﻿LEDUM PALUSTRE L. IN SCOTLAND. 275 



as erroneous, and I do not think there was any mention of its 

 occurrence in Britain until in the Trans. Bot. Soc. Edinburgh, 

 vi. p. 187 (1860), where it is said to have been known for many 

 years to exist in small quantity in a bog near the Bridge of Allan. 



My attention was called to the plant by Mr. N. E. Brown, who 

 showed me specimens received from a moss in Perthshire, and gave 

 me the address of Miss N. Geddes, who had sent them to Sir J. D. 

 Hooker. I at once wrote to her, and she kindly sent me specimens 

 and particulars of its occurrence. In her letter to Mr. Brown she 

 observes :—" There would be twenty or thirty plants scattered 

 through the bog, which is situated in one of the wildest straths of 

 Scotland"; also that "no one ever planted it there, as some of the 

 old residents remember seeing the same plant some thirty years ago 

 growing in the bog, but took no particular notice of it. There have 

 been numerous roots of the Ledum sent to Ireland and England, 

 and there are still a few plants left ; the bog being gradually 

 reclaimed. There are a good many plants of the Ledum in (another) 

 bog a few miles distant from the first-named bog. How the seeds 

 got there it is difficult to say, as it is far from any habitation." 



On this I wrote to Dr. Buchanan White, and he referred me to 

 a notice in Trans. Bot. Soc. Edinburgh, xiii. p. xxiii. (1877), where 

 it is thus recorded:— "Dr. Paterson exhibited a large plant of 

 Lotion latifolium, which he had found in a natural moss near the 

 Bridge of Allan. He had first discovered it growing there abun- 

 dantly about thirty years ago. Mr. A. Buchan stated that he had 

 met with it in the same locality more than twenty years ago, 

 and [it] was then in full flower." The plant is certainly not 

 /.. la ti folium, but good typical palustre. 



I then wrote to Dr. Paterson, who wrote that he had discovered 

 it about forty years ago (about 1847), while taking a walk (geological) 

 with the late Principal Forbes of St. Andrews ; " since that time 

 I have sent plants of it to the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, 

 Edinburgh, and Dublin. Although L. palustre is still (Oct., 1887) 

 growing in a wild state in the small remaining part of the moss, it 

 is not generally believed by botanists to be native." 



In July, 1888, I directed a friend to the plant, and he found it, 

 and sent specimens ; these were in flower and partly-formed fruit ; 

 he described the situation as very wild. 



As the plant has survived for nearly fifty years (certain), it 

 seems curious that no mention of it has been more generally made 

 (so far as I can discover), as this is not the case of a survival from 

 a one-year's rubbish heap. Its European distribution is Norway, 

 Finland, Sweden, Russia (north and middle), N. Germany, Thurin- 

 gia, Bavaria, Austria, Servia, with a sub-sp. in Arctic Russia and 

 Iceland. Whatever its real origin may have been, it is interesting 

 to find it maintaining its ground so long. 



vol. v., t. 212 (1828). Giesecke was at Achill Head in October, 1825, and an 

 S* Jo^'^ot 8 ' XL) ' 271-276 (1826) ' U contain9 no references to plants.— 

 t2 



