54 BOTANICAL SKETCHES FROM NORTH WALES. [February, 



In the grassy pastures on the table-land Habenaria bifolia, 

 Orchis maculata, Narthecium ossifragum, beginning to open its 

 pretty, intensely yellow flowers, and fine specimens of Botrychium 

 Lunar ia were observed. 



In waste parts of this mountain farm- steading, the usual plant 

 of all country dwellings in this district, Artemisia Absinthium, 

 abounded, also a very rough and broad-leaved variety of Mentha 

 viridis, and a much rarer than either, viz. Peucedanum Ostruthium, 

 Master-wort, said to be common in gardens in North Wales. 

 Here it was common enough, not in the garden, but on what 

 would be called in Scotland the toum lone, or open space leading 

 from the cowhouses to the fields. In the garden-hedge we saw 

 fine examples of what the Cambro-Britons call the Yellow-tree, 

 Berberis vulgaris. The hospitable occupants of this remote al- 

 pine township invited us to enter their house and partake of their 

 hospitalities, an ofier which it would have been churlish to refuse. 



After rest and refreshment we went up the mountain, and in 

 less than a quarter of an hour's walk had the pleasure of seeing 

 this rarity growing profusely among the Sphagna, covered by 

 the long Heather. 



After supplying ourselves and friends with good specimens, 

 — for we have as much pleasure in contributing to the complete- 

 ness of their herbaria as in furnishing our own, — we descended 

 the mountain by another tract. 



On our right we came to a deep, thickly-wooded glen, or dale, 

 or fissure of the mountain, with a rattling stream at the bottom. 

 We descended with some difficulty, and along the declivity found 

 fine specimens of Melampyrum sylvaticum in full flower. M. 

 pratense, the common woodland species in the south of England, 

 did not appear. 



The woodland Cow- wheat is not very correctly described in 

 the ' Illustrated Handbook of the British Plants.' The branches 

 are scarcely spreading, they are rather erect ; the bracts or floral 

 leaves are not entire, but rather furnished with long teeth at the 

 base; the corolla is deep-yellow, but not small; the plant is 

 from six to eight inches high. In M. pratense the stalk is usu- 

 ally from twelve to eighteen inches long. 



Besides the plants common in such localities, we saw Circaa 

 lutetiana, or what appears to be this species. The alpine form, 

 C. alpinum, might be expected : two hundred yards is a rather 

 low estimate for the altitude of this species. 



