34 LAWSON OCCURRENCE OF HEATHER IN CAPE BRETON. 



Society's Collections in London, in November, 1863, I bought a parcel of 

 specimens, whicb was endorsed outside, ' A collection of dried plants from 

 Newfoumiland, collected by — MeCormack, Esq., and presented ^to Mr. 

 David Don.' The specimens were old, and greatly damaged by insects. 

 Apparently, they had been left in the rough, as originally received from the 

 collector ; being in mingled layers between a scanty supply of paper, and 

 almost all of them unlabelled. Among these specimens were two flowerless 

 branches of the true Calluna vulgaris, about six inches long, quite identical 

 with the common heath of our British moors. Fortunately, a label did ac- 

 company these two specimens, which runs thus : ' Head of St. Mary's Bay — 

 Trepassey Bay, also very abundant. S. E. of Newfoundland considerable 

 tracts of it.' The name Erica vulgaris has been added on the label in a 

 different handwriting. All the other species in the parcel (or nearly all) 

 have been recorded from Newfoundland, so that there appeared no cause for 

 doubt respecting the Calluna itself. And, moreover, the collector had seem- 

 ingly some idea that an especial interest would attach to the Calluna, since 

 in this instance he gave its special locality, and also added two other localities 

 on the labsl. But there is very likely some mistake in the name of the donor 

 to Mr. Don. It is believed by Sir William Hooker that he was the same 

 Mr. W. E. Cormack, whose name is frequently cited for Newfoundland 

 plants in the Flora Boreali- Americana. This gentleman was a merchant in 

 Newfoundland, to which he made several voyages. We should recollect that 

 the Calluna advances to the extreme western limits (or out-liers) of Europe, 

 in Iceland, Ireland, and the Azores. The step thence to Newfoundland and 

 Massachusetts, though wide, is not an incredible one." 



I hope that some gentleman in Newfoundland wdll be induced 

 to take the trouble of instituting the necessary mquiries to elicit 

 some more definite information as to the Newfoundland habitat. 

 So many other shrubs have been mistaken for heather in Nova 

 Scotia and other parts of the world, that it is necessary to accom- 

 pany any observations with specimens from the locahty. 



The occurrence of this common European plant in such small 

 quantities in isolated localities on the American Continent, is very 

 instructive, and obviously points to a period when the heath was a 

 widely-spread social plant in North America as it still is in Europe, 

 where oft-recurrmg fires are yearly lessening its range. The late 

 Professor Edward Forbes, Dr. Joseph Hooker and Mr. Darwin, all 

 agree in advocating a southern migration of northern types "due to 

 the cold epochs preceding and during the glacial," and since Dr. 

 Hooker has shown that the Arctic flora is essentially a Scandina- 

 vian one, there is no difficulty in finding in this theory an explana- 

 tion of the way in which Calluna might have reached the eastern 

 coast of America. There are, however, other explanations. At 

 last meeting of the Institute, our President ever active in the cause 



