1904 - 5 .] 
Flora of Scottish Lakes. 
1021 
plants associating and forming themselves into dense, dome-shaped 
tussocks about a foot high (fig. 107), by which means they are 
able to protect themselves against the cutting wind and sand. 
Being normally a xerophilous plant of the moorland, the scant 
water supply of the sand-dune does not hinder its growth there ;, 
moreover its roots are more largely developed, and are much longer 
than when growing in the peat moor. 
The physical conditions of the lakes at Lismore have already 
been discussed (p. 968), where it was remarked that the flora 
differed notably from that of the Ness area. The peculiar lime- 
incrusted stones upon the shores of the lochs have been already 
mentioned (p. 968). This incrustation is calcium carbonate, 
CaC0 3 (fig. 1); it is formed by minute lithophilous filamentous 
algae in the process of their metabolism, in a similar manner by 
which the same substance is deposited on the stems of aquatic 
phanerogams (p. 968). 
Loch Fiart, in the south of Lismore, has a reedy margin of 
Phragmites communis (fig. 108) and Scirpus lacustris. 
Loch Kilcheran is about 2 miles north of the above, and, like 
it, has a reedy margin of the same plants, which at the north end 
cover an extensive area. A circular pool is shut off from the main 
body of the loch by these plants, forming thereby a “ murder-hole ” 
(fig. 109). 
Loch Baile a Ghobhainn, at the north of the island, has also a 
similar reedy margin to that of the other lakes. The south end is 
occupied by an extensive tract of Scirpus lacustris, and at the 
north end, behind the belt of Scirpus lacustris, there is an 
extensive bed of Phragmites communis; the latter had been cut 
for economic purposes (fig. 110). 
Not only in the reedy margin, in the water, in the shores, and 
in the general aspect, do thd^e three lakes agree with one another, 
but also in their general flora, so that an enumeration of the plants 
of one will answer for either ; those not general to the Ness area 
are marked with an asterisk : — Ranunculus Flammula, Caltha 
palustris, Castalia speciosa, these three abundant but only in 
normal form ; Nympliaea lutea,* Radicula officinalis,* Cardamine 
pratensis, Stellaria uliginosa, Spiraea Ulmaria, Comarum palustre. 
Lythrum salicaria* only at Loch Fiart; Epilobium palustre.* 
