Circular 182. 1 



BUCKDEN PIKE, or Buckden Gavel, is one of the most interesting 

 mountains in Yorkshire. It rises behind the village of Buckden to a height of 

 2,302 feet, and in its own modest way merits the opinion expressed as to Great 

 Gable at the head of Wast Water, that it was a most interesting hill to look at, to 

 climb, and to look from. Buckden Pike is one of the most conspicuous of York- 

 shire hills from all the surrounding high lands, affords a fine climb, and its summit 

 commands one of the most interesting and extensive views of the neighbouring 

 dales. 



GEOLOGY. — Geol. Map 97 S.W. (new series 50) includes the whule area. 

 See also Davis & Lee's " West Yorkshire." 



BOTANY. — Papers on the Plants of Langstrothdale were published in the 

 Naturalist for Sept. 1889, pp. 271-277, Jan. 1892, pp. 13-15, and Oct. 1894, 

 p. 285, by Rev. Trevor Basil Woodd and Mr. C. H. B. Woodd. "The Flora of a 

 Pot-hole," by C. H. B. Woodd (Nat., Sept. 1894, pp. 268-270), and "A Note on 

 Moonwort," by Miss Gertrude J. Woodd (Nat., Oct. 1894, p. 284) may also be 

 noted. Reference should be made to the Botanical Survey Map II., Harrogate 

 and Skipton Disirict, by Dr. W. G. Smith and Dr. W. M. Rankin. 



Mr. F. Arnold Lees, writes as follows : — Owing to its remoteness from steel 

 rails, a walk or drive to its literal fastnesses involving a journey of several miles, 

 Langstrathdale — the upper defile of the Wharfe river — from the high green plateau 

 <jf Cam End and Outershaw, the highest wooded glen of the dale — down to 

 Hubberholme and Buckden, has not been investigated botanically or entomologically 

 with any thoroughness. 



What is known of its flora, however, proves it to be, with certain limitations, 

 the nursery of the wild garden lower down in the middle third of the river-basin. 

 The terracing scars cut through at intervals of a mile or two by glens or " dales," 

 each with a tributary gill draining the peat mosses of the flattish water-partings 

 from Cray Moss, Fleet Moss, and Kidhow (Heather Hill) to Cockley Fell, and 

 Horlehead Moor coming round by the south ; all these scars are of alternated 

 limestones and shales of the Yoredale series for the most part, and furnish the 

 requisite humus, detritus, shelter, and amenity of climate, for a great variety of 

 flowering and fiowerless plants. There are Mosses and Hepatics galore, on every 

 rock, by every cascade and rill, in great variety of character and capsule, many 

 fruiting as they do not at lower levels. It is impossible here to give the names of 

 even the principal, but they range from the IFeissiacetc to the Hypnacea:. The 

 bryologist will find a h'arvest at almost any season of the year, in any not too open 

 a gill. 



Ferns are in plenty, too ; all the pretty rock and mountain-woodland kinds, with 

 one much rarer, one near Beckermond, but too limited in quantity and holy in 

 character for its precise shrine to be indicated. 



Of Flowering-plants, again, it is hardly worth while to reel off a long list, not 

 a (-juarter of which could be gathered on one excursion at an\- one season. As 

 August is too late, I may say that Cypi ipediuin Calccolus still exists within a good 

 walk of Buckden. So does Pyrola rotiindifolia in Outershaw gill, on the shivery 

 slopes. Lastnca alpina grows above Kidhow " crow coal'' pits, where the ground 

 is Viestrewn with a black "chert." Here, both Dunlin and Golden Plover nest and 

 bring off broods undisturbed. The virnal Leadwort is everywhere, and on many of 

 the damp slopes Polygonum vivyarum and tlabenaria albida. The little bog tway 

 lilade, Listera cordata grows in the jieat near Fleet Moss tarn. The rarer 

 "Solomon's Seal," Polygonatutn officinale, will be found in the lower niches of 

 many a mural scar face where tliere is shelter, with the egg-shell china lichen 

 Endocarpon.^ set like cups and saucers on its limestone ]Darlour taljle. There are 

 many more exigent "time-stains" coruscating and enamelling the rocks, and 

 weirdly chetjuering twisty and decaying tree boles. Nowhere in \'orkshire do the 

 Nephroiniutn, Solorina, Sticta puhnonacea, the Parnielice and Physcicc, so obtrude 



