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NATURE AND MAN IN THE FORTH VALLEY. 81 
portions and smooth silver bark are a delight to the eye; the 
fine old cedar in the Abbey garden at Culross ; and also the 
famous “big plane tree” of Kippenross, whose shattered 
shell still stands. In 1841 its girth was recorded as 42 
feet 7 inches, its height 100 feet, and the spread of its 
branches 114 feet (Dr Rodger’s Week at Bridge-of-Allan, 
p. 223). The Andersonian Naturalists’ Society of Glasgow 
have photographed and measured a number of interesting 
trees on Loch Lomond side, but I am not aware that they 
have made any records in the Forth Valley. We might 
take a hint from them. A noticeable feature of the river 
scenery of the Forth is the lines of pollard willows that 
follow the windings of the stream and give a character to 
the landscape unusual in Scotland. 
The Flora of the Forth Valley has been well worked up 
by many investigators. Dr F. Buchanan White in his Flora 
of Perthshire has two districts, designated ‘‘ Highland Forth ” 
and “Lowland Forth.” These include all the Perthshire 
portion of the Forth Valley, and, owing to the change of 
county boundaries, small portions of what are now Clack- 
mannan, Fife, and Stirling. The two districts are nearly 
equivalent to the Watsonian Vice-County 87, “ West Perth,” 
and the dividing line between them is the great Old Red 
Sandstone fault already referred to. The plants of Stirling- 
shire have been very fully recorded by the late Colonel 
Stirling and Mr Robert Kidston in a series of Reports sub- 
mitted to the Stirling Natural History and Archeological 
Society. They have confined themselves strictly to the 
Watsonian Botanical Vice-County 86, which does not 
correspond exactly with the political county of Stirling. 
These authors divide the vice-county into four districts :— 
(1) containing the Carboniferous and associated trap rocks, 
(2) composed of the Carse land with peat mosses, (3) the 
Old Red Sandstone area, and (4) the remainder of the 
county, almost entirely composed of Highland metamorphic 
rocks. In Report dated April 1900, the total number of 
species recorded was 838, together with 80 varieties. These 
include flowering plants, ferns, horsetails, and club mosses. 
A first Report of mosses gave 238 species and 15 
varieties. 
VOL. I. 6 
