302 The Scottish Naturalist. 



with this fern. Then the various wood grasses take their part 

 in ornamenting the banks and rocks. The elegant MeUc Grasses 

 [Melica unifiora and nutans') and the taller Bi'omus asper are 

 among these ; while over the Wild Raspberries, St John's-worts, 

 Geraniums, and other plants that form the mass of the vegeta- 

 tion, the Wood Vetch ( Vicia sylvatica), with its pale and purple- 

 pencilled flowers, twines in an entangled mass. 



As we ascend the stream the woods become more open and 

 drier, except in the ravines, and the flora gradually alters. Here 

 occurs a plant that seems otherwise to love the western rather 

 than the eastern side of Scotland — namely, the rare and local 

 Vicia orobus. In Glen Tilt it is by no means common, though 

 in one place in the neighbouring district of Rannoch it abounds. 



Leaving now the wooded part of the Glen, we enter on the 

 meadows and grassy slopes of the hills — dry and stony in some 

 places, wet and marshy in others. In the marshy and grassy 

 places Orchids abound, and form quite a feature in the scene. All 

 the Hahe?iarias {albida, virida, chlorantha, and bifolid) occur, 

 while the deliciously-scented Gymnadenia conopsea abounds, and 

 the rather rare Orchis ijicarnata is to be found here and there. 

 Along with the latter another rather local plant, Eriophoriun 

 latifoliwn, may be found. 



The alpine plants now begin to make their appearance. Saxi- 

 fraga aizoides descends, as is its habit, along the river banks, 

 quite to the low country, and is accompanied by Oxyria re7ii- 

 fortnis and Alchemilla alpi?ia; but as we get near Forest Lodge 

 these plants get far more abundant, and, except the Oxyria, leave 

 the river and grow in every suitable place. The Saxifrage indeed 

 forms large beds in every stony marshy place, where its yellow 

 flowers form in their season conspicuous masses. In marshy 

 places, too, the local Tofieldia raises its white flowers; and in drier 

 places Thalictrum alpinum and Carex capillaris may be found, 

 and in chinks of the rocks beside the river the purple-flowered 

 Saxifraga oppositifolia. All these plants, it must be remembered, 

 grow alongside the road at no greater altitude than 900 feet, and 

 are surrounded by a profusion of common lowland wild-flowers 

 — Rock-rose, Centaurca nigra, Polygahx, &c. Apropos of Folygala, 

 we find here, in addition to the common deprcssa, the true vul- 

 garis — a much rarer plant, with more numerous, larger, and more 

 brilliant flowers. 



On the slopes of the hill to the north of Forest Lodge wild 

 flowers of many kinds abound, and in many instances attain a 



