1015 



Penally, bare as a withered stump, sends the imagination far back, 

 among warring thoughts. Just at this time, the Rosa spinosissima 

 was coming into flower ; and its dwarf bushes covered many of the 

 rising undulations with a close covering, now scattered over with 

 stainless globes, for thus the flowers appear, the petals converging 

 together at their first expansion. Finely contrasting with these milk- 

 white globes, are burning bushes of Ulex Europaeus, patches of flar- 

 ing Lotus corniculatus and Ranunculus bulbosus, the azure of the 

 trailing Veronica, and the deep purple of a considerable quantity of 

 Orchis Morio ; all contributing their bright colours as a foreground 

 to the bare sand-hills, just roughly fringed with stiff", glaucous grass, 

 or tufted with the pallid sea-spurge. In some places the ground was 

 tinged with vivid red, from the viscid stems of a gregarious growth of 

 the little Saxifraga tridactylites, which else would have been invisible. 

 Here and there was a deep, round hollow, formed, years ago, by some 

 on-rushing wintry billow ; but where the creeping Salix fusca had 

 now found a home. At intervals, stiff" clusters of the great sea-rush 

 {Juncus acuius) took up a position ; and everywhere Avena pratensis 

 waved its elegant silky panicles in the breeze. 



At the extreme western end of the Burrows, beyond Penally, a fresh- 

 water marsh stretches inland, but now gradually impinged upon, and 

 likely to be finally obliterated, by the attacks of cultivation. Here the 

 beautiful Menyanthes trifoliata, become a comparative rarity, was dis- 

 playing its fringed petals by the deeper spreads of water ; and, after 

 some floundering among hussocks of Carex paniculata, I detected the 

 rising fronds of Osmunda regalis, only, as yet, in a barren state. 

 Here, also, in this spongy part of the marsh, I gathered Lastrea The- 

 lypteris, but without fructification. Plenty of Carex intermedia was 

 here scattered about, and some very fine, tall plants of C. ampullacea. 

 In parts of this boggy ground the fragrant Myrica Gale grew very 

 thickly ; and at a later period, doubtless, other interesting bog-plants 

 might be found. 



The promontory of Giltar Point rises abruptly from the western ter- 

 mination of the Burrows, in a long ridge of carboniferous limestone, 

 which extends along the coast for some distance, till it meets with the 

 old red sandstone near Manorbier. Of course, it off"ers a pabulum for 

 the usual limestone plants ; but the turf along its summit svi'arms with 

 the pretty and fragrant Scilla verna ; thus giving quite an azure fore- 

 ground to the scene of shelving rock, sea, and craggy island. The 

 Cochlearia officinalis here grows very fine, with some quantity of 

 Thalictrum minus, if not, perha}>s, rather the var. majus, as far as size 



