80 The Scottish Naturalist. 



Bryological Notes. — The investigation of the Bryology of the north- 

 east of Scotland has been prosecuted with much vigour and success during 

 the past year. New men are rising up and doing excellent work in places 

 hitherto almost or totally unexplored. For example, Mr. James Grant of 

 Lossiemouth, who is so well known in connection with the fossils of the 

 Elgin Sandstone, and who has lately found an apparently new and remark- 

 able fossil reptile in his neighbourhood, spent some time last summer among 

 the mosses about Tomintoul, in Banffshire, where mountain limestone 

 forms so large a proportion of the geological formation. Mr. Grant 

 directed special attention to such mosses as might be expected to occur in a 

 region of this character, and his short stay there has been prolific of good 

 results. In several places he found Seligetia pus ilia, a moss always difficult 

 to find because of its minuteness, and always interesting because of its 

 comparative rarity, there being few counties in Scotland in which it has 

 hitherto been observed. In the same quarter Mr. Grant detected a yet 

 rarer species, viz., Anodus Donianus, which is even more diminutive, and 

 more easily overlooked owing to its more scattered, almost gregarious, 

 habit of growth. As in the "Scottish Naturalist" (II., 173), I had 

 indicated the probability of Anacalypta latifolia growing in the Tomintoul 

 district, I was delighted to receive from Mr. Grant very fine specimens of 

 this species which he had gathered there. In Scotland the localities for 

 this plant are being rapidly increased. In addition to Mr. Grant's, Dr. 

 Buchanan White and Mr. Roy of Aberdeen found another in Glentilt last 

 summer. Among Mr. Grant's Tomintoul gatherings we were glad to see 

 specimens of Thiiidium abietinum and of genuine Brachythecium salebrosum. 

 This latter has hitherto been so much confounded with B. Mildeanum and 

 B. glareosum that the old stations given for it are almost always unreliable. 

 It may be mentioned that, while about Tomintoul, Mr. Grant made 

 Trichostomum glaucescens a special object of search, but did not succeed in 

 finding it; but as there are already three stations for it in the north-east of 

 Scotland, I cannot think it can be confined, to these. — J. Fergusson, 

 Fern, by Brechin. 



Botanico-Geology — In the part recently issued of the Edinburgh 

 Botanical Society's Transactions (Vol. XII., Part I.), is an account of an 

 excursion to Clova by Professors Balfour and Geikie, in which some remarks 

 are made by the latter on the mineralogy of the rocks on which certain of 

 the rarer alpines occur. It was thought that there might prove to be some 

 .special conditions in the mineralogical constituents of the rocks, whereby 

 it might appear why these plants ( Oxytropis campcst)is, Lychnis alpina, 

 &c. ) are so very local in their British distribution. It was found, however, 

 that there was nothing by which this could be accounted for in that respect; 

 and it is suggested that the cause is more probably a meteorological one — 

 the situation, altitude, and breadth of the Grampian range affording in that 

 district the conditions necessary for the survival of these plants, which find 

 their proper home in the Alps and in the Arctic regions. A good sugges- 

 tion is thrown out, viz., that botanists in this country should do as some of 

 the Scandinavian botanists are doing, namely, examine the contents of our 

 older peat-mosses for the remains of northern plants no longer living in this 

 country. We daresay insect-remains may also be found. — F. Buchanan 

 White. 



