Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 9 (1871).djvu/62

 52 SHORT NOTES AND QUERIES.

vulgare, Pers.), after the grain lias been detached. (The axes of the female spikes of another grass, Zea Mays, L., are sold in London under the name of "French firelights," at the rate of twelve a penny). Fine hand- brushes for clothes are said to be made in Italy from the long fibrous roots (rhizomes) of a grass, Andropogon T&climnum, L. (Jury's Eeport Internat. Exh. 1862, Class 4, C, p. 19). A similar product of another species, A. muricatmn, is the well-known khus-khus or veti-vert of per- fumers. In the West of France I have seen brooms for sale made of the haulm of a species of Cameliua, — a way, no doubt, of working up a waste product in the cultivation of an oil-plant. Finally, I learnt at Round- stone in Connemara that the beautiful Erica hihernica, Syme, locally known as French Heath, is found, from its miniature tree-like growth, to make capital brooms. — W. T. Thiselton Dyer.

Perthshire Plants. — In the report of the December meeting of the Edinburgh Botanical Society (p. 26), Dr. Dickson and Wx. Sadler are recorded to have found (Eiia)dhe pimpinelloldes and Pinipindla magna in Perthshire. By the kindness of the latter botanist I have been favoured with specimens of both plants. He says that they grew near Hamilton House, in meadow-ground by the side of a burn, in comi)any with P. Saxifraga and Bntiium flexuosum. Mr. Sadler adds that he first collected P. magna i\\e.rtm 18. 5 8 and believes it had been previously observed; he considers both plants to be " truly wild." Mr. Watson, who has seen specimens from Perthshire collected by Dr. Dewar, brackets province 15 {vide ' Compendiun),' p. 190), intimating a suspicion of the species having been introduced there. Whatever may be the real state of the case as regards this species, which certainly occurs in Yorkshire and Durham ('Comp.' 1. c.),any grounds of suspicion with regard to it must hold with still greater force in tlie case of (E. piiripinelloides, a plant restricted to South England (north limit, Worcester and Sufl:'olk, ' Comp.' p. 192), and with a strong bias for low coast districts. An outlying station so distant from the main area of the species must remain under a suspicion of introduction by human agency, at all events till some approach towards a bridge over the gap is made by the discovery of intermediate localities.* It is to be wished that some of the many local botanists of Scotland would carefully and impartially investigate the rather numerous cases where more or less of doubt rests upon the real nativity of species in the northern portion of Great Britain. The addition of a species to the flora of any district is of no greater scientific importance than the exclusion of one by the demon- stration of a fallacy in its claims to nativity. Mr. Watson has done excellent service, if he has applied his tests rigorously, in admitting into his summaries no alleged facts which will not bear a thorough scrutiny. The form of Pimpinella magna sent to me by Mr. Sadler is one with the leaflets cut into linear segments, of which I have also seen specimens from Kent and Hertfordshire; it has a very different aspect to the normal form, and was distinguished by Morison (Hist. Oxon. vol. iii. p. 284) and J. Sherard (Ray, Syn. ed. iii. p. 213), but has dropped out of

remark by Mr. Dawson that "a number of curious plants growing near Hamilton House" were " probably introduced by the late Mr. Buchanan Hamilton." This may be considei'ed strong additional ground for distrust, and to turn the scale against the claim of CE. pimpinelloichs.
 * Since this was written I have seen in the ' Scottish Naturalist ' (p. '24) a

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