i8o ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



about twenty yards in length, and perhaps five to seven yards 

 broad, and consists of nothing but Carex salina. A little 

 farther up the river there is a small island about nine yards 

 in circumference, covered with salina, in the middle of a 

 sandbank, and several feet from the bank. A third bed 

 grows higher up, in which Carex aquatilis, var. Watsoni, is 

 mixed in about equal quantities with salina. The Carices 

 here are not so compact as in the bed farther down. 



On the river-bank, directly opposite Milton Farm, salina 

 occurs about twenty yards in from the river- bank, in a 

 marshy piece of ground where the water appears quite fresh 

 and with no touch of brackishness. The plants of the 

 Carex are here much dwarfed compared with those farther 

 down ; and the general appearance of the female spikes is 

 darker, the glumes being almost black, whilst those of the 

 plants half-a-mile down are of a medium brown tint. The 

 bed extends for nearly forty yards, with a breadth of 

 probably six. The Carex is here only thinly scattered, and 

 the character of the surrounding flora is less maritime, sea- 

 shore plants being almost entirely absent, and Galiuvi 

 uliginosuni, Caltha, EriopJioruni, Mentha, Myosotis, and 

 Juncus effusns taking their place. 



Straight opposite the point where the Milton Burn joins 

 the Wick river, salina grows, but farther inland than any 

 of the places already mentioned. The sedges here grow 

 amongst grasses, Coinarnni, Lychnis Flos-cuculi, and Myosotis 

 strigulosa, and occur only here and there. 



The next bed where salina may be got is directly 

 opposite the Fairies' Hillock, and at the end of one of the 

 fields which stretch down from Kettleburn to the Upper 

 Glebe. This point is about a quarter of a mile farther up 

 the river from the last bed, and is forty yards from the 

 water's edge. The plants are but scattered and grow 

 almost singly, differing in this respect from the plants lower 

 down, which occur in dense masses. The flora of the 

 ground on which salina grows is represented by Poa, Iris, 

 Scirpus palustris, Equisetum liinositui, Carex Watsoni, C. 

 anipullacea, Aira flexuosa. Salina may be met with along 

 the river's brim, where the banks are four or five feet high. 

 It grows with Plialaris, Glyccria, and Scirpus lacnstris, and 



