The Scottish Naturalist. 26 



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far more generally dispersed, owing perhaps to its being more 

 deeply rooted in the soil, and thus escaping annihilation. 



Typha latifolia L. — Another Elcho Marsh plant on which 

 doubt has been cast, but for which I see no cause whatever. 

 It grows in two spots in the marsh, and is also found inland 

 on the north side at Cairnie Milldam, where I am afraid it will 

 not long continue, as the dam is now disused and got quite 

 silted up. The Elcho Marsh plants I first discovered some 

 four or five years age, being the first season in which the river- 

 side grass was not cut down. 



Eleocharis acicularis Sm. — Though I enumerate this aS a Carse 

 plant it is scarcely so, as I found it just over the line of demar- 

 cation, in Laird's Loch, which drains into the Isla. 



Car ex limosa L. — Grows freely in Airnbathie Loch, the only 

 place in which I have as yet noticed it. 



Phleum pratense L., var. nodosiwi L. — A curious geniculated 

 and prostrate form, frequenting stiff clay and partial to cart- 

 roads, and found near Glendoick and Kinnaird. 



Sclerochloa distans Bab. — Grows pretty freely in the marsh at 

 the mouth of the Invergowrie Burn, and also along the muddy 

 shores of the Tay as high up as Kingoodie, where the water is 

 brackish. 



Equisetum umbrosu?n Willd. — This is another rather rare plant, 

 recorded for the first time as found in the Carse. As yet I have 

 only met it on one spot, where it abounds, at the foot of the den 

 of Pitroddie ; and higher up, above the den of the Godens, may be 

 seen its close ally, E. sylvaticum — a much commoner plant, but 

 rare and local in the Carse. 



Supposed Poisonous Pasturage. — When in Strathspey some time 

 ago, I was told that if cattle or horses were allowed to graze on the top of 

 Cairngorm or Ben-muic-dhu they died in ten minutes. Can any of your 

 readers tell me the origin of the belief? — John MacGregor, Lady well, 

 Dunkeld. [I have several times heard this reported in Braemar, but, like 

 Mr. MacGregor, I am equally at a loss to account for the belief. There is 

 so little herbage on the top of these mountains that it might be supposed 

 that it was a jocular way of saying that herbivorous animals would die of 

 starvation there; but my informants were evidently serious. Can any of 

 our friends throw light on the origin of the tradition, which can have no 

 foundation in fact I think? — Editor.] 



