192 Flowers and their Pedigrees, 



of all Ireland save only on the bald head of Ben Bulben 

 in Sligo. The Alpine sow-thistle, an Arctic and 

 snowy weed, is now dying- out with us on the tops of 

 Lochnagar and the Clova mountains. The black bear- 

 berry yet haunts Ben Nevis and a few other Highland 

 peaks. The Alpine butterwort has been driven even 

 from the mountains in Scotland generally, but still 

 drags on a secluded existence in a few very northern 

 bogs of Caithness and Sutherland ; in this respect It 

 resembles the northern holy-grass, an Arctic plant, 

 which Robert Dick, the self-taught botanist of Thurso, 

 discovered among the high pastures near his native 

 town. This same grass strangely reappears in New 

 Zealand, whither it has doubtless been carried from 

 Siberia by its seeds accidentally clinging to the feet 

 of some belated bird ; but then such a solitary case in 

 itself shows how impossible is the explanation of the 

 numerous Scotch and Welsh Arctic plants as due to 

 mere chance ; for while in north European mountains 

 similar instances can be counted by hundreds, in New 

 Zealand the coincidence is very rare and almost 

 unparalleled. 



The snowy gentian, to continue our list, turns up 

 in a good many little Scotch colonies ; but the Alpine 

 lychnis, its companion on the mountain pastures of 

 the Bernese Oberland, is only now known in Britain 



