THE FLORA OF THE NORTH-EAST 27 
summits of the Cairngorms—the highest mountain massif in our island. 
Such diversity bespeaks a flora which, if not particularly rich in the 
number of species, is at least exceedingly interesting and highly instructive. 
EXTENT oF SuRvEY.—The area under review is roughly a parallelogram 
bounded on the north and east by the sea ; on the west by the Findhorn ; 
and on the south by the North Esk. The parallelogram includes the 
counties of Aberdeen, Banff, Kincardine and Moray—a total surface of 
approximately 3,300 square miles. On taking a general view of the 
geology of this tract, we find that igneous rocks, of which granite is by far 
the most common, predominate. In fact the granite of Aberdeenshire, 
Banff, and the northern third of Kincardine occupies a greater area than 
it does in any other part of similar extent in the British Isles. This 
extensive granite mass is flanked on either side by sandstone—the Trias 
and Old Red Sandstone of Morayshire and the Old Red of Kincardine. 
Normally a very intimate connection exists between the flora of a 
particular region and the nature of its basic rocks, but for a large propor- 
tion of the lower levels of the North-east it does not seem possible to trace 
any definite relation between the rock masses and the vegetation on the 
soil which covers them. This is because the lower hills and moors, and 
what is now agricultural land, became the dumping ground for the débris 
left by retreating glaciers at the close of the Ice Age. Boulder clay of 
various kinds, mixed with erratic blocks of granite and gneiss, covers the 
natural rock to a considerable depth. ‘The soil, therefore, except in the 
alluvial deposits, is not of great fertility. In spite of inferior soil, a way- 
ward climate and a northern latitude, agriculturists have transformed this 
bleak and boulder-strewn wilderness into the finest farm-land in Europe. 
During the process the native flora of these lower levels was greatly reduced, 
and is now chiefly confined to the exposed seaboard, the woods, the peat- 
bogs, the sheltered river valleys, or the higher levels where agriculture is 
impossible. 
BoranicaL Recorps.—The earliest records relating to the plants of the 
North-east are contained in the still extant MSS. (1765-70) of Dr. David 
Skene, a correspondent of Linnzus. ‘Towards the close of the eighteenth 
century the study of botany received such a stimulus that we find the 
nineteenth opening with quite a school of zealous investigators in the area. 
The year 1836 must have been its annus mirabilis, for that one year pro- 
duced (1) Part I of Dr. Murray’s Northern Flora, (2) Dr. Dickie’s Flora 
Aberdonensis, and (3) Surgeon Cow’s Flora of Aberdeen, the last printed 
but never published. Next came (4) Dr. Gordon’s Collectanea to the 
Flora of Moray (1839); (5) Paul H. Macgillivray’s Flora of Aberdeen 
(1853); (6) Prof. William MacGillivray’s Natural History of Deestde— 
issued posthumously by order of Queen Victoria ; and (7) Prof. Dickie’s 
Botanist’s Guide to the Counties of Aberdeen, Banff and Kincardine (1860). 
The present century brought (8) Prof. Trail’s ora of Buchan (1901) ; 
(9) Prof. Craib’s Flora of Banffshire (1912) ; and (10) Prof. Trail’s Flora 
of the City Parish of Aberdeen, published (1923) as a memorial volume. 
Articles on flowering plants, galls, fungi, mosses, etc-—some of which 
have also been published in pamphlet form—have from time to time 
appeared in the Scottish Naturalist, Annals of Scottish Natural History, 
