1088 



bestow praise without stint, and without qualification, on this really 

 interesting volume. 



The design of that portion of the work now published, is to give a 

 complete list of the plants of the district indicated. These are dis- 

 tinguished as the indigenous, the naturalized, and the cultivated, 

 each distinction being indicated by a different type, and a different 

 set of numerals. Besides these three main divisions, there are a few 

 stragglers and extirpated species, given in foot-notes. These distinc- 

 tions are always, in some measure, arbitrary : iew of us can totally 

 banish feelings of favouritism or distrust, when engaged in this task 

 of assigning its exact rank to each species as it comes before us. 

 The following is a summary of the Eastern-Borders phanerogamic 

 Flora : — 



Indigenous. Naturalized. Cultivated. Stragglers. 



Endogens.... 532 37 30 41 = 640 

 Exogens .... 168 4 8 9 = 189 



700 41 38 50 = 829 



The name of each species is accompanied by some observation ; 

 sometimes a mere local appellation, or a habitat, but for the most part 

 a more extended note, embracing diversified and agreeable informa- 

 tion, both borrowed and original. We select examples. 



^^ Papaver Rhceas. William Turner writes in 1551: — 'This kind 

 is called in English corn-rose or red corn-rose, and with us it groweth 

 much amongst the corn and barley.' It has been very sensibly 

 reduced both in quantity, and its distribution, within the present cen- 

 tury ; but, in some farms, as in Holy-Island, the poppy still abounds 

 to excess, and imparts a gay hilarity to the sombre cornfields. It 

 disappears from infested fields when these are laid down in grass, and 

 endures nowhere long if the soil is undisturbed ; but let the ground 

 be disturbed anew by the plough or the spade, no matter at what dis- 

 tant interval, the weed reappears in rich profusion. Of this fact we 

 had an illustration when the railway was made from Berwick to Cock- 

 burnspath, and from Tweedmouth to Kelso. The sides of the cut 

 were, in many places, literally clothed in scarlet ; and this was espe- 

 cially the case where the line had been cut through those gravel knolls 

 which some conjecture were deposited towards the termination of 

 what has been called the glacial epoch. Nor need we be hindered 

 from entertaining the belief that the poppy was amongst the first 

 plants that occupied the naked surface of those knolls, burying therein 



