64 PEOCEEDINGS or TUE LIN>'EAN SOCIETY OF LOJ^DOX. 



England. The causes favouring the existence of the two very 

 different forms of the common Birch were unkno\^n, yet in 

 Scotland this problem could easily be attacked. 



The systematic botanists had only asked from collectors speci- 

 mens with leaves, flowers, and fruit : material to be named and 

 classified. Tet in trees and shrubs, the winter stages were of 

 extreme interest, also the seedling stage. Elm seedlings and 

 seedlings showing the difference between the two common Oaks 

 were not to be found in the national Herbaria, and are not 

 described in books. 



Dr. Henry also referred to the small amount of work that had 

 been done in regard to peat-mosses, and the great importance of 

 studying the ancient forests, of M'hich these mosses were — to put 

 it broadly — the ruins. He mentioned extraordinary growth of 

 trees in deep peat-mosses of the present day, as Alder averaging 

 95 feet ; even the Oak also occurred. 



0\^ing to the small amount of attention that had been paid to 

 scientific forestry in this country, trees had met Avith scanty 

 recognition from the authors of local floras ; and in some cases 

 species (as the Arhutus) were put down as shrubs, though there 

 was plain evidence that they attained the size and filled the 

 functions of forest trees. 



