Cxiv PROCEEDINGS-PERTHSHIRE SOCIETY OF NATURAL SCIENCE. 
flowered variety (S. officinale proper) is rather abundant, and is not 
impossibly native. 
A. tuberosum , L.—Looking at the situations in which this occurs, 
often abundantly, with us, its claim to be considered a native is very 
doubtful. 
Anchusa arvensis , Bieb.—A weed of cultivation. 
Lithospermum officinale , L.—Perhaps wild on the shores of Loch 
Earn. 
L. arvense , L.—A rather scarce weed of cultivation. 
Cynoglossum montanum , Lamk.—This occurs in copses in three 
places in Perthshire, and has been known in one of these for about 
one hundred years. In England, where it is rare, its northern limit 
is Shropshire and Norfolk. Consequently it has been looked on as 
an introduction in our district. It has, however, no beauty, neither, 
so far as I am aware, any other qualities which would lead to its 
cultivation, nor is it, I think, recorded as an introduced plant else¬ 
where. Its occurrence, therefore, in Perthshire is rather puzzling, 
unless w T e consider it to be an instance of a plant with a native 
station separated by a wide interval from the metropolis of the 
species. That such intervals do occasionally occur every student of 
botanical geography is aware. Such intervals may have been bridged 
at one time by a more continuous distribution of that plant (which 
afterwards died out in the intermediate stations), or they may never 
have been bridged at all. In the case of this Cynoglossum (a species 
which is local and rare even in the districts of its more continuous 
distribution) it does not seem impossible that there were stations for 
it between mid England and Perthshire at a period when the climate 
was milder than it is now; and that being, if we may judge from its 
continental distribution, a somewhat tender plant, it has died out. 
On the other hand, there may never have been intermediate stations, 
and the plant may have been brought by some migrating bird to 
whose feathers a nutlet had become attached by its hooked spines, 
adapted for that very purpose. 
Verbascum Thapsus , L.—Described as a “ denizen in Scotland,” 
which perhaps it is, as it is not clearly above suspicion. 
Linaria vulgaris , Mill.—It is rather difficult to know how to 
place this species. It is a plant of waste and uncrowded ground, in 
which it comes and goes. On the whole, I think it must be regarded 
as a somewhat doubtful native. 
Veronica persica, Poir.; V agrestis , L. • V. polita , Fries; and V 
hedercefolia, L.—Weeds of cultivation. 
Mentha sylvestris , L.—I have never seen this in any place where 
it could be said to be above suspicion. 
Calamintha Acinos, Clairv.—Hooker says, “indigenous (?) in 
Scotland.” I do not know enough about it to offer a decided 
opinion, but am inclined to think that it is native. 
