322 JOHN DUNCAN, WEAVER AND BOTANIST. 



way, the course of the burn for the half-mile down to the 

 road was adorned with plants of various kinds, many of 

 them brought from far, which brightened the scene and 

 scented the air ; for the odoriferous mints were specially 

 luxuriant. Many of these foreign visitants were carried 

 down into the Leochel by the stream that fed them, when 

 it was in spate, and thence into the Don ; and thus their 

 banks in many places will long retain these mementoes of 

 the wandering botanist. When talking with a friend of 

 this practice of his, John said that they would grow in 

 memory of him long after he had passed away and no 

 doubt they will, sweet and appropriate memorials of the 

 loving hand that planted them. 



Amongst others, foreign to the place, that now flourish 

 along these streams brought down from his garden foot, are 

 the Great Hairy Willow Herb (Epilobium hirsutuni), large 

 and shrub-like, with its downy leaves and handsome purplish 

 flowers, brought by him from the banks of the Clyde ; and 

 the Mimulus ringans* or " Monkey Flower," a garden out- 

 cast, not native, though a variety of it, the Mimulus luteus, 

 the yellow mimulus, has been reckoned as naturalised. 



For some years before his death, John became quite 

 unable to look after his favourite plot, which, from its super- 

 abundant vegetation, soon got into wild disorder, an eye- 

 sore and grief to its aged attendant. By the time he 

 passed away, it was a tangled mass of weeds, the saddest 

 wreck of what it had been ; and its protecting fence was 

 broken down. It still contained, even in August, 1881, a 



* This plant is also very abundant on the banks of the stream 

 above Keig, that runs by the road side from Auchleven. Did Duncan 

 plant it there also, in his many walks along that well-beaten path ? 



