io 



REPORT ON YORKSHIRE BOTANY FOR THE 

 SEASON OF 1894. 



A. H. PAWSON, 



Honoyary Secretary /or Pliaiierogainia to the Botanical Section of the 

 Yorkshire Naturalists Union. 



There has not of late years been a season of greater promise in 

 the vegetable world than that of 1894. The glorious sunshine of 

 last year had so ripened the twigs and filled the buds of all shrubs 

 and trees, and stored up such abundance of starch and other plant- 

 foods in rhizome, rootstock, bulb and tuber, that a harvest of unusual 

 plenty in every sort of flower and fruit seemed assured. The winter, 

 too, was short and not severe. In February and March the sun 

 shone brightly, and the season was so forward, that by the end of 

 the latter month we found ourselves in the middle of Spring. In 

 favoured spots the air was heavy with the scent of violets, whom 

 envious primroses and wood anemones were endeavouring to 

 supplant. In April the pageant of Spring (to borrow Richard Jefferies' 

 excellent phrase) proceeded with extraordinary splendour. Probably 

 never again shall we see in such perfection of loveliness the great 

 Rose-tribe, to whom we owe so much of the beauty of these early 

 months — and here the influence of the last summer was felt to the full. 

 In all parts of the country the hawthorn bloomed as it has hardly 

 ever been seen to bloom before. In many places the tall hedge-rows 

 presented irregular, but unbroken, walls of white blossom. It was 

 a subject of common remark, that hardly a green leaf was to be seen 

 on them. Our northern bird-cherry, which is so abundant on 

 Silurian rocks, was equally profuse. The mountain-ash is always 

 to be depended on, but this year its cousin Aria was almost as 

 bountiful. The orchards were all masses of snow. Even quinces 

 and medlars, Avhich flower but sparingly under our chilly Yorkshire 

 skies, were starred over with big delicate blossoms as they are in 

 Hampshire and Surrey. 



But soon the merry month of May began to make cruel sport 

 with all this plenty. The weather grew colder as the days went on, 

 and we felt with amazement the bleak winds of March when we 

 were within a month of the summer solstice — then, almost before 



Hot. Trans. Y.N.U., 1S96 (publ, 189E). 



