54 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



size in the river. About twenty years ago this was in truth an 

 island, separated from the mainland on the north by a rather wide 

 shallow stream which it was not easy to cross dry shod, except after 

 continued dry weather when the Dee was low. The bed of this 

 portion of the river consisted of sand and shingle. The Lupine, 

 though rather frequent even at that time some miles farther up the 

 Dee, did not then occur near Cults. But a few years afterwards it 

 began to colonise the banks and higher portions of the sandy beds 

 of shingle ; and soon it became abundant, seedlings springing up in 

 multitudes. In a very few seasons the consequences of the immigra- 

 tion as affecting the course of the river began to be evident. The 

 plants during the dry weather proved able to establish themselves so 

 firmly on all parts exposed when the water was low that they ran 

 little risk of being uprooted during the floods of winter. They 

 flowered and seeded freely ; and the dead stems caught and re- 

 tained the sand and smaller pebbles brought down the stream, and 

 that had formerly been swept onward towards its mouth. In the 

 summers the plants grow only more vigorously because of the 

 materials deposited by the river each winter; and the result has 

 been that the bed of the old channel is now raised so high by such 

 accumulations that only the higher floods of winter cover any 

 part of it. The Lupines have spread over the area so gained, and 

 form an almost continuous covering from two to nearly four feet in 

 height, and of great beauty during the flowering season. There is 

 little reason to suppose that the species will not form a permanent 

 part of the flora of Scotland in future ; and it assuredly deserves to 

 be noticed as an immigrant in all works dealing with the British 

 flora as a whole. Its effect upon our native flora may be worth a 

 brief notice, as it proves itself one of the most powerful competitors 

 in the struggle for existence along our river banks, and tends to 

 crush out some of the most interesting species met with beside 

 such rivers as the Dee. The tributaries of this stream, rising at 

 high altitudes, carry down with them the seeds of Alpine species. 

 These, lodging among the shingle and sand along the river in its 

 lower course, often spring up ; and, being free in such bare places 

 from severe competition with our native plants of the Lowlands, they 

 reach very low levels at times. But the Lupine has taken possession 

 of many of the localities suited to such alpine species along the lower 

 course of the Dee, and has greatly diminished their frequency, a 

 heavy price to pay for its beauty in the landscape. — James W. H. 

 Trail. 



First Records of Scottish Flowering Plants. — The following 

 are noted in the instalments of the F. R. of British Flowering 

 Plants in " Journ. Bot," October to December 1892 : 



Astragalus alpinus, L. — Found, 30th July 1831, by Mr. Brand, 

 Dr. Greville, and Dr. Graham, in Glen of the Dole, Clova. 



