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Art. ecu. — Two Botanical Visits to the Reeky Linn and Den of 

 Airley, in April and June, 1842.* By William Gardiner, 

 JUN. Esq. 



My first visit to the Reeky Linn was on the 13th of April. I left 

 Dundee with the earliest railway train for Newtyle, and from thence 

 walked the remainder of the way, crossing the hills behind Alyth, and 

 coming down upon the Isla at the bridge of Craig. The only plant 

 of interest noticed in my route was Bryum albicans, which grew abun- 

 dantly on a wet bank between Newtyle and Meigle. In the same 

 locality I found it again plentifully in May, with ripe capsules, and 

 associated with Dicranum varium. I took up my abode in Mrs. Ro- 

 bertson's "public," which is conveniently situated within a quarter 

 of a mile of the Linn, and after dinner went out to botanize. The 

 Reeky Linn is a beautiful and picturesque waterfall on the Isla, at the 

 head of the Den of Airly, and about four miles above the castle. The 

 water takes three distinct leaps, and throughout its progress foams 

 like a boiling cauldron, and meeting at the base of the rocks with a 

 jutting cliff which obstructs its fury, a quantity of it is dissipated in 

 vapour, which, rising in the air, seems like a mist or smoke {Scottice 

 " reek "), hence the name that has been bestowed upon the fall. The 

 vicinity of such a place, from abounding in moist rocks, is always rich 

 in vegetation, and here, though too early for most flowers, I reaped a 

 luxuriant cryptogamic harvest. Sticta sylvatica covered the rocks in 

 many places, and large patches of the elegant Jungermannia pubes- 

 cens were intermingled with J. platyphylla and var. 0. major, Hypnum 

 myosuroides, commutatum and praelongum, Anomodon viticulosum 

 and curtipendulum, Bartramia Halleriana and pomiformis, var. /3. ma- 

 jor, and the lovely Neckera crispa. Here and there tufts of Didy- 

 modon Bruntoni showed themselves profusely in fructification, and, 

 peeping from among them, the delicate calyptrse and bright tawny 

 capsules of Encalypta ciliata, and the graceful little Hypnum pulchel- 

 lum. The beautiful Hymenophyllum Wilsoni was here, as elsewhere, 

 associated with Jungermannia spinulosa. On the banks, chiefly grow- 

 ing on sandy deposits, were Bryum punctatum, rostratum, margina- 

 tum, turbinatum, ventricosum and hornum, Hypnum palustre and 

 uncinatum, Tiichostomura aciculare, Dicranum flavescens and adian- 

 toides, Orthotrichum rupincola and Didymodon rigidulus. Still closer 

 to the water, in shady nooks, dwelt Marchantia (Fegatella) conica and 



* Read before the Botanical Society of Edinburgh. Communicated by Mr. Gardiner. 



