the Forth Naturalist Historian - Forth Naturalist and Historian ...

68 G. H. Ballantyne
His first excursion was to Callander Crags, where he found two species new
to him in a living state. The number of new species was increased by
subsequent walks, causing him to comment that the Crags were “exceedingly
good bramble ground”. He also explored the immediate countryside around
the town and went to the shores of Lochs Venachar, Lubnaig, Earn, Tay and the
Lake of Menteith, and, albeit briefly, further afield to Oban, Balloch and the
Edinburgh area. At several of these localities he came across brambles he was
unable to name, while confirming the identities of some that he had seen in a
pressed state. Specimens of those that he had difficulty with were subsequently
sent to the leading German batalogist of the day, Dr W. O. Focke, so that by the
end of 1896 he had names for most. However, bramble nomenclature was still
in a very muddled state then and it has taken a long time to sort out just what
Rogers did and did not find. This is not a criticism of him, for he was a first-class
observer and interpreter as his Handbook of the British Rubi (1900) shows, but a
reflection on just how difficult it was to assign meaningful names then.
Although I first visited the Callander district in search of local brambles in
1981 and the Stirling area in the late 1980s, it was not until 1998 that I was able
to follow in Rogers’ tracks to any extent. A full hundred years has seen many
changes, of course, with much habitat loss, but with the exception of the first
four species in the following list there were probably as many bushes around
as in Rogers’ day, if not all exactly in the same stations. Brambles are pretty
resilient and liable to persist for long periods! The Crags were an immediate
success, as had been the case with Rogers: on my first half hour’s walk I saw
no fewer than nine species, followed by a further five not long afterwards – a
large total for a Scottish site. With the facility for much faster travel than in
Rogers’ time, I was able to add to that figure from the various lochs in the
vicinity, so that in a single day I came across as many species as he had in about
a week. A visit to Killin (Mid Perth, VC 88) confirmed my suspicion that,
despite Rogers’ implication to the contrary, the west end of Loch Tay was not
good for brambles, although I did have the satisfaction of clearing up a longstanding
query over the identity of ‘R. macrophyllus’ (q.v., below). Loch Earn
proved much more productive, with a total of 14 species; the contrast between
the comparatively developed north shore and the single track south side
(except near St Fillans) was marked, with the latter presumably being not too
dissimilar to what it was like when Rogers explored it. What he called R.
britannicus now R. pictorum Edees was very showy in several parts round the
loch. A third trip, to the Lake of Menteith and Aberfoyle and thence to Loch
Lubnaig and Balquidder completed my 1998 retracing of Rogers’ footsteps
although of course I could not go to exactly everywhere he went. These later
outings added fewer new species, naturally, but verified several of Rogers’
finds and elucidated the identities of others. Coupled with my previous Stirling
visits I was pleased to refind nearly all his species and, in time and with help,
to establish the precise identities of most.
During the twentieth century, and particularly in its second half, there have
been many alterations to the names of the brambles on the British list. This has
been due both to research demonstrating that a lot of continental names had