614 BOTANICAL SKETCHES. [Novembev, 



drizzly rain, but the Cotton Grass, or the Canna, as the bards of 

 Ossian's country delight to call the plant, is beautiful even 

 when motionless. 



" What is fairer than the Canna, waving in the breeze, 

 When summer laughs in flowery pride, and verdure clothes the trees ?" 



The Celt probably had never read, or possibly may have for- 

 gotten. Pope's celebrated denunciation of the above rhyme. 

 Chat Moss had not a joyous aspect. It had no pretensions to 

 " flowery pride ;" dull and sombre was it, like Vallombrosa in a 

 dark, autumnal day. Yet the hoary-bearded Canna was beau- 

 tiful even in its stillness. Three species of Eriophorum grow 

 here and on all the mosses about Manchester, viz. E. vaginatum, 

 E. angustifolium, with its variety, gracile, Smith, not E. gracile, 

 Koch, and E. polystachion, if it be a genuine species. These 

 being all in fruit were at this period, the 13th July, the 

 showiest of the Chat Moss plants. The Lancashire Asphodel 

 (well named, for it abounds in Lancashire) here and there exhi- 

 bited in patches its pretty starry-shaped, deep-yellow flowers. 

 The Moor-Grass, Molinia ccerulea, was universally difiused. 

 - The most interesting plants on all the bogs in this part of 

 the country are the Droseras, or Sundews. It is hard to say 

 whether D. rotundifolia or D. anglica be the most common. 

 The intermediate form, well named intermedia by Hayne, is not 

 so common as the two species that exhibit the extreme states of 

 the British species. 



In Chat Moss D. anglica is nearly as common as D. rotundi- 

 folia. There are here and there considerable depressions of the 

 surface, places whence peat had formerly been dug out, now 

 filled with Sphagnum (Bog-Moss). On the decaying roots of 

 these the long-leaved Sundew grows. It may, like the com- 

 moner species, grow on the peaty mould, but I did not collect 

 any specimens to which the decaying Sphagnum did not adhere. 



D. intermedia grows along with both the others, but it is not 

 quite so abundant in the parts of the moss which we visited. 



Andromeda polifolia is very plentiful in all parts, mingled 

 with the Heath or Ling. None of it, however, was in flower so 

 late as the 13th of July. Specimens were collected in fruit. In 

 the Floras it is said to grow on mountainous parts of England 

 and Scotland : this is no doubt partly correct. The mosses 

 about Manchester, where it grows freely, are as flat as a pan- 



