BOTANICAL NOTES AND NEWS 121 



ing, upper leaves greatly so. Fl. end of July to September. 

 This is the common British Amarella. 



Herr Murbeck has cultivated the several forms, and finds (from 

 two or three years' results) that they retain the above characters in 

 cultivation ; but in dealing with so closely allied forms it is evidently 

 desirable to have fuller evidence as to specific value. The close 

 parallelism of the series A and B is certainly curious. It may be 

 questioned whether there is not a very serious risk of attaching 

 undue importance to minute differences, in the tendency to give 

 specific or sub -specific rank where the differences are found to 

 continue after two or three years' cultivation ; the distinctive 

 characters often being exceedingly minute, and not proved to be 

 more constant than the far greater differences recognised to exist 

 in cultivated species. There is much in a name in the tendency 

 to attribute to named " species " a permanence and value not 

 always justly due ; and the relationships of the several forms may 

 be thus obscured to us. 



The Common Nettle (Urtica dioica) in Scotland. In " Botanical 

 Notes from North Cardiganshire " (see " Current Literature " in 

 this number, p. 126), Messrs. Burkill and Willis say of the Common 

 Nettle : " A septal plant up to 800-900 ft. ; beyond this it is dependent 

 on man ; our highest records are for places where man has disturbed 

 the ground, i.e. under walls of ruined cottages and sheepfolds. 

 Highest record 1350 ft." In the following (Feb.) number of the 

 " Journal of Botany " the Rev. E. S. Marshall says, in allusion to 

 this : "I have seen Urtica dioica up to about 1700 ft., but by no 

 means especially where man has disturbed the ground ; indeed it 

 is often abundant miles away from habitations, in the heart of a 

 deer-forest." 



It is of course most difficult in the case of so wide-spread and 

 abundant a plant as the Common Nettle to prove that it owes its 

 introduction to man's agency ; but in the north of Scotland at least 

 its distribution is suggestive that it was probably introduced by man. 

 Once established, its fruits can very readily be distributed, so that 

 it might well be very widely diffused, even where no traces of man's 

 occupancy can be detected in the immediate vicinity. Indeed the 

 marvel is that its distribution is not even more plentiful than we 

 find it to be in Scotland. All are familiar with the plant as an 

 abundant weed by roadsides and ditches, around houses and ruins, 

 or in clumps in arable land ; but, so far as observation continued 

 for a good many years may be reliable, I believe that it seldom 

 occurs at a distance from ground occupied at some time by man, 

 and that in the rare cases where it does so the fruits probably may 

 have been carried by sheep. Its prevalence around sheepfolds is 

 suggestive of this mode of distribution. JAMES W. H. TRAIL. 



