Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 9 (1871).djvu/304

 280 PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES.

p. 46). Mr. More had himself visited the alleged locality, near Mill- street, and, after a search of raanv hours on the borders of the lake, satis- fied himself that there is no trace of E. alpinum in that locality. Dr. Moore had also, during another season, taken great pains in searching for the plant, but did not succeed in finding it, and the authors of the ' Cybele Plibernica ' now both believe either that Scirpiis c^sspitosiis, whose spikes are often slightly woolly with the growth of the bristles, were mistaken for it, or that some mistake was made in transmitting the specimens sent from Cork by Mr. Sullivan, which, though seemingly very old and battered, belong to the right species. With regard to the second supposed Scottish locality of E. alplniim, he had the authority of his friend Dr. Balfour to say that he had always felt some slight doubt about the single specimen found in his herbarium, and this doubt was much in- creased on his recognizing the absolute identity of the single specimen with others certainly collected in Forfar, and which are glued to the same sheet in the University Herbarium. Hence the plant must for the

present be erased from the British as well as the Irish Plora.

Pi'ofessor Balfour, after thanking Mr. More for his communication, and for the presentation of the plants of Neottla to the Botanic Gardens, stated that the specimen of Erlophorum alpinnm, from the University Herbarium, was among dried specimens of Scirpus cisspUosus, collected by him at Durness, in Sutiierlaudshire, on 21st August, 1827, during the first botanical excursion wiiich he took with Dr. Graham, when a junior student of the class of botany. The -plant was glued down with specimens of S. ccesvitosus, and the name and date were put down on the label accompanying them. The plant was not de- tected as being Erlophorum. alpiiinm till many years afterwards. There can be no doubt that the plant was among the specimens of the Sutherland Scirpus ccespitosm ; if not collected at the same time as these, it is not easy to account for its appearance there. Professor Balfour never collected Erlophorum alpinum, at Restennet, and the only specimens in his herbarium were presented to him by Sir W. Hooker in 1837 and 1838. Tiiese specimens, being very precious, were glued down at once in Professor Balfour's herbarium, and there were no duplicates. If, as Mr. More thinks, the specimen has been accidentally placed among the Scirpus caspltosus, it is not easy to conjecture how this has taken place, for dupli- cates of ErlopJioruni alpinum are certainly not easily procured. How- ever, the only way in which the matter could be settled would be by undertaking a visit to Durness, and endeavouring to find the plant again.

Professor Babington hoped that the retired locality of the Splrnnlhes

would preserve it from extirpation. It was a most interesting plant ; it was at first identified with an American species by Sir W. Hooker, a view in which he himself at one time agreed, but as to which he was not now certain, in fact it was probably uncertain. Latterly Professor Reichenbach had identified it with the Kamtchatkan Roinanzoviana, but of the propriety of this he had doubts. Erlophorum alpinum was certainly an unfortunate aftair ; an imposition had been attempted upon Dr. Moore. A similar thing happened at the British Association at Cork. The Irish locality must certainly be given up. The Scotch plant was a more difficult matter ; a lal)el had, however, been probably misplaced. He himself did not think that it grew in N. Sutherliuidshire, though inasmuch as the plant was a native of N. Europe, this was not an unlikely locality. Between imposition

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