971 



Clent hills, which future botanical ramblers will do well to avail them- 

 selves of. Mr. W. mentions the Rubery-hill, " flanking the Broms- 

 grove Lickey ; " but if he had stepped on two miles farther, to the 

 Bromsgrove Lickey itself, he might have perceived one of the most 

 interesting localities for Worcestershire plants, and almost the only 

 spot in the county whose Botany has anything of a subalpine charac- 

 ter — gloomy hills black to their very summits with bushy plants of 

 Calluna vulgaris, interspersed with Erica cinerea and Tetralix, woods 

 filled to repletion with Vaccinium Myrtillus, and bogs containing 

 Narthecium ossifragum, Vaccinium Oxycoccos, Melica caerulea and 

 the Eriophori. Rubus hirtus and affinis also form bushes upon the 

 summit of the Beacon-hill, and Juncus squarrosus is abundant, while 

 most of these plants are absent from the Malvern range. There is 

 surely no want of water here, and Lastraea dilatata grows most mag- 

 nificently in the damp ravines, with a bilobated variety of Grammitis 

 Ceterach, Athyrium Filix-femina, and other fenis. I could easily 

 mention several other favourable boggy localities near Kidderminster 

 and Stourport, where various Carices and rare plants grow. But I 

 have no wish to repress the energies of any enquirer, and only think 

 it right to hint to young botanists, that due enquiry should be first 

 made before it is too confidently set down that ferns and water are en- 

 tirely absent firom any ranges of hills, though at the time perhaps both 

 may be within a stone's throw of the observer, had his local knowledge 

 enabled him to reach them. — Edwin Lees; Powick, Worcestershire, 

 April 4, 1844. 



475. Note on some localities in Mr. W. Gardiner^s List, (Phytol. 

 915). In the last number of ' The Phytologist' Mr. Gardiner of Dun- 

 dee, a very zealous and enthusiastic botanist, gives some localities for 

 rare Scotch plants which he collected in 1843. Among these he no- 

 tices what he calls new stations for Lychnis viscaria and Carex rari- 

 flora. The localities however have been known for some time. I 

 gathered the former in Craighall woods in August, 1829, and gave 

 specimens to Dr. Graham and other botanists in Edinburgh. In' 

 another part of the same woods, I picked Convallaria verticillata 

 and Neottia Nidus-avis. Carex rariflora was seen by Dr. Greville 

 Mr. Brand and myself, in a bog above Caness, in August, 1837. — 

 Along the sides of the stream running into Caness, we gathered 

 at the same time profusion of Phleum alpinum, Alopecurus alpinus 

 and Carex aquatilis. I think the station was noticed in Dr. Greville's 

 report of the excursion, read before the Botanical Society of Edin- 

 burgh ; at all events, specimens were distributed from this locality. 



