•12 
FIFJ.l) MRRTTNCR, 10r)2 
specialization, and there were opportunities galore for independent 
work, but each ineinber was prepared to subordinate private interests 
for the general success of the daily excursions. 
As leader, 1 cannot praise too highly the splendid support that was 
extended to me throughout the week by Dr. E. W. Jones, tlie well- 
known Oxford bryologist. For two days, it was our privilege to share 
excursions with no less an authority than Dr. Warburg. Indeed, the 
first Junior Field Meeting did not lack eminent direction. 
Our first official meeting took place on the Saturday evening in the 
gardens of the Bear Hotel. A welcome to South Wales and particularly 
to the National Park was extended to members. The salient features 
of the area were described; its topography, climate, geology, pedology, 
agriculture and so forth. A brief survey of the vegetation and ecology 
of the area was given, with an account of the principal floristic features 
of South Wales. 
Owing to the doubtful nature of the weather, no fixed schedule was 
arranged. Instead, it was assumed generally, that, following a good 
Aveather forecast, the party could travel far afield, thus leaving the 
nearer areas foi' days of inclement Aveather, or if the good Aveather pei-- 
sisted, to the end of the Aveek. 
Sunday, 20th July. 
Tlie day Avas spent at Craig-y-Cilau, an imposing limestone escarp- 
ment thi-ee miles Avest of C'rickhoAvell. It is the culmination in grandeur 
of the limestone “rim” of the South Wales coalfield. Three separate 
esca i pments, each 20-100 feet in height, rise in tiers up the steep slope.-! 
.sei)arated by scree and grassy slopes. At the base of the cliffs, the 
Red marls of the Usk Amlley dip beneath the limestone Avhile at the 
summit of the escarpment commences the wild moorland along the dip 
slope of Mynydd LlangattAVg, established on the coarse sandstone of the 
Millstone Grit series. The vegetation changes with the rock — the Amlley 
marls bear typical loAvland pasture with damp oak, ash and some beech ,- 
and alder in the damp valley bottoms; the Millstone Grit cap bears, on 
its lower slopes, l)ent fescue gra.ssland Avith much bracken, and higher 
np a Avimberry (Vacriniuw rnyrfdlus) “edge” with Nardn.<i abundant. 
The flat moorland is on deep peat and is primarily a cotton-grass moor. 
Peat erosion is everywhere evident and peat marginal associations 
(mostly grasslands of Nardvs and Molinin) are encroaching. The steep 
limestone slopes Avere once tree-covered and Jirachypodium. sylvaticum 
dominating much of the stable slopes is a relict of this former Avood- 
land. The general vegetation of the steep lime.stone slopes is a Fesfu- 
eetum with a rich and varied flora. Scree, mostly mobile, is extensiA^ely 
colonized by Gymnocarpium. ohtusi folium (Thelypteria rohertiaiut), 
G(n-a Ilium robertianum., etc. The cliff faces, inaccessible to sheep, 
exhibit an exceedingly rich flora including six species of Sorbus, two 
of them narroAAdy endemic. The presence of beech on the cliffs at a con- 
siderable altitude is an important featui'e on account of the questionable 
