302 Mr Bushnan on a new Scottish JjOcality Jbr 



Linnsea in Britain. * I have seen specimens of the Linnaea from 

 the woods near Gordon Castle, where it was discovered by Mr 

 James Hoy, the long cherished friend and companion of his pa- 

 tron the late Duke of Gordon. So alive was Mr Hoy to the 

 pleasure of botany, and so desirous for the progress of the 

 science, that he many a day kept in profound, and what to some 

 may appear selfish, but what I should call laudable secrecy, the 

 spot where grew the emblem of him from whose labours he had 

 derived so much real enjoyment. Prudently declining the re- 

 quests of the merely curious and inquisitive, aud justly giving a 

 decided refusal to the solicitations of the unsatiable and unspar- 

 ing purveyors for the herbarium, he, at all times, was ready to 

 listen to the true lovers of science who occasionally applied to 

 him, and, with delight, guided their footsteps through the rare- 

 ly trodden path leading to his treasure in the woods. Con- 

 scious, however, that, in the course of nature, he could not long 

 remain to be such a guide to the visitants, " few and far between," 

 and, fearing that his discovery should die with him, at the ad- 

 vanced age of eighty years, he, a few months before his death, 

 made known his locality of the Linnaea borealis to several indi- 

 viduals residing in the neighbourhood. 



A few years ago, it was found by Mr George Anderson, Se- 

 cretary of the Northern Institution, at Drummond, near Inver- 

 ness, where one patch only was found, which, as no flowers were 

 perceived, was considered completely barren, and, as such, 

 is mentioned by Dr Hooker in the Flora Scotica ; and Mr San- 

 ders, the intelligent and obliging gardener at Gordon Castle, in- 

 forms me, that he has never found flowers on the plants in the 

 woods near the castle, although some specimens transplanted in- 

 to the garden have repeatedly flowered. From the well known 

 assiduity and accuracy of these observers, it would ill become 

 me to express a different opinion with regard to these patches 

 of the Linnaea ; but I am loath to leave the north under such a 

 stigma of barrenness, and beg leave to remind the Society of the 

 peculiar evanescence of its flowers, and the consequently redou- 

 bled attention necessary to be given to it. It should, however, 

 be observed, that the period at which the Linnaea comes into 



• It has been found, sparingly, in Northumberland by Mr Trevelyan — Edit. 



