166 TRANSACTIONS AND PU0CF<:EDINGS OF THK [Sess. Lxvi. 



The Botanical Rarities of a Sub-Alpine Parish. 

 By James M'Andrew, Assoc, of Edin. Bot. Soc. 



(Read IStli February 1902.) 



The parish I refer to is that of Kells, situated about 

 the middle of Kirkcudbrightshire, and formed by a billy 

 ridge — a spur of the Lowther and Lead Hills, running in 

 a southerly direction — and two slopes, one to the west 

 to the Blackwater of Dee, and the other to the east to the 

 river Ken, these slopes being intersected by several shaded 

 sub-alpine glens or, rather, ravines. Loch Ken forms part 

 of the eastern boundary of Kells. With the exception of 

 some arable land along the river Ken and Loch Ken, all 

 the parish consists of moors and hills suitable only for 

 sheep farms. The highest hill is Corserine, 2650 feet 

 high. The salubrity and moistness of the climate, and 

 the diversified surface of hills, bogs, dales, glens, burns, 

 rivers, lochs, and woods, render this inland parish 

 peculiarly favourable for the growth of cryptogamic plants, 

 which here flourish in unusual profusion and variety, 

 notwithstanding the fact that the two rock formations of 

 the whole parish are granite and greywacke — ^rocks which, 

 in general, are not very productive of plant life. The 

 trunks of the trees, too, are luxuriantly covered with 

 cryptogamic vegetation. 



I may here say that I have published in the " Transactions 

 of the Dumfries and Galloway Natural History, etc., Society" 

 lists of the Flowering Plants, Ferns, Mosses, Hepaticte, and 

 Lichens of the south-west of Scotland, from which I would 

 cull the following from the Parish of Kells, showing that 

 there is truth in the remark that that district is the richest 

 in plants, which has been most carefully searched, and that 

 too by one resident in the district. 



Flowering Plants. — On the hills and moors are such 

 plants as — Thalictruin alpinum, L. ; Salix kerhacea, L. ; 

 Lycopodium alpinum, L. ; Scclum roseum, Scop. ; Carlina 

 vulgaris, L. ; CarcUms hetcrophjllus, Willd. ; Hieracium 

 holoscriceum, Backh. ; three species of Drosera ; Pinguicula^ 

 lusitanica, L. ; and Listera cordata, R. Br., among heather 

 on the hillsides. Lower down are Piaminculus Lcriormandi, 



