[December, 1857.] 281 



BOTANY OF BRAEMAR. 



Notes on the Flora of Braemar, Aberdeenshire ; By J. Barton. 



The district which I propose to include in the following sketch, 

 is one which Nature has defined by such marked geographical 

 features, as to present unusual facilities for obtaining a correct 

 estimate of its productiveness in the various branches of natural 

 history. Within a circuit of a few miles, and the compass of 

 an ordinary day^s walk, there wiU be found enough, and more 

 than enough, to occupy the attention of every naturalist, be he 

 botanist, geologist, mineralogist, entomologist, ornithologist, or 

 anything else ; and to the mere lover of natm'e in all its ever- 

 vaiying beauties, few districts could be found in the length and 

 breadth of the British Isles to afford more entire pleasure than 

 the lovely scenery of Braemar. Bounded on the north by the 

 lofty range of granite mountains known by the various names 

 of the Cairngorm, Ben-na-muic-dhui, or Mona-ma, ranges, from 

 whose summits the snow is rarely known to disappear altogether, 

 and on the south by another range of the Grampians, of scarcely 

 less elevation, among which Lochnagar reigns supreme as the 

 loftiest and noblest ; and watered as it is by the countless streams 

 which descend into the Dee, — at this early stage of its course 

 little more than a shallow trout-stream, — the district of Braemar 

 combines perhaps a greater variety of sceneiy than any other in 

 the British Isles of equal extent. It would be difficult to con- 

 ceive a greater contrast than is exhibited here as we pass fr-om 

 the densely-wooded, and in some parts cultivated, valley of the 

 Dee, to the vast expanse of mountain and moor beyond. In the 

 one, fantastically-shaped crags of rock jut out at intervals from 

 the dense masses of larch and fir or feathery birch which clothe 

 the mountain side, often with some tempest- shattered and vene- 

 rable pine of the forest rearing its lofty crest above all the rest — 

 the glossy dark-green hue of its branches contrasting most strik- 

 ingly with the grey rock into which it has so firmly rooted itself; 

 while, far below in the valley, the dark waters of the Dee, broken 

 here and there into silvery whiteness by large boulders of rock, 

 wind their swift course to the ocean, performing, in the short 

 space of 68 miles, a descent of no less than 1300 feet.^ On the 



* The height of the river Dee at Banchory (15 miles) is computed to be 172 feet : 

 N. S. VOL. II. 2 O 



