92 THE LIFE AND WorK OF GEORGE DON. 
APPENDIX A. 
GEORGE DON’S REPUTED DISCOVERIES. 
Having given the opinion of some of Don’s contemporaries and 
that of his private friends, all of whom testify to his moral and 
truthful character, I have now to undertake a less pleasant task, 
owing chiefly to the remarks which in later times Dr. Walker 
Arnott, in the pages of “The British Flora,” made upon his 
recorded discoveries. In the case of Lychnis alpina he suggests 
that someone, presumably Don, purposely sowed it on Little 
Culrannoch; but this suggestion is not borne out by the facts, 
while the subsequent discovery of it on another hill in Cumberland 
appears to leave no reasonable doubt that the plant, although 
very local, is indigenous to these islands. Arnott’s remarks, and 
the list of “ Reputed discoveries” at the end of Hooker’s “Student’s 
Flora,” which at the time of its publication still remained 
unverified, would lead the imperfectly informed reader to consider 
Don to be an extremely careless, if not untrustworthy recorder. 
It must be remembered that there was little information available to 
give a more favourable impression, since naturally it was outside 
the scope of the “Student’s Flora” to furnish particulars of the 
original discovery of the various species described, so that Don’s 
undoubtedly good work received there no attention, and the average 
reader probably made an adverse judgment based upon the fact 
that so many plants recorded by Don still awaited confirmatory 
evidence of their occurrence in Britain; and 1 am afraid I am one_ 
of those who must plead guilty to having come to this hasty, and 
as I now believe, incorrect opinion. 
1 The following letter bearing upon Don’s discoveries appeared in the ‘‘ Dundee 
Advertiser” of August 14, 1902 :— 
WILLIAM GARDINER AND GEORGE Don. 
To the Editor of the Dundee Advertiser. 
—Local botanists are greatly indebted to you for the excellent and lengthy 
mak of President Druce’s address on Scottish botany, especially with regard to 
George Don and his work. Too little is known about this Forfar “worthy.” 
The ‘‘ Dictionary of National Biography” contains the lives of his two sons, but 
their greater father is not inserted either in book or supplement. The papers on 
