No Rum cover-up

John Raven's evidence that several of the rare plants discovered by John Heslop Harrison on Rum had been deliberately planted was not hushed up ("Trowels and tribulations", THES, July 9 ). It was published in a famous paper in Nature in 1949 that left no doubt about the situation. That Heslop Harrison's professional ignominy was not accompanied by more public humiliation tells us about the attitudes of the time, but does not indicate a conspiracy to cover up scientific fraud.

Alf Game Swindon