4-28 BOTANY OF LOCH KINORD. [^(^Vp 



has changed the very aspect of nature, and raised as the proud 

 monuments of his genius and his greatness so many noble cities 

 wherein men most do congregate ? Why, in such moments of 

 free intercourse with nature, is he, alas ! so often compelled to 

 acknowledge that he alone is vile? Echo, reverberating from 

 the hoary sides of the river, by " Morven of snow,^^ but con- 

 soles the listener with the bodeful reply, " Ah, why ?" We feel 

 that it is so, and spring, as our only resource, into the boat that 

 here opportunely floats beside us, and bid adieu to contemplation 

 as we merrily skip across the lake, now ruthlessly ploughing our 

 way through forests of tall and graceful Bulrushes, or anon, in 

 some more sheltered cove, dealing more tenderly with the dark 

 floating leaves and gorgeous flowers of the yellow and the white 

 Waterlilies that here and there form no inconsiderable islands 

 of gems, that each 



" Rise lite a nymph to the bath addi'est, 

 Wliich unveiled the depth of her glowing breast, 

 Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air, 

 The soul of her beauty and love lay bare." 



But to be less poetical, " as certain writers say, when they 

 have been writing nonsense," let us now give a short account of 

 such botanical rarities, both aquatic and terrestrial, as this loch 

 aflbrds. We have already remarked that the Waterlilies are here 

 in abundance — all the three species, in fact, Nymphaa alba, 

 Miphar lutea, N. pumila ; the last, being the rarest, will of 

 course be most sought after, and here at least there is ample 

 scope for carrying ofi" a splendid set of duplicates. The plants, 

 however, which we gathered before embarking, ought to have 

 been mentioned. The principal of these are Betula alba, already 

 described as surrounding the loch, while under its shade we find 

 Melampyrum pratense, var. montanum. In the woods near by 

 also grow these northern favourites : Trientalis europ(Ba, Lister a 

 cordata, Trollius europceus, and, somewhat later in the season, 

 whole fields, as indeed is the case over woods in the greater 

 part of the shire, of Goodijera repens. The district of Cromar, 

 in which we now are, can also boast of several stations for the 

 far-famed LinrKRa borealis, chiefly in fir-woods, but in one in- 

 stance it altogether dispenses with the " sub tegmine fagi" {i.e. 

 pini) style, and disports its little blossoius on the open mountain- 

 side ; this station is on the eastern aspect of Morven, about half- 



