541 



decayed and died away under the persuasion that the plant might have 

 been introduced into the lake with some other aliens from the south. 

 This persuasion was confirmed by Dr. Philip W. Maclagan, at a sub- 

 sequent period, who, on seeing a specimen in my possession, at once 

 told me it was an Udora, and, he believed, the same as the Canadian 

 species. I presumed, therefore, the more that it was foreign to our 

 district ; and my interest lay dormant, until revived by the perusal of 

 Mr. Babington's description of the Anacharis alsinastrum, in the 

 * Annals of Natural History' for February, 1848, for in this Anacha- 

 ris I immediately recognised my Dunse Castle herbelet. 



On writing to Mr. Babington, he replied, that he " had totally for- 

 gotten the plant " I had sent him, and the specimens were lost. I 

 could not comply with his demand for other specimens, seeing that 

 the habitat is sixteen miles distant from my residence ; and to few 

 provincial practitioners is given the leisure to ride thirty-two miles in 

 order to cull a simple for the gratification of his own or of another's 

 curiosity. My good fortune, however, was on the ascendant. A few 

 weeks only had passed over, when I again found the Anacharis in a 

 habitat in which it was, beyond all doubt and suspicion, most truly 

 indigenous. On the 9th of August, whilst angling in the Whitadder, 

 at Newmills, in the Liberties of Berwick, I was most agreeably sur- 

 prised to find the plant growing with Potamogeton crispus, pusillus, 

 and perfoliatus, in the bed of the river, at a depth of about fifteen 

 inches. In the lake at Dunse Castle, the Anacharis had a long slen- 

 der stem, but here, influenced by the stream, it grew in a roundish 

 tuft or bunch, with stems not exceeding three or four inches in height. 

 None of them rose to the surface, and on none of them were there 

 any flowers. 



On September 4, 1 again discovered the Anacharis in great abun- 

 dance, in a small creek at a still and deep reach of the Whitadder, 

 between Whitehall and Edington Mill. Here it had the habit of the 

 plant in Dunse Castle Loch, with stems from two to three feet in 

 length. None of them were in flower. 



It would be presumptuous for me to say, whether the Anacharis al- 

 sinastrum is identical with the Udora canadensis or not. I have spe- 

 cimens of the latter from Dr. P. W. Maclagan, gathered in Detroit 

 River, July, 1848, and they resemble exactly our Whitadder plant, as 

 found at the Newmills station ; but, like this, the Canadian specimens 

 have also no flowers. I can see no difference of any moment in the 

 shape of the leaves, for this differs in the British as in the American 

 plant ; and the structure and marginal serratures are exactly alike. 



