FLORA OF FORFARSHIRE. 
163 
Manual. It looks tolerably distinct from the usual form, but 
it is the opinion of some able botanists that its characters are 
not sufficiently permanent to entitle it to the rank of a 
species. 
Miss Twamley, in her usual lively and graceful manner, 
says : — 
“ The pine is king of Scottish woods ; 
And the queen ? — Ah ! who is she ! 
The fairest form the forest kens — 
The bonnie birken tree ! 
* * * * 
What magic hues the sunset pours 
All through a birken glade ! 
Sooth you might think that every leaf 
Of living gold was made. 
And every stem is silver bright, 
Wrought featly o’er with brown, 
More daintily than jewel- work 
Upon our fair Queen’s crown. 
God crowns the tree with loveliness, 
A bonnie Queen to be — 
Queen of the glens in auld Scotland — 
The bonnie birken tree.” 
In Loudon’s Magazine of Natural History , Augt. 1837, 
Colonel Brown of Thun, Switzerland, “ states it as his opi- 
nion that a specimen sent by Dr Balfour, from Clova, is Be- 
tula intermedia, a rare plant on the Jura, and differing 
essentially from Betula alba.” In Prof. Grahams Report 
to the Edinburgh Botanical Society in March 1838, this was 
admitted a question still open to investigation. 
B.nana, L. Dwarf Birch. H. 300, B. 282. — F. May, 
July. S. 
Clova mountains, Don , Drummond , Balfour , Hooker, 
Greville, Burchell , fyc. 
Alnus, Tourn. Alder. 
Br. sp. 1. F. 1. 
A. glutinosa , Gaert. Common Alder. H. 301, B. 283. 
— F. March, May. T. . 
