Botanical Society of Edinburgh, w 



A new part (concluding volume iv.) of the Society's 'Transac- 

 tions ' was placed on the table, containing papers by Professor Bal- 

 four, Mr. Babington, Professor M'Cosh, Dr. Greville, Major Madden, 

 Dr. Wilson, Dr. Macadam, and Dr. Macgowan. The Secretary stated 

 that the price of the Part had been fixed at 4s. 



Many donations to the Society's library and herbarium were an- 

 nounced. 



Dr. Balfour read a note from Professor Gregory, in which he stated 

 that he had continued the examination of the Mull deposit of Diato- 

 maceous loricse, which he described last winter as containing 60 spe- 

 cies of Diatoms, and that he had now found in it upwards of 140 

 species, which beats all the richest deposits known. Even at 60 it 

 was far the richest. Besides the new species doubtfully indicated in 

 his former paper, which Smith had named Eunotia incisa, he had 

 found another and a very beautiful species, new not oidy to him, but 

 to all those who had yet seen it or a figure of it. It is a Pinnularia, 

 which, provisionally, he had named P. hebridensls. It is scarce in 

 the deposit, a large and populous slide rarely yielding more than one 

 specimen, and often none at all ; and as yet he has not been able to 

 find a trace of it in any other deposit within his reach, nor is there 

 anything like it in any work he had seen. As to Ewiotia incisa it 

 occurs in a deposit from Lapland, in that from Luneberg, and in one 

 from the banks of the Spey, and it seems remarkable that it has been 

 so long overlooked. P. hebridensls is small, its length from -00125 

 to '0026 inch, and it has, like P. lata, P. alpina^ and P. distans, 

 only nine or ten costse in -001 inch. But all these are three or four 

 times larger, and all on the side view are widest in the middle, whereas 

 P. hebridensls is slightly contracted there. But it has the general 

 characters of these three species from the fewness and thickness of 

 the costse. 



The following papers were read : — 



1 . " Account of a Botanical Trip to the Grampian Mountains in 

 August 1853," by Professor Balfour. 



He gave a general account of the Clova and Glen Isla district which 

 was visited, and noticed the rare alpine plants gathered. He offered 

 some observations on the remarkably limited distribution of the Oxy- 

 tropls campestris and Lychnis alplna, which were confined, the former 

 to a single rocky projection in Glen Fiadh, and the latter to a small 

 mountain summit called Little Gilrannoch. These plants only spread 

 to a small extent from a centre. Besides the usual alpine plants, the 

 party gathered a profusion of Polypodlum alpestre in various states. 

 In Glen Fiadh the plant was small, and very little of it was in fruc- 

 tification. In this state it is difficult to distinguish it at first sight 

 from Athyrlum Fllix-foemlna. In Glen Dole the plant was also seen 

 abundantly, but in most parts sparingly in fructification. At the 

 upper part of the glen, near the falls of the White Water, and at the 

 station where Mulgedlum alpinum was originally found by Don, there 

 were fine specimens of the Polypodlum, 2 or more feet high, abun- 

 dantly covered with sori. The same thing occurred a little above the 

 track called Jock's Road. In these locahties the fern was associated 



