802 



wish here to interfere with the good observers who have taken them 

 under examination for the determination of their right names and cha- 

 racters ; but only to supply a few circumstances of their history, by 

 which other botanists will be enabled to identify the specimens of 

 them in collections. 



In 1830, the " Hieracium nigrescens" was pointed out to me, then 

 a very young botanist, by Professor Graham, on the Clova mountains, 

 as a species which he believed to be distinct from H. alpinum, and I 

 still possess specimens then collected. About the same date, per- 

 haps in 1831, Sir W. J. Hooker gave me other specimens from the 

 Caimgorum mountains, as a form of H. alpinum. In 1840, Mr. Gar- 

 diner, of Dundee, collected many good specimens of the plant for the 

 Botanical Society of London, which were distributed to the members, 

 labelled " Hieracium Halleri, Fe7/." in the writing of Mr. Gardiner. 

 In 1841, I brought living plants to^my garden from Ben Aulder, in 

 Inverness-shire ; and still feeling at fault about the true place and 

 name of the plant, I requested the opinion of Mr. Babington, who 

 suggested that it was the H. nigrescens of Willdenow. Afterwards, 

 on a living plant being shown to Mr. Borrer, that gentleman also de- 

 signated it by the same name. On the continent it has been named 

 as variously as in Britain. In my garden, the seeds falling about the 

 plants (in 1842) produced young plants (in 1843) with leaves exactly 

 like those on the original roots from Ben Aulder, but they have not 

 yet flowered. The plant differs from^H. alpinum, by its very broad 

 leaves with a few strong teeth, and the black involucres. It is alto- 

 gether a much more rigid plant. The stems are simple or branched, 

 leafy or leafless. 



Mr. Gibson's note on his " Hieracium hypochoeroides " (Phytol. 

 741), is valuable in its tendency to explain a remarkable blunder, as 

 it now appears to be, which j.has been copied into several botanical 

 works ; and in the diffusion of which I have been a party concerned, 

 although not exactly in the manner stated by Mr. Gibson. The 

 neighbourhood of Settle, in Yorkshire, has been long recorded as a 

 habitat for Hypochceris maculata ; though not recently proved. Mr. 

 Gibson has now confirmed a suspicion which occurred to me from 

 other evidence, that a common Hieracium had been misnamed Hy- 

 pochceris maculata, by some of the older botanists, who looked only 

 at its spotted leaves. Hence the introduction of false localities for 

 the latter plant into our books. 



In the original 'Botanist's Guide,' published in 1805, the localities 

 stand thus : — " About Malham Cove, Z>r. Smith. Near Otterraine 



