llepovt of Meetings Jor 1885. By Jas. Hardy. 80 



There was much, wild thyme, and two bushes of Rosa mollissima 

 (villosa) with ripe fruit ; also Polypodiunt vulgare, Asplenium 

 Trichomanes, Leskea sericea, and Grimmia pulvinata springing 

 from this interesting rock. There is no reason for believing 

 that the porphyry has carried up the encasing conglomerate 

 that adheres to it ; they are preserved in their position from 

 their combined strength having enabled them to withstand the 

 degrading agencies that have borne the softer materials that 

 once surrounded them away ; the incorporation of the two rocks 

 having been effected before the present glens were hollowed out. 

 Farther up the glen a dyke has partly resisted the wearing 

 power of the burn and gives origin to a waterfall. These dikes 

 are numerous but require to be sought after, as several are hidden 

 out of sight. Other castellated forms, broken buttresses and 

 wasted turrets, and immense red walls of conglomerate dis- 

 tinguish this dean. It has a most naked desolate appearance 

 when first entered upon. The rock-brambles ornament the 

 fissures, and beds of wild strawberry on the dry banks refresh 

 the visitor with their agreeable flavour. This is the only one 

 of the glens here that Epilobium angustifolium grows in ; and it 

 only occupies the peak of a detached rock. It is plentiful in 

 Boonsly ravine above Woodhall woods in two localities. The 

 wide spreading aged mountain ashes within some of the open 

 spaces in this ravine add greatly to their embellishment, espe- 

 cially when in autumn they are loaded with red berries. One or 

 two younger mountain-ashes and perhaps an attendant birch 

 tree are placed at the edges of the little waterfalls. One of 

 these planted on the margin of a rock at the side of a cascade, 

 had sent down two long roots swollen to the size of water-pipes, 

 24 feet long, to reach a better soil below. 



Dr Johnston has already with his keen eye for natural beauty, 

 recorded the preference of this tree for the rocky sides of the 

 linns of our burns, where it "hangs in calmness o'er the flood 

 below," " with an airy gracefulness peculiar to itself." Words- 

 worth appears to have made the same observation : — 

 "The mountain ash. 

 No eye can overlook, when mid a grove 

 Of yet nnfaded trees she lifts her head 

 Decked with autumnal berries, that out shiuo 

 Spring's richest blossoms ; and ye may have marked 

 By a brookside or solitary tarn, 

 How she her station doth adorn ; — the pool 



