2 34 



The Scottish Naturalist. 



The Committee in 1887 issued a circular to local botanists' 

 societies and field-clubs asking the following questions : — 



S£ 1. Have any plants, of comparative rarity or otherwise, 

 disappeared from your local flora in recent years ? If so, kindly 

 enumerate them, specifying the original habitat of each, and giving 

 the cause, or probable cause, of extirpation so far as known to you. 



" 2. As above, but referring to partial instead of complete 

 disappearance. 



" 3. If you know personally of any cases of extirpation, partial 

 or complete, in localities other than your own, please give them. 



" 4. To what extent do you think that the partial or complete 

 disappearance of plants from any localities known to you was, or 

 may be made in the future, subject to public or private control ? " 



We are informed that "the Committee" has published in this 

 Report " such portion of the materials placed at its disposal as, 

 for any reason, it considers desirable to publish. It has ex- 

 cluded a considerable number of plants of little interest, and 

 especially such as the records show to be recent introductions, 

 casuals, escapes, &c, the loss of which is only a return, therefore, 

 to an earlier, but still recent, state. Nearly all the records are on 

 the authority of some competent botanist resident in the locality, 

 and whose initials, or some distinguishing initials, are given. As 

 has been pointed out by more than one correspondent, scarce 

 plants occasionally well-nigh disappear in particular seasons, and 

 hence the records of other than frequent visitors are not fully 

 reliable." 



With the desire thus indicated to ensure the inclusion in the 

 report of nothing but reliable information, all botanists will 

 cordially agree, as well as with the interesting preliminary 

 remarks regarding the causes of the increasing rarity of rare and 

 local species, even of those that cannot be said to be, as yet, in 

 serious danger of extirpation. 



But an investigation of the remarks under the various species 

 must suggest to the minds of botanists that are familiar with the 

 topographical records of the Scotch flora, that in the preparation 

 of such reports it is most desirable that all the material supplied 

 to the Committee should be submitted to the revision of one or 

 more botanists personally familiar with the flora of the district or 

 districts treated in each report, whether they be members of the 

 Committee, or other botanists, from whom, doubtless, there 



