73 



NOTES ON SOME OF THE CLIFF PLA.NTS OF WALES. 



By the Rev. AuGUSim Ley, M.A.-Read at the Fungus Foray 

 Meeting on October 7th, 1886. 



Mountaineering appears to exercise a peculiar fascination over Enghshmen. 

 The a<;cidents which recur each season, in scarcely decreasing frequency, prove 

 how ineradicable a passion it is with us. It may be doubted whether its dangers 

 act very greatly in deterring men from its pursuit, or whether they are not, to at 

 least an equal degree, an incentive to climbing. 



It is perhaps, a pity that so many ardent mountaineers are not at the same 

 time zealous naturalists. No two tastes could work in more harmoniously 

 together than the exploration of the wildest features of inanimate Nature, and 

 the study of the rarest and most interesting among the children of ammated 

 Nature No one can doubt that the love of the outward features of mountain 

 scenery is made a deeper and more intelligent thing by a knowledge of geology. 

 It is but a single step to the living vegetation by which the rocks and ravmes are 

 tenanted Science tells us that these are often older in their features than are the 

 seemingly "everlasting hills " which they clothe with such delicate and fragile 

 grace °Their forms and distribution contain many interesting secrets waiting to 

 be found out, and suggest endless questions which can be asked, if not answered. 

 We will make another remark. It is this: that the interesting plants of a 

 mountain are usually found crowded together. Every naturalist, who has 

 tramped over mountains, knows how many mUes of moorland and hill-side may 

 be footed without lighting upon any, except the ordinary plants of mountam 

 districts. Yet there is probably a spot, if he can find it. on every range of hdls, 

 where the rarer plants exist crowded together into the space of half-a-mile, or, it 

 may be, of a few hundred yards. This spot is without exception the steepest, 

 wettest, and coldest spot in the mountain range. Here the mountaineer and the 

 naturalist may both enjoy their keenest pleasure, in the study of the wild 

 forms which animate and inanimate Nature possess; and if the two passions 

 co-exist in the same person, the pleasure realised will be more than doubled. The 

 two fires do not put each other out. The two forms of pleasure have so much in 

 common at their root that they do not interfere, but rather minister, each, to the 

 other. One cannot help saying to the lover of scenery for its own sake, or of 

 climbing for its own sake-add science to enthusiasm, add a knowledge of 

 geology, or of the principles of plant-distribution, or of some of those manifold 

 plant speculations which in our own times have made botany from one of the 

 driest into one of the most interesting of sciences, and the charm of your rambles 

 will be multiplied and deepened a hundred-fold. 



It is the purpose of this paper to compare together the cliff vegetation of 

 Northern, Central, and Southern Wales, so far as it has come under the writer's 

 notice, by selecting a few typical cliff plants from among the phanerogams and 

 ferns, and noting the peculiarities of their distribution within this area. It 



