53 



I must not venture upon the jjlants of the Woolhope District which lies 

 immediately upon our north, but will finish this short paper with two introduced 

 plants, one of which belongs properly to the Woolhope District ; but I venture to 

 mention it because its habitat lies within our excursion to-day. 



Two miles down the river, immediately above the railway bridge, a ridge of 

 stones runs diagonally across the river-bed, giving rise to rapids, and two or three 

 densely wooded islets which take the name of Carey Islands. It is a spot well 

 known to fishermen ; and the glimpse of which from the train between the Fawley 

 and Ballingham tunnels ought to be well known to all lovers of exquisite natural 

 beauty. This ridge was once utilised — or pnesibly originally constructed— as a 

 mill dam ; hence the locality is still called ' Carey Mill. ' This mill (originally 

 Caerau) was formerly, like the New \\ eir at Great Doward, an iron foundry, as 

 appears fmm the interesting notice of it quoted by the Rev. T. W. Webb in his 

 Meriioriah of the Civil War in Herefordshire, Vol. i., p. 124. Mr. Webb quotes a 

 letter dated " Bristol), 2nd September, 1642," from a Mr. Heillier to Mr. William 

 Scudamore, the owner of the foundry at Carey, "the place whereof knoweth it 

 now no more." The letter is in answer to one making application for the money 

 for nine tons of iron which had been sent at £10 15s. per ton, and the writer states 

 that he "cannot send him any money owing to the troubles of the Civil War." 

 There is a curious tradition which I have heard from cottagers in the vicinity (the 

 origin of which I do not know), that a ship was once constructed at Hereford and 

 brought safely down the river to this spot, and that it gmunded, and was finally 

 abandoned on one of these islands. But the interest of the place for the botanist 

 lies in the fact that amid the tangled vegetation of the uppermost of these islets 

 there exist two or three large clumps of the rare Narcissus odorus. No doubt it 

 is a mere waif ; literally so, perhaps, wafted down by the river floods ; or more 

 likely a relic of a time when C'arej' Mill was so flourishing that the miller's wife 

 extended her garden along the mill dam into the islands. Still it is not a common 

 plant even as cultivated in cottage gardens, and as a naturalised plant is quite 

 rare. 



Two miles on the other side of us stands one of the small outof-the-way Here- 

 fordshire parish churches, that of Sollers Hope. A path runs through the church- 

 yard, and ascends through meadow land to the farmhouse of Whictlebuiy. In 

 these meadows Orchis palustris, a scarce plant in Herefordshire, makes it appear- 

 ance. But it is not of the Orchis I would speak. Along the path in the 

 pasture adjoining Sollers Hope churchyard, and on through another large mea- 

 dow, is scattered in great abundance the Caraway plant fCarum Carui). " Oh ! a 

 .mere introduction," you will exclaim. I suppose it is ; and yet there are some 

 points of interest about it, and some which need further clearing up. The Cara- 

 i way, as an introduced plant, is confined to waste places, the receptacles of rubbi.sh 

 in the proximity of towns or houses ; and there it is uncertain and inconstant in 

 its appearance. Here, on the contraiy, it exists in the depth of country, such as 

 country can only be in so delightful a county as Herefordshire, and it exists by 

 the thousands in the turf of deep virgin meadow land. But again, on the other 

 side, though scattered throughout the meadow, it is in markedly greatest abund- 



