ANACHARIS. 191 



MONOCOTYLEDONES. 



1. Anacharis alsinastrnm. Babington in Ann. Nat. Hist. Ser. 2. 

 i. 83 and 'SQ. pi. 8 ; iii. 62 ; vii. 42.5. Johnston in Trans. Berw. N. 

 Club, ii. 287. Bot. Gazette, i. 28. Phytologist for 1850, p. 896 

 and 1013. W. Marshall in Phytologist,' 1852, p. 705.— B. In the 

 Hen-poo at Dunse Castle. In the Whiteadder from the Bluestane 

 ford to near its confluence with the Tweed. (In Dunglass pond, 

 J. Hardy.) — A neat plant which has much resemblance in its foliage, 

 ramification, and habit of growth, to some species of Epacris. It 

 produces its small pretty flowers throughout the summer, and until 

 late in autumn. Although ilxey may be properly described as minute, 

 yet I have seen the surface of a large space of water whitened with 

 them. 



I found this plant on the 3rd of August, 1842, at Dunse Castle, 

 in profusion. I noticed it nowhere else until 9th August, 1848, when 

 I found a few tufts of it at Newmills in the Liberties of Berwick ; and 

 in September of the same year I discovered it, in abundance, at a still 

 and deep reach of the Whiteadder between Whitehall and Edington 

 mill. In the summer of the following year the plant was noticed in 

 many intermediate localities; and in 1850, it had occupied almost 

 every part of the river where the water ran sluggishly almost to 

 choking. This was so much the case at Gainslaw Bridge, that the 

 weed was dredged out with grapes. It multiplied and had become 

 a noxious weed in 1851 and 1852 ; and now had spread itself below 

 the bridge unto within half a mile of the river's confluence with 

 the Tweed. No means seem to arrest its diffusion or progress ; and 

 it will be found that the principal opponent to its evil propensity to 

 multiply is a spate — a large and heavy spate of a few days' continu- 

 ance. This carries away large quantities. After one of them the 

 plant is found strewed along the sides of the Tweed ; and at the end 

 of September 1852, I saw very many cart-loads of it thrown upon 

 the shore at Spittal. The flooded state of the Whiteadder during 

 the autumn of 1852, and winter of 1853, seems to have cleared the 

 bed of the river of it for a season. 



Mr. Marshall has given so complete a history of the successive dis- 

 covery of the Anacharis in various localities in Britain, that I need 

 not enter into that subject ; but how are we to account for the genesis 

 of the plant in Berwickshire ? I cannot tell the exact date of its 

 appearance in the Hen-poo*, but it was probably not more than a 

 year or two previous to its discovery there ; and assuredly it had 

 scarcely occupied the Whiteadder until its presence was detected. I 

 and others, taught to observe, had annually botanized along the 

 banks of that beautiful water ; we were familiar with all its phases 

 and with all its vegetable tenantry ; we had collected there many of 



• I spell the name as it is pronounced. It is equivalent to Hen-pool or 

 pow. Carr in Trans. Tynes. N. Club, ii. p. 150. 



