1 68 Riddehdell : Further Notes on YorksJiire Plants. 



1750), contributed to Whitaker's Richmondshire. ... It 

 was found "in a pasture called 'Rough Earth' at Mossdale 

 Head," by Mr. J. Brunton, about 1775, and a specimen sent to 

 Joseph Woods [and inferentially to Bicheno also] — who (J. W.) 

 makes a note to the foregoing effect in Townsend's copy of 

 Old Botanist Guide (1805), which was originally Woods's cop}-.' 



Dr. Lees's comments show a combination of close acquaint- 

 ance with facts, and of bold deduction from facts, which almost 

 carries one the whole way. As regards Vaccinium nliglnosuni 

 and Brunton's discovery of it in Wensleydale, quite the whole 

 way : and no doubt Mr. Baker's account of the plant in the 

 second edition of 'North Yorkshire,' p. 335 of No. 15 of the 

 Y.N.U. Transactions, needs reframing in the light of the facts 

 stated by Dr. Lees; my remark in 'The Naturalist' for November 

 1902, p. 337, was based (in too loosely-worded a form) upon 

 Mr. Baker's account. 



But Dr. Lees's inferences are not quite persuasive. The 

 statement that 'all your 1839, 1840, and 1841 — or nearly all — 

 were gathered by the late Dr. J. Deakin Heaton, of Leeds,' 

 may be true ; but the evidence for its justification is wanting. 

 I believe I am right in saying that there is no evidence on 

 Motley's labels or sheets that any of his plants came either from 

 Heaton or Ibbotson, or Bohler ; while the 'inferentially to 

 Bicheno also,' of the Vaccinium, overlooks the fact that the 

 record is for 1775, while Bicheno was not born till about 1785 ! 

 Dr. Lees commits the same oversight in chronology in a further 

 remark on the Meiun record. Moreover, why should not Motley 

 have been in Yorkshire in 1839, 1840, and 1841 ? It is not at 

 all probable that he procured by correspondence from Yorkshire 

 a large number of quite common plants, easily obtainable on the 

 spot in South Wales. The case needs much more careful 

 investigation in this particular direction before Dr. Lees's 

 inferences can be accepted ; though to have turned one's atten- 

 tion to the matter, and to have effectively aroused interest in it, 

 earns for Dr. Lees a further gratitude for the ever-accumulating 

 good work done by him for botanical knowledge. 



Mr. Petty kindly writes, with respect to the records of 

 Bicheno ('The Naturalist' for November 1902), that Dow Craggs 

 (p. 340), the locality catalogued for Lancashire, is in ' V. C. 69; 

 an outlier of Coniston Old Man.' The plant ' was first recorded 

 for North Lancashire portion of V. C. 69 by either Willisel or 

 young Merrett in Merrett's Pinax, 1666, from the Old Man,' 

 though the hill was not mentioned by that name. 



Naturalist' 



