The Scot fish Naturalist. r i r 



The flora of the part of the county between the valley of 

 Strathmore and the sea is pretty fully represented. Among the 

 plants in this division, which have not been found since, are the 

 Charophylliim aureum, of which there is a dried specimen in his 

 ninth fasciculus, and the Chcerophyllum aromaticum, "found in 

 summer of 1810, by the side of the river called Lunan and 

 Vinnie, not far from Guthrie, in a truly wild state, new to 

 Britain, having never been seen by any one else." 



After a rather unsparing criticism upon the views of a " Dr 

 Richardson of Ireland " on the qualities of the florin, or bent- 

 grass, as food for cattle, he takes his readers to the sea-shore. 

 Starting from the North-Water Bridge, and wending his way 

 westward — past Montrose, Arbroath, Sands of Barrie, Dundee, 

 and along the banks of the Tay to the western boundary of 

 the county — he discourses pleasantly of the various beauties as 

 they appear, whether flowering-plants, mosses, or lichens. He 

 finishes this portion of the account by telling us that " the larger 

 plants (numbering over 300) contained in the above list may 

 be seen in a growing state in my botanic garden in Forfar, where 

 I have now the most extensive collection of hardy plants in 

 Scotland." 



Then follow lists of fuci, confervas, zoophyta, infusoria, mam- 

 malia, birds, fishes, insects, worms, mollusca, and testacea. 

 His knowledge of the animal kingdom, as seen in this condensed 

 account, seems to have been nearly as intimate and extensive as 

 his knowledge of the vegetable. He was a naturalist in the 

 largest sense of the word. Nothing escaped his keen eye. 



His fame, however, rests mainly on his discoveries as a 

 botanist ; and he was well known to all who were eminent in 

 the science twenty years, at least, before the date of this his last, 

 and, with the exception of the letter quoted above, his only 

 publication. He is mentioned by Lightfoot in his ' Flora 

 Scotica/ published in 1792, though he does not seem to have 

 been one of that gentleman's correspondents. It was chiefly 

 through the publication of Sir J. E. Smith's ' Flora Britan- 

 nica' that he became known as the discoverer of so many 

 plants. As a recognition of his services, he was elected an 

 Associate of the Linnaean Society of London on the 6th of 

 December 1803. In 1804 he began the publication of a 

 Herbarium Britannicum, which was dedicated, by permission, 

 to Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society of London. 

 Four folio fasciculi of dried plants, each containing twenty-five 



