Presented, 2nd November 191 1. 



PAPER ON " THE FLORA OF BANFFSHIRE " BY 

 WILLIAM G. CRAIB, M.A. 



Moved by the publication of the Flora of Buchan by Professor Trail, of Aberdeen 

 University, by the very meagre information to be got for Banffshire from Professor Dickie's 

 Botanist's Guide, and by the publication of two or three local lists in the Transactions of the 

 Banffshire Field Club, its indefatigable secretary, Mr John Yeats, M.A., conceived the idea 

 that by the systematic co-operation of botanists throughout the county it might be possible 

 to collect such information regarding the distribution of plants in Banffshire as might be 

 worthy of a place in the Club's Transactions. Being responsible for one of the local lists 

 referred to, I was induced by the Secretary and by Mr Grant, the treasurer, to undertake 

 the task with the aid of such botanists and collectors as might be available. Such is the 

 origin of the following botanical survey of the County of Banff. 



The area at first contemplated was not the rather artificial geographical area of the 

 county, but the more natural region between the rivers Deveron and Spey, including these 

 river basins. The lack of botanists, however, or more probably their modesty, led to the 

 enforced curtailment of this wider scheme, and only Banffshire proper, with the addition of 

 a few outside parishes on the banks of the rivers named, has been surveyed. The task, 

 though thus restricted, has been no light one. Banffshire, with a seaboard of 32 miles, and 

 a stretch inland in a south-westerly direction of 67 miles, reaching the high elevation of 

 4296 feet in Ben Mac Dhui, with many other mountains and mountain ranges scarcely 

 inferior in height, bounded by two large rivers and intersected by numerous streams and 

 rills, with all the variations in soil, climate, and rainfall that such a configuration implies 

 affords a field for the botanist of great variety and extent. 



The general plan of the work is the same as Professor Trail's Flora of Buchan, to 

 which it may be looked upon as a companion, seeing that three parishes — Gamrie, King- 

 Edward, and Turriff — occur in both, as does also that part of the parish of Alvah lying to 

 the East of Deveron. All the records in the Flora of Buchan are based on Professor 

 Trail's personal observations, but here, where there has been collaboration, the symbols 

 employed are necessarily different, and may be thus explained : — 



o denotes old records not verified during the progress of this work. 

 X ,, records by Professor Trail. 



