72 Report of Meetings for 1887. By J. Hardy. 



A Heath-cock and hen rose from the young plantations, which 

 were partly mixed with native hirch seedlings. Buberslaw pre- 

 sented an imposing front in this aspect. First, there was a short 

 lower ridge, where a small plantation, pushed the tops of its 

 trees over the shoulder from behind the ridge ; then came the 

 blue rain-wetted pillar-like rocks; and then the summit curiously 

 ridged and furrowed ; and finally the long heathery moor up to it.* 

 The vale of Rule was now mostly filled up with wood ; the 

 numerous Hawthorns being loaded with fruit. There were fewer 

 Mountain-ashes than I expected. Here we had glimpses of 

 Leyden's 



" Red ezlar banks, that frightful scowl, 

 Fringed with grey hazel." 



Wells' policies (Sir William F. A. Eliott, Bart.) were greatly 

 admired for the many fine trees, Ash, Oak, Sycamore, and Larch ; 

 some of them being among the oldest planted trees in Roxburgh- 

 shire. I have been favoured with the following return of the 

 best of the trees at Wells, from Mr Kennedy, the forester. 



"The woodlands are interesting, and among them may be found numer- 

 ous fine specimen trees. In the immediate neighbourhood of the mansion- 

 house, there are lnrge numbers of oaks, ashes, beeches, and larch, which give 

 finite a character to the woods. Among those worthy of mention are the 

 following: Oak No. 1. — Standing alone on the lawn to the left of the 

 mansion-house, one of the most perfect oaks which a forester could desire 

 to see. This oak is 80 ft. high, with a clean bole 30 ft. circumference at 

 one foot from ground, 18 ft. 4 in. at five ft. ; up 14 ft. so equally grown that 

 it girths perhaps as much at 25 ft. from ground as at five. Oak No. 2. — 

 Stands close to the stables, but is very much shaded by other trees ; it is 

 85 ft. high, bole 36 ft. very equally grown, circumference one foot from 

 ground 19 ft. at five up 15 ft. Oak No. 3. — Circumference one foot from 

 • ■•round 17 ft. 8 in. circumference, five ft. up 13 ft. 6 in., height of bole, 

 40 ft., height of tree 85 ft. Larch No. 1. — Circumference one foot from 

 ground 12 ft. 7 in., five ft. up 9 ft. 6 in., clean bole 70 ft., height 100 ft. 



* As I may not have another opportunity, and as a memorandum to our 

 successors in investigation, I may here mention, that Messrs A. Jerdon and 

 W. B. Boyd found among crevices of the rocks on the summit of Ruberslaw, 

 the rare moss, CEdipodinm Griffithianum, which I have already recorded 

 (Club's Hist. v. p. 465) from the Bizzle and Henhole on Cheviot. On one 

 visit, before 1867, 1 found an example of a very rare and unrecorded alpine 

 lichen, Parmelia ambigua, Ach., on the stem of one of the dwarf Scots 

 pines that encircle the neck of the hill, facing to Cavers. I sought for it 

 in vain on a second visit many years afterwards. On the same occasion I 

 broke off from a sandstone at the base of a wall lower down, but on the 

 same side of the hill, what T took for Lecidea lucida, Ach. 



