Royal Scotch Thistle. 391 
ROYAL SCOTCH THISTLE. 
To Mr. Tilloch. October 6, 1818. 
Dear Sirn,—Visiting Dumbarton Castle in the year 1801, on 
taking leave of Capt. R., he presented me with a ‘few soca of 
the Royal Scotch Thistle, which grows spontaneously in the 
scanty soil that covers or fills the various crevices of that rock. 
This seed had been collected from thistle-tops of the preceding 
year. 
After distributing a portion to some friends, I carefully re- 
served the remainder, folded up in the original covering, labelled 
and dated, till an opportunity of sowing them to advantage might 
occur, In the abundance of my solicitude, however, to preserve 
this small packet, I hud laid it too carefully up, and it never 
again came into my hands till the 4th of June last ; when search 
ing for another object amongst the relics of some other deposits,. 
I was agreeably surprised to find my long-lost Scotch thistle-seed 
make its appearance. I now set an additional value on this re- 
covery, as I conceived it a fair opportunity of ascertaining if 
seeds of this genus of plants might be kept so long without los- 
ing their vegetative principle, and prepared for sowing them in 
an open spot of the field, rendered bare by a small quantity of 
manure having lain till the turf had rotted under it. The seed 
of the Royal Scotch Thistle was accordingly dropt into the earth 
on the evening of the royal birth- day. The spot was soon co- 
vered with new vegetation ; notwithstanding of which, without 
further culture of either weeding or hoeing, one plant of this 
royal thistle, from seed 18 years old, in the short space of four 
months from the time the dry seed was put into the ground, has 
attained a size and luxuriance perhaps altogether unprecedented 
in these latitudes. It presents a foliage resplendently beautiful, 
and so close and rich in the defensive, as most aptly to remind all 
who come near it of the very appropriate motto, ‘* Nemo me im- 
pune lacessit.” lt completely covers aii area in circumference 
exceeding 15 feet, rising in the centre to 30 inches without a 
flower shoot, and then spreading in a regular cirele round the 
bottom, extending its gosky leaves in close order along the 
ground, bearing down every other inferior weed, and protruding 
its thorny poiuts beyond three feet in every direction from, the 
parent stem, Should the weather continue mild, and this plant 
survive the rude fury of the stormy winter’s blast, if we may 
judge from its present vigour and strength of vegetation, the 
deepness of its beautiful green, intermixed with its shining sil- 
very veins, it may be expected, when in flower, to be one of the 
greatest and most exuberant native botanical curiosities ever seen 
in this country. ‘This shows that seeds kept dry, and free from 
Bb4 the 
