The Scottish Naturalist. 257 



length on the plants contained in this list, or even to give their 

 bare names. I will therefore confine myself to mentioning 

 merely a few that may be considered noteworthy. 



Ranunculus auricomus L. — Though by no means an uncom- 

 mon plant in the county, this is yet not very generally dispersed, 

 and in the Carse is rather local. It frequents moist shady places 

 on the banks of the Tay, near the station at Kinfauns, the Dens 

 of Balthayock, Fingask, Kinnaird, and a few other similar 

 localities. Its petals are often imperfectly developed, and 

 sometimes even wanting, and in that form it is given in some 

 lists as a variety under the name of " depauperatus ;" but as I 

 have noticed the corolla in all stages of undevelopment, I in- 

 cline rather to the opinion that it is a mere malformation to 

 which from soil or other causes the plant is liable — in this latter 

 state I have frequently seen it on the banks of the Tay. 



R. hirsutus Curt. — Abundant on some pastures, waste ground 

 by road sides, &c. It is a plant that does not seem at all 

 relished by cattle, cows, horses, or even donkeys ; sheep, how- 

 ever, seem to have no objection to it, which is well exemplified 

 in a park near me, where it was formerly plentiful throughout. 

 Some few years ago, however, it was found necessary to divide 

 the field by a paling, when sheep were kept on the one half and 

 cattle on the other : the plant being an annual, and having been 

 regularly eaten over, is now perfectly eradicated where the sheep 

 are, while on the other side of the paling it abounds in large 

 masses. 



R. sceferatus~L. — Not uncommon, though often overlooked from 

 growing in places not generally frequented except by duck 

 hunters, or aspiring botanists, as it luxuriates among the deep 

 mud banks on the Tay below high water mark ; it is also found 

 plentifully in many of the Carse ditches. 



R. arvetisis L. — I first noticed this some eight or ten years ago, 

 in a wheat field near Megginch, and considered it then as either a 

 rare plant or a mere casual, and I am not aware that it has been 

 recorded from other parts of the county. Since then, I have 

 discovered it to be of frequent, I may say of general, occurrence 

 in the wheat fields (autumn sown) of the Carse. In one field, on 

 stiff white clay, and rather poor soil, in the Lower Carse, I 

 noticed it last July so abundant as at a little distance to give 

 the whole field a yellow appearance. The butter-cups generally 

 are acrid, and of more or less a poisonous character, but of 

 them all this is believed to be the most poisonous, and yet its 



