74 DICK'S REPORT. 



plant was communicated to the Professor of Botany 

 at Edinburgh. 



The professor at first doubted the existence of the 

 plant in Britain. He could scarcely believe that it existed 

 in Caithness, the northernmost county of Scotland. He 

 observed, however, that if Dick had really found the 

 plant, he had rescued the celebrated botanist Don from 

 an undeserved calumny. For Don had asserted that the 

 plant was found in Britain, whereas all the botanists of 

 note averred that the Holy Grass was not indigenous, 

 but had been imported from other countries. 



Dick was specially requested to send a communica- 

 tion respecting the plant, and where it was to be found. 

 He accordingly did so in July 1854. He also sent a 

 specimen of the Holy Grass to Professor Balfour of 

 Edinburgh. We must here anticipate ; and insert the 

 paper which Dick prepared for the Botanical Society, 

 twenty years after the plant had been found. The paper 

 runs as follows : 



" About ten minutes' walk from the town of Thurso 

 there is, by the river-side, a farm-house known by the 

 name of the Bleachfield, opposite to which, on the eastern 

 bank of the river, there is a precipitous section of boulder 

 clay ; opposite to the clay cliff, and fringing the edge of 

 the stream. Any botanist can, in the last week of the 

 month of May, or in the first and second weeks of June, 

 gather 50 or 100 specimens of Hierochloe borealis. 

 Passing upwards along the river bank, and at no great 

 distance, there is another clay cliff, where a few hundreds 

 of Hierochloe may likewise be got. It also fringes the 



