The Scottish Naturalist, 155 



THE CRYPTOGAMIC FLOEA OF MULL. 



By F. BUCHANAN WHITE, M. D., F. L. S. 



Secretary of the Cryptogamic Society of Scotland. 



ALLURED by the tempting account of the rich field that 

 the Island of Mull offered to the mycologist, the Crypto- 

 gamic Society of Scotland, at its Conference in Glasgow in 1880, 

 determined to have its Conference for tS8i in Mull, which, 

 whether it came up to the sanguine expectations of some of the 

 members, or fulfilled the less confident anticipations of others, 

 presented at least new ground for exploration. It was accord- 

 ingly arranged that the Society should meet at Salen on August 

 29th ; and on the afternoon of that day a party of the members, 

 rather few in number, but all enthusiastic workers, landed at 

 Salen, and proceeded to explore the neighbourhood. 



Salen is a very small village situated on the south side of the 

 small bay of the same name in the Sound of Mull. Surround- 

 ing the village are a few small woods of scrubby birch, and a 

 plantation or two of larch, intermingled with some cultivated 

 fields, in which weeds far outnumber the legitimate occupants of 

 the ground. Beyond the woods are irregular and marshy moor- 

 lands, gradually rising into hills, and culminating in Ben More, 

 the highest mountain in Mull, and about four miles from Salen. 



To the mycologists of the party it was manifest at a glance 

 that no rich field for their exploration need be expected here, 

 and such turned out to be the case. Fungi were few and far 

 between, nor did the other classes of the cryptogamic plants 

 make up for their absence. The most notable fungi observed 

 were Peronospora rujibasis, a species parasitic on Myrica gale, 

 and which, though detected for the first time by the Rev. J. 

 Stevenson only a few years ago, seems to occur wherever the 

 Sweet Gale grows ; and Puccinia molinice which, though grow- 

 ing on such a widely diffused plant as Molinia ccendca, has not 

 hitherto been recorded from any other place in Britain than 

 Rannoch, where I discovered it five or six years ago. 



Under these circumstances it was determined to change the 

 field of our explorations, and to move further north to Tober- 

 mory, a place which, by all accounts, presented greater attrac- 

 tions. We were the more inclined to do so as one of our party 

 was Air George Ross, late of Tobermory (now of Oban), who 

 has done much to elucidate the phanerogamic botany of Mull, 



