200 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORT SOCIETY OF QLASGOTV. 



interest the botanist, as will be perceived from an 

 inspection of the Catalogue." 



This recognition of our Western deficiency, at a 

 time when the difference of the plant-life of the 

 various British districts had been but little attended 

 to, is an interesting proof of Hopkirk's botanical 

 insight. It was evidently clear to him that soil and 

 climate did not suffice to account fully for plant 

 distribution in Britain. He apologises, as it were,, 

 for these beautiful and diversified landscapes being 

 clothed in such an ordinary garniture of vegetation 

 as compared with other localities often plainer and 

 tamer. There is, besides, an undertone of disappoint- 

 ment in his remark that " the number of rare plants 

 falls short of what might be expected from the 

 variety of soil and situation." Where in Britain 

 could conditions be more favourable to plant life? 

 A district of no great extent but of almost limitless, 

 diversity, comprising rich alluvial land, light sandy 

 tracts, stiff clays, dreary moorlands, bogs, lakes, 

 river-flats, brackish and salt-water marshes, as well 

 as mountain and glen, woodland and meadow, river- 

 bank and sea-shore, — and all this multifarious diver- 

 gence acted upon favourably for vegetation by pre- 

 vailing moisture and a climate moderated by sea- 

 nearness and by the stream of warmth from across 

 the Atlantic that breaks on the shores. Why should 

 the number of plant species be so limited and so 

 few rarities have taken root in such a land of 

 botanical promise? The fact he recognised, and 

 there are even yet points in the problem it presents 

 that have not been wrought out quite satisfactorily. 



The area embraced is, you will observe, somewhat 

 similar to that of Hennedy's Flora of Clydesdale^ 

 published 1865, but hardly so extensive, as the latter 

 included the whole valley of the Clyde from the 

 Falls to Arran, and the nearer hilly country to the 

 north and south, as well as that about the winding 

 shores of the lochs on the northern part of the firth. 

 Patrick's Flora of Lanarkshire, 1831, has on the other 



