90 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



first ascent— I had never been on the hill so late in the year, nor 

 on such a sunny day. Little time was at my disposal for any- 

 thing like a thorough study of the plant, but from the descriptions 

 in the European Floras and from comparison with a Tyrolean 

 specimen labelled qlabra by Huter, I recorded it as S. glabra var. 

 scotica in New Phyt. 1911, 310. Subsequently Prof. Schroeter 

 sent me a specimen of the true S. glabra from Switzerland, which 

 proved that our plant could not come under that species ; nor 

 could I fall in with the views of Dr. Ostenfeld as to its hybrid 

 origin, as I failed to find evidences of the presence of saginoides, 

 and moreover the plant is fertile and widely spread. There is 

 more to be said for the view taken by him later, when in New 

 Phyt. 1912, 117, he gave reasons for identifying it with the 

 S. nedia Briigg = S. procumbens x saginoides. 



Meanwhile the plant had been cultivated in the Berlin Botani- 

 cal Garden, and in July of last year Dr. Graebner wrote to me 

 saying that " the Ben Lawers Sag ina grows well and develops 

 ripe fruits ; I mean it is right to take it as a species, it is very 

 characteristical, and it cannot be a hybrid." In answer to certain 

 points I raised, he wrote: "It is impossible that S. scotica is a 

 hybrid ; we cultivate it with S. saxatilis (saginoides), but I cannot 

 find anything of this plant in scotica ; it is without doubt near 

 procumbens, but a quite different plant. It has had good fruits." 

 In cultivation it certainly becomes nearer procumbens, and this 

 was the opinion arrived at by Mr. F. M. Webb, the Curator of the 

 Edinburgh Gardens, whose specimens, I believe from Craig Cail- 

 leach, were first labelled as saxatilis or Linncei; afterwards he 

 said he felt inclined to name them procumbens : this latter view 

 was my own first impression, and has been pertinently suggested 

 by Dr. Moss (New Phyt. 1912, 402). On the other hand, there 

 are specimens in Babington's herbarium which he first named 

 procumbens and then altered to S. saxatilis. 



In our British Floras — e. g., Syme's English Botany, Hooker's 

 Student's Flora, and Babington's Manual — references are made to 

 p>rocumbens being occasionally pentamerous, but even Syme says 

 that the longer petals (" half as long as calyx ") of saxatilis distin- 

 guish it. In scotica the petals are more than half as long and are 

 usually as long and occasionally longer than the sepals, and 

 although my experience is not wide enough to say if it is a 

 characteristic point, yet I find on my specimens that the sepals 

 do not spread from the capsule as in procumbens. The peduncles, 

 too, are longer, and the leaves relatively longer and more attenuated 

 than in procumbens, although in that species when it grows in 

 moist shady places an approach to scotica may be observed. It 

 is quite possible that scotica may have been before the describers 

 of 8. procumbens in our Floras, as in dried specimens the petals 

 easily escape attention. Syme (E. Bot. ed. 3, ii. 121, 122) alludes 

 to the difficulty in separating the pentamerous form of procumbens 

 from saxatilis, and says the larger capsule is the only important 

 character. From this statement it may be conjectured he had 

 scotica before him ; specimens of both scotica and saginoides are 



