P. MACNAIR ON THE ALPINE PLANTS OF PERTHSHIRE. 24I 
be stated as follows:—On the summits of a series of mountains 
stretching from Ben Lui, on the confines of Perth and Argyllshire, 
north-eastwards through Meall-Ghaordie and along the ridge bound¬ 
ing the north of Loch Tay, and including such high peaks as Craig- 
na-Caillach, Meall-nan-Tarmachan, Beinn Ghlass, and, highest of all, 
Ben Lawers, and from Breadalbane north-eastwards into Clova, we 
find an exuberant development of alpine plants. It would be 
entirely superfluous for me to here enter into a description of 
the various rare species which occur on these mountains, for they 
are well known to you all. Most of you have climbed the Ben, 
and there, on the precipices which form the western side of the 
mountain, at an elevation of over 3000 feet, have gathered the 
alpine forget-me-not (Myosoiis alpestris), which in Britain is only to 
be found on the Breadalbane mountains, but which grows in great 
luxuriance in the Swiss Alps. We have climbed the mountain in all 
seasons of the year, even when the upper 2000 feet was enveloped in 
a thick mantle of snow and the winds came howling in long-drawn 
gusts from Glenlyon below, so that we had to crawl on hands and 
knees across the precipice to reach the summit, as it was impossible 
to pass it in an erect position. We have also wandered over the 
summit for a whole night that we might behold from the mountain the 
sun rise upon a new day. But dearest to our memory are those lovely 
days toward the end of summer when the whole precipice is radiant 
with the glory of the deep blue flowers of the alpine forget-me-not, 
when, after a long day’s geologising over the mountain, we return to 
the precipice and gathering a few specimens place them carefully and 
lovingly in our bag among the rocks and minerals as a future remem¬ 
brance of the days that are no more. Here in these precipices are to 
be seen some of the finest sections which we know of that band of 
sericite schist which forms such an important factor in the distribution 
of these alpine plants, one of its most characteristic features being here 
magnificently displayed, namely, the many intricate folds into which 
it has been thrown during the great earth movements which upheaved 
these mountains from the bottom of the sea where their materials were 
originally deposited. But regarding the importance of these rocks in 
the present distribution of our alpine plants we shall have more to 
say anon. 
Ascending from these precipices to the summit ot Ben Lawers, 
we here find the same schistose rocks weathered into a series of rock- 
girt pits or hollows, which form the abode of Saxifraga cernua^ its only 
station in Great Britain ; adopting the theory that it, with its fellows, 
once covered the lowlands, its solitary position here has not been 
inaptly called its last citadel. Step by step, the upward march of the 
Germanic flora has pushed it from the plains to the hills and from 
