1 86 NETHER LOCHABER. 



any truth in the popular belief that when the oak takes precedence 

 of the ash in presenting its rich green foliage to the light, a 

 cloudless, rainless summer is sure to follow. We observe that 

 everywhere the oak is now in leaf, while the ash is yet budless and 

 bare to its topmost bough, manifesting an unwonted dulness and 

 drowsiness for mid-May, as if it was loth, even at the call of 

 summer, to be roused from its hybernal repose. 



We are indebted to the monks of the middle ages for the intro- 

 duction into our country, and successful cultivation, of some of our 

 choicest fruits and most beautiful flowers ; nor is it any wonder 

 that in times when herbalism and the culling of simples was 

 universally practised and believed in, numberless shrubs and plants 

 of real or supposed efficacy in the cure of particular ailments should 

 also be imported and assiduously cultivated by the same benefactors. 

 In some cases, however, the supposed plants of virtue then intro- 

 duced have in our day turned out to be no better than noisome 

 weeds, extremely difficult of eradication, and one of these how it 

 found its way into this district it would be difficulty to say is 

 becoming a perfect pest in some parts of Lochaber. We refer to 

 the plant commonly known as Bishopweed, Goatweed, or Herb 

 Gerard, which the botanists have honoured by the high-sounding 

 name ^Egropodium podagraria. Gout, as its botanical name 

 implies, was the disease in which this rank and foul-smelling weed 

 was supposed to be of extraordinary virtue, and for anything we 

 know to the contrary, it may still possess all the virtues at one time 

 so confidently ascribed to it ; but then you see gout is altogether 

 unknown in Lochaber we are too poor, and perforce live too 

 soberly, to be visited by such aristocratic ailments and what 

 business therefore this weed has to grow and spread amongst us, 

 and become unto us a nuisance and a plague, we cannot imagine : 

 not knowing the disease, we could get on very well without the 

 unsavoury antidote. Bishop weed, if allowed free growth in suitable 



