1887-1888.] II 



Castle, had been freely given. The path, in many places barely 

 discernible, descends through thickets of hazel, alder, and 

 dwarf oak, most of them of great age, with stems and branches 

 gnarled and twisted into a thousand fantastic forms, and now 

 skirts the deep trout pools, now follows the brow of some 

 miniature cliff, and now plunges through an almost impene- 

 trable thicket. Every here and there is a beautiful cascade, 

 lighting up with its silver spray some dark pool, the angler's 

 favourite resort. 



In other places the ground is a mass of blue, and the air 

 thick with the scent of wild hyacinth. The more common local 

 ferns uncurl their fronds everywhere, whilst some of the rarer, 

 such as Cystopteris fragilis, are to be found by those who seek 

 for them. Too much time had been lost early in the day, and 

 the majority of the party had as much as they could do to 

 follow the straightest course down the glen, but half a dozen of 

 the more active, luckily with a couple of cameras amongst 

 them, made a dash up the sister stream to the deep, round pool, 

 according to local repute fathomless, known as the " Bull's Eye," 

 into which plunges one of the finest waterfalls of the country. 

 Here, whilst two strong swimmers disported themselves in its 

 eddies, the others were engaged with camera and pencil in 

 snatching a hasty record of this woodland gem. 



As was to be expected, these glens proved of great interest to 

 the botanists of the party. On the walls of Park Mill bridge 

 was abundance of the scaly fern, Ceterach officinarum, and 

 maiden hair spleenwort, Asplenium trichomanes. Further 

 down the glen, besides the masses of wild hyacinth, the marshy 

 spots were blazing with the large yellow flowers of the marsh 

 marigold, or Mayflower, to give it its local name. The bird 

 cherry, Prunus padus, one of our handsomest native shrubs, 

 was here in abundance, in lull blossom, lighting up the woods 

 with its clusters of white blossoms. By the stream grew the 

 water avens, Geum rivale, and the valerian, Valeriana officinalis, 

 while among the hazel thickets flourished that curious parasitic 

 plant, the toothwort, Iathrcea squamaria. Numerous specimens 

 were obtained of the very rare fungus, Morchella esculcnia, 



