The Scottish A T aturalist. 153 



the botany of our Scottish Highlands. If the incidents of his 

 life could have been collected when full of life and colour, they 

 would have formed a biography as interesting as that of Robert 

 Dick or Thomas Edward. But at the time literature busied 

 herself but little with such men as George Don. The broad- 

 ening, humanising influence of Burns had not yet broken down 

 the middle wall of partition which separated rich and poor in 

 literature and science. It is now too late. The man is little 

 more than a shadow. Yet something surely can be done for 

 past neglect. Will not the votaries of the science he loved 

 so well and served so devotedly subscribe a few pounds for a 

 simple stone to mark the spot where his ashes rest ? 



NOTES ON A PEW EAEE AQUATIC PLANTS. 

 By A. STURROCK. 



Naias flexilis Rostk. 



THIS plant wns first observed {vide 'Sc. Nat.,' vol. iii. p. 

 198) in Great Britain by the late Mr D. C. Robb and 

 myself in August 1875. This summer I have found it in Marlee, 

 Fingask, and White Lochs, all in this neighbourhood. It was 

 quite natural to expect that it would occur in the first-mentioned 

 of these lochs, as Cluny Loch (where it was first observed) flows 

 into it ; but Fingask and White Lochs have no connection with 

 the other two, as they discharge into the Lunan Burn after it 

 leaves Marlee Loch. This discovery finally disposes of the con- 

 jecture that Naias may havebeen introduced into Cluny Loch by 

 the Rev. Air M'Ritchie, once minister of the parish. 



Ranunculus confervoides Fr. 

 The Batrachian Ranunculus, discovered in Rescobie Loch last 

 summer by Messrs Graham and Knox and myself (vide ' Sc. 

 Nat.,' vol. v. p. 350), corresponds in every particular with 

 Fries's description of R. confervoides, except in the carpels, 

 which are scarcely ; ' obovate-turbinate," as he describes them. 

 Mr J. G. Baker of the Kew Herbarium, to whom I sent speci- 

 mens, says that, compared with the Rescobie plant, the type 

 specimen which they have from Fries is a little more slender in 

 habit, with fewer segments to the leaf and fewer carpels. In 

 July of this year we observed it in great abundance in Balgavies 

 Loch, east of Rescobie, and connected with it; and Mr Knox 



