Volume 9 - Electric Scotland

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY RECORDS OF SCOTTISH PLANTS 169
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY RECORDS OF
SCOTTISH PLANTS.
Communicated by Professor I. B. BALFOUR, M.A., M.D., F.R.S.
JOHN HOPE, W.S., of Moray Place, Edinburgh, who died in
1895, bequeathed to the Royal Botanic Garden a number of
botanical books, papers, and drawings which had belonged
to his grandfather John Hope, who was Regius Keeper of
the Garden from 1760-1781. The bequest, owing to the
well-known litigation which Mr. Hope's will provoked, has
only recently come into my care.
Amongst the MS. I find a small note-book containing a
number of records of date 1764 and 1765 of stations for
plants about Edinburgh and in other parts of Scotland. A
list such as this of eighteenth century records has many
features of interest, not only botanical, but also topographical,
and may find a fitting place of publication in the pages
of the "Annals of Scottish Natural History."
The writing of the MS. is not that of Dr. Hope, and I
am not at present able to suggest who was the writer ;
but
Dr. Hope has interpolated additional stations or queries on
places in
the book.
Upon the first page there is the heading, " A list of
plants as they were collected and prepared during the
year 1764, with ye place of growth." Dr. Hope has interpolated
the words " in flower " " "
after plants in the
heading an expression we must accept in its widest signification
as used by botanists in the eighteenth century, and as
referring to the sporiferous condition of Thallophytes as
well as to the flowers of Spermaphytes. The list continues
in calendar form from March 1764 until January 1765,
when a couple of pages are blank and the calendar recommences
with the date I4th May, and goes on until
;
3Oth October 1765, under the new heading, "A calendar
of plants as they were found and prepared in the year
1765." The first portion of the list is emphatically one
of plants in the vicinity of Edinburgh. There are in it but
a few records of stations far afield. The second portion of
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