The Scottish Naturalist. 79 



to Bryum pallens and from Bryum psettdo-iriqnetrum it differs toio cctlo. I can 

 only refer it to Bryum Mildeanum Juratz. — a plant found long ago by Taylor 

 in Ireland, and by Spruce in Teesdale. The only difference I find is, that 

 your plant has a stouter nerve, and also a shorter more abrupt point to the 

 leaf, but in areolation the two quite agree." 



Concerning another find made about the same time the Rev. J. Fergusson of 

 Fern thus wrote : — "Your plant is Hypnum filicinum L., var. vallisclausae 

 Brid. quite a rarity in Scotland, and far from common anywhere. I have 

 often wished to have undoubted specimens from the north of the Tweed, and 

 yours are the first which have come to hand." The plant was found growing 

 upon stones in one of the feeders of the May among the Ochils ; and, strange to 

 say, still another variety of the same Hypnum filicinum L., has been found in 

 the same locality. This latest found variety is a weak-leaved form, which 

 Dr. Braithwaite thinks may probably be trichodes. In Glendevon there is a 

 waterfall known as the Black Linn — a wildly beautiful and pictorially effective 

 scene. Through the narrow ravine, the Devon water rushes over its rock 

 bound channel, until it is drawn into the treacherous depths of the dark 

 shadowless pool, from which it again emerges dancing and foaming over its 

 shallow outlet. By the side of this fall, a form of Encalypta vulgaris Hedw. 

 has been gathered, which is very different from the ordinary one. In its 

 general aspect it is like E. ciliata Hedw. but the calyptra is not ciliate ; nor is 

 the stem yellow. The peristome was also present, a thing rarely seen in 

 E. vulgaris Hedw. In the same neighbourhood was found a moss, which is 

 quite a cross between Hypnum filicinum L., and Thuidium decipiens De Not., 

 but nearer the former, except in the upper part of the stem, where the leaves 

 are almost perfectly identical with those of the latter. In the Heugh of Coul, 

 a wild ravine among the Ochils near Auchterarder, a variety of Eurhyn- 

 chium crassinervium Tayl. has been gathered, which the Rev. J. Fergusson 

 has named E. crassinervium var. Martini. It lies close to E. conferlum var. 

 Daldaniarum — an Italian variety. The leaf howe er is near that of E. crassi 

 nervium. 



Viola tricolor L. subsp. CurtisiiForst, near Aberdeen. — On consulting 

 Hooker's Students' 1 Flora (Ed. 3), or Topographical Botany (Ed. 2), we find 

 the distribution of this violet, in Great Britain, given as almost exclusively 

 western, or " from Clyde to Cornwall," and again in Ireland. 

 Though it has been found on Ross Links in Northumberland, it has 

 not been recorded from any part of Scotland save the west coast south of 

 the Clyde. Yet, my own experience leads me to believe that it will be found 

 in many localities, among the sand-dunes so frequent on the east coast of 

 Scotland, and that it is probably the common form of Viola tricolor in such 

 localities. It certainly is so along the sandy coast north from Aberdeen, where 

 I had observed it as a well-marked form before I had learned to identify the 

 plant. In addition to the characters noted in the Students' Flora, as distin- 

 guishing V. Curtisii from true V. tricolor, the Aberdeenshire plants are usually 

 more or less hairy and of a peculiar dull-green colour, and are dwarfed in 

 all parts, as indeed might be expected from their habitat. 



JAMES W. H. TRAIL. 



