156 GEEANIACE^ 



other flower of distinguished loveliness which our island produces." This 

 flower also grows abundantly with the broom-rape, along the ledges of^ the 

 clifF in another district of mountain limestone, St. Vincent's Rock, and Clifton 

 Downs, near Bristol. A variety of this Crane's-bill has been found by 

 botanists on the sands of Walney Island, in Lancashire, with pale flesh- 

 coloured flowers, varied with purple. 



* * Flower-stalks 2-flowered. 



2. Dusky Crane's-bill (G. pMum).— Stem erect; flowers panicled; 

 sepals slightly pointed ; capsules keeled, hairy below, wrinkled above. 

 Plant perennial. This species is frequently cultivated in gardens, but is rare 

 as a wild plant ; and even when growing in our woods and thickets it is 

 always the outcast of some neighbouring garden, or its seed was borne 

 thither by wind or bird from a more distant plot. The flowers are of a 

 dingy purplish-black colour, looking like the blossom of some poisonous plant. 

 They occur in May and June. A variety with white flowers is said, by 

 Sir William Hooker and Dr. Arnott, to be found on the sands of Barrie, near 

 Dundee. 



3. Knotty Crane's-bill (G. nodusiim). — Stem smooth; leaves opposite, 

 with 5 or 3-pointed serrated lobes ; petals with a deep notch ; sepals with 

 long awns; capsules downy, but not wrinkled. Plant perennial. This 

 plant is another introduced species that has established itself in shrubberies ; 

 but it is said to have grown formerly on the mountainous parts of Cumber- 

 land, and between Hatfield and Welwyn, in Hertfordshire. 



4. Blue Meadow Crane's-bill, or Crowfoot Meadow Crane's- 

 bill {G. praUnse). — Stem erect ; leaves palmate, 5-lobed ; lobes cut and 

 serrated ; stamens smooth, tapering from a broad base ; capsules hairy all 

 over ; fruit-stalks bent down. Plant perennial. This is the largest of our 

 British Crane's-bills, and is, from June to August, a very handsome flower, 

 of a beautiful purple colour, attaining, when luxuriant, about the size of a 

 florin piece. The stem is often more than three feet high, and the plant is 

 well distinguished by its much divided leaves. It is most frequently found 

 among bushes and thickets, particularly near waterfalls, and is common in 

 moist copses in Cambridgeshire, and in the neighbourhood of London. 

 Mr. Thompson remarks : — " Geranium pratense is, I am persuaded, to be 

 found luxuriant only in basaltic districts. Every stream in Ayrshire, and 

 to the east of Glasgow, is rendered eminently beautiful by the rich azure of 

 its transparent petals, and the singular verdure of its long-stalked leaf. The 

 Clyde, the Calder, the Tannock, and every streamlet near Bothwell and 

 Campsie Fell, possesses this flower. The bed of these rivers is basaltic. In 

 Ayrshire, the Ayr,* the Marnock, the Doon, the Irvine, and the G-arnock, 

 have tufts of this plant on their banks from the source to the sea. Long 

 before botany became a study, these flowers gave an interest to that country, 

 which is still remembered with something of the quiet delight which an early 

 love of Nature produces and perpetuates ; and even now, after the contem- 

 plation of mere beauty in flowers has given place to the pursuit of their 



* "This stream, the Ayr, occasionally crosses schist and plastic clay. In such places 

 this Geranium is not to be found." 



