1861.] ARENARIA BALEARICA. 49 



arrested in time to prevent another most improbable species becoming per- 

 manently incorporated in our lists of truly British plants. It is a fitting 

 accompaniment to the preceding case of the Diervilla, resembling that one 

 in the risk of a garden plant becoming thereby recorded for the future as 

 if really a native production of Scotland. In May last, 1859, I received 

 from the Editor of the ' Phytologist,' New Series, a note to this effect ; — 



" ' I enclose an Jrenaria, sent this morning from Scotland. It is no 

 state of y4. serpylUfoUa, and it does not agree with Babington's description 

 of A. ciliata. It also differs from A. norvegica as described by Babington. 

 A. multicaiiUs is unknown to me. Will you be so good as give me your 

 opinion of it when you have time ?' 



" Writing here from recollection, my reply was immediate, and to the 

 effect, that if reported to me from the Mediterranean, instead of Scotland, 

 I shoidd unhesitatingly have named the plant A. balearica ; that I knew 

 of no boreal species to which it could be referred or related ; and that the 

 alleged locality of Scotland was geographically improbable, unless I was 

 wrong as to the name. In the next luonth's number of the ' Phytologist' 

 the following brief notice was given of this pseudo-discovery : — 



" ' Mr. Sim has sent us a specimen of what he thinks may be Arenaria 

 balearica, a plant new to Scotland. He has been advised to send a speci- 

 men to Mr. Babington.' ('Phytologist,' 50, 192.) 



" So far, the readers of the ' Phytologist' were in a very likely way of 

 being misled into supposing this MediteiTanean Arenaria a xcild plant new 

 to Scotland ; no intimation of a garden origin being stated or suggested, 

 even while the idea of it being A. balearica is attributed to the finder him- 

 self. But in the same periodical for November then following, Mr. John 

 Sim records a 'botanical ramble,' made to the ' HiU of Moncrieffe,' where 

 he discovers Scropkularia ventalis, AncJwsa senqjervirens, and other garden 

 species, which no geographical botanist believes to be native in Scotland. 

 In the course of his ramble he visits the ' pleasure-grounds and flower- 

 garden of Sir Thomas Moncrieffe,' and there he finds, ' about the middle 

 of June,' the plant new to Scotland, as mentioned in the subjoined extract 

 from his ramble : — 



" ' On the wall of an old fruit-house, I saw a patch of Arenaria bale- 

 arica, of which 1 gathered a few specimens ; how or by what means it got 

 there I cannot tell, only there it is, and none knows how.' (' Phytologist,' 

 55, 327.) 



" The question now arises, where did the previously found specimen 

 come from ? that which was sent to London in May, and recorded in the 

 Jime number of the ' Phytologist,' as a plant new to Scotland ? Very sig- 

 nificantly, that first record is omitted from the Index to the ' Phytologist ' 

 for 1859, page 385, where Mr. Sim's confession of the fruit-house locality 

 for the species is referred to only. And considering how many localities 



N. S. VOL. V. H 



