72 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [Sess. lxxxv 



Finland except one extreme northern province (Lapponia 

 niunnarica). The Caithness specimens agree with the 

 Norwegian f. chloranthAjiora, and Hjelt (Flora Fennica, 

 V, 1919, p. 345) says that perhaps his var. chlorantlioides 

 may be the Norwegian f., or it may be a local form. 



It grows in Caithness, 7 miles west of Wick, on the banks 

 of the Strath Burn, a tributary of the Wick river, between 

 Strath and Scorriclett. At this point the vegetation is 

 luxuriant. Dr. Crampton, in his Vegetation of Caithness 

 (1911, p. 95), giving a list of 1<9 representative species, 

 includes among them Erica chterca, Vaccinium Myrtillus, 

 Salix repens, and Luzula sylvatiea. The banks of the 

 river rise to 20-80 feet on either side, and are com- 

 posed of Calcareous Flagstones and Shelly Boulder Clay 

 (Crampton, I.e.). P. media grows near, as Mr. W. Sutherland 

 sent me specimens some years ago from Scorriclett. We 

 know that rotiivdifolia occurs in the Orkney's, but media 

 is recorded from Shetland. ]\Ir, Sherrin, the Curator of 

 the South London Botanical Institute writes me : " There is 

 no Fi/rohi in the late Mr. Beeby's collection of Shetland 

 plants." Edmonston at first recorded rotund i folia from 

 Shetland, but in his Flora altered it to media, and in the 

 second edition of the Flora ( 1903), p. 74, it still stands as media- 

 All the Caithness media had the flowers with a decidedly 

 ros}^ tint. I have seen no other British specimens of 

 rotund if olia like the Caithness ones. Those from Suther- 

 land (Marshall sp.) and Aberdeen (Trail sp.) are (juite 

 typical. Here it will be well to correct an error of mine, i.e. 

 rotund i folia as growing close to the Caithness border near 

 the Oni (Ann. Scot. Nat. Hist., 1904, p. 232); the specimen 

 is P. media ! There is another fact with regard to the 

 Caithness examples : the first specimen was gathered on 

 the 2nd of June, the others on the I7th. On 2nd June, in 

 Norfolk, the head of flowers was only short, with the bracts 

 projecting and no sign of a flower. Dickie, in his Guide to 

 Aberdeen, Banfl" and Kincardine (J 860), gives "July and 

 August." In Iceland in flower on 1st July. Syme (Eng. 

 Botany, ed. 3) says " late summer and autumn." On 

 16th August 1912, it was still in flower at the (irande Mare, 

 Guernsey. Its liabitat is given in our Floras as " Woods 

 and bushy reedy places," " Damp bushy places and reedy 



