[September, 1862.] 257 



YISIT TO LONGSLEADALE. 

 By John Windsor. 



In early life^ now a long time ago, when a medical pupil in my 

 native town, Settle, Yorkshire, I was accompanied by my late 

 friend the Rev. John Howson, of Giggleswick, in a botanical 

 excursion of a few days, to the neighbourhood of Kendal. 



One of those days was occupied by a visit to Longsleadale, a 

 spot celebrated as producing at one time, along with other 

 interesting plants, that beautiful grass, the Stipa pennata. The 

 excellent Ray says of it, '' Found by Dr. Richardson in com- 

 pany with Thomas Lawson, on the limestone rocks hanging 

 over a little* valley (I should rather call it a long one) called 

 Longsleadale, about six miles north of Kendal, in Westmore- 

 land." 



I am not aware that this plant has been found in this locality 

 at any recent period, and on the only two occasions when I have 

 visited it I have looked for it in vain. My explorations however 

 have been confined to the lower part and the sides of the valley, 

 not extending to the top of the mountains above, and therefore I 

 could not say but that possibly it might yet be found by some 

 more successful searcher ; indeed, if I remember rightly, there 

 was a notice by some one in a volume of the ' Phytologist,^ that 

 it was still to be found at no great distance from Longsleadale, 

 although for obvious reasons it was thought prudent not to 

 designate the exact locality. 



On the 11th of June of this year, 1862, accompanied by my 

 youngest son, I left Manchester in the afternoon for Kendal. A 

 little before six o'clock the following morning we set off for the 

 valley, taking the great North Road for about four miles, and 

 then turning off by a lane on the left, which conducted us about 

 two miles further into the romantic dale. By the side of the 

 lane, in going along, we found in tolerable abundance Gei'anium 

 sylvaticum and Meconopsis cambrica, also a solitary specimen 

 of Atichusa sempervirens. The weather, we all know, has this 

 spring and summer been hitherto strikingly cold and wet : if fine 

 wholly or partially one day, the next has generally been the 

 reverse ; and the latter happened to be our fate on this occasion, 

 which brought us an almost constant succession of heavy stormy 



N.S. VOL. VT. 2 L 



