85 



which time and tempest are continually augmenting ; and along its 

 ramparts the rank grass grows profusely, interspersed with number- 

 less wallflowers, which are now in perfection, and exhale the 

 choicest fragrance." 



The Dyer's Weed, Reseda luteola, and Wild Mignonette, R. lutea, 

 may be found near the Caledonian Railway Sheds. The Scented 

 Violet, Viola odorata, the Violet of Shakspeare, I have found 

 growing by the roadside near Blackball, while the white variety is 

 abundant about Cummersdale. 



Of the Sundews we have the Round-Leaved or Common one, 

 Drosera rotundifolia, on Kingmoor, where it has increased very 

 much during the last three or four years. When I first knew it, 

 there was only some half-dozen plants, all told. On Todhills 

 Moss you will find the other two species — the Great- and the 

 Long-Leaved. You have heard of the peculiar properties of the 

 Sundew time after time, and I am not going to repeat them now. 

 But some recent experiments conducted by Francis Darwin, son 

 of Charles Darwin, may be new to you. They were made with 

 the view of finding out if the nitrogenous food benefitted the plant 

 in any way. He filled six plates with growing and healthy plants 

 of the Drosera. The plates were placed in a favourable situation, 

 and screened so that no insect could get at them ; a line was 

 drawn down the centre of the plates, and on one side of the line 

 they were fed with minute fibres of beef; the plants on the other 

 side got nothing. In every other respect — light, air, etc., the 

 conditions were similar. I will now give you, somewhat roughly, 

 the results of the experiment when the time of growing was over. 

 The fed plants beat the unfed ones in the number of flower stems 

 29 per cent., in leaves 36 per cent., in number and weight of seeds 

 22 per cent, and 57 per cent., in number and weight of seed 

 capsules 94 per cent, and 30 per cent. A similar experiment was 

 carried out by three German professors, only instead of using beef, 

 the Green Fly was used, and similar results were obtained. I have 

 seen it stated somewhere — but unfortunately I cannot come across 

 the article again — that the Round-Leaved Sundew was the only one 

 which was insectivorous ; but this is certainly not the case. For 



