6 Transactions. 



Communications. 



1. Notes on the genus Orobanche in Scotland. 

 By Mr Arthur Bennett, F.L.S. 



The recent determination of a new species of Orobanche to 

 Scotland (and to Great Britain) must be pleaded as the reason 

 for these notes. 



The whole genus is parasitical on other plants of widely 

 diflferent natural orders, and has its headquarters in the southern 

 parts of Europe, thinning out rapidly as it approaches Scandinavia, 

 in which one species, 0. Cirsii (Fries.), occurs in West Gotland, 

 the most northern station I know for any of the genus. 0. major, 

 L, occurs in Scania (the southermost peunine of Sweden), and in 

 the province of Halland. It may be noted that 0, rubra, Sm., a 

 Scotch species, is extremely rare in Scandinavia. 



Of the species that reach Scotland 0. rapum, Thuil, occurs in 

 Dumfriesshire, whence I have seen specimens gathered by Miss 

 Witham. It also occurs in Kirkcudbright, but I have not seen 

 a specimen. It has been reported from Fife and the Inner 

 Hebrides, but 0. rubra was perhaps the plant seen. It is also 

 reported from Perth, but 0. rubra is not recorded from that 

 county, so that what the plant there intended may have been it 

 is difficult to say; anyhow, its recorded place should be carefully 

 searched. 



0. minor, Sutton, is only recorded for Fifeshire by Dr Boswell- 

 I should expect it in the three counties of Dumfries, Wigtown, and 

 Kirkcudbright. 



0. rubra. Smith. — The counties on record for this in Scotland 

 are Wigtown (J. M'Andrew), Fife, Syme cat. That outlying 

 portion of Argyle included in Westerness (W. Inverness) by 

 Watson ; whence I have specimens gathered by Mr Macvicar on 

 the coast clifls : — Main Argyle (Gourlie, Watson), Mid Ebudes, 

 the middle isles of the Inner Ebudes (Watson), North Ebudes, 

 the northern isles (Rev. E. Linton), West Ross, Outer Hebrides, 

 whence it was reported by Macgillivary in 1830, but remained 

 unnoticed until 1891, when it was gathered by Mr W. S. Duncan 

 in the original station. 0. epithymum, D.C., has been considered 

 by some authors as the same plant, but it seems to me that it is a 

 larger form of our usual plant, and 0. rubra is placed as a variety 

 of epithymum by Count Solns Laubach, the greatest living 



