The Heriot of Ramornie annotated copy of Flora Glottiana: an early nineteenth-century Flora of Fife

Abstract

The ownership of a copy of Flora Glottiana heavily annotated in the 1810s is discussed. The annotations are attributed to James Heriot ( né Maitland) or his wife Margaret ( née Dalgleish), owners of the estate of Ramornie in Fife. The marginalia turn the volume into a local Flora for Fife, vice-county (vc) 85; some of the more interesting species records and their localities are discussed. Many of the localities are estates that belonged to Maitland or Dalgleish relations, suggesting that botanical recording formed part of a network of familial and social interactions. Such links went beyond Scotland and connections with India are discussed, as is the question of how the volume ended up in the ownership of John Hutton Balfour.