38 



F. H. PERRING 



St. Kilda, v.c. 110 



Sorrel : Rumex acetosa. " It (the compost) produces much Sorrel where the compost 

 reaches." 



Lapathum vulgare : Rumex ohtusifolius. Sibbald (1684) says " Lapathum vulgare 



folio obtuso J.B. Folio subrotundo B.P." 

 Scurvy Grass : Cochlearia officinalis 

 Mille-foil : Achillea millefolium 

 Bursa pastoris : Capsella bursa-pastoris 

 Silver weed or argentine : Potentilla anserina 

 Plantine 



Sage : see under " Plants used for medicines." Teucrium scorodonia ? 

 Chicken weed : Stellaria media 



All hail or siderites : This may be All Heal (see under Lewis). However, Sideritis 

 is a genus of the Labiatae and a name given in Parkinson (1640) to various labiates. 

 Lindley & Moore (1876) say that Sideritis is Galeopsis tetrahit. This was present 

 as a cornfield weed on St. Kilda as late as 1931. 



Sea Pinck : Armeria maritima 



Tormentil : Potentilla erecta. " Their leather is dressed with the roots of tormentil." 



All but Teucrium scorodonia of the above have been recorded from St. Kilda this 

 century. 



Note on Dryas 



In a section devoted to " The diseases known and not known in Skye and the adjacent 

 Isles " we find the following entry : . 



" Caryophylata Alpina Chamedrois fol. It grows on marble in divers parts, about 

 Christ Church in Strath ; never observed before in Britain, and but once in Ireland, 

 by Mr. Hiaton (Heaton). Morison's Hist. Ray Synopsis, 137 (139)." 



Caryophyllata Alpina Chamaedryos folio, to give the spelling in Ray (1724), is 

 Dryas octopetala. This reference is to a locality for the plant on the Broadford Marble 

 in Strath Parish, Skye. Christ Church is now a ruin and is marked 'Gill Chriosd * on 

 the Ordnance Survey map, though it is also known as Kilchrist. It is about 3 miles 

 S.W. of Broadford and 1,000 yards from a hill called Ben Suardal, upon which Dryas is 

 reported as growing at least three times in subsequent literature. In 1776 Thomas 

 Pennant (1776) wrote that the two other members of his party, Lightfoot and Stuart, 

 " ascend the high limestone mountain of Beinn Shuardal, and find it in a manner covered 

 with that rare plant the Dryas octopeta [sic]." On the opposite page is a charming drawing 

 of the plant very correctly drawn and more correctly named. Lightfoot (1777) himself 

 refers to the locality in his book published a year later : " Plentifully upon the Limestone 

 rocks of Ben Suardal, etc. in the Parish of Christ Church, in Strath Swardle(s) in the 

 Isle of Skye." 



Dryas was still growing in the same locality 140 years later. Salmon (1916) wrote 

 " Dryas extremely abundant on Limestone about Ben Suardal, near Broadford." 



The question arises whether this paragraph in Martin is the first record for Dryas 

 in Britain. No reference is made to Dryas in Sibbald (1864). In the first and second 

 editions of Ray's Synopsis (1690, 1696) the only locality given for the British Isles is " in 

 Ireland on the mountains between Gort and Galloway " where it was found by Heaton 

 in 1650. Martin was probably referring to the edition of 1696 when he mentions Ray's 

 Synopsis, although the actual page on which Dryas appears is 139 and not 137 as stated 

 by Martin. Martin, then, had access to a copy of the second edition of Ray's Synopsis 



