236 FLORA OF ARRAN. 



summits, may all contribute to render the alpine flora of 

 Arran comparatively scanty and uninteresting. But as this 

 poverty is hardly more marked iu Arran than on the other 

 Clyde mountains and through the south-western Highlands 

 generally, it ought perhaps to be chiefly ascribed to the 

 distance of these regions from that centre of distribution 

 whence we suppose the alpine species of Scotland to have 

 spread themselves. The commonest plants on the high 

 mountains are Saxifraga stettaris and Alcheniilla alpina; the 

 former is scarce on Goatfell, occurring more abundantly on 

 the heights round the head of Glen Sanuox; the latter is 

 very frequent on all the higher peaks, and covers, with the 

 graceful drapery of its silky leaves, the ledges of many a 

 granite precipice. Salix herbacea the dwarf willow, whose 

 woody stem scarcely rises from the ground is found on most 

 of the principal summits; Oxyria reniformis and Rhodiola 

 rosea grow abundantly in the rock clefts ; Circaea alpina and 

 Saxifraga hypnoides occur occasionally near the summits of 

 the southei-n hills ; the pretty little Tha.lictru.rn alpinum 

 may be found in many places, as on Ben-Varen, on Goatfell, 

 at the head of Glen Cloy, and on the summit of the pass 

 leading from Glen Rosa into Glen Sannox; Cryptogramma 

 crispa, the parsley fern, has been noticed in several spots, 

 rooting deep among the loose blocks of stone that strew the 

 mountain-side, while among the other cryptogamous plants, 

 Pott/podium Dryopteris and Phegopteris, Cystopteris fragttis, 

 Hymenophyttum Wilsoni, and several of the alpine Lycopodia, 

 may be enumerated as denizens of the glens and mountains. 



Regarding the water plants of the island, those which we 

 find in its marshes and streams, there is but little to be said. 

 They are few in number, and not in any way remarkable. 

 The list is nearly exhausted by the names of Hypericum 

 dodes, Ranunculus lingua, Drosera Anglica, Littordla locus- 

 iris, Alisma plantago and ranunculoides, and several species of 

 of Potamogeton and Carex. Of true lake plants there are very 

 few; and this fact suggests the remark, how deficient Arran is 



