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plants, using this adjective in its botanical sense. The lake itself 

 from its rocky, or clear gravelly bottom, is comparatively barren of 

 vegetation ; greatly resembling in this particular the secluded lake 

 of Ennerdale. 



In running my fingers along the columns of the London Catalogue 

 of British Plants, 7th Edition, 1877, 1 find that nearly five hundred 

 and twenty different species of plants may be claimed as indigenous 

 to the district, exclusive of Ferns, Equiseta, Lycopods, and Mosses. 

 A fair proportion also of casuals, waifs of cultivation, &c., may be 

 found, whose introduction into the neighbourhood would appear 

 almost unaccountable under ordinary circumstances. Amongst 

 these casuals I may mention Camelina sativa, which I found in 

 1878 growing near the course of a stream flowing into Dacre Beck. 

 On subsequent enquiry it appeared that the soil where it was found 

 had been shot there out of the grounds of an old residence close 

 by, where the plant had, in former times, been grown along with 

 Flax. 



A yet more curious instance happened to me so recently as 

 October last. Passing along the road near the old steamboat 

 landing at Ploshgate, my eye caught some diminutive purple- 

 flowering plants growing on the gravel bed there. I got over the 

 rails to examine the spot, and was surprised to find several other 

 plants, all of which I thought were exotics. I afterwards found 

 that one of the residents in the neighbourhood had brought away 

 from Mr. Seatree's, in Penrith, a quantity of refuse cleared out 

 from a corn-dressing machine, and had been in the habit of 

 throwing it on the gravel where the plants were found, to feed his 

 poultry ; and here was the result. Among others was a plant of 

 the Sinapis tribe which in its younger condition of growth his 

 daughter had cut and used as an ingredient in a salad. 



It cannot of course be expected that in the limits of a paper like 

 the present I should be able to descend to minute particulars of 

 each of the five hundred plants to be found within the area I have 

 mentioned. I will therefore describe such particular species of 

 each family as I may deem expedient, either on account of their 

 beauty, comparative rarity, or economic utility. Before doing so, 



