Ossian Collection > Essay on the authenticity of the poems of Ossian

OF OSSIAN'S POEMS. ÒI
whom I shewed it last season, growing in
abundance on the shores of Loch-Ketturin,
in Perthshire.
With equal gratuitousness, the yew-tree,
the nibhar, or iiiar of the Highlanders, is as-
serted to be " certainly not indigenous."
But it is certain, I must affirm, that the yew-
tree has always been, and still is, a native of
Scotland. Lightfoot, in his Flora Scotica,
holds it to be such, on the authority of Dr
Stuart of Luss, the first name, at this day,
in the science of the plants of his native
Highlands. There are innumerable places
in Scotland, which still have their denomi-
nation from this tree, according to the ordi-
nary use of giving names to places, from the
species of trees with which they chiefly
abound; — thus, Gkn-iuir, " the Glen of
"Yews;" Dumire, or Diiii-iuir, " the Hill
" of Yews," &c. Giraldus Cambrensis * in-
* Giraldus, Topograpliia Hiberniee, pars i. c. 5.