EMPETRUM. — CALLITRICHE. 175 



Whiteadder at Whitehall, A. A. Carr. Common in gardens and 

 shrubberies. March. 



500. Empetrum nigrum. Cratobttrg : Cratncrooikd. On 

 moors, very common ; and also on our sea-banks, where I find it in 

 full flower at the commencement of January. — Crows eat the berries 

 greedily. They ripen in autumn, when muirland boys go to gather 

 them. The Swedish name is the same as theirs for the pretty creep- 

 ing shrub, " Kr&k-ris." 



501. Mercurialis perennis. |Htrcurg. Med. Botany, ii. 

 pi. 78. — In woods and deans, forming extensive patches. April, 

 May. — Poisonous. In autumn the leaves are subject to a rusty 

 tubercular roughness, which is not to be confounded with their para- 

 sitical Ilredo. 



502. Euphorbia heuoscopia. Hittle @OolJ. A common weed 

 in gardens and waste grounds. The milky juice is used by children 

 to remove warts. 



503. E. PEPLUS. With the preceding, and equally common. 

 July, Aug. 



504. E. ESULA. B. Our only station is on Birgham haugh, and 

 Miss E. Bell assures me that my suspicion of its having been intro- 

 duced there is unfounded, for there never was any garden near where 

 it grows. — B. On a dry bank by a road-side near Melrose, in some 

 abundance, A. Jerdon. (" In the greatest abundance on the Teviot 

 near Minto, as far removed from a garden as the station at Spring-hill 

 or Birgham," Miss E. Bell and Miss Hunter.) 



505. E. ExiGUA. This neat species occurs in corn-fields, and on 

 sandy or gravelly wastes, throughout the district, but not commonly. 

 B. Birgham haugh, R. D. Thomson. In great profusion near New- 

 town. — D. In corn-fields about Ord, and very luxuriant on the line 

 of the railway near Mount- Pleasant. At AUerton-mill dean. Scre- 

 merston. — R. Near Smailholm. Autumn. 



506. Callitriche verna. Plate VI. fig. 5. — Common in 

 ditches, ponds, and still waters. Summer. — In Fl. Lapp. p. 3, 

 Linnaeus has happily described three varieties of this plant, as they 

 occur with us. See also Arnott in Edin. Joum. Nat. and Geogr. Sc. 

 i. p. 427. — The C. platycarpa is common on wet ground, in clayey 

 places over which water trickles ; e. g. on the sea-banks under the 

 Pigeon's Cove, flowering and fruiting in autumn. It is not a variety 

 but a state of C. verna. The same specimen usually presents the 

 peculiar characters of both C. platycarpa and C. stagnalis. — Aug. 5, 

 185 1 . Gathered specimens of a Callitriche in the peatery at Grant' s- 

 house. They were not growing in the water, but on the moist soil. 

 The stems, creeping along the surface, were fixed by root-fibres which 

 issued from almost every knot. The leaves were broadly obovate 

 with two very faint lateral nerves arising above the base of the mid 

 one. They were therefore the leaves of C. verna, and, like them, 

 they were fleshy and entire. Yet the fruit was ebracteated, and 

 acutely keeled like the fruit of C. autumnahs ! 



