228 



THE FLOKA OF AREAN. 



106. IN the preceding pages it has been shewn how fine a 

 field Arran offers to the geologist, as exhibiting many diver- 

 sified phenomena in a limited area. To the botanist it is 

 scarcely less interesting such is the luxuriance and variety 

 of its vegetation, and such the rarity of some of the plants 

 contained in its flora. It is indeed true that scarcely any of 

 these are botanical treasures of the first order; still, there ai-e 

 several of unfrequent occurrence in the west of Scotland, and 

 many quite new and highly interesting to the naturalist 

 accustomed to the flora of England or the Lothians. 



This richness of Arran as a botanical field is owing to two 

 causes, its geographical position and the variety it affords 

 of situation and soil. Lying near the shores of the Scottish 

 Lowlands, and at the same time forming one of the Hebridean 

 chain of islands, it partakes of the flora of each region the 

 common plants of its fields, woods, marshes, and road-sides 

 belonging chiefly to the former the maritime species to the 

 latter. These advantages of position it no doubt does in some 

 measure share with the coasts of the Clyde estuaiy generally, 

 and especially with Bute. In Arran, however, they meet most 

 completely ; and accordingly we find that no district of equal 

 extent in the west of Scotland can rival it in the number of 

 species. It is to this circumstance its situation at the 

 junction of two dissimilar botanical provinces that the pecu- 

 liar richness and variety of the flora of the island are mainly 

 to be ascribed. 



Secondly, The geological structure of Arran impresses a 

 marked character on its physical geography, and gives rise to 

 the greatest possible variety of station and soil. We have lofty 

 and precipitous mountains, wide-spread mooi-s, small alluvial 



