xvi INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 



tion with scientific study; and its votaries are united by associations 

 of no ordinary kind. He who has visited the Scottish Highlands 

 with a botanical party, knows well the feelings of delight connected 

 with such a ramble — feelings by no means of an evanescent nature, 

 but lasting during life,;^and at once recalled by the sight of the 

 specimens which were collected. These apparently insignificant 

 remnants of vegetation recall many a tale of adventure, and are 

 associated with the dehghtful recollection of many a friend. It 

 is not indeed a matter of surprise that those who have lived and 

 walked for weeks together in a Highland ramble, who have met 

 in sunshine and in tempest, who have climbed together the misty 

 summits, and have slept in the miserable shieling — should have 

 such scenes indehbly impressed on their memory. There is, 

 moreover, something peculiarly attractive in the collecting of 

 alpine plants, Their comparative rarity, the localities in which 

 they grow, and frequently their beautiful hues, conspire in shed- 

 ding around them a halo of interest far exceeding that connected 

 with lowland productions. The alpine Veronica displaying its 

 lovely blue corolla on the verge of dissolving snows ; the Forget- 

 me-not of the mountain summit, whose tints far excel those of 

 its namesake of the brooks ; the Woodsia, with its tufted fronds, 

 adorning the clefts of the rocks ; the nival Gentian concealing its 

 eye of blue in the ledges of the steep crags ; the alpine Astragalus 

 enlivening the turf with its purple clusters ; the dwarf mountain 

 Lychnis choosing the stony and dry knoll for the evolution of its 

 pink petals ; the Sonchus, raising its stately stalk and azure heads 

 in spots which try the enthusiasm of the adventurous collector ; 

 the pale-flowered Oxytropis confining itself to a single British cliff; 

 the Azalea forming a carpet of the richest crimson ; the Saxifrages, 

 with their white, yellow, and pink blossoms, clothing the sides of 

 the streams; the Saussurea and Erigeron crowning the rocks 

 with their purple and pink capitula; the pendent Cinquefoil 

 blending its yellow flowers with the white of the alpine Cerastiums 

 and the bright blue of the stony Veronica ; the stemless Silene 

 giving a pink and velvety covering to the decomposing granite ; 

 the yellow Hieracia, whose varied transition forms have been such 

 a fertile cause of dispute among Botanists ; the slender and deli- 



