138 



This elegant poet, noticing the bones of forgotten war- 

 riors, scattered over an ancient battle field, says, 



" The knot-grass fetters there the hand 

 " That once could burst an iron baud.'' 



Can the florin grass be mistaken here? — the stolones 

 running along the surface, occasionally rooting and fasten- 

 ing down whatever they cross. I acknowledged to Mr. 

 Scott my obligation for his correct description of my 

 favourite. 



It is true that in the treatise on the Gramina, written by 

 Mr. Sinclair, accompanying the splendid Hortus Siccus, 

 which the DuKE of Bedford was so kind as to send me, 

 and upon which so much pains had been expended at 

 WoBURN, Mr. Sinclair applies Mr. Scott's descrip- 

 tion to another grass. 



Had Mr. Scott studied Nature in the South of England, 

 and had the battle he refers to been fought in that countr}-, 

 Mr. Sinclair might have been right; but where Scotland 

 is the scene of action, I answer for it no grass but the 

 agrostis stolonifera has a claim to Mr. Scott's correct 

 description. I speak with confidence of the natural pro- 

 duce of the Scottish soil, having examined it with much 

 attention, and in a great extent of country. 



The Aborigines of the British Isles seem to have been 

 at all times acquainted with the value of this grass. I have 

 had repeated proofs transmitted to me, that the early 

 Scots knew it to be a sweet and good grass. 



The Welsh also claim it ; and Dr. Pugh labours to 

 prove that the verdant meadows in Owen Glendower's 

 demesne in Glamorganshire, were composed of 

 fiorin. 



I myself found that the natives of a wild part of Don- 



