ON A CHALK SUBSOIL. 



NO right-thinking person will wish to do anything by 

 word or deed that may lead to the extermination 

 of any of our British plants, so we do not propose to 

 describe in detail any visit to the homes of our chief 

 rarities. We might go at this season to the lonely ruins 

 of Pennard Castle in the peninsula of Gower, about eight 

 miles from Swansea, where in almost inaccessible security 

 grows the yellow Alpine whitlow -grass ; whilst on neigh- 

 bouring limestone cliffs we might light upon the somewhat 

 less uncommon rock hutchinsia, a pretty little relative of 

 the homely shepherd's -purse, with "pinnate" or feather- 

 like divisions to its leaves. We will however go less far 

 afield. There are at all seasons of the year a considerable 

 number of interesting plants that, requiring a well-drained 

 and warm subsoil, grow preferably upon limestone, or in 

 the South-East of England on our prevalent earthy lime- 

 stone, the chalk. We may go to the gloomy shade of the 

 box-trees on Box-hill in Surrey, and no doubt we shall find 

 thereabouts the scentless hairy violet growing in the open 

 pastures; or we may visit the ever-beautiful slopes of 

 Cliefden, where the aged yew-trees overshadow the luridly 

 poisonous hellebores ; but there is a special reason why we 

 should choose some part of Essex, Suffolk, Cambridge- 

 shire, or Hertfordshire, approximately between Bishop 

 Stortford, Haverhill, Linton, and Saffron Walden. Here 

 in the roadside ditches we shall see the fern-like foliage 



