238 
president’s address. 
investigating the evidence for this, and is more than ever 
convinced that such was the case. For those who may desire 
to study this subject, treated in a popular form, and within 
short compass, I may refer to his essay on the Malvern 
Straits. 
Coming to later times, we have the remains of the Roman 
city of Uriconium, which will be visited by the archaeologists. 
A county which was the boundary of two races often engaged 
in hostility may be expected to abound in forts and castles. 
Such is the case here, and an excellent example of a gentle¬ 
man’s mansion of the 13th century, fortified and made suitable 
for defence against the wild border-tribes, will be found in 
Stokesay Castle, to be visited by one of the sections. 
The botanical treasures of a county like Shropshire, 
possessing a considerable variety of soil and surface, may 
naturally be expected to be of much interest. But I hope that 
in drawing attention to these I may be excused if I observe 
a certain amount of caution and reserve. Geologists have 
this advantage over botanists—that the specimens which the} 7 
rejoice in collecting are practically inexhaustible, whereas 
plants are, even where very abundant, easily exterminated. I 
have even heard grave doubts expressed whether the familiar 
and homely primrose is not likely to disappear from our woods 
and hedgerows, where it has so long gladdened the eyes and 
hearts of the lovers of Nature, owing to the exigencies of a certain 
school of political thought, and whether it might not fairly claim 
the protection which is, I believe, a prominent feature in that 
creed. Anyhow, one of our greatest varieties—a curious rush, 
called the Sclieuchzeria ,—which but some ten years am) was 
tolerably abundantat Bomere, is nowall but extinct there,owing 
to the ill-advised efforts of a certain teacher in Shrewsbury 
School (whose name I do not know) who carried off large 
quantities of it to send up to London to certain professional 
collectors there. Acts like this justly appear to the true botanist 
a crime no less revolting than is the destruction of a fox to 
the moral sense of a Shropshire squire. I have seen 
a party of excursionists, most of whom cared nothing 
and knew nothing about botany, on being told that a 
rare plant might be found at a particular spot, flinging 
themselves like birds of prey upon the spoil, and 
carrying off not only sprays, but roots of it, probably to be 
afterwards forgotten and thrown aside, and thus in their 
ignorance doing an irreparable injury to science. Theocciirrcnce 
of rare plants opens to the naturalist an inexhaustible fund of 
information, not only as regards their own history, but the 
history of the locality where they grow, its changes of climate, 
