32 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



JUNCUS TENUIS, WILLD., IN WESTERN ESS. 

 By ARTHUR BENNETT, F.L.S. 



THE remarkable way in which this plant is being found in 

 so many places in Great Britain and Ireland is very puzzling 

 as to the " reason why." Whence does it come if intro- 

 duced ? and how ? In the "Journal of Botany " Mr. J. Lloyd 

 Williams, 1 in an interesting account of the plant as found in 

 Wales, suggests : " May not the seeds have been carried 

 over with cargoes of corn " (i.e. from America). But does 

 it grow among corn in America ? and the threshing and 

 winnowing would rather be disposed to get rid of such seeds. 

 My own idea, as a suggestion, is A few years ago hay was 

 so dear that it was imported from America to a large extent, 

 the price it fetched here then paying to do so. Now, 

 /. tennis could easily have been brought over in this, or even 

 in packing materials. I have picked off the packing of 

 Belgian and French glass a large number of plants (non- 

 British), and with good seed among them. 



Mr. Williams notices the varieties that Engelmann 

 described from American specimens. However much these 

 may hold good there, I have British specimens that practically 

 combine the two on one root. 



This note is written to record yet another Scottish 

 county. My friend Mr. W. F. Miller sent me specimens to 

 verify, gathered by Mr. W. Grant near Arisaig, in Inverness, 

 where he finds it in several places growing in similar locali- 

 ties to Juncus bufonius, L. 



Of course my suggestion will not meet the plant's occur- 

 rence in Renfrewshire, whence a specimen was sent in 1863 

 to the Greenock Museum, under the name of /. acutiflorns, 

 by Mr. John Thomson, Dennistoun. 2 



It may be of interest to here recapitulate the various 

 counties in which it has occurred, viz. : 



Hereford, Toimdrow, "Journ. Bot," 1884, p. 91. 

 Kirkcudbright, J. M' Andrew, I.e., 1887, p. 374. 



1 Pp. 201-204, 1896. 

 ' 2 "Trans. Glasgow Nat. Hist. Soc.," 1889, p. 168. 



