24 HISTORY OF THE ROYAL BOTANIC GARDEN. 
rocks, and dales of his neighbourhood. He at this time’ accom- 
panied Mr. Mackay to the Alps of Scotland. They spent 
several days in exploring together the great mountain of Ben- 
Lawers in Bredalbane. Here Mr. Dickson of London had 
already found the acrostichum ilvense, lichen croceus, and fusco- 
luteus, &c. all of which occurred to our travellers. They 
likewise picked up carex rigida, originally observed by Dr. 
Walker, late Professor of Natural History at Edinburgh. They 
found, also, several plants of the very rare gentiana nivalis ; and 
the arenaria saxatilis and cerastium alpinum were for the first 
time added to the British Flora by this expedition. On 
this occasion, also, Mr. Don discovered a new species of 
grass, which has not yet been scientifically described: it 
seems to rank under the genus e/ymus, and he has given it 
the trivial name of alpinus. Of this rarity he could find only 
two plants. 
At Blair-in-Athol our botanists attracted the notice of the 
D[uke] of Athol, and his sister, Lady Charlotte Murray, who has 
rendered herself celebrated as a botanical writer. The Duke 
invited them to botanize Glen Tilt, and gave orders for their 
accommodation at his Grace’s hunting lodge in that wild 
district. Upon a high rock immediately opposite the lodge, 
they found, within a narrow space, many rare alpine plants; 
dryas octopetala; salices lapponica, reticulata and herbacea ; 
pyrola secunda; carices capillaris and atrata; azalea pro- 
cumbens; gnaphalium supinum; and saxifragze oppositifolia 
and stellaris. 
Next summer it was concerted between our botanists that they 
should visit some of the Western Islands of Scotland in company. 
Mr. Don accordingly, at the appointed time, set out from Forfar 
(which had now become the place of his residence, and where 
he cultivated an immense variety of the rarest hardy plants? :) 
* Although Dr. Neill uses this indefinite expression, we have confirmation 
of the date 1793 in Don’s statement that he gathered Arenaria rubella in this 
year in company with Mackay. See Garry, ‘‘ Notes on the Drawings for 
English Botany” in Journal of Botany, April 1903, p. 35-—/. B. B. 
* If Dr. Neill’s date be correct we have the time of Don’s migration from 
Glasgow to Forfar fixed as the end of 1793 or beginning of 1794. See 
further regarding this on p. 61 of these *‘ Notes.”——/. B. B. 
