34 ANCIENT SCOTTISH BOTANY. [February, 



dred and fifty yards wide. It is on the north coast, about two 

 miles from "Aberdour. 



In a garden adjoining the remains of the old monastery there 

 are still (?) to be seen the female Peony, bearing seed. It is in- 

 ferred that this single form of Peony is the original form from 

 which the double Rose Peony or Hunder-bladed Tulip is derived. 

 Here grow also Borage, Pellitory, Dwarf Elder, Atrojja Bella- 

 donna, and other introduced plants. 



Ckenopoclium olidwn grows on the islet or rock called the Hay- 

 stack, about half a mile from Inch Colm (Inch Columb). 



Inchkeith, which adds much to the picturesque attractions of 

 Ediiiburgh, produced the following plants when visited by this 

 learned botanist, viz. many Docks and Chenopods, e.g. Tata bona, 

 CheyiopodiumBonus-Henricus, Scabious, Tbyme, Spattling Poppy, 

 Plantain, Thrift, Ground Ivy, Henbane, Xanthium Struma- 

 riuni? , Blessed Thistle, Horehound, etc., sufficient for the cure of 

 most diseases with which the inhabitants of braw and bonnic 

 Scotland are afflicted. 



The Bass, which the French called the Isle of Geese, from its 

 being the resort of myriads of sea-birds and solan geese espe- 

 cially, in addition to the well-known Tree Mallow, yields another 

 plant whose identity is not yet very satisfactorily determined. 

 Hector Boece, the elegant, veracious historian of Scotland, has 

 left a description both of the Rock and of some of its productions; 

 and his account was rendered into the then Scottish vernacular 

 by John Bellenden, the Archdeacon of Moray and Canon of Ross, 

 as follows : — The Bass is "^a wonderful crag, risand within the sea, 

 with sa narro and strait hale that schip nor bait may arrive but 

 allanarlie at ane part of it; it is unwynnabill be ingyne of men." 

 Besides the ordinary herbs, the Malva arborea marina and the 

 Beta marina grow here. Boethius probably refers to the fol- 

 lowing culinary vegetable, viz. " In this crag grows ane rycht 

 delicius herbe and quhen it is transportit or plantit in ony ither 

 part it is of little sapor or gust.^' 



The following list of Bass Rock plants is from an account of 

 the vegetation of the Bass supplied by Dr. Balfour, the eminent 

 Professor of Botany in the University of Edinburgh. The list is 

 published in a work descriptive of the civil and natural history of 

 this historic locality : — Hypochceris maculata. Calendula pluvialis, 

 C. arvensis, Hieracimn chondrilloides , Tragopogon porrifolius. 



