310 COMMON PLANTS. 
excluded from our list of common things. But we have thought 
it expedient to enlarge our list by entering plants not common 
to Devon and Aberdeen even in a second forthcoming list ; for 
we have no list of Caithness and Sutherland plants, and must 
take the closest approximation we can obtain. A second list 
will follow the one now given, and will contain several species 
which are very abundant in the south of England, although they 
cease to grow in the north of England, or their spontaneous 
growth is terminated in Yorkshire; they do not reach the 
borders. The first or larger list of common species will include 
the South of England and Scottish plants, viz. such as are com- 
mon both to the south of England and to the centre and north of 
Scotland; and the second will include such as are found in the 
south of England, and which terminate in Yorkshire, or in some — 
cases reach the borders, or even extend as far north as the es- 
tuaries of Forth and Tay. Our test of assumed common species 
is not that they are present in the 18 botanical provinces into 
which Great Britain is divided by the learned author of the 
‘Cybele Britannica,’ nor in 17, nor 16, nor 15, nor 12 of the 18 
provinces ; neither is it the British type of distribution which is 
equivalent to the higher figures of the London Catalogue, ex- 
pressive of the series of botanical provinces. Our test is the 
presence of the species reputed common, and as such assumed by 
us, and therefore placed in the subjoined list, in all the county 
or local floras to which we are able to refer; and not only its pre- 
sence in all parts of Great Britain as botanically described by 
these partial floras, but its appearance in them unaccompanied 
by any mark indicative of rarity or uncommonness. We have 
stated that we have no good authority further north than the floras 
of Aberdeenshire, viz. Murray’s ‘ Northern Flora,’ Dickie’s ‘ Flora 
Abredonensis,’ and Macgillivray’s recent list; but as Aberdeen- 
shire touches the Murray (Moray) Frith, it includes most of the 
species which are said to be of the boreal or northern type. But 
where either boreal or austral can be applied to a species, such 
species 1s, according to our canon, uncommon, and therefore 
should have no place in our list. It would be a grave misunder- 
standing of our purpose in submitting this list to our readers 
to imagine that we, on the authority of all who have hitherto 
written on the subject, imtend to fix any rule as a test of the 
commonness of a species, or irrevocably determine what are 
