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189.

13.647, cont.  Ben Lawers, cont.

environmental form of Sax. hypnoides - Yes! AWS. 1948, but time will tell;  also here were 7 or 8 other "alpines".  I feel sure that this Saxifrage is Druce's plant of which he said he saw only 2 or 3 plants in 1890 (?) & could not 
again meet with it.  It is a very hairy, almost silvery, with small dense rosettes which really looked at first sight like a cespitosa form.  Other forms of Sax. hypnoides in the S.W. corrie resemble the above form in many ways, yet all are I think obviously only forms of S. hypnoides.  Passing on to the summit we dropped down into the SW. corrie & spent an hour (4 to 5 P.M.) investigating the distribution of Sax. cernua, see sketch on p.178, & saw many colonies, derived probably from bulbils, amongst the uppermost crags & in the station where we saw it on 6th June.  On this occasion we must have seen at least 1,000 plants & some in process of "flowering" & with bulbils in axils of the leaves.  Left summit at 5.10 & reached hotel at 6.50.  Mist cleared at about 5 P.M. & return walk made in fine weather with glorious view over L. Tay.  [Subsequently (22.6.47) Mr. Adams of Edinburgh, explained to me that only very rarely does Sax. cernua ever produce a real flower & then only one at top of the spike bearing the bulbils!  A.W.S.]


190.

Lawers to Clova.
14th June 1947.

A find morning - too fine - with glass falling & chilly E. breeze.

Left Lawers by 10.35 bus for Aberfeldy.  Left Aberfeldy at 1.35, changed at Ballinluig, & arrived at Perth 2.50.  Left Perth at 3.8 & arrived Forfar about 3.50.  Left Forfar at 4.25 & arrived Kirriemuir 5.35, where car met us & drove us to "The Ogilvy Arms", Milton of Clova.  Having two hours to spend in Aberfeldy, went up "The Birks", a very nice glen turned into a kind of public park, to the Falls of Moness, where the burn falls down the side of a rocky ravine & into a deep narrow chasm.  Glen full of Mercurialis perennis, Geranium sylvaticum, Poa nemoralis? (probably sown under beech when glen planted 100 years or so ago).  Allium ursinum (very large form), much Oak Fern, Veronica montana, Circaea alpina √, & a very nice flora of commoner plants all looking fresh & pleasant.  A few days before Mr. Green had brought back Stellaria nemorum from this locality, but we did not see it.  Saw a male Common Redstart, while having lunch at The Birks!

In evening went for a stroll up Glen Clova about half way to foot of Glen Doll.

Large Click Beetle (M. rufipes) taken at "The Birks" Aberfeldy, Mid Perth, at lunch time!