CXV111 PROCEEDINGS—PERTHSHIRE SOCIETY OF NATURAL SCIENCE. 
on which the seeds would fall, and might hence be readily trans¬ 
ported on the feet of birds. In this way it may have been brought 
to the Tay from some part of southern Scotland in which it has been 
planted. But if from southern Scotland, why not from northern 
England, where it is admitted to be native ? and if so introduced, 
even in comparatively recent times, is it therefore to be regarded as 
only naturalized ? Looking, however, at the various plants—admitted 
to be native—which have their northern limit on or near the Tay, 
and to the fact that some of them have not an uninterrupted distri¬ 
bution from the south up to the Tay, is there any real reason for 
supposing that the Butomus is not a true native with us? It may be 
argued that, if it is indigenous, it would have been discovered long 
before Colonel Drummond Hay found it, twenty or thirty years ago. 
To those who know the Tay marshes there cannot be much force in 
this argument. Till quite recently they have not been subjected to 
anything like a thorough exploration, and many parts of them had 
probably never been visited by any botanist. Since they have been 
to a certain extent exhaustively examined, a number of species, whose 
occurrence was never suspected, have been found. Moreover, the 
Butomus is a plant which is not easily detected at a distance, except 
when it is in flower, and as a rule it grows in those places which are 
the least accessible, and hence, even when in flower, might readily 
escape observation. It must also be remembered that it occurs here 
and there over a considerable extent of the river—six or seven miles 
perhaps,—and that from Mr. Bennett’s observations, as noted above, 
it is not naturally a fast-spreading species. It would therefore appear 
to be at least an old inhabitant of the Tay, even if it is not contem¬ 
poraneous with the native plants; but the evidence is, I think, in 
favour of its being indigenous. 
With regard to the habitat near Guay, the supposition of inten¬ 
tional introduction cannot, I think, be entertained for a moment ; 
neither can any theory of escape from ornamental waters in the neigh¬ 
bourhood, for there are none. The stations on the lower Tay where 
the plant grows may possibly have been derived from the one at 
Guay, but that seems to be very improbable, and it is much more 
likely that the latter has been supplied from them. It seems just 
as probable, however, that at Guay we have the relics of a former 
more extended distribution of the species. 
[Since the above was written I have heard that the Butomus is estab¬ 
lished in the Stormontfield Ponds, which are situated on the east 
bank of the Tay below Stanley. The history of the plant in this 
place is as follows — Mr. Thomas Marshall, of Stanley, took a plant 
from Loch Cluny in 1861 or 1862, and grew it in his aquarium 
in Glasgow. In 1864 he brought the aquarium with him to the 
Ponds, where it shortly afterwards got broken. To save the Butomus 
he planted it at the Ponds, where it has since continued to flourish. 
Now, since the plant was not discovered in the Tay marshes till 
1869, it is of course possible that it may have reached them from 
Stormontfield, but, looking at the whole circumstances of the case, 
I do not think that it is probable.] 
