Volume 9 - Electric Scotland

BOTANICAL NOTES AND NEWS 57
Scotland in which he had found sativa ; and stated that he had not
seen an example of vulgaris from Scotland. In the "Flora of
Dumfries," published a few years ago by Mr. Scott-Elliott, vulgaris
is mentioned as having been gathered in Wigtownshire in 1872 by
Mr. F. R. Coles ;
and in the " Flora of Perthshire " Dr. F. Buchanan
White (in
MS. written probably about 1890) says
it "has been
noticed in several places, and is
probably widely diffused."
I have been on the watch for it since 1875 m tne north-east of
Scotland; but unsuccessfully until 1894. In that year, in August, I
found two or three plants growing on the filled-up bed of the river
Dee, among the numerous strangers of which I have given some
account several times in this journal in " A Florula of a Piece of
Waste Ground." I next met with a few plants in a turnip-field in
the parish of Nigg, a mile or two south of Aberdeen, in September
1896, and one plant, a few days later, on the site of a road-metal
heap at Persley, about two miles north-west of Aberdeen. I did
not again find it until September 1899, when I came on one plant
beside the river Dee, at Cults, about four miles west of Aberdeen,
and two or three on rubbish thrown down to fill a sandpit close to
Old Aberdeen. It will be observed that I have not seen vulgaris in
Scotland earlier than the month of August and I have not found it
;
bearing ripe seeds in noticeable quantity until nearly the end of
September or in October. It thus appears to be markedly later
than sativa in ripening its seeds but that will ; scarcely account for
the remarkable abundance of sativa and the scarcity of vulgaris in
Scotland. Both are so completely weeds of cultivation in Scotland
that one cannot doubt their introduction by human agency. If we
look to their distribution beyond our islands, sativa is the more
northern in its chief prevalence, though the two overlap so largely
that it is scarcely warrantable to attribute the scarcity of vulgaris in
Scotland to merely climatic conditions. May
it not be that the
prevalence of sativa indicates a northern source in Europe for the
plants cultivated in Scotland in earlier times. Near Aberdeen, at
any rate, vulgaris seems even now to be more a casual than a
colonist. It would be interesting to know whether it has been
observed elsewhere in Scotland than in the four counties noted
above (Wigtown, Perth, Kincardine, S. Aberdeen), and, if so,
under what conditions. The sticky gland hairs giving a gray tint to
the green of sativa are in so marked contrast to the nearly hairless
bright green of vulgaris, that the latter plant readily catches the eye
as different from the former. If the seeds are ripe or nearly ripe,
there can be no difficulty
in arriving at certainty ;
the black, merely
rough seeds of sativa, ringed with a paler membranous wing, being
very different from the wingless seeds of vulgaris covered with short
clubbed hairs or papillas, the tips of which are at first pale (and then
contrast with the dark seed), but become darker as the seed grows