284 BOTANY OF WYRE FOREST. 
green colour longer in the autumn; when faded, a dull brown, 
bearing fruit in greater profusion ; its stratal affinity is to the old 
or new red sandstone, or ferruginous clays. 
Q. intermedia: fruit on a very short peduncle or sitting, often 
abortive; leaves cuneate-ovate, tapering to a long petiole, pubes- 
cent beneath, glabrous and shining above, particularly in the 
autumn ; average a larger size than Q. Robur, more coriaceous ; 
change in the autumn to a fine brown; it bears fruit, but spa- 
ringly. Sometimes a middling-aged tree will occasionally produce 
a plentiful crop. I have known some very old trees for more 
than fifty years which in the course of that time have borne but 
very little fruit. The timber is very durable, is fine-grained, and 
of a paler colour than Q. Rodur. 
The youthful Oaks wear their faded vest during the winter, » 
until the young buds thrust it off; but when they become of age, 
robust, and strong, their biennial covering disdain, and cast 1t on 
the ground. I have often planted the fruit of both species: the 
young trees exactly follow their parents in every particular. 
Now let us away to the sylvan shades to seek the floral gems ; 
they all seem to greet me with a welcome smile. 
First I find Geranium sylvaticum and Aquilegia vulgaris both 
plentifully dispersed over the woods, and so is Convallaria majalis, 
Euphorbia amygdaloides, Serratula_tinctoria, flor. alb., Solidago 
Virgaurea, and Teucrium Scorodonia abundant, and also Tor- 
mentilla officinalis, Vaccinium Myrtillus, Geranium sanguineum, 
Origanum vulgare ; those two plants are found in great profusion 
over a great extent of woodland on the Shropshire portion of 
Wyre Forest, on the left side of Dowlas Brook, where probably 
they have been inhabitants ever since it first became a forest ; but 
on the other side of the brook I have not yet found a single spe- 
cimen of either of the two plants in the same strata, but a diffe- 
rent aspect,—the latter a northern, the other a southern. This 
shows the susceptibility of plants to meteorological influences, a 
subject which deserves more attention. Daphne Laureola, Pyrus 
Aria, sparingly ; Drosera rotundifolia, Epilobium angustifolium, 
Epipactis ensifolia, occasionally abundant; in several localities 
Epipactis palustris, Epipactis latifolia, Equisetum sylvaticum, 
abundant, and also Eriophorum pubescens, Gymnadenia conopsea. 
Surely this G. conopsea, which grows in such profusion on the 
very spongy bogs, and nowhere else in Wyre Forest, must be 
