THE YORKSHIRE NATURALISTS’ UNION AT ASKERN. 289 
For the Botanical Section reports were given by Mr. A. H. 
Pawson (Leeds), Secretary for Phanerogamic Botany, and by 
Mr. Charles Crossland (Halifax), Secretary for Mycolo 
Mr. Pawson remarked that the botanists of the party at once 
turned their eyes to the pools and the marshes, for in this low-lying 
land these were to them the region of promise. They meant no 
disrespect to the dry land in this case. Magnesian limestone is 
a soil of which the plant-lover never thinks without rapture, but here 
there are no exposures of it in cliffs and crags such as delight his 
eyes about Thorparch and Knaresborough. The natural rock is 
almost entirely hidden by drift and alluvium which have left a flat 
surface, admirably adapted for agriculture, and so thoroughly is it 
utilised for that purpose that the territories of the wild children of 
the plain have been sadly abridged. The hedge-banks and an 
occasional bit of tangle alone remain to them. Their cousins of the 
marshes, however, are happier in having contented themselves with 
land of no economié value, and they are left to possess it in peace. 
Nay, the operations of the agriculturist have been even favourable 
to these water-plants. He must perforce leave to them their 
marshes, and, in draining his other lands, he has provided them with 
numerous ditches of varying depths (which by a periodical cleansing — 
ti 
_ the great Reeds, the Bulrushes, and the giant Sedges which lord it 
over the marsh. S 
It was by fields aid bye-paths that members made their way to | 
2 ‘Shirley Pool and its adjacent marshy jungle, noting on the way _ 
Pelee vulgaris in fine flower and Riamnus catharticus and the — . 
h ie 
— was too early for the - fall ern of the Bulrushes and the great a 
mgt a Dat the fon oe mete tn tne were big and the rare — 
less frequent 2. Srangula, trees usually of different levels, growing 
: side by side. The great dryness of the season gave an unusually = 
| et aies es of — = marshes. Overtopped by the tall = 
Pec able to penetrate e into the domain a Sag Rec 
