130 A VISIT TO GLEN CLOVA AND CALLATER. 



is no doubt that occasional mistakes were made in his records ; but I do 

 not think he deserves the great contempt which some "arm-chair" 

 botanists, such as Arnott, cast wholesale upon him, since several 

 plants recorded by him and long treated as errors have eventually been 

 rediscovered : for instance, Uierochloe horealis was said by Don to be 

 found in Glen Cally, — now that glen, or at any rate the head of it 

 (the least likely part), has been searched unsuccessfully ; but then 

 possibly the search had been made too late in the year. At any rate, 

 the Uierochloe was treated as one of Don's reputed discoveries, till 

 another poor working botanist, Robert Dick (since rendered famous by 

 Smiles), discovered it near Thurso, thus showing there was no great 

 improbability in the Glen Cally record : and further search may 

 rediscover some of the other plants which now figure only in the list of 

 " ambiguities " or " impositions " in our British list. It is said that 

 his Moss records have all since been verified. 



When I started for Clova it was just after revelling in the sylvan 

 glades and sphagnum bogs of the New Forest, gathering in the one the 

 splendid crimson spikes of Gladiolus, and the delicately lovely 

 flowers of Melittis, while in the other the tiny Orchis Mala.vis, the rare 

 Rhyncltosiwra fusca, the Isnardia, and other rarities offered a great con- 

 trast to the Gentiana verna, Potentilla fniticosa, Polyriala tiliginosa, 

 Ahiiie stricta, llelianthemum vineale, and Viola arenaria of that strange 

 sugar limestone district of Teesdale, which had tempted me to linger on 

 my northward journey, and perhaps dulled my appreciation for all but 

 he rarer plants ; yet, despite these rich treasures, I longed to get to 

 the little inn at Clova, where it is best to bespeak rooms a week 

 previously, and also to obtain a pass from the owner of Glen Dole — Mr. 

 Gurney, of Norwich — a permission obtainable, I am told, not later than 

 June, since the Dole is unfortunately now a deer forest, and the 

 generosity sometimes shown to botanists by landowners is not, I am 

 afraid, conspicuously developed in the present owner of the Dole. 



After leaving the train at Kirriemuir, sixteen miles south of Clova, 

 a conveyance was hired, and a pleasant drive it was up to the kirktown 

 of Clova. Once there, the first walk was by the river side to gather 

 Carex aquatilis var. Watsoni, which occurs about half-a-mile from the 

 inn. Turning eastwards from the river the road is soon met with, 

 fringed here with that lovely Umbellifera Meinii atltamanticum, while the 

 turf is besprinkled, as in Teesdale, with the pretty T7()/(( hitea, varying from 

 the richest purple to the palest yellow. A short walk brings one to the 

 little stream that flows out of Loch Wharral, and following up this, at an 

 altitude of about 2,000 feet, the little Highland loch appears, bordered on 

 the north-east side by steep rocky corries, while its south side slopes into 

 green woodlands. Down the corrie a little stream runs into the lake, 

 and above this may be gathered Saxifrarja stellaris;, Kpilnhium alpinum, 

 Jinicus trifilumif, Ilieracium anglicnm, Veronica alpina, and the foliage, if 

 not the flower, of that rare grass Alopecurua <ilpiniis. 



From the moorland (altitude 2,500 feet) a short walk brings one to 

 the top of the Green Hill (2,837 feet), whence a good view of the East 



