288 SCOTTISH BOTANY. [December, 



general a very favourable contrast in this respect may be drawn 

 between the more ancient manuscripts and those of the foiu-- 

 teenth century and later. In the manuscripts of this latter 

 period the artist seems to have drawn from imagination alone ; 

 and as his imagination seems to have been deeply tinctured with 

 superstition, the result has often been the production of a draw- 

 ing in which it would puzzle one's ingenuity to discover any re- 

 semblance to a plant. Maxwell T. Masters. 



SCOTTISH BOTANY. 



Notes of an Excursion to Cleish Castle, etc. By the Rev. Hugh 

 Macmillan, F.B.S.E., etc. 



With the same companion who botanized with me on the Sa- 

 line Hills of Clackmannan, I set out to explore the botanical 

 riches in the neighbourhood of Cleish Castle. On our way we 

 observed in the woods that bordered the path an immense quan- 

 tity of the Paris quaclrifolia, growing most luxuriantly among 

 tufted ferns. Owing to the richness of the soil, formed by the 

 decomposition of the vegetation and the abundance of shade and 

 moisture, as indicated by the universal diffusion of Equisetum 

 sylvaticum throughout the woods, it grows to a very large size, 

 and is almost as often furnished with five as with four leaves, 

 thus rendering its specific name a misnomer. Though somewhat 

 rare in the southern, and found only in a few isolated localities 

 in the northern districts, it appears to be very common in this 

 neighbourhood, occurring in almost all the woods on the slopes 

 of the Cleish hills, and on the banks of the Black Devon. On 

 the dry pasture-lands above the road, we observed here and there 

 the elegant Habenaria albida; and in marshy spots, among Rushes 

 and Carices, the richly-scented H. chlorantha in considerable 

 abundance. Whether specifically different or not, I have always 

 been able to distinguish the latter of these two plants from the 

 former, with which botanists often confound it, by its larger size, 

 its greenish-yellow Sowers, by the broader and more connivent 

 segments of the perianth, and its widely-diverging anther-lobes. 

 Nothing of any botanical interest further rewarded our search 

 until we reached Cleish, with the exception of a few specimens of 

 Ranunculus Lingua, Melica nutans, and Equisetum Drummondii, 



