xviii Proceedings. {^February igth, igoi. 



county produce it in abundance. In many places the streams in 

 the flowering season are white over with its abundant flowers, as at 

 the junction of the Blackadder Water with the Whiteadder Water, 

 at Allanton. I also found it in plenty in the Eye Water, 

 especially between East Renton and Ayton. From the com- 

 paratively small size of its flowers (not exceeding half an inch in 

 diameter) the plant looked as if it might have been R. circinatus, 

 Sibth., or R. Drouelii, Godron, rather than the robust plant of 

 the south of England. The late Dr. George Johnston, in the 

 Terra Ltfidisfarnensis : the Natural History of the Eastern 

 Borders^ Vol. I., Botany, page 26 (London, 1853), refers to this 

 plant under the name of R. fluitatis^ for this reduced form had 

 not been recognised as British at the time he wrote ; he says 

 that it is frequent in rapid streams in that district, " flowering 

 throughout summer very frequently in some years, while in other 

 seasons the plant is mostly barren." My visit to Berwickshire 

 occurred, therefore, in one of these favourable seasons ; I saw, 

 however, no heads of mature fruits, although they were specially 

 looked for. 



Dr. Ph. Wirtgen separated this small form from the type, as 



a species, under the name of Ranunculus Bachii, in Verhandl. 



des natur. Vereins der preussischen Rheinlande und IFest- 



p/ia/ens, Jahrg. II., p. 22 (Bonn 1845); but in his Flora der 



preussischen Rheinprovinz (Bonn 1857), pp. 15, 16, he 



reduced it to a variety, giving the type the name of R. Lamarckii, 



Wtgn., and this smaller form, ft, the name of R. Bachi, Wtgn ; 



but he printed the name with one "i," not two as printed when he 



first described the plant, and as in the " London Catalogue," 



edition vi. (1867) and subsequent issues. It would appear to 



have been first recorded as a British plant in the third edition 



of English Botany, Vol. I., p. 18 (London, 1863), by Boswell 



Syme, but the reference vvhich he cites " F. Schultz, Archives de 



FL, Vol. I., p. 292," is incorrect, as the plant is neither described 



nor named on the page stated. There is a casual reference to 



the plant on page 199 of the Archives, but no description. Syme 



knew the Berwickshire plant, as he gives "the Whitadder in 



