EEPORT OF THE MEETINGS FOR 1897 165 



List of Plants gathered in Dowlaw Dean and the Moors in that 

 neighbourhood. By C. Stuart, M.D., Chirnside. 



Dowlaw Dean in the month of July is a very interesting 

 Botanical Station, and the moors surrounding it furnish a 

 variety of forms of the ordinary Heaths, that are well worth 

 examining and growing. There are few plants which may be 

 called specially rare, but the undermentioned are worth 

 recording : — 



Helianthemum vulgare (pure white, also cream coloured), 

 Vaccinium oxycoccus in Sphagnum in the Bogs ; Genista anglica 

 among the heather ; Fedia olitosia, Parnassia palustris, Dianthus 

 deltoides, Solanum dulcamara, Trollim Europceus, Potentilla reptans, 

 Astragalus hgpoglottis in the turf, where it gets the sea air. 

 Glaueium luteurn, on the sands of the seashore. Sedum rhodiola ; 

 Pyrola media and minor; Vicia sylvestris ; Geranium sylvaticum, 

 &c., on the moors. Erica tetralix L., white, rose, and other 

 shades of colour; Calluna vulgaris Salisb., white, crimson, 

 and other shades of colour. Erica cinerea, pure white, of 

 rare beauty, rose, crimson, and other shades. 



Ferns in Dowlaw Dean grow in great luxuriance. Perhaps 

 the most remarkable, as regards different forms, is Aspidium 

 adiantum nigrum., the black Spleenwort, which grows in 

 the lower part of the dean, near the sea in great profusion, 

 and assumes a variety of forms. On various occasions I 

 have examined the lower end of Dowlaw Dean, and collected a 

 number of forms which I grew. Perhaps the most beautiful is 

 an acute form, which assumes wonderfully accuminate pro- 

 portions, with pinnules of exceedingly delicate lace work serration. 

 There is also a bluntly crested form, which is very distinct 

 and worthy of a careful search. I have spent a whole day 

 in this lower part of the dean, among these ferns, and when I 

 submitted my specimens to Mr Robert Lindsay, late of the Edin- 

 burgh Botanic Gardens, he named about six of the varieties, and 

 stated the station I had been working in must be an extra 

 good one. The ground is very deep, but the best way to 

 work it is to scramble to the bottom, and work up on each 

 side. At least five or six forms are to be found, and the 

 most successful raid I ever made was late in October, 

 when the rank vegetation had died down, and exposed 



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