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XXIIL— The Jurassic Flora of Sutherland. By A. C. Seward, F.E.S., Professor of 

 Botany, Cambridge. Communicated by Dr R. Kidston, F.R.S. (Plates I.-X. ; 

 text-figures 1-14 ; sketch-maps, and views of the coast.) 



(MS. received September 28, 1910. Read December 19, 1910. Issued separately, February 10, 1911.) 



The majority of the fossils described in this paper were collected by the late Dr Marcus 

 Gunn on the coast of Sutherland between Brora and Helmsdale, more especially on the 

 beach of Culgower Bay in the neighbourhood of Culgower (Maps I. and II.). It is 

 several years since I first had an opportunity of seeing Dr Gunn's collection at his 

 house in London : at that time pressure of other work made it impossible for me to do 

 more than recognise the importance of the fossils as records of a Jurassic flora from a 

 country which has afforded very little information in regard to Mesozoic Botany. A 

 few years ago I suggested to Dr Gunn that we should collaborate in an account of the 

 Sutherland plants, and to this proposal a ready assent was given. Our joint work had 

 made but little progress when my friend was seized with an illness which terminated 

 fatally in November J. 909. Dr Gunn's fossils, which have been acquired by the 

 Trustees of the British Museum, were collected in the course of repeated visits to his 

 native country during brief respites from exacting professional duties in London. In 

 Marcus Gunn Palaeontology had a devoted disciple whose recreation consisted mainly in 

 collecting records of past life, both animal and plant. r The Old Red Sandstone fish 

 from Achanarras, Caithness, described by Dr Traquair as Palseospondylus Gunni* 

 permanently associates the name of Gunn with Palseozoology, and, despite the imper- 

 fection of the records, the following pages show the importance of the data he contri- 

 buted towards a fuller knowledge of the Upper Jurassic flora of Scotland. 



During a hurried visit to the Sutherland coast in July of the present year (1910), 

 when I had the advantage of the guidance of Mrs Gunn over ground long familiar to 

 her and to her husband, I was able to obtain a general impression of the manner of 

 occurrence of the plant-bearing strata, which form a narrow strip of land between the 

 rounded hills of granite and Old Red Sandstone and the sea. The simplified and partially 

 diagrammatic sketch-map (Map II.), based on the one-inch Geological Survey sheet 103 

 (Golspie), shows the position of the more important localities and illustrates the following 

 notes specially written for me by Mr H. B. Woodward, who is at present engaged upon 

 a comprehensive account of the district. I am greatly indebted to him for his clear and 

 concise notes, as also for references to earlier papers on the Jurassic rocks of Sutherland. 



" Bordering the coast from Navidale and Helmsdale to Lothbeg (Map II.) there is a 

 tract of undulating low land, from a quarter of a mile to about a mile in breadth. This 

 tract is formed of blown sand, peat, river gravel, marine shingle, and boulder-clay, 



* Traquair (90). 

 TRANS. ROY. SOC. EDIN., VOL. XLVII. PART IV. (NO. 23). 96 



