cling to the remains of orig'inal woodland throughout Here- 

 fordshire. At first entering, where meadow land joins woodland, the Meadow 

 Saxifrage ( Saxifracja granuJata), rather a rare and local plant in Herefordshire, 

 has found a congenial home. Further on in the wood, the Snowdrop ( Oalanthus 

 nivalis) nestles in the thickets along the damp lower hedge, looking quite like a 

 native plant, though whether it is so or not I must not attempt to discuss in a 

 paper of this sort. Again, further on, the beautiful Wood Vetch, (Vicia sylva- 

 tica), magnificent in its ranging stems and long clusters, and delicate in the 

 lined petals of its flowers, grows in small quantity. Here the ever-welcome 

 Woodruff ( Asperula odorata) stars the June shades, and the Spurge Laurel 

 (Daphne Laureola), with its powerful sweet odour, courts the sun in the warm 

 days of the end of February. This plant is not found till after the curve of the 

 ridge has turned to face the S.W., and thus catches the early spring sun as well 

 as protects the plants from the early spring Easterlies. In the cooler slopes of 

 the wood one of the handsomest of Herefordshire plants, the Spreading Bell- 

 flower (Campanula patula) is in certain seasons abundant, covering open spaces 

 in the wood with its tall slender stems, supporting a profusion of fine purple 

 flowers. This plant is a little uncertain in appearance. During dry seasons it 

 almost disappears, but in summers when heat is joined with a good deal of moist- 

 ure, it is abundant, especially delighting in parts where the wood has been cut one 

 or two years previously. The strange Herb Paris (Paris quadrifolia) and the 

 equally strange Bird's-nest Orchis (Neottia Nidus avis) are to be found in the darker 

 parts of the wood. The Wood Rush ( Luzula sylvatica) and its congeners are 

 abundant. Of these, the rarer species, the Narrow-leaved Luzula Forsteri, is a very 

 characteristic Herefordshire plant ; it is here, as in many parts of Herefordshire, 

 far more abundant than its (usually more common) brother, the Broad-leaved Lu- 

 zula pilosa. In Carey woods wherever these two appear together, their sterile 

 intermediate, Borrer's Woodrush, is never absent. It is strange that these two 

 species, being sufficiently removed from each other to produce an almost uni- 

 formly sterile hybrid, should yet transgress the common laws of plant life, and 

 produce that hybrid in such abundance. A sylvestral variety of the Common 

 Rush (Juncus communis) which I have not seen mentioned in books, occurs in 

 Carey woods, differing conspicuously from the type in its stems being striate 

 when fresh. Lastly, the beautiful Wood grasses, the Melic grass (Melica uniflora) 

 and the Wild !Millet (Milium effusum), abound in these woods. 



But enough of common plants, or you will draw the conclusion that there is 

 nothing rare to be found here. 



One of the characteristic plants of the lower course of the Wye is the large- 

 leaved Linden ( Tilia grandifiora). This reaches its greatest development on the 

 limestone cliffs of Symonds Yat and the Dowards, and again, I believe, at the 

 Wyndcliff ; and this district is one of the two in which alone Hewett Watson, our 

 great authority on these matters, considered it a native tree. But it is curious that 

 the tree begins with the highest horseshoe of the Wye valley, on the Red Sandstone 

 of Caplar. An ancient pollard belonging to this species (I believe, but I have 

 never seen it fruiting) stands, and has stood perhaps for 100 years, the outpost 



