ii8 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



G. Aparine, L. (Goosegrass or Cleavers). Wide-spread in the 

 "agrarian region" of the counties, and often locally abundant 

 in thickets and hedges and among coarse herbage. Though 

 a common weed of cultivated ground, there seems no good 

 reason to regard its presence in the north-east of Scotland 

 as due to man's aid, though its distribution has been extended 

 by agriculture, especially by the fruits sticking to animals. 

 A prostrate and often dwarf form is frequently abundant on 

 stony sea-beaches. 



G. spurium, L., and G. Vaillantii, DC. These two are by some 

 regarded as distinct, though nearly allied, species ; by others 

 G. Vaillantii is held to be a variety of G. spurium ; while 

 others look on both as varieties or sub-species of G. Aparine. 

 From it both differ in the smaller and pale greenish corolla, 

 and in the fruits, which in G. spurium are glabrous, and in 

 G. Vaillantii are covered with bristly hairs not arising from 

 tubercular bases. G. spurium is noted in Babington's Manual 

 as found at Forfar (but there is little doubt that it was only a 

 casual there). I find no other record for it from Scotland ; 

 but in August 1903 I met with a characteristic example on an 

 embankment in course of formation along the beach near 

 Aberdeen among other casuals. G. Vaillantii has been re- 

 corded as a casual from Midlothian. I had no other note of 

 its occurrence in Scotland ; but in September 1903 I found a 

 large plant of it on rubbish near the railway station at Kintore 

 (S. Aberdeen, 92), and a number of slender plants among 

 tares near Inverurie (N. Aberdeen, 93) ; and in October it 

 occurred on rubbish near Aberdeen, not far from where G. 

 spurium had been found. 



G. triconie, Stokes. On page 105 I record this from shingle by 

 the Spey, as brought in grain to distilleries ; but I had not seen 

 it from any other locality in Scotland until September 1903, 

 when I found it on rubbish near Aberdeen, and near the 

 railway station at Kintore (S. Aberdeen), and along with G. 

 Vaillantii among tares near Inverurie (N. Aberdeen). It thus 

 appears to be spreading as a casual in N.E. Scotland. 



Asperula odorata, L. (Woodruff). Native in all the counties near 

 Aberdeen. Though local, it is plentiful in some wooded glens. 

 Occasionally it may be found growing in open situations by 

 roadsides ; but in such situations it is only an outcast or 

 escape from some garden. 



A. taurina, L. Already mentioned under Galium Cruciata, as 

 found growing in a hedge beside the garden of the manse in 

 Keith, Banffshire, no doubt as an escape or outcast. 



