864 



touch of Time's mouldering fingers, renders their soil in the present 

 day capable of immediate cultivation even in the steepest places. 



On a first cursory glance at the turf of the hills, there seems a great 

 sameness in the mosses that luxuriate there, Dicranum scoparium and 

 undulatum, Hypnum triquetrum, splendens, purum, and molluscum, 

 with the Polytricha, seeming as if they had united to exclude the rest, 

 Hypnum triquetrum especially everywhere predominating. However, 

 a little attention will show a considerable variety, especially upon or 

 in the immediate vicinity of the rocks, or on the margin of the nume- 

 rous tinkling rills that show a cincture of the tenderest green wherever 

 they trickle down. The apple-fruited moss [Bartramia) has a most 

 elegant aspect seated among the deep crannies of the rocks, and the 

 Aniclangium quite covers some spots with its gray tresses ; while a 

 hoary aspect is given to the loose slabs in the upper ravines, bearded, 

 as they become in decrepitude, with the woolly Trichostomum lanugi- 

 nosum. Some of the mosses, of course, are rare or local ; a few being 

 confined to the limestone on the western side of the range. 



The Malvern Hills are particularly remarkable for the various 

 Lichens they produce ; so that the late accurate cryptogamic bota- 

 nist, Mr. Purton, has remarked in his * Midland Flora,' that even in 

 Wales he had scarcely observed any lichens that did not grow upon 

 the Malvern Hills. Indeed, he might have stated the converse, for 

 lichens grow here that I have not met with in Wales. Most of them 

 grow in a very luxuriant and beautiful manner, and in the moist au- 

 tumnal and wintry months many of- the rocks present an appearance 

 with their lichens truly gratifying to the lover of nature. Several north- 

 ern and southern species seem here to attain their respective limita- 

 tions, for on the same craggy rocks of the North Hill at Great Mal- 

 vern are found the beautiful golden-hued Borrera flavican^ and the 

 dingy northern Parmelia stygia. Some of the harder granitic rocks 

 are entirely covered with Umbilicaria pustulata, which in the spring 

 is of an olive-green colour, and as flabby as a piece of moist leather, 

 though in the summer months it appears black and sooty, as if sub- 

 jected to the action of fire. On other rocks the deep purple Parmelia 

 omphalodes extends itself, contrasted with wide patches of the gray 

 P. physodes, the darker P. saxatilis, the dusky P. olivacea, or the 

 conspicuous pitted thalli of Sticta scrobiculata. On the higher rocks 

 the curled Cetraria glauca grows' in abundance ; while a remarkably 

 hoary aspect is imparted to the protruding masses by the silvery Tsi- 

 dium coralloides, and the still more elegant coralline appearance of 



