SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



107 



PLANTS IN WESTERN ENGLAND. 



By C. Parkinson. 



A MONGST the rarer plants which exhibit a 

 marked tendency to increase in the area of 

 distribution in our western river-valleys, I think 

 the Saponaria officinalis (soapwort) is a notable 

 example. It is by no means rare upon the Severn 

 banks, above Worcester; it is extremely plentiful 

 by the Monnow, and upon the Usk, near to 

 Abergavenny. It thrives best where the stiff 

 marl gives place to red sand, and the seed 

 dissemination must be both extensive and readily 

 accomplished. Halfway between the old border 

 castles of Skenfrith and Grosmont, in the Monnow 

 valley, there is a shelving bank, resplendent in 

 the early autumn with a regular grove of Inula 

 elecampane, each stem standing four to six feet high, 

 which it is well worth a ten-miles walk to see in 

 perfection of golden yellow bloom. Campanula 

 palula, a plant which I find best distinguished by 

 the slightly toothed edges of the calyx, is dis- 

 tributed through the three counties of Worcester, 

 Hereford and Monmouth. In the first-named, it 

 is fairly plentiful in Wye forest ; I have also 

 gathered it in Shrawley Wood and at Madresfield. 

 On the Monnow I first saw it three miles from the 

 fishing inn at Skenfrith ; and in Herefordshire it 

 grows close to Ross. For the first time I have 

 gathered a single specimen of Campanula rapun- 

 culus at Hartlebury, Worcestershire, during the 

 last week in July. It grew by the roadside in a 

 deep cutting of the new red sandstone. 



Near to Worcester, Centaurea solstitialis has 

 appeared sporadically in waste ground. It had 

 not been cultivated in an adjacent garden, nor had 

 its appearance before been noted in the neighbour- 

 hood. The angular stem is winged in a peculiar 

 manner, the wings passing here and there into 

 leafy bracts. 



Another introduced plant, a yellow crucifer, 

 puzzled me for a week, I searched in vain through 

 English, French and German botany text-books. 

 By the character of the silicule, it answered to the 

 genus Lepidium, but no species could I find with 

 perfoliate upper leaves and terminal yellow flowers, 

 It grew freely by a mill on the Tame, near 

 Worcester. An unfailing correspondent, Mr. J. C. 

 Bruce, of Oxford, identified it for me as L. perfoli- 

 atum, from the Black Sea area, whence it had 

 probably come with imported grain. I can claim 

 Ultricularia minor as a truly Worcestershire plant 

 though rare in occurrence. Two varieties of the 

 marsh veronica (V, scutcllata) seem to grow 

 together. The typical form has leaves, stem and 

 capsules perfectly smooth, the variety (pubescens) 



being hairy in all its parts. On Bredon Hill, an 

 outlying spur of' the Cotswold oolites, a humble 

 little plant, possibly overlooked, grows freely ; 

 that is the quinancy wort (Aspcnda tynanchica) 

 with delicate, valerian-like flowers, almost hidden 

 in the coarse turf. In a deserted quarry Cm it; 

 eriophorus grows in all its glory, a plant which is 

 attractive, if only for the curious webbing between 

 the points of the involucre, as if industrious spiders 

 had been most diligently at work. 



On the main ridge of the Cotswolds I find Atropa 

 belladonna (deadly nightshade) not uncommonly 

 distributed, notably at Birdlip, and at Horsepools. 

 At the latter place Habenaria viridis (the frog orchis) 

 and Herminium monorchis (musk orchis) grow freely. 

 The Neottia nidus-avis (bird's-nest orchis) is wonder- 

 fully fine in Cranham beechwoods, a semi-parasite, 

 I presume, amongst the leaf-mould on which it 

 thrives. At Leckhampton, above Cheltenham, the 

 other parasite Monotropa hypopitys (yellow birds- 

 nest) is found attached to the roots of fir-trees. 

 The greatest rarity of the Cotswolds is Cephalanthcra 

 rubra, with two or three flowers only, which I have 

 myself gathered, the specimens being strangely 

 small and stunted after the luxurious growth of 

 the Swiss plant. 



On the Black mountains, near to Llanthony, the 

 attractive Vaccinium vitis-ideea (cowberry), grows 

 amongst the common whortleberry plants. It is 

 readily distinguished by evergreen, box-like leaves 

 curiously spotted on the lower side ; and when in 

 fruit, by the crimson-red berries in clusters of two 

 or three, or sometimes singly. In a stubble field 

 on the lower slopes, I found a small broom-rape 

 parasitic on the clover roots ; from the bilobed 

 stigma, the position of the stamens (slightly hairy 

 at the base) on the tubular corolla, the purplish hue, 

 the pair of sepals suddenly converging to points, 

 and the shape of the bract, I think it is Orobanchc 

 minor. The plant does not exceed five inches in 

 height ; in the fresh condition it had a sweet scent, 

 though by no means so powerful as 0. carophyUa 

 which I know at Baveno, in Lake Como. 



With regard to the occurrence of Polypodium 

 calcareum on the Herefordshire side of the Black 

 mountains, I take it that the fern is admittedly 

 rare on the old red sandstone. Between Pandy 

 and Llanthony, Cystoptcris fragilis grows amongst 

 the rocks, in which I find manifest traces of lime. 

 The P. calcareum assuredly needs something of this 

 nature for its growth, and I suspect the necessary 

 lime exists in the rock. 



16, The Tything, Worcester. 



