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antha. Here too most of the Arran ferns may be found ; Polypodium 

 Dryopteris and Phegopteris, Cystopteris fragilis, Aspidium or Lastrea 

 recurva (foenisecii), Aspidium lobatum and aculeatum, Asplenium 

 marinum, Hymenophyllum Tunbridgense and Wilsoni, and the 

 magnificent Osmunda regalis. In enumerating these plants, we do 

 not mean that they are all to be met with in any one spot, but that 

 they all occur in some part or other of the sea cliff, while many 

 abound through the whole of its long extent. Those species which 

 we have just mentioned, with the addition of one or two rarities, 

 such as Epipactis ensifolia and Thalictrum flavum, form in the 

 main the sylvestral flora of the island, which it is therefore needless 

 to speak of more particularly. Similarly, there is little to dis- 

 tinguish the vegetation of the lower glens from that we have 

 described as characteristic of the sea cliff and the woods, not, at 

 least, till the point is reached where the larger trees grow scarce ? 

 finally giving place to thickets of birch or hazel, or to the open 

 expanse of pasture and moor. Here the aspect of the scene is 

 changed, and plants quite different attract the attention of the 

 botanist. The greensward is gay with the purple Gymnadenia 

 conopsea, as beautiful as it is fragrant, the blue Jasione montana, 

 Pimpinella saxifraya, Gentiana campestris, Erythraea centaurium, 

 Hdbenaria viridis and albida, Orchis maculata, and many other hand- 

 some plants. Nestling among the heather we may find Circaea 

 alpina, Listera cordata, with its slender stem and minute yellowish 

 flowers, the taller Galium boreale, and the tender green of the oak 

 fern, Polypodium Dryopteris. Rubus saxatilis here and there trails 

 its long stems over the stony ground, while the viscid leaves of the 

 sundew, Drosera rotundifolia and anglica, the tiny cream-coloured 

 flowers of Pinguicula Lusitanica, and straggling yellowish- green 

 stems of the little Lycopodium selaginoides, mix with the moss that 

 grows thick round the margin of the springs and rivulets. Suppos- 

 ing the glen, whose botany we have been describing, to be in the 

 southern division of the island, we shall, on ascending still higher, 

 find ourselves, after a stiff climb, on a wide expanse of undulating 

 moorland, covered by a thick deposit of peat bog, interrupted here 

 and there by a rocky hilltop, or the deep cut channel of some moun- 

 tain burn. These moors, varying in height from 900 to 1,400 feet, 

 have little to interest the botanist. He may travel over them for a 

 whole day without meeting more than two or three species among 

 the coarse grass and heather, mixed with rushes and cotton grass, 

 which clothe the surface of the peat moss. Generally it may be said, 

 that the flora of the higher grounds in Arran is inferior to that 



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