173 



OCCUEEENCE in GEEAT ABUNDANCE of CEEPIS 



TAEAXACIFOLIA, ThuilL, at COLWYN 



BAY, DENBIGHSHIRE. 



By Alfred 0. Walker, F.L.S. 

 [Read Dec. 10th, 1897.] 



In the early summer of 1895 Dr. Russell, of Colwyn Bay, 

 and I both noticed a few examples of the above plant in 

 Nant-y-Glyn Valley. It is a conspicuous plant, and as 

 Dr. Russell had been studying the flowering plants of the 

 neighbourhood for two or three years, it is not likely that 

 he would have overlooked it had it been there. I have 

 also kept a look-out for any unusual flowering plants, yet 

 neither of us had seen it before. In the summer of 1896 

 the plant became abundant in my fields, both pasture and 

 arable, which are on a steep slope of Wenlock Shale, 

 facing S.E., and therefore very dry. In June, 1897, it 

 had become by far the most conspicuous weed in my 

 fields, giving a brilliant golden colour to a whole patch of 

 newly-sown clover and grass, and to a great part of an 

 old meadow. 



I saw it also in abundance in other places in the neigh- 

 bourhood, e.g., on the road side by the Marine Hotel, Old 

 Colwyn, and at the top of Penmaen Hill, on the Lime- 

 stone, in the Llysfaen township. Dr. Russell also noticed 

 it independently in these localities,* and in a field below 

 the Queen's Hotel, Old Colwyn, which, as in the case of 

 my fields, was coloured bright yellow by it. 



Crepis taraxacifolia has hitherto been considered a rare 

 plant. H. C. Watson (1849) only records it in Kent, 



* Dr. Russell tells me that he first noticed it on Penmaen Hill in 1894, 



