166 PRIMULA. 



William Withering, M.D., was . . Menyanthes trifoliata. 



Rev. Dr. Chalmers * Galanthus nivalis. 



Rev. Wilham Kirby Geranium pratense. 



William Bromfield, M.D.f . . . Tamus communis. 

 William Borrer, Esq. :|; is . . . . Primula farinosa. 

 Professor G. W. Arnott, LL.D.§ . . Anagallis tenella. 

 Robert K. Greville, LL.D. || . . . Saxifraga o])positifolia. 

 Professor J. H. Balfour, M.D. . . Astragalus alpinus. 



Miss Attwood Campanula hederifolia. 



H. C. Watson, Esq.^ Trientalis europsea. 



The Author Oxalis acetosella. 



* Dr. Chalmers had no taste for botany in his boyhood or early man- 

 hood, but when he was about 26 years of age he devoted some time to its 

 study, and he became " so much fascinated with the pursuit," that, he adds, 

 " I mean to lay out one-thhd of my garden in the cultivation of flowers." 

 Life, i. p. 100. — Some readei*s may remember that Dr. Withering, when 

 young, looked with contempt on a science, which few did so much to pro- 

 mote, and few loved so cordially, when maturity had taught him better. 



t See Phytologist, 1850, p. 890. 



X " 1 have seen bogs and mountain sides pur]jle with this in Yorkshire, 

 Westmoreland, and Cumberland ; but nowhere else, perhaps, have I found 

 it so fine as in Teesdale, where I once took up, I think, 1 6 scapes, each 

 Mith a full-blown bunch of flowers, with one dip of my pocket-trowel. I 

 have brought home abundance of plants, but they have scarcely survived a 

 second flowering, and that a miserable one, in my garden." W. Borrer. — 

 Dr. Goodenough, Bishop of Carlisle, writes as if a sight of this Primula was 

 worth taking trouble for: " I was down in Cumberland time enough this year 

 to see Primula farinosa in great abundance, lining our road-sides, and in our 

 meadows. I have brought some roots into my garden." Mem. and Cor- 

 resp. of Sir J. E. Smith, i. p. 588. 



§ " Yes ! there is a tiny plant with a prostrate stem as if unwilling to 

 add to or detract from the beauty of the regular flowers which raise them- 

 selves on solitary slender stalks above the surrounding moss ; it is of 

 modest pink, most delicately pencilled, not glaring red. Well do I re- 

 member the first time I collected the Anagallis tenella, five-and-thirty years 

 ago, on Guillon Links. It was a rarity on the east coast, but in the west 

 is very common : the island of Cumbrae I have long proposed to call the 

 Anagallis island : scarcely a bog but is covered with this flower : every 

 summer it is more and more my delight. To the microscopist too it is a 

 beautiful object, not only for the venation of tbe petals, but for the pecu- 

 liarity of the hairs found on the stamens, the elegant structure of which 

 has not, so far as I know, been hitherto noticed." G. W. Arnott. See 

 Plate VL fig. 4. 



II " But I was once on the summit of Ben Lawers in April, when a girdle 

 of snow was around the mountain, and the projecting rocks within a few 

 feet of the top, radiant in the bright sunshine with the purple Saxifrage, — 

 a carpet of flowers clinging to the very soil and kissing the snow. It is 

 twenty-five years since I made that excursion, and I have never forgot that 

 sight. My flower should then, if you please, be Saxifraga oppositifolia." 

 R. K. Greville. 



% " There has always," he writes, " been a special sort of pleasure in 

 meeting with the Trientalis in my northerly rambles ; and I take some 

 pains to keep it in a bed of Rhododendrons pretty close to the door of my 

 cottage, and thus frequently under eye." 



