SOMK EAST KIFIC FLOW KRS. 261 



I had the gratification of finding two plants which the Provost 

 had never seen about Crail before. Each was found only at one 

 place, but in both cases there was a pretty liberal supply. The first 

 was Plantago lanceolata, Linn., b. Timhali (Jord.), a plant which, 

 according to Hooker's Flora, is not indigenous, and which is 

 certainly by no means common in Scotland. In the distance, a 

 tuft raising its long-stalked spikes above the roadside herbage 

 looks like F. maritima, Linn., out of place ; its leaves, however, 

 are very like those of P. lanceolata, Linn., so that before coming to 

 close quarters it appears to have the foliage of the one species and 

 the inflorescence of the other. There were several large tufts at 

 the place where I found it, and I brought a small bit home to 

 plant. It took to the change at once, and went on growing 

 although it was in flower at the time, and now, at the end of 

 winter, it is quite fresh, and seems to be taking kindly to its 

 garden home at Stepps. 



The other stranger was one which at first approach I gleefully 

 pronounced to be a grass which I did not know. On close 

 inspection it was easy to see that it was a Festuca, and, although 

 very different in habit, its parts came close enough to F. elatior, 

 Linn., to claim kinship with this species. There was a large patch 

 of the stranger all by itself, and growing luxuriantly, while there 

 was plenty of the ordinary F. elatior, Linn., quite near. I sent a 

 specimen to Kew, and got it identified as Festuca elatior, Linn., 

 sub. sp. arundinacea, Schreb., var. genuina, sub. var. fasciculata, 

 Haeck., and under this name I am exhibiting a specimen to-night. 



Of other grasses which are scarce or absent from the west, 

 Briza media, Linn., Koderia cristata, Pers., Hordeum murinum, 

 Linn., and Trisetum flavescens, Beauv., are plentiful. The genus 

 Bromus is largely represented ; but, on the other hand, we never 

 came across either Milium or Melica. The fact that we were not 

 much in any shady woods may, however, account for this. 



Altogether Crail is a good place for a botanist's holiday. To a 

 beginner it offers a fine general field of ordinary plants, with an 

 occasional tit-bit of something rare or uncommon, especially to 

 visitors from the west. Any young botanists, therefore, or old 

 ones either, who desire to follow their hobbies over an interesting 

 bit of ground, amidst the purest of fresh air and about a pleasant 

 place to stay in, could not do better than take a holiday at Crail. 



