174 The Scottish Naturalist. 



appears to be Coriinarius traga?ius, a plant hitherto unknown as British. It 

 seems to be very common in upland fir woods, and will no doubt he he «rd of 

 from other quarters now that attention has been called to it. — Id. 



The Clavarias of New Pitsligo.— The coast of the Buchan district in 

 Aberdeenshire is one of the most magnificent in Britain, and is very rich in 

 interesting botanical rarities. The inland part of the same district has a bare 

 and almost painful sameness of aspect, owing to the general flatness of the 

 country, and the paltry character of its plantations. These causes when com- 

 bined with a low temperature make it as unpromising to a fungologist as Nova 

 Zembla or even the Great Sahara. Still, within an area of about a mile all 

 round the village of New Pitsligo, though its woods do not extend much over a 

 hundred acres, and are in fact little better than a pretence, many more species 

 of fungi have been detected than aie recorded for the three counties of Kincar- 

 dine, Aberdeen, and Bamff, by Prof. Dickie's admirable " Botanists' Guide." 

 This little spot, wken compared with other places, is very rich in Clavarias— 

 beautiful, and generally branched or fasciculate fungi, of which some 34 species 

 have been found in the British Isles. Of these only a very small proportion are 

 known to be natives of Scotland. Dr. Dickie gives only four as having been 

 discovered in the counties embraced by his "Guide.'' The Rev. J. Keith men- 

 tions only the same number as having been found near Forres up to 1871, and 

 until quite recently only two or three were known as belonging to Forfarshire. 

 Within the above-mentioned area around New Pitsligo there are no fewer than 

 ten species at the very least. 



In the Gardner and Rattray woods, which lie to the south of the village, you 

 have first of all Clavaria cristata springing up through layers of beech and 

 other leaves into which the foot sinks as into a pillow. The colour of the plant 

 is usually whitish, but here it is of a pale-ash somewhat resembling that of 

 C. cinerea from which, however, it can always be distinguished by its toughness 

 and acute cristate branches. Near this occurs the much rarer C. inaqualis 

 which, in this quarter, is by far the most abundant of the genus. It seems to 

 grow in all our woods, especially in that on the east side of the upper lake of 

 Glaslaw, where it covers an area of several acres, and is associated with 

 Agaric us clavipes, a recent addition to the list of British fungi. Everywhere 

 here we find it, not of the normal yellow colour, but of a delicate white, which 

 occasionally, and especially when the plant grows old, has a feeble hint of 

 yellow. I am not aware of this plant having been previously recorded for the 

 north east of Scotland. . 



In these same woods, and on their borders, other three Clavarias can be col- 

 lected, namely C. muscoides, C. rttgosa, and C. stricta. Though the first two 

 seem to be quite common everywhere, according to report, our experience has 

 been that they are rather rare. Only once have we seen Clavaria rugosa in all 

 Buchan, and we have a suspicion that something else may have been taken 

 for it. Clavaria stricta, on the other hand, is quite common round New Pitsligo 

 at least, and apparently in other places, though it has no doubt been over- 

 looked and confounded with C. abietina from which it can be readily dis. 

 tinguished by the longer branches, the darker brown hue, and by its never 

 turning bluish-green when bruised or in decay. It is usually found growing 

 among accumulations of decaying pine leaves, and keeping well in below the 

 branches of spruce trees, where it is almost always associated with its congener. 



From the Farm of Greenspeck on towards Tirclossie. there is a narrow belt of 

 wood fringing the highway leading to Fraserburgh, and here several important 

 things are got. First, we have C. fmtigiata, a much more "strict " species than 



