18 Transactions. 



Kirkcudbrightshire and Dumfriesshire, hut from the paucity of 

 information at the time, it was deemed advisable in the compila- 

 tion of our local Flora to restrict the list of Wigtownshire plants 

 to a few of the rarer ones, as given in the Appendix. \^ery strangely, 

 Wigtownshire, as regards its flora, was, until a few years ago, as 

 much a terra incognita as some counties of our Western Highlands. 

 Tlie late Professor Balfour of Edinburgh and other botanists paid 

 flying visits to the county and recorded some of its rarer plants, 

 especially those found in the neighbourhood of the Mull of Gal- 

 loway, some of which, I have heard, were obtained by means of a 

 lioat. Such hasty visits lack the true means of knowing the flora 

 of a district, viz., systematic research. Records of Wigtownshire 

 plants are also found in the old Statistical Account of Scotland, in 

 the Herbarium and Transactions of the Edinbnrgli Botanical 

 Society, in the Transactions of the Philosophical Society of Glas- 

 gow, and in similar scattered literature. These records are, how- 

 ever, from 30 to 40 years old, and therefore many formerly 

 recorded plants of " The Shire " require re-discovery. A great 

 number of the Wigtownshire plants given in the Appendix to our 

 local flora were observed by myself during two visits to Port Logan 

 about 10 or 12 years ago. Mr Charles Bailey visited Wigtown- 

 shire in 1883, and made a few additions to its list of plants, but 

 it was in 1883 that Mr G. C. Druce, of Oxford, who delights 

 to botanise in out-of-the-way unexplored corners, gave an almost 

 complete list of Wigtownshire plants. In the summer of that year, 

 under the very great disadvantage of a sprained ankle, he botan- 

 ised for five days the greater part of the county, and notwithstand- 

 ing his accident and the shortness of the time at his disposal, his 

 list is really astonishing in its completeness. During the past two 

 summers I have personally verified the great maiority of the plants 

 in his list. In his list given in the Botanical Record Club Report 

 for 1883, he begins his remarks in the following words: "The 

 accompanying catalogue of Wigtownshire plants fills up the only 

 gap in the counties of Britain for which no lists of common plants 

 has been supplied to Mr H. C. Watson, or to the Record Club." 

 Botanically considered this statement is not creditalile to the dis- 

 trict. At the end of his list he gives this summary : — 



Recorded before ... ... ... ... 35 



Bailie's addition-s .. . ... ... ... 10 



New species recorded ... ... ... 439 



Aliens and denizens ... 33 



Varietie.? ... ... ... 35 



r>52 



