IN THE HIGHLANDS OF PERTHSHIRE. 419 
The plants of the greatest interest to us Southrons were Gera- 
nium sylvaticum, unknown in the extreme south of England. 
Even in the Craven district, where we had previously seen it in 
abundance, it did not reach the luxuriance and beauty which it 
attains in the Scottish woods. The size of the flowers, their 
ever-varying shades of brilliant colours, from bluish-purple to 
red, exceeded the finest cultivated or wild examples which we 
had seen. This fine plant adorned our path through all Perth- 
shire, till we had reached the culminating poimt of our tour; 
then it gradually gave place to its usually more lovely relative, 
G. pratense. May the readers of this and the succeeding papers 
on this subject have only as much pleasure in accompanying us, 
as we had enjoyment of the lovely Wood Geranium, which we 
met for the first time this season in the woods of Roslin! The 
Ferns here were magnificent in size, beautiful in form, and of 
the most lovely colours; but as no rarities in this Order were 
noticed, we pass them over. Hguisetwm sylvaticum, one of the 
handsomest of the genus, was observed in profusion. Luzulas 
were also in abundance and very luxuriant. On the old castle, 
a very fine ruin,—if a ruin can be fine,—situated in a charming 
spot, and a place of considerable strength in the olden times, 
several mural plants were collected as mementos of a day’s bo- 
tanizing, such as rarely occurs. Among these may be noticed 
Mieracium murorum, in full flower at this early period, Chei- 
ranthus Cheiri, and Scolopendrium vulgare, a Fern which is by 
no means general in Scotland. 
After payimg our respects to Roslin Chapel, a marvel of ar- 
tistic beauty, and of almost infinite variety in detail, “sed his 
non est locus,’ we wandered into the classic shades of Haw- 
thornden, and luxuriated among Ashes, Yews, Hollies, and other 
trees, many of them probably planted by the poét whose name 
and sonnets have conferred a world-wide renown on this place, 
so richly gifted by the hand of nature. The first plant we no- 
ticed was Anchusa sempervirens ; but the locality is not unques- 
tionable. This plant however has the power of self-propagation 
for many years, we had almost said generations. The localities 
noticed by Ray did, and probably do still, produce the plant. It 
had all the appearance of being coeval with the wood where it 
was growing, and the wood may be coeval with Fergus, the first 
King of Scotland, who was a contemporary of the mythic heroes of 
