272 A VISIT TO AIltENGALL DEAN 



are everywhere. Rosa canina and B. ccesium clothe the 

 banks here with the Gueldres rose, while the stitchworts 

 clamber over the rose-brakes in great luxuriance. 



The seclusion and stillness of the dean is remarkable, for 

 if we except the carol of the lark from the uplands, and an 

 occasional note from the blackbird, no sound of bird life 

 is to be heard. In the lower part of the dean the grey 

 sandpiper was flitting about the stones in the stream, and 

 earlier in the season the water-ousel will, no doubt, breed 

 here. Mosses and Jungerraanice are in fine fruit all over 

 the moist banks. Sedum villosum, with its pretty pink 

 flowers, showed through the damp moss, and surrounded by 

 the fragrant mountain fern. We lunched by the edge of 

 the burn, and refreshed after a pleasant walk and scramble. 

 Immediately above where we were sitting, a dyke of brown 

 sandstone intersects the greywaeke, allowing only space for 

 the burn to pass. A mountain ash strikes its roots firmly 

 through the crevices of this dyke, on its southern aspect, 

 and the extraordinary manner in which it has fastened itself 

 is worthy of examination. 



Small plants of Asplenium trichomanes grow on this rock 

 with many other plants. We now clamber up the south 

 bank and gain the moor table-land, taking a south-east 

 direction for the next ravine, which is only partially wooded. 

 The distance across can hardly be a mile, and when the 

 brink of the ravine is reached, if found too steep for descent, 

 by walking higher up, a better place for descending it may 

 be discovered. In going down we get into a soft boggy 

 place among some willows, where we picked some splendid 

 specimens of Marchantia polymorpha, covered with its 

 umbrella-shaped fruit This was one of the most remarkable 

 plants I had met with on this occasion. A patch of it taken 

 carefully up, brought home and placed in damp moss under 

 a bell glass, in a pan of water, would have astonished 

 the uninitiated. Under the willows, on a moist face, it 

 covered a considerable space. In company with it grew 

 stately specimens of Carex levigata. The ravine here is 

 very steep, and the bottom covered with loose stones. 

 Torrents of melting snow in winter come down here from 

 the surrounding hills, 



