BOTANICAL NOTES AND NEWS 57 



Scotland in which he had found sativa ; and stated that he had not 

 seen an example of vulgaris from Scotland. In the "Flora of 

 Dumfries," published a few years ago by Mr. Scott-Elliott, vulgaris 

 is mentioned as having been gathered in Wigtownshire in 1872 by 

 Mr. F. R. Coles ; and in the " Flora of Perthshire " Dr. F. Buchanan 

 White (in MS. written probably about 1890) says it "has been 

 noticed in several places, and is probably widely diffused." 



I have been on the watch for it since 1875 m tne north-east of 



Scotland; but unsuccessfully until 1894. In that year, in August, I 



found two or three plants growing on the filled-up bed of the river 



Dee, among the numerous strangers of which I have given some 



account several times in this journal in " A Florula of a Piece of 



Waste Ground." I next met with a few plants in a turnip-field in 



the parish of Nigg, a mile or two south of Aberdeen, in September 



1896, and one plant, a few days later, on the site of a road-metal 



heap at Persley, about two miles north-west of Aberdeen. I did 



not again find it until September 1899, when I came on one plant 



beside the river Dee, at Cults, about four miles west of Aberdeen, 



and two or three on rubbish thrown down to fill a sandpit close to 



Old Aberdeen. It will be observed that I have not seen vulgaris in 



Scotland earlier than the month of August ; and I have not found it 



bearing ripe seeds in noticeable quantity until nearly the end of 



September or in October. It thus appears to be markedly later 



than sativa in ripening its seeds ; but that will scarcely account for 



the remarkable abundance of sativa and the scarcity of vulgaris in 



Scotland. Both are so completely weeds of cultivation in Scotland 



that one cannot doubt their introduction by human agency. If we 



look to their distribution beyond our islands, sativa is the more 



northern in its chief prevalence, though the two overlap so largely 



that it is scarcely warrantable to attribute the scarcity of vulgaris in 



Scotland to merely climatic conditions. May it not be that the 



prevalence of sativa indicates a northern source in Europe for the 



plants cultivated in Scotland in earlier times. Near Aberdeen, at 



any rate, vulgaris seems even now to be more a casual than a 



colonist. It would be interesting to know whether it has been 



observed elsewhere in Scotland than in the four counties noted 



above (Wigtown, Perth, Kincardine, S. Aberdeen), and, if so, 



under what conditions. The sticky gland hairs giving a gray tint to 



the green of sativa are in so marked contrast to the nearly hairless 



bright green of vulgaris, that the latter plant readily catches the eye 



as different from the former. If the seeds are ripe or nearly ripe, 



there can be no difficulty in arriving at certainty ; the black, merely 



rough seeds of sativa, ringed with a paler membranous wing, being 



very different from the wingless seeds of vulgaris covered with short 



clubbed hairs or papillas, the tips of which are at first pale (and then 



contrast with the dark seed), but become darker as the seed grows 



