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gressed to Bewdley forest, only five or six miles from thence, where 

 the curious Pyrus domestica grows, and where Geranium sylvaticum 

 and Epipactis ensifolia occur in profusion ? Here also he might have 

 met with Rubus suberectus and R. saxatilis, to say nothing of many 

 ferns. The Clent Hills between Kidderminster and Stourbridge, Mr. 

 W. says " have no rills or ponds,'''' and " are entirely destitute of 

 ferns." Surely this is much too sweeping an observation. I have 

 not been very lately to the Clent hills, so cannot say whether or not 

 every fern has now disappeared ; but I happen to have by me a writ- 

 ten note, made on the spot, as to the existence of water there : and I 

 would not mind undertaking to produce at least half a dozen species 

 of ferns from the same vicinity, if the onus were laid upon me to do 

 so. My note says, — "The Clent hills consist of several green undu- 

 lating eminences, now all enclosed, stretching from N.E. by N. to 

 S.E. by S., insulated from each other by longitudinal valleys winding 

 from west to east. The two principal hills are Clent proper and 

 Walton, the latter of which, being the highest, I found by barometri- 

 cal observation to be 875 feet in altitude. The principal valley is 

 that between Clent and Walton hills. A stream gushes along it, pass- 

 ing out to the w^est near Clent church, and finally emptying itself in- 

 to the Stour," But oddly enough, \imy testimony is insufficient, the 

 ' Saxon Chronicle ' tells us that at " Cowdale in Clent," a spring of 

 water gushed out of the ground at the spot where Prince Kenelm, 

 only son of Kenulph, King of Mercia, was basely murdered in 819, at 

 the instigation of his villanous sister Quendrida, whose " ugly mug," 

 with horrible grinning teeth, yet appears on the wall of St. Kenelm's 

 chapel, a short distance eastw^ard of Clent hill. A spring of water 

 actually now arises on the east side of this chapel, forming a small 

 stream that descends into a woody dingle, where I recollect observ- 

 ing in profusion Adoxa moschatellina and Chrysosplenium alternifo- 

 lium, so often companions of each other. But not to forget St. Kenelm 

 and the miraculous spring of water, so strangely lost sight of by Mr. 

 W. One might have rested satisfied that the spring now rising in St. 

 Kenelm's chapel-yard, was the identical holy spring of the Saxon 

 Chi'onicle ; but fortunately for our present purpose, we get another 

 draught of cold water by the aid of Mr. Scott's ' History of Stour- 

 bridge,' who, at p. 292, tells us that at the distance of less than a mile 

 southward of the chapel, " a most beautiful chrystal fountain arises," 

 which, he kindly suggests, is the " real original " miraculous fountain 

 owing its rise to poor Prince Kenelm's murder ! However this may 

 be, I trust I have obtained a trifling sprinkling at least for the arid 



