27. Leaf of Maidenhair-tree, _Ginkgo biloba_ 163 28. Great Butterwort, _Pinguicula grandiflora_ _To face_ 173 29. Strawberry-tree (_Arbutus Unedo_) at Killarney _To face_ 174 30. _Spiranthes Romanzoffiana_ _To face_ 174 31. Bird’s-nest Orchis, _Neottia Nidus-avis_ 182 32. Alpine Plant-boss _To face_ 191 33. _Sedum primuloides_ 192 34. New Zealand Veronicas 194 35. Mountain Avens, _Dryas octopetala_ 195 PLANT LIFE CHAPTER I ON FARLETON FELL “I got up the mountain edge, and from the top saw the world stretcht out, cornlands and forest, the river winding among meadow-flats, and right off, like a hem of the sky, the moving sea.”--MAURICE HEWLETT: _Pan and the Young Shepherd_. Travelling from Scotland by the London and North-Western Railway, as the train roars down the long incline which leads from Shap to the coastal plain of Lancashire, the eye catches, on the left-hand side, a strange grey hill of bare rock rising abruptly, the last outpost of the mountains. It is so different in appearance from the Westmorland fells which have just been traversed, that one looks at it with curiosity, and desires an opportunity of a nearer acquaintance. During the preceding half-hour we have been passing through country of the type that is familiar in the Lake District and in Wales--picturesque ridgy hills with rocky or grassy slopes, and fields and trees occupying the lower grounds. But over much of the surface of this grey hill there appear to be scarcely any plants. A dense scrub of Hazel and other small trees clings to its screes in patches, but the continuous mantle of vegetation is lacking. The train speeds on through fertile ground with ripening crops and woods standing dense and green, and now on the right, where the low land merges with the sea, we view salt-marshes, which display yet another type of plant growth. Here trees and shrubs are absent, and the low-growing grey and green plants look fleshy and stunted. In the last thirty miles, indeed, since the train left the summit of Shap, we have seen a number of very different types of vegetation, which appear associated with different types of landscape--the moory uplands, the naked limestone, the deep woods, the desolate salt-marsh. Let us in imagination climb the steep scarp of Farleton Fell, the grey hill of our opening sentence, and consider at leisure some aspects of this teeming plant world and its relations to the Earth on which it grows.