CftYPTOOAMIC SOCIETY OF SCOTLAND AT INVERARAY. 143 



With the Cryptogamie Society of Scotland at 



Inveraray. 



By D. A. Boyd. 



[Read 28th October, 1907.] 



The thirty-second annual conference of the Cryptogamic Society 

 of Scotland took place at Inveraray during the third week in 

 September in very favourable weather. The company in 

 attendance numbered nineteen, and consisted of nine ladies and 

 ten gentlemen. 



Along with several others, the writer travelled to Inveraray 

 on Monday, 16th September, by the turbine steamer "King 

 Edward." They reached the hotel early in the afternoon to find 

 that they were the pioneers of the party, and, after lunch, had a 

 short ramble up the side of the loch. The Ostrich-Fern 

 (Struthiopteris germanica, Willd.), the most handsome European 

 representative of the fern tribe, has been planted in the old 

 cemetery near the shores of the loch, and is thriving luxuriantly. 

 In general contour, the barren fronds bear considerable resem- 

 blance to well-developed fronds of the common male-fern (Lastrcea 

 Filix-mas), but the fertile fronds present so remarkable an 

 appearance as at once to attract the attention of an observant 

 passer-by. They are narrow, erect, rigid, of a peculiar purplish- 

 brown colour, and are produced in a cluster in the centre of the 

 plant. Some specimens of one of the hardier species of palm had 

 also been planted in the old cemetery, but seemed to have all died 

 out, although some other examples of the same or an allied species 

 have been more successfully grown in the open air in a sheltered 

 spot a few miles further up the loch side. Several interesting 

 microfungi were observed in the course of the walk, among 

 which were Puccinia chrysosplenii, Grev., on Chrysosplenium 

 oppositifolium ; P. buxi, D.C., on Buxus sempervirens ; Phrag- 

 midium rubi-idcei (Pers.) Wint.. on Rubus Idceus ; Melampsora 

 tremulce, Tul., on Populus tremula ; Ramularia ajugce, Sacc, on 

 Ajuga reptans ; and E. calcea, Ces., on Nepeta Glechoma. 



