MAN'S INFLUENCE ON INDIGENOUS FLORA OF ABERDEEN 175 



MAN'S INFLUENCE ON THE INDIGENOUS 

 FLORA OF ABERDEEN. 



By JAMES W. H. TRAIL, A.M., M.D., F.R.S. 



DURING a number of years my attention has been directed 

 to the plant life of the North-east of Scotland, and more 

 especially to the plants growing in the neighbourhood of 

 Aberdeen apparently wild, or as weeds among crops and on 

 waste ground. All available information has been collected 

 from published records, old herbaria, and other sources that 

 can throw light on the past state of the flora ; but these are 

 unfortunately scanty, and scarcely extend beyond 1750. 



My aim has been to trace, as far as in my power, the 

 changes that have occurred since the beginning of the 

 historic period, and to ascertain their causes. Among these 

 man's influence has been increasingly potent ; indeed, it has 

 become difficult within the boundaries of the city to realise 

 how great an effect that influence has had on the flora, and 

 to realise how recent much of the effect has been. 



The earliest published map of Aberdeen and the 

 surrounding country is that of the " parson of Rothiemay," 

 the Rev. James Gordon, son of Robert Gordon of Straloch, 

 whose Atlas of Maps, published in 1648, and in later editions, 

 supplied the first trustworthy information of this kind on 

 Scotland. The map of Aberdeen was prepared at the 

 request of the Town Council of Aberdeen, probably between 

 1650 and 1660, and bears the date 1661 on the published 

 map. From it and from an accompanying description of 

 Aberdeen and of Old Aberdeen we see how very small an 

 area was then occupied by houses, and that the two small 

 towns were about ^ mile apart at their nearest points. 

 Aberdeen shows a few houses along the estuary of the Dee 

 (where a quay gave access for shipping) and its tributary 

 the Denburn, which since 1860 has disappeared from view 

 in a covered channel. From this quay a main street (the 

 Shiprow) ran northward following a ridge, as it still does, 

 to the Market place (now Castle Street), from which opened 

 several narrow closes or wynds. These have been largely 



