ROCK-SAMPHIIIE. 117. 



To other two British plants the name of Samphire has been 

 given, namely to the Glasswort, Salicornia herbacea, called the 

 Marsh-Samphire, a succulent, shore-loving plant known to most 

 of us; and secondly, to the Golden Samphire, Inula crithmoides , 

 a rather striking composite, occurring along the English 

 Channel and in the Channel Islands, and, somewhat remarkably, 

 recorded also as having been met with, in years past, in the 

 South of Scotland, in Wigtown and Kirkcudbright. 



The plant under notice, the Rock-Samphire, is distinguished 

 by having been named in Shakespeare's Play, King Lear 

 (Act iv. 6. 15), and up till not many years ago used to be 

 gathered on the Dover Cliffs, on what was known as Shake- 

 speare's Day. 



The poet supposes that Edgar is leading Gloucester along, 

 and says — 



" Come on, sir ; here's the place : stand still. How fearful 

 And dizzy 'tis, to cast one's eyes so low ! 

 The crows and choughs that wing the midway air 

 Show scarce so gross as beetles : half way down 

 Hangs one that gathers samphire, dreadful trade ! " 



In many Scotch Libraries, private as well as public, there is 

 to be found a former " Flora " of this northern division of the 

 kingdom. I refer to the Flora Scotica of Lightfoot, published 

 in 1777, now 130 years ago. In this work we are informed 

 of the finding, in Kilmuir Parish, in the Island of Skye, in 

 bogs near Duntulm Castle there, of that distinguished-looking 

 plant among botanical aristocrats, the Marsh Helleborine Orchis, 

 Epipactis palustris of Crantz, known previously as Serapias 

 longifolia, to which we are now to refer. The only record of 

 the plant from the West of Scotland seems to have been this 

 of Lightfoot's, and we do not learn that anyone has found it 

 since his time, or at least has recorded it as occurring in that 

 quarter. 



To the satisfaction of the valued botanical referee, our Cor- 

 responding Member, Mr. Arthur Bennett, F.L.S., this plant 

 was, at the end of July last, met with growing in an evidently 

 suitable situation in the south-west corner of the Island of 

 Colonsay, on damp, almost marshy, sandy grass-land, well back 

 from undulating dunes lying along the sea-coast. There were 



