150 



THE FLORA OF ARRAN. 



104. IN the preceding pages it has been shown how fine a field Arran 

 offers to the geologist, as exhibiting many diversified phenomena 

 in a limited area. To the botanist it is scarcely less interesting 

 such is the luxuriance and variety of its vegetation 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 are 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 east coast. 



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 

 estuary 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 peculiar 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 pre- 

 cipitous mountains, wide-spread moors, small alluvial plains, hot 

 and sheltered glens, damp woods, and sandy sea-shores. We have 

 every kind and degree of exposure, from the bare and wind-swept top 

 of Goatfell to the warm hollows of Glen Cloy, and this within the 

 compass of a few miles. We have modern fir plantations and natu- 

 ral birch woods ; cultivated fields and hedge-rows ; wide stretches 

 of peat-bog ; rocky promontories and caves ; open strands and sand 



