The plants of the woods and hills bordering the Agecroft valley are mostly the same that are found in Mere Clough. In addition to those above enumerated, may be mentioned the pretty round-leaved marsh-violet, the whortleberry, and the wild cherry, one of the gayest ornaments of the month of May. The whortleberry seldom ripens its fruit at Prestwich, or anywhere so near the town: it seems to require the bracing air of the moors and mountains. It is one of the shrubs which rival the trees in brilliancy of tint, assumed as in the sky, when the hour of departure is at hand. Along with the Canadian medlar, the bramble, and some kinds of azalea, the leaves change not infrequently to vivid crimson. People are apt to call these changes the "fading" of the leaf; it would be better to say the _painting_. Primroses are exceedingly scarce, both on the Agecroft hills and in the Irwell valley, and their place is unoccupied by any other vernal flower as fair and popular. The wild pansy is there, on the higher and drier ground, and often with remarkably large and handsome flowers, but it makes no show; and though there are daffodils in a few places, they are not prominent to view. A field at the head of Prestwich Dells is for a little time plentifully strewed with their lively yellow. When September comes the want of the primrose is almost compensated by the cheerful autumn crocus, which lifts its purple abundantly among the grass, in the low meadows on the further side of Kersal Moor, near the rivulet; also in the fields below Prestwich Church, the same that in spring are dressed with the daffodil, and again in those between the asylum and the dells. The autumnal crocus, like the colchicum, is curious in seeming to produce its seeds before the flowers, the former being ripe in May and June, whereas the latter do not open till three months after. When the great Swedish botanist, Linnæus, was engaged in promulgating the great doctrine of the sexuality of plants, now about a century and a half ago, the circumstance in question was pointed to as upsetting it. But the young seed-pod lies low down in the bosom of the leaves, where it is fertilised, as in all other flowers, by the pollen from the stamens, and there it abides during the winter, elevating itself above the ground with the warmth of the ensuing summer, when it ripens and scatters its contents. The true time of the vital energy of the autumn crocus is thus, not from May to September, but from September until May. The history has always seemed to us a memorable instance of the quiet dignity with which truth and genuine science pursue their way, triumphing and silencing all the little cavillers in the end, however plausible they may make their case at starting.