THE FLORA OF STIRLING AND 

 ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD. 



By Johnston Shearer. 

 (Read 5th September, 1889.) 



Stirling, with the surrounding district, is enshrined in every 

 Scottish heart as a scene of the heroism and patriotism of their 

 forefathers. It was crowded for centuries with incidents of the 

 greatest historical interest; but it is as a rich treasury for lovers of 

 nature that I am now to direct your attention to it, and particularly 

 to its unique flora. 



The scenery is varied and grand — the panorama seen from the 

 castle being perhaps unequalled in the British Islands. The 

 geological features are remarkable, especially as examples of 

 alterations in sea level and of glacial phenomena. The castle 

 rock is trap-dolerite, and its contact with the strata of the carbon- 

 iferous limestone is seen in the Back Walk, a little to the east of 

 Ballangeich Pass. The Abbey Craig, to the east, is also dolerite. 

 Craigforth, about a mile to the north-west, is a porphyrite of the 

 same age and character as the lava-formed rocks of the Tough 

 hills on the west. It contains a considerable amount of ironstone. 

 The quarries at the foot of the castle rock on the north side, at 

 Raploch, and the old quarries at Ballangeich and at the Abbey 

 Craig will amply repay examination. These varied geological 

 features account in some measure for the richness of the flora. I 

 have been over a good part of Scotland and England, but I know 

 of no place of equally circumscribed limits to compare with it for 

 the number and variety of its wild flowers. Moreover, its central 

 position in the country on the border line between the highlands 

 and lowlands, and midway between the east and west coasts and. 

 the Firths of Forth and Clyde; its intersection by the tidal waters 



