154 



Botanical Notices. By James Hardy. 



1.— On Sparganium simplex, Hudson. 



There is only one recorded Berwickshire locality for this 

 plant. During the present dry summer, when the mill-pond 

 at Oldcambus Townhead, was nearly dried up, there were 

 beds of it in blossom. Being usually submerged in stagnant 

 waters, it is perhaps mostly in dry years that it becomes con- 

 spicuous ; and hence may be more geneial than it appears to 

 be. Peplis portula and Litorella lacustris accompanied it ; 

 and as this pond is quite modern, these water plants in some 

 ■way or other must have been recently introduced. S. simplex 

 is said to grow " especially on heaths and commons in pools 

 of water made by digging gravel ;" and the bottom of this 

 pond is nearly in that condition, the soil having been re- 

 peatedly carted off. 



The disposition of the upright Spargania into " ramosum 

 et non ramosum," or something equivalent, was early recog- 

 nised among the botanists preceding Linnaeus. That great 

 systematise as well as Haller, arranged them as varieties of 

 each other. Not only did Linn ecus not distinguish the two, 

 but Sir J. E. Smith is persuaded (" Lapland Tour," ii., p. 

 126, 127) that " he confused the simplex with the natans in 

 his Lapland Tour, as well as in his herbarium, where the 

 original specimens of the two are pinned together." Several 

 other plants besides the modern Sparganium have been 

 brought forward as the Sparganion of Dioscorides. The first 

 on the present track is a medical composition, much esteemed 

 in the age of Charlemagne (a.d. 742 — 814; ; which has been 

 edited by Eckhard, in his " Comment, de Reb. Franc. Orient." 

 (ii., 980.) In this Sparga is mentioned, which Antonius 

 (" Hist. Oeconom. Germ.") considers to be Sparganium 

 ramosum. The Bohemian name of the plant, it is to be 

 observed, only adds another letter — " Spargan " or " Spar- 

 han ;" and may either be traditional, or an adaptation. 

 Bock, or as he is latinised, Tragus, in the " Kreuterbuch," 

 (1546) p. cclviii., (or Tragus by Kyber, p. 676, &c.) identifies 

 Sparganion with the " Riedt " or " Hied " of the Germans. 

 Valerius Cordus, who died in 1544, in his " Annotat. in 

 Dioscoridem," (1561) fol. 63, makes it the " Degenkraut," 

 (sword-plant) of the Germans, another local name for Spar- 

 ganium. About the same period Matthiolus (French edit., 



