232 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



river, there is a precipitous section of boulder clay. Opposite 

 to the clay cliff, and fringing the edge of the stream, any 

 botanist can, in the last week of the month of May, or in the 

 first or second weeks in June, gather fifty or a hundred 

 specimens of Hierochloe borealis. Passing upwards along the 

 river bank, and at no great distance, there is another clay 

 cliff, where a few hundreds of Hierochloe may be got. It 

 also fringes the edge of the river. But the plant must be 

 looked for at the time indicated ; for by the third week of 

 June the beauty of HierocJiloc has passed away, and by the 

 first of July the herbage has become so rank that the Holy 

 Grass, now ripe, and turned of a silky brown, is completely 

 hidden from view. Further up, between Giese and a section 

 of boulder clay a little below Todholes, the plant may like- 

 wise be picked in hundreds. Hierochloe has never failed to 

 appear in these localities during the last twenty years." 



In the " Phytologist," 1855, p. 117, Mr. J. T. Syme, in 

 some notes on specimens distributed by the Exchange Club, 

 remarks : " But the plant which will be most prized is the 

 long lost Hierochloe borealis : for which the Society is 

 indebted to Mr. Notcutt, who received the species from Mr. 

 Dick, its discoverer, near Thurso. Mr. Dick has known the 

 plant in this station for twenty years, but was not aware it 

 had been lost in the original station found by Mr. G. Don. 

 Flowering early in the year, it was no wonder it was passed 

 unnoticed by botanists, who make excursions in autumn, 

 when nothing but the leaves of the plant are visible. It 

 may be expected to occur in other places, if looked for in 

 the end of May or beginning of June." 



In the same year (1855) Mr. Gourlie of Edinburgh sent 

 specimens (gathered by Mr. R. Dick) to the Linnean Society. 



In 1859 Mr. H. C. Watson, in his " Cybele Britannica," 

 vol. iv. (April 1859), strange to say, does not notice the 

 discovery, either in the Summary of Distribution, p. 221, 

 or in the Census of Species, p. 270. It was not until 

 1860, in his " Supplement to Cybele Britannica," p. 106, that 

 the Caithness record appears in his books ; yet Babington 

 in his fourth edition, p. 390 (1856), and Bentham in his 

 first edition (1858), both duly record it. 



In 1 86 1, in Sowerby's "British Grasses," p. 57, Mr. 



