'fransactions. 99 



Purpurea — Common. 



X Secerneta (hyb. nov.) — -Dr "White — (Purpurea X phylicifolia) — 



On the Nith above Glenairlie Bridge. 

 X Sesquitertia (hyb. nov.) — ^Dr White — (purpurea x phylicifolia 



X aui'ita) — Bushes, roadside, near Nith below Sanquhar, 



between mile-stones 23 and 22 (since cut down). 

 X Rubra (Purpurea x Viminalis) — Above Cample Stone Bridge, 



Thornhill, on river side. 



3. Some Old Documents Relating to Dumfries. 

 By the Rev. John Cairns, M.A., Dumfries. 



Some time ago I had occasion to consult the Register- of Kelso 

 Abbey for information of which I was then in search. I found 

 what I wanted in the preface by the learned editor, the late 

 Professor Cosmo Innes, and I had no intention of reading any- 

 thing in the body of the book, which consists of charters and 

 other documents in contracted mediaeval Latin. On looking over 

 the Index, however, I came on the familiar name of Dumfries 

 with numerous references after it. Some of these, I found when 

 I turned them up, indicated documents of such antiquity and 

 interest as well repaid the trouble of deciphering them. As they 

 are probably the oldest existing papers relating to our town, and 

 as they are not quoted or even referred to in M 'Do wall's History^ 

 or any other book on the disti'ict that I have seen, I thought that 

 a short account of them might not be without interest to the 

 members of this Society. 



A question which very naturally suggests itself at the outset is 

 — How does Dumfries come to be mentioned in a book containing 

 the transactions of the distant Abbey of Kelso ? The answer to 

 this question is to be found in a practice which was very widely 

 spread in the Middle Ages, viz., the holding of tlie benefice of a 

 parish by a monastery, or other ecclesiastical corporation, instead 

 of by a single incumbent. Scotland was divided into parishcg 

 about the beginning of the twelfth century, and each parish was 

 endowed by the lord of the manor whose boundaries it followed 

 with a teind or tenth of the various products of the soil. But in 

 many cases he or his successors bestowed these teinds on some 



