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On Saxifraga rotundifolia. By The Rev. W. T. Brer, M.A., F.L.S. 



In the ' Phytologist ' for January (Phytol. ii. 3) Mr. Borrer states 

 the particulars of Saxifraga rotundifolia having been found by Miss 

 White, two years in succession, apparently in a wild situation, near 

 the foot of Causey Pike ; and he very naturally and justly observes, 

 that her " account encourages a hope that the plant may be truly a 

 native of our mountains, although it does not establish it as such," 

 Pie concludes his remarks by asking the question, " Can it be that it 

 [the Saxifrage] had been purposely sown ? " I should rejoice to 

 hear of so interesting an addition being made to our native Flora ; 

 but of that, I fear, there is but slight probability. It may, perhaps, 

 throw some light on the subject, if I state that so long ago as the year 

 1810, when I first visited the Lakes, I was informed by Mr. and Mrs. 

 Hutton, of Keswick, that Saxifraga rotundifolia had been found near 

 that place ; I think also that they showed me a dried specimen, but 

 of this I will not be quite certain; the particular place, too, where 

 the plant had been met with, was mentioned, but at this distance of 

 time it has entirely escaped my memoiy : indeed I paid the less at- 

 tention to the narration altogether, and did not go in search of the 

 plant myself, because my informants, at the very time they stated to 

 me the above fact, candidly acknowledged that the plant was not 

 really a native of that district, but had been planted in the situation 

 where the specimens had been gathered. 



It was during the same visit to the Lakes, that I was agreeably sur- 

 prised by finding a single small specimen of Saxifraga umbrosa on 

 the celebrated Bowther Stone, in Borrowdale, which I gathered, and 

 at first treasured up as a genuine native plant, until I learned, as I 

 very soon did, that a few years before, some one had been ornament- 

 ing this singular rock by planting garden flowers thereon ; thus leaving 

 me in no doubt whatever, that my starved though cherished specimen 

 of London Pride, was but the remnant of such adventitious embel- 

 lishments. 



One thing, then, I think, may be regarded as certain : that previ- 

 ously to the year 1810, botanical frauds (so to call them) had been 

 practised in the neighbourhood of Keswick, and that some one or 

 other had been in the habit of planting garden species in apparently 

 wild situations of that district. Whether Miss Wright's Saxifi-aga 

 rotundifolia be a true native, or merely an exotic introduced to the 

 mountains by the hand of man, it would, of course, be presumptuous 

 in me to pronounce. I have, however, very strong suspicions, if the 



