321 



#ncjinal g^rticles. 



thp: botanical history of angus. 



By Mr. Robert Brown. 



{A Paper read before the Edinburgh Natural History Society on 1%th January, 1702.) 



[This paper, which has never been printed, is of considerable vaUie in 

 itself, and will be read with the interest which always attaches to the 

 early efforts of great men. Robert Brown was born on December 21st, 

 1773, so that he was but a little over ei<?hteen when he read this essay. 

 It is probable that it was his first contribution to botanical science, and 

 that it is the paper allude<:l to in the obituary notice in the Proceedings 

 of the Linnean Society (unhappily the only life we possess of the 

 greatest of modern botanists), an addition to Lightfoot's ' Flora Scotica,' 

 read in 1791. The excursion in Angus, which " did not exceed a fort- 

 nigiit," must have been made in that or a previous year. At this period 

 Dr. Withering's ' Botanical Arrangement ' — the second, and perhaps best, 

 edition of which was completed in 1787 (except the ' Cryptogams,' which 

 appeared in 1792) — was altogether the foremost text-book on British 

 botany ,- and young Brown must be considered fortunate in having, soon 

 after reading this paper, become a correspondent of the careful and 

 excellent author. In the third edition (1796) we find the assistance of 

 " Mr. Brown, surgeon, Edinburgh," acknowledged in the preface ; and 

 in the body of the book are a good many Scotch localities contributed by 

 him, some being the same as those in this paper. We have been careful 

 to print the communication just as it exists in the MS. volume of the 

 Transactions of the Natural History Society, where it was found by Mr. 

 Carruthers in August last.] 



Mr. President, — In the following pages I do not pretend to give a full 

 account of the vegetable productions of the county of Angus ; but what I 

 propose is only to enumerate some of its rarest plants, which I either met 

 with myself or with regard to which 1 received credible iidbrmation. 



Before, however, entering upon this subject, it may not be improper 

 brieJly to point out the boundaries of this county and its relative situation 

 with respect to other parts of Scotland. Aiigusshire, therefore, is bounded 

 on the soidh by the Prith of Tay, which divides it from the county 

 of Fife ; on the east by the German Ocean ; on the north it is sepa- 

 rated from the county of Mearns by the river North Enk, and on the 

 west it is bounded by part of Perthshire and of the Grampian Moun- 

 tains, many of which it includes. To have minutely examined this 

 tract of country, no less extensive than diversified in external appear- 

 ance, would have required a length of time far greater than what [ 

 had to bestow on such an investigation; and when it is considered that 

 the time I remained in that country did not exceed a fortnight, it will 

 perhaps be thought presuming to attempt even a sketch of its botanicUl 

 history. Conscious, therefore, of the numerous defects necessarily arising 

 from this circumstance, I have not here proposed giving a full catalogue 

 of its vegetable productions. Confining myself, as was before remarked, 

 to those rarer plants only, which I can, either from an actual examination 



vol.. IX. [novemuer 1, 1871.] Y 



