The Scottish Naturalist. 191 



VALERIANACE^l. 

 cxxxv. Valeriana L. 



300. Excelsa Poir (* = Officinalis L. var. Sambucifolia Mik.) 



Common. 



301. Pyrenaica L. Naturalised in a few places. 



cxxxvi. Valerianella Tourn. 



302. Olitoria Mcench. Local. Possibly native in some 



localities. 



303. Dentata Poll. Very rare. A casual in Carse of Gowrie. 



( To be continued. ) 



REVIEW. 



The Berries and Heaths of Rannoch. By A Snowdrop. London : G. 

 Bell & Sons, 1881. Pp. 24. With 12 Coloured Plates. 



The berries and heaths which adorn the Scottish mountain-sides are plants 

 that are attractive to many of the numerous visitors whom sport, scenery, or 

 business attract to Scotland every summer ; and though, of course, they are 

 well known to many who do not pretend to botanical knowledge, yet there 

 must be a numerous class who will be glad to learn something about these 

 plants, and to have that knowledge presented to them in an attractive form. 

 Our author, therefore, whose modesty has led him to conceal his identity, 

 has probably placed a boon within the reach of many anxious inquirers ; and 

 his work, though restricted to the species of one district only in Perthshire, 

 will be found useful by the visitor to any part of the Highlands of Scotland. 



The berries enumerated are the cranberry ( Vaccinium oxycoccos), the com- 

 mon bilberry, or, as it is called in Scotland, blaeberry {V. myrtillus), the 

 bog bilberry ( V. uliginosiun), the cowberry or whortleberry, often termed 

 (though erroneously) the cranberry (V. vitis-idcea), the redbearberry {Arctosta- 

 phylos uva-icrsi), the black bearberry {A. a/pina), the crowberry {Empetrutn 

 nigrum), and the cloudberry (Rubus chamccmorus), which is often called the 

 averon. The heaths of Rannoch are the ling {Calluna vulgaris), the four- 

 leaved or cross-leaved heath {Erica tetralix), and the three-leaved heath 

 or common bell heather {£. cinerea). In addition to these, two other species 

 are figured, Andromeda polifolia, which occurs in South Perthshire, and Lois- 

 eleuria procutnbens, which grows on several of the Rannoch hills. 



In addition to popular and yet careful descriptions, accompanied by in- 

 teresting remarks on the qualities of the fruit (in the case of the berries) and 

 distribution of the plants, each species has a coloured plate (borrowed from 

 Sowerby's ' English Botany ') devoted to it, which should render its identifi- 

 cation perfectly easy to every one. A list of the Gaelic names extracted from 

 the papers, by Mr Cameron, in these pages, completes a book which, with- 

 out any pretension on the part of the author to have put forward a novel 

 scientific work, will doubtless be a pleasant companion to many a sojourner 

 among the hills, and perhaps induce them to take up the study of botany for 

 themselves. 



* See Dr Bonnet's remarks in ' Le Naturaliste,' 1881, p. 386. 



