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Page 410, middle of page, for "July 1" read "July 10."
Pages 428 and 429, for "Plate XII." read " Plate XII.*"
Lithographed Plate No. XVI. should be No. XII.

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TRANSACTIONS

OF THE

BOTANICAL SOCIETY.

SESSION XLI.

9th November 1876.-Sir ROBERT CHRISTISON, Bart.,
President, in the Chair.

ALEXANDER BUCHAN, M.A., F.R.S.E., one of the VicePresidents, made the following introductory remarks :—

Having been asked by the Council to make a few opening remarks at this, the first meeting of the forty-first Session of the Society, I gladly avail myself of the opportunity to bring before the Members a proposal for a systematic inquiry by the Society into the influence of the sea on the distribution of plants. Of all influences affecting the distribution of species none is more potent than that of the sea. To determine this influence along the coast of the Firth of Forth, from North Berwick to Grangemouth, appears to be a perfectly practicable problem. Our intimate familiarity with the botany of this strip of coast,-thanks to Professor Balfour's Saturday class excursions, the comparative richness of the Flora, and the physical characteristics of this tract, embracing, as it does, a line of coast at the mouth of the Firth perfectly open to the influences of the sea, and thence westwards, presenting a series of districts, this influence in a more and more diminished degree, till at Grangemouth

TRANS. BOT. SOC. VOL. XIII.

A

it is but little felt, present facilities for the prosecution of this problem which it would be difficult to match.

The proposal I have to submit is this:

1. To select a number of widely and commonly distributed species which are known not to extend more than two miles from the sea, some of these species being limited to high-water mark, others a few yards inland from this line, and so on, as far as the line beyond which peculiarly sea-side plants cease to grow.

2. To survey the coast for each of the selected species with the view of collecting the data, which will serve to determine the distance from the sea where the species is found in most vigorous condition, and the extreme distance. at which they cease to grow.

3. To procure sets of Ordnance maps on the largest published scale, on which may be entered, in their positions, from time to time, the data so collected.

4. To appoint a committee to consider the whole subject, and report to a future meeting.

Such an inquiry would be valuable, not merely from the light which it would cast on some of the causes which determine the distribution of important classes of plants, but also on the indirect light which it is likely to throw on the influence of the sea on man himself. In working out the eminently practical problem of the curative influence of the sea in restoring vigour to a weakened constitution, and in alleviating, if not entirely removing active disease, the services of the meteorologist and chemist, as well as the physician, are no doubt required. We cannot but think, however, that we must look chiefly to the botanist in the first place following up some such line of inquiry as is here indicated, as likely to furnish an important contribution to this inquiry.

The following statement respecting the Members was read by the Chairman :

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