543 



BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH. 



Tltursdaij, April 9th, 1846. — Professor Balfour, President, in the 

 chair. 



Holmes Ivory, jun., Esq., 9, Ainslie Place, was elected a Resident 

 Fellow, and Frederick Townsend, Esq., Trinity College, Cambridge, 

 a non-resident Fellow of the Society. 



Several donations to the library aud museum were announced ; par- 

 ticularly from Mr. William Gardiner, jun., Dundee, his elegant little 

 work on the Mosses, intended as an introduction to the study of that 

 interesting tribe of plants, and which seems Mxll fitted to accomplish 

 the object in view; also his list of Hepaticae, and prospectus of the 

 ' Flora of Forfarshire', now preparing for publication by subscription j 

 also proceedings of the Horticultural Society of Liege, from Professor 

 Morran. 



The following communications were read : — 



1. Botanical Excursions in Upper Styria in 1842. By Dr. R. C. 

 Alexander. 



In this paper Dr. A gave an account of various excursions to the 

 mountainous parts of Styria, during which he visited the Schokel, 

 Lantsch, Leoben, Reiting, Yolling, Klagenfurt and Saltzbach. He 

 also gave a detail of the various plants observed during his tour; and 

 stated that he had collected in all about 900 species, of which up- 

 wards of twenty were new to the Flora of Styria. The paper was ac- 

 companied by a list of the principal plants collected south of the 

 Drave. Specimens from the Society's herbarium, contributed by Dr. 

 Alexander, were produced to illustrate the paper, of which an abstract 

 will probably appear in the ' Annals of Natural History ' and in the 

 Society's Transactions. 



2. ' Remarks on the claims of certain species of plants to be con- 

 sidered indigenous to Britain.' By Mr. R. M. Stark. 



At the commencement Mr. S. adverted to the progress of botanical 

 geography, and particularly to the labours of Mr. Hewett C. Watson, 

 in his works on the distribution of the British Flora. Passing over 

 the instances of shrubs and perennial herbaceous plants found appa- 

 rently wild, but which have undoubtedly escaped from the gai'den, 

 he directed the attention of the meeting to the large family of annual 

 corn-weeds, and their claims to be regarded as truly indigenous to 

 Britain. Though universally dispersed wherever the plough and the 

 agency of man extended, the fact of their not being found associated 

 with other annuals where the land was waste and uncultivated, seem- 



