266 Some Rarer Plants of Gorebridge District. [Sess. 



large, full of chlorophyll, and so spread out as to catch the 

 faintest ray of sunlight percolating through the trees. It is 

 growing on the sloping banks of a brook rippling through the 

 shady wood ; and near it there is another smooth, flat-leaved 

 plant, a variety of Allium. Both have the same characteristic 

 leaves — the leaves best adapted to catch any sunlight going. 

 Both are thick-rooted plants, tuberous or bulbous. Both are 

 fond of the woods, because the fallen leaves shelter their roots 

 from winter's frosts. Both flower early, because only thus can 

 they obtain their needed measure of light and heat ere the 

 summer's foliage has constituted an almost impenetrable shade. 

 Their life-histories are in many ways pretty much the same, 

 just as they have selected their home in this definite spot. 



The Poterium sanguisorba, not common in Scotland, is 

 abundant in England. It grows on the railway embankment 

 near Gorebridge. I think I know how it has come thither. 

 When the seeds were ripe, chance placed covered waggons 

 near a bed of this plant. The wind blew the seeds on to the 

 covers. The seeds enjoyed a free railway passage to Scotland. 

 Chance again stopped these waggons opposite this spot. A 

 favourable breeze blew the seeds on to this embankment. 

 They rooted themselves. And now the plant is not only 

 established but flourishing. For one plant discovered by the 

 writer some summers ago, there is now at least a dozen. 



Growing not far from the burnet is the Caucalis daucoides 

 and the Hieracium aurantiacum. Another whose habitat is very 

 different is the Epipactis latifolia. This is a plant of wide distri- 

 bution, though rare in our district. It is much frequented by 

 wasps, who are the agents of cross-fertilisation. The lip of the 

 perianth is deeply grooved, and resembles a boat filled with 

 honey. "When sipping up the honey with their short proboscis 

 they press their head against the two pollen-masses attached to a 

 viscid rostellum. These pollen-masses are shaped like the arms 

 of a windmill ; then away the wasp goes. Through contact with 

 the air the pollen head-dress becomes dry, slips forward on 

 the head, and assumes such an angle that on visiting another 

 flower it comes to be pressed right on to the quadrangular 

 stigma. This is one of the many curious arrangements made 

 by plant-life for successful cross-marriages. Here is another, 

 furnished by a typical though somewhat rare carex — the 



