18 Address to the Members of 



were around you some who interested themselves in your 

 researches, and were ready to give you their meed of appro- 

 bation and applause. The sternest stoic of us all, it has been 

 observed, wishes at least for some one to enter into his views 

 and feelings, and confirm him in the opinion which he enter- 

 tains of his favourite pursuits. 



Since the publication of my Flora of Berwick, there has 

 been added, exclusive of some naturalised or recently imported 

 species, to the wild plants of Berwickshire, 20 dicotyledonous, 

 8 monocotyledonous, and 18 cryptogamic species, the names, 

 stations, and discoverers of which are inserted in your minutes. 

 By much the most interesting of these, whether we consider 

 it in reference to its beauty or rarity, is the Saxifraga H\rcu- 

 lus * discovered in the parish of Langton, by our ingenious 

 colleague, Mr. Thomas Brown. Only two stations for this 

 saxifrage have been recorded in our British floras, and both 

 are in the south of England ; so that Mr. Brown has had the 

 good fortune — and good fortune never waits but on the 

 industrious and intelligent — to make one of the most inter- 

 esting additions to the Flora Scotica that has been made of 

 late years. Another addition to that flora is due to Misses 

 Bell and Miss Hunter, who have found, for the first time in 

 Scotland, the Shon imomum growing at the Hirsel Lough, 

 near Coldstream ; and these ladies, who are members of this 

 club, deserve our best thanks for their contributions, and still 

 more for their devotion to botany; as their example and 

 success cannot fail to recommend it powerfully to popular 

 attention. The i^ieracium aurantiacum, the discovery of 

 Miss Hunter ; the //ieracium molle, and Carex ftilva, both 

 detected, in the first instance, in Berwickshire, by Mr. Brown ; 

 the //ypnum stramineum (in fruit), another of his interesting 

 additions to our list ; and the jLathyrus sylvestris, and the 

 Carex distans, lately discovered near Berwick by Mr. Dunlop, 

 deserve to be particularised on account of their rarity : the 

 Pulmonaria maritima restored to our shores by the researches 

 of the Rev. J. Baird and Mr. Carr, and the iWyosotis syl- 

 vatica of Langton woods, are preeminent for their beauty ; 

 and the Chenopodium urbicum is interesting as the subject 

 of a strange story, which purports that this weed could by 

 cultivation be turned into a real strawberry, and relative to 

 which there is a curious letter from the hapless Josephine to 



* " i/irculus, a diminutive from hircus, a goat. Now look at the hair 

 which beards our plant, and you will see why Linnaeus calls it a * little 

 goat.' It is just like that happy playful fancy which he possessed so 

 remarkably." — Mr. Brown, in litt. 



