NATURE NOTES. 275 
The general decadence of the teaching of systematic botany 
in England during the past twenty years is, perhaps, to some 
extent the cause of the low estimation in which the 
science is held by the Indian Forest Department. Twenty- 
five years ago systematic and morphological botany, no 
doubt, had too great prominence given to them in the 
teaching at universities and colleges of this country, and 
the other branches of botanical science were too much 
neglected, although I do not think they were despised. 
Now it appears to me that systematic botany is too much 
neglected. I hope it is not also despised! Few of the 
systematists who survive in England are now to be found 
attached to the universities. They are mostly clustered 
round the two great herbaria in London ; and such of them 
as have to look to systematic botany for the means of 
livelihood are not in the receipt of salaries such as one 
might reasonably expect in one of the richest countries in 
the world! ” JAMES Bisset, F.R.S.E. 
A NotTE ON THE FLORA OF BLACKFORD HILL. 
Ir is a point of some interest to those whose attention is 
drawn to the general distribution of plants, to note how, in 
the vicinity of any large town, the character of the flora 
becomes affected by the town’s gradual extension. 
Plants which are of common occurrence seem to get 
scarce and may altogether disappear, while others which are 
much more local in their distribution and which seemed to 
have harder work to maintain a foothold still persist. This 
condition appeals to one in noting the flora of Blackford 
Hill. 
On the northern slope of the hill—that nearest the town 
and most frequented by the general public—the flora is 
decidedly meagre, and only the more hardy species seem to 
persist; but here and there among the bushes of whin 
which are still in profusion one comes across an occasional 
