1/4 JOHN DUNCAN, WEAVER AND BOTANIST. 



quietly away in this curious guise, the workers pitying his 

 madness or folly, he proud beyond expression of his 

 treasure. But so frail are the flowers of this plant that 

 they would scarcely survive till he reached the edge of the 

 moss. There he pressed them as well as he could in 

 the paper he carried for the purpose, and he found, when 

 dried, that their golden colour had been replaced by a dark 

 purple hue. 



Sometimes his search for plants was accompanied by 

 no little danger. In one of his longer journeys from 

 Netherton, he visited the Loch of Drum, near the ancient 

 castle of Drum, to the east of Banchory, on the Dee. He 

 had been told by Charles Black that it was a station for 

 that magnificent plant, the white water-lily (Nymphcea alba), 

 of which he had not yet secured a specimen. 



This exquisite species, as all know who have tried to 

 pluck its alabaster blossom, is shy and retiring, like the 

 modest nymphs after whom Linnaeus poetically named it, 

 and keeps well off from the shore, generally out of reach 

 of the spoiler. Devoted also to solitude and peace, it 

 frequents only calm river pools and placid lakes, its flat 

 leaves smoothing the surface where they grow, like the 

 ancient halcyon, even in a stiff breeze, as if in return for 

 their shelter. The root stocks require a soft, deep soil, 

 so that they are found only in places with a very muddy 

 bottom, which acts as a further protection to the plants 

 and makes them very difficult to reach from the shore. 



John was once asked by William Mortimer if he had 

 visited the Loch of Drum, then famous for its plants. 

 " Ay," says he ; "and, mair than that, I hae been in't ! " 

 It happened on this wise. John found the lilies in full and 



