HISTORY OF THE COUNTY BOTANY OF WORCESTER. 
67 
the lower animals, is in rather a backward state, particularly in our 
higher schools, and apart from the dry bones of systems and classi¬ 
fications, which the 1 intelligence of the intelligent ’ has concocted 
for them, the pupil is allowed to obtain scarcely any enduring 
profit. Yet the natural sciences are as valuable as any other 
branch of learning, and well qualified to arouse the interest and 
stimulate the minds of pupils and afford them great pleasure. So 
it comes about that the defective instruction of the younger students 
in natural science again and again provokes the complaints of the 
professors of the philosophical and medical faculties, and what is 
still more to be regretted, without having caused a thorough change 
in the subjects of instruction in the schools in question, although 
the importance of science-teaching is generally acknowledged. I 
wonder whether the future will see any alteration in this respect ?” 
HISTORY OF THE COUNTY BOTANY OF WORCESTER. 
BY WM. MATHEWS. M.A. 
(Continued from page dO.) 
* Asplenium Adiantum nigrum. West of Hagley Village ; Hagley Park ; 
near Redditch, Mr. D. Mathews. 
* A. Ruta-muraria. Walls. General. 
* A. Trichomanes. Wall at Clent, Mr. Amplilett. 
* Scolopendrium vulgare. Rare. 
* Ceterach officinarum. Formerly, 1844-1850, in great abundance on the 
garden wall, at the Leasowes, Halesowen. The wall was repaired at 
the latter date, and the plant nearly destroyed. It lingered there in 
1868, but in 1881 I searched for it in vain. Wall at Churchill ; wall 
near Thicknell, Mr. Amplilett. 
* Blechnum boreale. LowerLickey; the Valley, Bromsgrove; Ell Wood; 
Farley Woods ; Harberrow Pool side ; Wannerton Downs ; in abun¬ 
dance near Alvecliurch, Mr. D. Mathews. 
* Pteris aquilina. Locally abundant. 
* Osmunda regalis. By the side of a ditch in a meadow between Heathy 
Mill and Spennals, July, 1853, Win. M.! Broadwaters, near Kidder¬ 
minster, 1852. 
* Botrychium Lunaria. Bordesley Park, Redditch; .a single specimen. 
Near the Obelisk on the Upper Lickey, in abundance, June, 1867 ; 
Bentley, Mr. D. Mathews. 
* Ophioglossum vulgatum. Meadows at Redditch. Frankley, Ilomsley. 
Halesowen, Hagley Hill; in the plantation at Frankley Beeches. 
March, 1893. 
