1906-1907-] Rock Samphire, &c., on the West of Scotland. 353 



umbelliferous dicotyledon, and the other an orchidaceous 

 monocotyledon. 



"We shall refer in the first place to the former, the Eock 

 Samphire (Crithmum maritimum of Linnaeus), which has been 

 known as British since 1548, or for 360 years, — a plant 

 whose habitat is rocks and rocky cliffs by the sea, and which 

 has been recorded hitherto from 26 out of the 112 vice- 

 counties of Great Britain, only a single addition (East Suffolk) 

 having been made to their number since the issue of ' Topo- 

 graphical Botany' in 1883. Crithmum is a plant well dis- 

 tinguished by its long, entire, fleshy leaflets, which are 

 glaucous in appearance, cold to the touch, and have an 

 aromatic scent. The young leaves, gathered in May, make, 

 when sprinkled with salt and preserved in vinegar, the well- 

 known pickled condiment : from this we can gather that, 

 though Crithmum belongs to the Hemlock order, it is not in 

 itself poisonous. 



The inflorescence, or arrangement of the flowers on the 

 flower-stalk, is, as will be seen from the specimens shown, a 

 compound, many-rayed, flat-topped umbel, consisting of an 

 assemblage of small -stalked, yellowish -white flowers, with 

 numerous bracts and bracteoles, — the fruits, known as cremo- 

 carps, having thick primary ridges and many vittae, and the 

 whole plant differing much from all the other British Umbel- 

 liferee, of which there are about seventy. 



In Scotland Crithmum is both rare and local. It comes 

 near the truth to say that it has of late been much restricted 

 to a part of the Wigtownshire coast — the Einns of Wigtown, 

 that long narrow peninsula, which stretches south and ends 

 in the headland, the Mull of Galloway. By Professor Trail, 

 in his 'Topographical Botany of Scotland,' two East- coast 

 counties are given for Crithmum — Mid-Lothian and Fife, — 

 but they are double-queried in both cases, indicating decided 

 doubts as to the correctness of any East -coast records. 

 Coming west, the counties named both by Hewett Cottrell 

 Watson and by Professor Trail are Kirkcudbright, Wigtown, 

 and Ayr. 



From Watson's ' Topographical Botany of Great Britain ' 

 (1883) we know that a Kirkcudbright specimen was shown 



VOL. V. 2 a 



