Report of Meetings for 1880, by James Hardy. 219 



Along a cross ravine, which lies between Halls and the Dry- 

 burn, separating Spott from Helden, runs a series of lochs — the 

 Black Loch being one — which are filling up. Some of them 

 have no outlet. They are frequented by wild ducks and water 

 hens. One contains perch. The Brunt Wood, mostly of oak, 

 faces to the west. Blue hyacinths, forming great stretches, 

 gleamed through amongst the trees ; and the sides of the woods 

 were clad with stitchworts, which open in a sheet of white when 

 the sun shines, but close up when rain falls, and become assimi- 

 lated in verdure to the grass. A marsh at the bottom was one 

 mass of rich gold with the blooms of the marsh marigold. 



While those who preferred passed on to Innerwick and Inner- 

 wick Castle, a walking party detached themselves, on reaching 

 the Dryburn below Brunt, and proceeded up into the centre of 

 the Woodhall woods. The ravine now entered, like that at 

 Spott, is cut in the Old Red Conglomerate, and probably follows 

 the line of an original fissure, subsequently widened out and 

 dressed by abrading agencies. A narrow porphyritic dyke 

 crosses the stream, north and south, shortly after the haugh here 

 has been entered. On the banks of the southern side, which, as 

 well as those on the north, are wooded, the profusion of prim- 

 rose blossom was excessive, as it has been in most places where 

 it grows this season. At Wallace's Mill, which is mentioned in 

 old writs, there are only now the remains of the garden-fence, 

 which was of Bour-tree. Here MyrrJiis odorata, Pyrethrum 

 Farthenium, JEgopodium Podagraria, and Circcea Lutetiana grew, 

 the only relics of the kindly folks who "wonn'd in the glen," 

 when the tenants' corn was thirled to the laird's own mill. In 

 going up into the woods the party kept to the paths, there being 

 no time for divergence. The trees are mostly of oak. The 

 more interesting plants in this and the adjoining Wodolie dean, 

 and in their forks, which stretch far away up into the hills are — 

 Stellaria nemorum, Vicia syhatica, Campanula latifolia, Ruhus saxa- 

 tilis, Melica unijlora, CJirysosplenium aUernifolium, Adoxa moscha- 

 telUna, Veronica montana, Saxifraga granulata, Sisymbrium tlialia- 

 num, Myosotis syhatica (very fine and abundant), Endymion nutans 

 (white var.), Sanicula Europma, (Enanthe crocata in marshes, 

 EpiloMum angustifolium (where the ravine, after a long curve, 

 turns towards the hills), Cistopteris fragilis (frequent), Scolopen- 

 d/rium vulgare, Polypodium Dryopteris (frequent), Polystiehium 



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