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BOTANICAL AND OTHER NOTES AT ARNCLIFFE. 



JOSEPH FRY PICKARI), 

 LcL\ls. 



In this quaint, picturesque, and sequestered villai^^e, striking'ly 

 reminding one of the frequent phrase, ' Far from the madding" 

 crowd,' I spent a week end during- July of this year, staying at 

 the comfortable Falcon Hotel, and exploring crag and wooded 

 glen up-stream from it, and also the wild slopes and summit of 

 our Yorkshire ' lion ' Penyghent. I had two reasons for in- 

 vestigating Upper Littondale — firstly, because I knew that 

 though much very valuable work, botanically and otherwise, 

 had been done in the dale by the Rev. W. A. Shuffrey (Vicar of 

 Arncliflfe), the late Archdeacon Boyd, Mr. F. Arnold Lees, and 

 others, yet there was very much scope in the wilder gills, etc., 

 for further work ; secondly, because I wished to be able to 

 impress the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union with the desirability 

 of visiting it as one of their future excursions. 



It is not far from the hotel to the famous 'Clouders,' where 

 Dryas octopetala, one of those rose-like or 'wind flower' gems, 

 so local, and yet here so plentiful, with its roots happily 

 embedded in the limestone almost as securely as Cotoncaster 

 on the Orme, flourishes in celestial beauty. Following a track 

 of low cliffs, towards the 'Moor,' Viola lutea appears every- 

 where, and the tiny white stars of Arenaria venia. Wherever 

 moisture enough occurs amongst the limestone, Polypodinm 

 calcarciim spreads its blue-green fronds, tog'ether with an 

 abundance of Green Spleenwort, Hartstongue, and two forms 

 oi Cystoptet'is fragilis^ and I noticed quite a quantity of Moon- 

 wort {Botrychiuni lunaria) on grassy mounds, but nearly all 

 seedling specimens. Wherever there are any remains of old 

 lead workings, Thlaspi alpcstre var. occitajium, is plentiful, 

 and there is also a form here (as on Buckden Pikej of Cochlearia 

 alpifia, approaching the grcenlandica of Ben Lawers, with 

 inflated pouches. It was beyond this floral hunting-ground, at 

 a higher elevation amongst fern-crags in some unknown corner 

 of the Clouders area, that "'Archdeacon Boyd found the 

 decreasing Holly Fern {Polysticlmni lonchiiis), and within six 

 miles of this region, in some moist wooded dell, our rarest 

 Yorkshire orchid, the Lady's Slipper {cypripcdiuni Calceohis), 

 may still grow, and does turn up occasionally, plucked by some 

 rustic maiden with a bunch of flowers ; then the plant is lost. 



1906 December i. 



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