A NEARLY FORGOTTEN SCOTTISH BOTANIST 169 



and an hour daily, " for four months, to the study of the 

 Latin language, in which the students generally read the 

 ' Georgics ' of Virgil, as being not only models of the most 

 perfect Latin composition, but as affording grounds for 

 illustrating the knowledge of the ancients with regard to 

 natural history." 



We have no information as to Professor Beattie's course; 

 but we may infer that he was a botanist by preference, and 

 had a knowledge of the science much superior to that of 

 his successor. It is on record that he taught classes of 

 Botany numbering between ten and twenty students between 

 i 80 1 and 1810, and that after his death Botany was taught 

 by lecturers, with occasional intervals, until the chair was 

 founded on the union of the universities in 1860. 



But a still more clear evidence of his interest in and 

 successful study of the flora of Scotland is afforded by the 

 earliest volumes of the " Transactions of the Linnean Society" 

 and the " Flora Britannica " of Sir James E. Smith, to whom 

 plants were sent by Professor Beattie from " Mearnsshire " 

 (Kincardine) and from near Aberdeen. He is usually named as 

 the first discoverer in Britain of Linncea borealis, at Inglismadie 

 in Mearnsshire. He also forwarded examples of Carices, 

 referred to by Sir J. E. Smith in his original descriptions 

 ("Trans. L. S." v. pp. 266-273, rea d 3rd December 1799) of 

 the species as previously unknown. Among these were : 



C. binervis, very common on the driest moors about 

 Aberdeen. 



C. Icevigata, marshes near Aberdeen. 



C. Micheliana, near Aberdeen. First described as a new 

 species, but afterwards referred by its author to C. recurva 

 ( = C. flacca). 



C. Davalliana. A specimen " discovered in marshy 

 ground in Mearnsshire by Professor James Beattie, junior, of 

 Aberdeen," sent by him as a form of C. dioica, but confidently 

 determined by Smith to be distinct, though not confirmed by 

 other botanists, and now usually regarded as due to error. 



C. teretiuscula, Good., is another scarce and local sedge 

 detected by Professor Beattie near Aberdeen. 



