675 



true M. palustris will be found up to the North Highland province, 

 in the low grounds. Dr. Dickie gives 1200 feet as the altitudinal li- 

 mit of M. palustris in Aberdeenshire, probably intending M. repens. 

 I have myself met with M. palustris in low situations only." — p. 269. 



Convallaria bifolia affords a good example of the author's mode of 

 dealing with a species the nativity of which in Britain requires con- 

 firmation, and we may add that there are many which come under 

 this category. 



" 1098. Convallaria bifolia, Linn. 



"Area [34****9* 11]. 



" Incognit or Alien. This was lately announced to British bota- 

 nists as having been discovered wild or naturalized in the woods at 

 Howick, Northumberland. Subsequently, the alleged habitat was 

 visited by Mr. Borrer, who reported in the Phytologist, ii. 432, that 

 ' the plant has been completely extirpated at Howick. The spot was 

 close by Earl Grey's garden.' It is very much to be wished that real 

 botanists would not only discountenance, but also treat with public 

 reprobation, every attempt to pass off the accidental finding of stray 

 garden plants as a discovery and addition to British botany. And it 

 is equally to be wished that Mr. Borrer would more frequently afford 

 us the benefit of his own experience and judgment, openly and boldly 

 expressed, after visiting the spot of any announced discovery; which, 

 it is understood, he so regularly makes a point of doing. To the store 

 of practical experience that must have been thus acquired, Mr. Borrer 

 adds also other important qualifications, which altogether ought to 

 give to his opinion more value and weight than could be accorded to 

 the opinions of any other British botanist, in reference to questions 

 bearing on the nativity of newly-discovered plants, and the genuine 

 character of localities for local or novel species. The announcement 

 of Convallaria bifolia being found in Northumberland, for which there 

 seemed no geographic improbability, resuscitated the overlooked fact 

 of its occurrence in Lancashire, 'in Dingley Wood, six miles from 

 Preston, in Aulderness, and in Harwood, near Blackburn, likewise,' 

 having been recorded long since by Gerarde. And Mr. Edward Ed- 

 wards afterwards stated in the Phytologist, i. 579, that the same spe- 

 cies had been reported indigenous in the woods at Hampstead, in 

 Middlesex, in Park's ' History of Hampstead ;' and that he had him- 

 self, 'in 1835, detected several patches of the plant, apparently well 

 established and really wild, under the shade of fir trees, growing near 



