JReport of Meetings. By the President. 439 



Museum, and should be accessible to all who are interested 

 is very natural, will be highly advantageous, and ought to 

 be assisted by our Club in any way within our power. 



Report of Meetings of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club 

 for the Year I884,. By the President. 



COENHILL, 



POR PALLINSBURN, FORD, DUDDO, ETC. 



The first Meeting of the year took place en Thursday 29th 

 May, for the sixth time since the foundation of the Club. The 

 day had been postponed from the usual Wednesday to accommo- 

 date the convenience of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle- 

 on-Tyne, with whom we had a joint meeting. 



While breakfast and preparations were going on at the 

 " Collingwood Arms," Mr Hardy and I walked to the Bathing 

 Well Plantation, a short distance south of the hotel, where a 

 small Bath-house was formerly situated upon the little stream 

 which still wells forth, bright and cool. In May 1853, the Club 

 visited the same plantation, when, in the words of the Chronicler, 

 "it was flushed with a show of flowers which no horticultural 

 society could emulate, " — Myosotis sylvatica being specially 

 mentioned. We were pleased to find, in tolerable abundance 

 another of the plants noticed on that occasion, Allium arenarium 

 (or Scorodoprasum), and there was plenty of Myosotis ; but the 

 striking feature, botanicalLy, was the Butterbur, Petasites vul- 

 garis. This plant, which loves moist sandy localities near rivers, 

 and may be seen to perfection near the mouth of the Whitadder, 

 displays, in early spring before the foliage appears, its heads of 

 pink flowers to attract bees. The large leaves and long stalks 

 at first sight so much resemble Phubarb, that they might easily 

 be mistaken for it by an inexperienced housekeeper. In ex- 

 tent, abundance, and luxuriance, the show of this plant in the 

 Bathing Well Plantation transcended everything which had be- 

 fore come under our notice. Later on in the season many of the 

 leaf stalks, measured by me, were 5 feet high. That, in the 

 1853 Eeport, there should be no mention of this plant, at the 



