88 The Botany of a Railway Station. [Sess. 
below Rossend Castle, with all the engines, carriages, and 
waggons required for working railway traffic. The length of 
the line, exclusive of sidings, would be fully a mile. 
Bordering the main line from the signal there is a narrow 
stripe of permanent grass on each side for about 500 yards. 
On these borders many flowering-plants and grasses are per- 
manently established, subject to being cut down once a-year 
for the sake of appearance. But it is quite different with 
the plants that grow, or attempt to grow, on the line or in 
the sidings, subject twice a-year to the surfaceman’s shovel,— 
and the wielder thereof regards every vestige of vegetation 
as a weed, in the full sense and meaning of the word, and 
as such to be destroyed off the face of the earth. 
The soil, an important factor at all times and in all places 
for the growth of plants, consisted here almost entirely of 
travelled material, gradually covered over with a coating of 
engine-ashes, cinders, and small coal dropping from waggons in 
shunting operations extending over many years. Of course the 
material selected by railway engineers for ballasting purposes 
is not intended for the growth of plants, and some of what 
was laid down here came from some of the kames or eskars 
in the north of Fife; while the old Oakley iron-works 
supplied broken slag, with a strong pungent smell of sulphur. 
No plants grew on this part of the line for some years. But 
“Time changes a’ thing”—like Bonnie Bessie Lee. The 
slag got gradually broken down and covered over, and vege- 
tation began to take root and find nourishment. The rocks 
at the east end of the passenger station retained soil on ledges 
and in crevices: various plants grew here free and safe from 
shovel and hoe. The western portion of the station was 
formed of soil—mainly ballast deposited there from ships. 
When this material was left undisturbed, even for a short 
time, a luxurious vegetation sprang up in the summer months. 
With the exception of the rocks referred to above, all the 
ground is only a few feet above high-water mark. 
The distribution of seeds in the case of plants growing on 
the line is effected in the usual way, the wind being perhaps 
the most active agent. But the seeds of many plants from 
distant parts are scattered along railway lines by passing 
trains Almost all railway waggons used in the conveyance 
