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

74 G. H. Ballantyne
(BELLARDIANI)/CAESII = CORYLIFOLII
The Corylifolian group was not well understood in Rogers’ day and it still
causes many problems, as demonstrated by his exclusion from it of two of its
most prominent Scottish members, R. latifolius and R. pictorum.
R. latifolius Bab.: Babington described this species in 1851 from specimens
he gathered at Cramond Bridge, just west of Edinburgh. Forty-five years later
Rogers made a special trip there but found the bramble to be “in very small
quantity”. This is rather surprising as it is, along with R. radula, the dominant
species in east and south Scotland. It occurs in a variety of forms, one or two of
which may deserve a new name in time. Rogers placed it under the series
Suberecti, although in his Handbook he has it in the Subrhamnifolii series a
group no longer recognised. His uncertainty is expressed in the account of his
visit to Stirling: “On the Castle rock I saw both R. corylifolius Sm. and
R. caesius L. (sp. collect.). A bush or two or more of the R. corylifolius seemed
fairly good R. sublustris of Lees, which may be regarded as typical corylifolius
[=, in Scotland, R. latifolius], but most of the bushes were, I think,
uncharacteristic, while some of them looked like hybrids of R. corylifolius and
R. caesius. R. caesius itself I saw there …“ (1897b). This succinctly sums up the
position of R. latifolius today. (It should be noted that Rogers’ last observation
is an error, as in Scotland the true dewberry occurs only in the extreme SW;
some low-growing forms of latifolius can mimic it.)
R. britannicus Rogers = R. pictorum Edees: “A strong, very handsome
bramble in sunny places, and, I believe, a well-marked distinct species” seen “in
considerable quantity” by Rogers. It is indeed the commonest bramble in midcentral
Scotland, found in a variety of habitats and often the only one to be
encountered, catching the eye with its masses of white blooms in mid summer.
Rogers placed it in the Bellardiani, now Glandulosi. Watson (1958) was also
confused by it, putting it under his own R. iodnephes, and allocating it to the
Dispares, now Anisacanthi. In 1982, what had been dubbed ‘false iodnephes’ for
some years was put out of its misery by Edees, who named it R. pictorum, after
the ancient Scottish people.
Mention is made earlier of two recent determinations of R. wirralensis A.
Newton under rhamnifolius and nemoralis. Several brambles collected in 1998,
notably from the sides of Lochs Venachar and Achray, have proved to be R.
wirralensis (det D. E. Allen) which seems to be widespread in the Trossachs.
and reaches Stirling. Only one other bramble was found which was not listed
by Rogers under one name or another, viz. R. elegantispinosus (A. Schum.)
H. E. Weber, a clump of which was growing by a car park on the east side of
Loch Lubnaig. This is of comparatively recent garden origin and is now
thoroughly established in the central belt and is spreading rapidly.
In addition to the 34 taxa in his two lists. Rogers gives a further 25 recorded
from Scotland, leaving “fifty-five species and thirty-six varieties of British Rubi
… still unrecorded from any part of Scotland”. The 59 taxa mentioned by him,
together with the vice-comital list given in an Appendix to the Handbook of