PHANEROGAMS. 



THE neighbourhood of the City of Glasgow with its concomitants of steel, iron 

 and chemical works, coal mines, manufactories and miles of dwelling houses, 

 does not appear a very promising tract of country for the growth of plants, 

 yet as we become better acquainted with the open spaces even within the 

 smoke-begrimed area of the city proper we shall be surprised by the great 

 variety of flowering plants found within a radius of only a few miles of 

 Glasgow Royal Exchange. Fossil Marsh, for instance, now included within 

 the city boundary, is still the happy hunting ground of the city botanist, 

 and has beeu for long known as the haunt of many rare plants. Butomus 

 umbellatus, L., and Sagittaria sagittifolia, L., were supposed to be fully 

 established there twenty years ago, and though these and many others are 

 now plants of the past, there still remain many interesting and beautiful 

 forms in this and other such places within easy distance of the city. 



For the purposes of this catalogue it was thought advisable to limit the 

 boundaries of research to the land draining into the River and Firth of 

 Clyde only, not as on the occasion of the former meeting of this Association, 

 in 1876, when the area involved was the entire West of Scotland, and 

 although the time at our disposal has been too limited to overtake systema- 

 tically the sections into which it was proposed to divide this tract of country, 

 a glance at the following lists will make it evident that a very fair knowledge 

 of its flora has been gained. 



Nearly all the information contained in these pages was collected for the 

 Glasgow Catalogue of Native and Established Plants, in which list the names 

 of all those who assisted with the work appear. We nevertheless feel it to 

 be our duty again to thank those specialists who so kindly certified critical 

 species, and thereby made the records valuable. Nearly every plant of any 

 con sequence here given has been seen either by Mr. A. Bennett, F.L.S., 

 Croydon, Rev. E. F. Linton, M.A., Rev. E. S. Marshall, M.A., F.L.S., who 

 have either named the plants themselves or obtained an opinion on them from 

 .some other well known expert. 



We have not thought it advisable to compare in detail the present list 

 with that made in 1876. This one is much more extensive, although it does 

 >not embrace anything like the same amount of country, many of the plants 

 there given as rare, will be found common here, many there given as common 

 will be found rare here, and a good number do not appear here at all. 



It may be mentioned that the names of towns or villages given are those 

 of the nearest railway station to the point at which the plant was noted, and 

 that it was found within a few miles of that place. 



Although there is in the area with which we have had to deal a very large 

 amount of sea margin, there are also, as has been already remarked, numerous 

 hi.lls overlooking it. Certainly few of these reach the alpine or even the 



