202 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 



stantly of two kinds, he came, in common with the- 

 majority of the botanists of that time, to regard 

 the one form as the stamen and the other as the 

 pistil, and the plants themselves as phanerogamic. 

 In accordance with this view it became usual to 

 class them either in Monandria Monogynia or in 

 Monoecia Monandria. Of the six species given in 

 Smith's Flora Britannica, Hopkirk only records two 

 for the district — Chara vulgaris and Char a flexilisy 

 both of which he states to be frequent. He gives as 

 stations — for the former, Bogle's Hole and Kenmuir, 

 Bardowie Loch, and Cartland Crags ; for the other^ 

 Bogle's Hole, Mugdock, Bardowie and Frankfield 

 Lochs, a ditch near Port-Dundas, and abundantly in 

 one two miles beyond Fossil. The last station is 

 perhaps the ditch at Fossil Marsh, where the plant 

 is still abundant. This marsh is usually referred to 

 in his book as the marsh beyond Fossil. 



The Mare's-tail (Hippuris vulgai^is) is the next plant 

 to which I shall refer. For it he only gives one 

 station, Castle-Semple Loch. Nowadays, though per- 

 haps not to be called common, it is abundant in 

 several localities. Fossil Marsh holds a supply of it 

 able to meet a demand much greater than is ever 

 likely to arise. In 1813, it either did not grow^ there 

 or had been overlooked by Hopkirk, a very unlikely 

 supposition in this case. Again, Castle-Semple Loch 

 is the only station in the district mentioned by 

 Hooker in 1821. By the year 1831, when Fatrick 

 published his book. Fossil Marsh was known as a 

 station. 



It would be interesting to be able to settle defi- 

 nitely how much the flora of this marsh has been 

 affected by the formation of the Forth and Clyde 

 Canal ; but of course that can only now be guessed 

 at. There is every reason to suppose that new 

 plants would appear in it after the canal brought it 

 into connection with the Eastern district. 



The highest level of the canal is attained about 

 lOi miles from Grangemouth, where the twentieth 



