The northern flora, or, A description of the wild plants belonging to the north and east of Scotland, with an account of their places of growth and properties. Part. 1 / by Alexander Murray.

Date:
1836
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The northern flora, or, A description of the wild plants belonging to the north and east of Scotland, with an account of their places of growth and properties. Part. 1 / by Alexander Murray. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    niAKD.UA.] U'flllCULARIA. placed upon separate stalks. Flowers yellowish ; the upper lip twice as long as the palate. Spur conical. In the same kind of places as the preceding, and, perhaps, as common.—About twelve miles from Aberdeen, at the edge of an old lake called the Loch of Drum, and in a stream which runs into it. Also, in the interior of Sutherland. Forfarshire, at the east end qf Rescobie Loch, three or four miles from Forfar ; also in Loch of Belgavies, and in pools near Guthrie, twelve miles west from Montrose. Dr. Balfour.— Elginshire, Loch of Spynie. Andersons Guide.—Bog on Ben- more, Assynt. Small loch two miles east of Farr Church. Jameson s Journal, Dec. 1827. Perennial—flowering in July. 3. Utricularia minor. Lesser Bladdey-wort. Leaves smooth at the edges, and bearing bladders. Flowers few and small, pale yellow, with a very short, blunt, keeled spur; upper lip about the length of the palate. Ditches and pools ; rare. Pool by roadside in Glen Clova, three or four miles north- east from Kirktown, not far from a small birch wood. Dr. Balfour.—Found in flower in a small pool near the base of Spickanconich, Assynt. Jameson's Journal, Oct. 1833.—Not in Mr. Stables's list of Moray plants. Perennial—flowering in July. Obs.—The species of this curious genus are aquatics, and, in the natural situation, their parts keep beautifully separate, but, on removal from the water, they fall together and become a shapeless mass. It is said that the bladders (which give the name to the genus—from utriculus, a little bladder) are at first filled with water, by which means the plant is kept at the bottom, until it is ready to flower, when the water gives place to air, and the plant rises to the surface. In the last stage the air disappears, the bladders become replenished with water, and the plant again falls to the bottom, where the seeds are ripened. Should the flower be met with (which, however, it has not been my own fortune to see, in any part of the tract to which this publication refers), attention to it, accord- ing to the marks given above, will be enough to decide the species ; but, independently of the flowers, it will be possible to determine the plant, as follows :—The 1st species may be always recognized by the large size, and by the leaves being minutely fringed and sup- porting the little bladders. In the 2d, the bladders are not mixed with the leaves, but placed upon distinct stalks, and the plant is more leafy, with the segments broader, and, so far as I have observed, of a paler green ; while the last species is known by its small size, and smooth leaves which support the bladder-like bodies. In this genus the shoots are occasionally terminated by gemmce or buds, having the appearance of a roundish mass of short hair or wool. These were at one time considered a means of propagation peculiar
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