Aquilegia Vulgaris Dominant. 
267 
AQUILEGIA VULGARIS DOMINANT. 
W HEN we first saw it there was a purple patch on the hillside 
nearly a quarter of a mile away, not quite the colour of 
the bluebell, but rather a deeper violet, and rousing our curiosity. 
Someone climbed and shouted down “columbines,” then we all 
scrambled up, and saw to our amazement a great bed of columbines, 
as big as a garden, in full flower. I have just been again to see 
them in flower this year, on May 28th, and to examine rather more 
carefully the conditions of their growth. The valley below is a 
shimmer of blues, fading bluebell and full-flowered forget-me-not. 
A few globe flowers are opening near the clear tinkling stream. 
But these columbines are perched high on the side of the valley 
nearly 500 feet above sea-level. The valley winds a little, here 
the steep bank faces nearly S.W. The ground is very stony, 
geologically oolite ; three sample pebbles which I took home with 
me all effervesced with acid. No streams run down the slopes, for 
the oolite is a very porous rock. The ground has recently been 
cleared of timber, and a few oak stumps are sprouting again. The 
general character of the adjacent country is fairly represented in 
J. Walter West’s picture of “Timber Cutting in North Yorkshire.” 
Here replanting has been done with larch. Other parts of the 
bank are green with new bracken or white with garlic. The patch 
of columbine is curiously compact, in shape roughly oval, the 
longest axis about thirty yards. There are few stragglers from the 
main body, few plants are more than one yard from their nearest 
neighbours, just one outlier was some six yards away. Where the 
plants were densest they were perhaps sending up sixty flowering 
stalks to the square yard, which would mean say a dozen plants. 
Here their leaves were so close as not quite to carpet the 
ground, yet one could not step without crushing them. Other 
plants which grew in and out among them were dog’s mercury, a 
bramble, a grass, woodruff, strawberry, sanicle, a ragwort, herb 
Robert, dandelion, garlic. Some other parts of the bank seemed a 
little drier, and there some thistles were growing. At the date 
named (May 28th) the leading flowers on the taller and older plants 
were well opened, some younger plants with single flower-stalks 
had no flowers opened. It was dull, 11 a.m., and a few raindrops 
were falling. A few bumble-bees (body-colour black, white and 
