82 
F. E. Weiss. 
moorland cart-track. This instance of singular distribution of 
Ulex was pointed out to me by Mr. Hugh Richardson, of York. 
A similar and no less striking case has come to my notice this 
summer in Derbyshire. Close to Hurdlow Station, which lies 
about six miles south-east of Buxton on the Buxton-Ashbourne 
Line, are a number of fields covered with heather (Calluna), such 
as one meets with here and there on this high Limestone plateau. 
In this particular case the heather is found to be growing on the 
chert, which as Sibley has shown is extensively developed in Derby¬ 
shire, and often persists to the top of the Carboniferous Lime¬ 
stone. 1 
Dr. C. E. Moss, who has made a careful survey of the vegeta¬ 
tion of the Pennine Range in Derbyshire, tells me however that 
Calluna is by no means confined to the areas in which the lime¬ 
stone has been transformed into chert, but occurs sometimes on the 
limestone itself. On the “ six-inch ” survey (1:10560) from which the 
accompanying map (Fig. 1) has been traced, the presence of Calluna 
is indicated by the conventional symbol over three large meadows 
close to the railway-line. In two of these meadows, through which 
the railway line actually passes, the heather is only found to the west 
of the line, which follows approximately the lowest level of the 
undulating land, so that the exposure, and possibly the sub-soil, 
may be different on opposite sides of the line. On the survey map 
the presence of gorse (Ulex) is also indicated among the heather, 
but its distribution is not accurately mapped. Instead of being 
irregularly scattered as would seem indicated on the survey map, 
it forms in the field ABDC a very distinct line, AD, running more 
or less diagonally across the field and in striking contrast to the 
short heather among which it grows. Seen from the slopes around, 
it is one of the most conspicuous features of the vegetation, and 
from a distance the line is so straight that it gives one the impression 
of a wall or earthwork thrown up in the field. A closer 
examination of the ground discloses the presence of cart ruts over¬ 
grown with heather and gorse, and even now a public footpath exists 
from the point D across the field to A and thence to the Hartington 
road, so that the gorse bushes undoubtedly mark out the course of 
an old roadway across the field ABDC. The gorse seeds have 
been distributed along this line from the lower meadow ACFE, in 
which there is a large and irregular patch of Ulex close to the 
1 Sibley, T. F. On the Faunal Succession in the Carboniferous 
Limestone of the Midland Area. Quarterly Journal of the 
Geol. Soc., LXIV., No. 253, 1908. 
