A GLANCE AT THE JULY FLORA OF ALYTH. 121 



purpurea bearing numerous showy flowers. At some 

 places Saxtfraga granulata occurs, and more sparingly 

 S. oppositifolia in fruit. At the top there is plenty 

 of Polypodium Dryoptcris among the loose stones 

 that there lie in heaps. Here it may be well to 

 pause and see what remains of the ancient 

 fortification which once stood on this hill. It is 

 said that Modred, who had taken away Guinevere, 

 the wife of King Arthur, kept her here for some 

 time after having defeated her husband in battle 

 at Dunichen in Forfarshire. Guinevere was buried 

 at Meigle, where a curious old stone, elaborately 

 wrought with hieroglyphical characters, long stood 

 to mark her grave ; but this relic, with other 

 similarly interesting stones, has recently been 

 removed to the old school-house for better preser- 

 vation. 



On the wooded hill to the west, as in all similar 

 places in the district, Trientalis europoea grows in 

 great abundance ; and in this and other woods I 

 have found plentifully an apparently undescribed 

 and unnoticed form, having the axis prolonged 

 beyond the usual whorl-like system of leaves, and 

 bearing a second whorl-like system at a higher 

 level. In plants of this form, flowers arise in the 

 axils of the lower or the higher leaves, or of both. 

 Here, too, as well as in other woods, I have found 

 plants with the leaf -bearing axis lengthened so as 

 to present the leaves separated by considerable 

 internodes, and consequently without the usual 

 whorled appearance. This, I think, may be clearly 

 regarded as a reversion to an earlier type.* 



On the heather and furze-clad hill beyond the 

 wood Erica tetralix and E. cinerea are both abun- 

 dant ; and among the herbaceous plants not already 

 mentioned may be noticed a pink form of Euphrasia 

 officinalis, and some plants of Meurn Athamanticum 

 which is so abundant near the Kirkton of Glenisla. 



* I have already dealt with this plant in Science Gossip for 

 April, 1887. 



