238 CHEDDAR PLANTS. [OctobcV, 



When I got to Brockley the evening was far advancing, and I 

 thought that my first care should be to secure a bed at the vil- 

 lage inn, but I could not get accommodation ; so not choosing 

 to explore the valley and rough it for the night, I walked on to 

 the village of Backwell. At four o'clock next morning I began 

 to retrace my ground, and had not gone above a mile before I 

 discovered a very curious variety of Scolopendrium vulgare. The 

 fronds are about four inches long, doubly furcate and truncate, 

 with the sides jagged. I examined the withered fronds of the 

 previous year, and, finding that its characters were constant, I ex- 

 tracted it from the wall and placed it in my tin box. 



Further on I turned on my left hand into a wild, common-like 

 piece of land, with rocks upon it. This blind road I expected 

 would lead me towards the upper part of Brockley Combe, and 

 though it led me wide of the mark, it recompensed me by my 

 discovering Ceterach officinarum and Asplenium Ruta-muraria 

 growing upon the wild rock. I had never before seen them grow- 

 ing except upon the works of man. I now got into a wild neigh- 

 bourhood, and had passed Brockley Combe a mile and a half 

 before I came to a house. The first that I came to had a great 

 quantity of Cystopteris fragilis growing upon the garden-wall. 

 Here I was told that although I had missed the place I wanted 

 to find, I was still upon the right track for Cheddar ; and not 

 wishing to walk my ground three times over, I did not go back 

 again. 



About a mile before I got to the next village, which is called 

 Wrington, I came upon a quantity of Helianthemum vulgare, 

 many patches of which had orange-coloured blossoms instead of 

 yellow. 



When I arrived at the village, upon a low wall which separated 

 the garden of a very genteel house from the road, I observed a 

 great quantity of Dianthus ccssius; indeed the top was completely 

 covered with it. It was in full bloom, and was a very beautiful 

 object ; it had evidently been sown there. A little past the vil- 

 lage, on the road to Churchill, and on the right-hand, I observed 

 a Ranunculus ?, and further on, on the left hand, on a low wall, 

 was Sedum dasyphyllum, and still further, on the same side of 

 the road, was an old brick wall, with a profusion of Cystopteris 

 fragilis growing near to the top of it. Near to the turnpike, 

 where a stream runs under the road, I observed a bank with a 



