Jury 1906.] BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH. 199 
MEETING OF THE SOCIETY, 
July 12, 1906. 
Professor Baytey Batrour, F.RS., President, in the Chair. 
Mr. BENNET CLARK exhibited some Insect and Fungus 
Pests. 
Mr. kh. L. Harrow exhibited a series of plants in flower 
from the Royal Botanie Garden. 
The following communication was read :— 
CONTRIBUTIONS TOWARDS THE BOTANY OF ASCENSION. By 
R. N. RupmMose Brown, B.Se., Botanist of the Scottish 
National Antarctic Expedition. Communicated by W. W 
Situ, M.A. 
On the return of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedi- 
tion from Cape Town to Scotland, the “Scotia” spent a few 
days at the Island of Ascension (7° 55’ 8., 14° 25’ W.), and I 
was enabled to make some observations and collections of 
botanical interest. While the earliest record of the flora of 
this island dates from some two centuries ago, and although 
it has been visited by botanists at intervals since, including 
Joseph D. Hooker in 1843, the first really comprehensive 
collections brought back were those made by H. N. Moseley, 
during the visit of the “Challenger” in 1876: in 1876 the 
German Transit of Venus Expedition in the “Gazelle” made a 
eall at the island, and Dr. Naumann collected a number of 
cryptogams. The results of all these expeditions are fully 
summarised in Mr. W. Botting Hemsley’s exhaustive work 
on insular floras,’ which, despite the fact of its having been 
published in 1885, practically includes all our knowledge of 
the flora of Ascension until the visit of the “Scotia” in 1904.? 
1 W. B. Hemsley, Report on the Voyage of H.M.S. “Challenger,” 
1873-76, “ Botany,” I. ii. p. 31 ef seq. 
2 The German Antarctic ship ‘ Gauss” called at Ascension in 1903, but 
no account of her botanical collections there has as yet been published. 
TRANS, BOT, SOC, EDIN, VOL, XXIIL 14 
