MALVERN NATURALISTS’ FIELD CLUB. 1s: 
berry, Cloudberry, etc. Patches of the latter-named formation 
crop out here and there, and are immediately distinguished by 
their wet, oozy, peaty composition, as well as by their general 
sterility and the paucity of plants which they can support. The 
vegetation of the limestone is succulent and nutritious, as well as 
close and varied. That of the grit is worthless and almost uni- 
form: Heath, straggling plants of Tormentil, Milkwort, and Moor 
grass are almost the only produce, with here and there a few 
Cranberries, which are disappearing in many of these extensive 
moors. 
That certain plants prefer peculiar soils is a fact, the cause of 
which is one of the arcana of Nature. The Scotch Pine, the 
Foxglove, and the Heaths, prefer a gritty or sandy or granitic 
soil. The Beech, the Traveller’s Joy, and many Orchids are 
limited to limestone or to chalky soils. The Chickweed, the 
Nettle, and various plants of a cosmopolitan character, abound 
wherever man fixes his abode. Can our geologists, or mineralo- 
gists, or chemists, explain the cause of this? We trow not. 
They can point out the facts. We can do this. But we admit 
that the causes are latent. We cannot tell why the Shepherd’s- 
purse abounds about the haunts of men; nor why the beautiful 
Bee Orchis blushes unseen, and exposes its beauties where there 
are few to admire them. SBesides these inexplicabilities im na- 
ture, viz. the predominance of particular plants on particular 
soils and situations, there are others still more striking, because 
not of so general a kind. There are plants, as Mr. Lees re- 
marks, that are peculiarly isolated in various parts. Oxytropis 
campestris is an example, confined, we believe, to a single rock on 
one of the Clova Mountains. Actea spicata is limited to one 
part of Yorkshire, or to a small tract in that part of England. 
Lloydia seroiina is found only on one or two rocks in Carnar- 
vonshire. Cotoneaster vulgaris is limited to the Orme’s Head. 
Potentilla rupestris to rocks on Craig Breidden, Montgomery- 
shire; Helianthemum Breweri to Anglesea; “and Vicia levigata 
has been found nowhere else in the world but on the beach at 
Weymouth.” 
Rock Lichens, as Mr. Lees further remarks, appear to be 
affected by the same law of distribution. Some of these humble 
productions are produced only on granitic rocks, others on the 
oolite. Some of the larger species of this family prefer certain 
