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

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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$1 niANDlUA.] 3. Eriophorum angustifolium. Common Cotton-grass. Root of numerous fibres. Stem leafy, roundish, more than a foot high. Leaves rather long, sheathing, Imear, triangu- lar, grooved at the base. Spikelets five or six, upon stalks of unequal length, and having, at the base, two or three leaves, one longer than the rest. Scales brown, with a pale edge. Hairs long, at least thrice the length of the spike. Bogs and muddy places ; common.—Near Aberdeen, at Nigg ; Old-Town Links, &c. &c. Upon the mountains of Clova (850 yards high) and Braemar ; and in the northern ])art of Sutherland. Mr. Watson.—Ross- shire, where the genus is much esteemed by shepherds for afford- ing early pasture. Mr. J. C. Smith. Perennial—flowering in May. Obs.—This genus is well marked by the character whence comes the name—from 'eptoj/, wool, and t/jepw, / hear. The single spike sufficiently separates the two first species^from the 3d; and, indeed, this character may be deemed pretty con- clusive of the species being the 2d, as the chance against this is so small, that it scarcely deserves to be taken into practical ac- count. It is an obvious enough general rule (not, however, neces- sary in the present instance), that where, in consideration of the characters of a plant, we are equally divided between two species, one of which is rare and the other common, the chances are greatly in favour of its being the latter. It is said that the first species has disappeared from the neighbourhood of Forfar; nor is it certain that it ever occurred in any other spot of British ground—a re- markable enough fact, considering that there is no doubt of its hav- ing been seen in the station alluded to, both by Mr. R. Brown and Mr. Geo. Don. Smith thinks it strange that so mountainous a plant as E. vayinatum s\\ov\^ have been found at Croydon. It is certainly not an alpine species with us, but common enough throughout the north, usually at the ordinary level of the district. Having failed to meet with any many-spiked Eriophorum, differing, with certaintv, from E. angustifolium, the writer of these remarks ventured, at one time, to suspect that, in Scotland, we have in reality but one species with several spikes; and that the differing lengths of the hairs of the seed might be owing to the different stages of the plants ; but this conjecture rests upon no satisfactory foundation. Indeed, judging from the figures of Vaillant and Sowerby, E. angustifolium is abund- antly distinct from the polystachion. Questions, however, about the limits of species are more seductive than important, and I would say, shortly, that, as the northern botanist may pretty safelv refer any single-spiked Eriophorum to the vaginaium ', so will he seldom err in considering every many-spiked species as E. angustifolium, though it is possible that others, especially the potystachion (cha-$