f. BOTANICAL RAMBLES 
AROUND FORGAN BOG. 
1 On Saturday afternoon a large party, oon- 
| listing of members of the Dundee Working 
j Men’s Field Club, enjoyed a botanical ramble 
in Forgan bog. It was a happy hunting-ground 
of the late Robert Smith, B.Sc., University 
College, whose death was such a blow to the 
cause of botanical study not only around Dun- 
dee, but over Scotland. The bog lies in a 
natural hollow just off the public road to St 
Andrews, near Comerton House. With the 
dry summer the bog was firm, so that many 
aarts could be explored which otherwise would 
nave been impossible. The bog is interesting 
: rom the individual plants to be found. There 
are two extreme types of marsh and bog, and 
between those is every stage of transition. 
The typical bog prevails on the heather area, 
and the vegetation consists of peat-firing and 
peat-frequenting plants. Mosses play an im- 
portant part in the early stages of its forma- 
tion. The plants of the marsh include the 
taller species of sedges, rushes, and grasses, 
with marsh-loving plants as marsh marigold, 
cuckoo flower, ragged robin, marsh-bed straw, 
orchids, bog beans, willows, and alders. In 
the bog the vegetation is low and stunted ; in 
the marsh it grows rapidly and attains con- 
siderable height, or, as Dr Smith, late of 
Dundee, now of University College, Leeds, re- 
marks in his recent botanical survey of Fife- 
shire— The annual increment of plant ma- 
terial in the marsh is large; in the bog small.” 
Typical marshes are to be found on the banks 
of the Tay between Perth and Dundee. 7 
Forgan bog lies in a natural depression, 
about 70 feet above sea level, surrounded by 
rounded knolls of glacial sand and gravel, 
so great a feature of Fife between Newport 
and St Andrews. Although known as Forgan 
bog, it is really a marsh, and might, be classed 
not as a reed marsh, but a sedge mansh, being 
filled with not only the commoner sedges, but 
two at least of a. rare variety. Carex limosa 
was abundant, and the tall carex paniculata 
attracted much attention., 
After exploring the marsh a visit was paid 
to the old church of Forgan, with its aged and 
picturesque yew trees. 
