The Rev. Dr. Hincks on the Flora of Ireland. 5 



Hudson published his Flora Anglica, that British botanists 

 had a systematic manual, but are we therefore to regard the 

 works of preceding botanists as useless ? An improved edi- 

 tion appeared in 1778 5 and Lightfoot's Flora Scotica, the first 

 respecting the peculiar botany of Scotland which I have yet 

 traced, appeared in 1777? the work, be it recollected, of an En- 

 glishman, at the instigation and even the expense of a native 

 of Wales, Mr. Pennant. From this time the progress of the 

 science was rapid; in 1786 Dr. Withering published his 

 " Botanical Arrangement" in English, and shortly before or 

 soon after commenced Curtis's Flora Londinensis and Bo- 

 tanical Magazine, Smith and Sowerby's English Botany (in- 

 cluding Scotland and Ireland), and the Transactions of the 

 Linnaean Society. Previous to 1780 botany could have made 

 little progress in Great Britain, except amongst scientific 

 men, though the dawn of a brighter day of botanical science 

 may be observed in the records of the period immediately 

 preceding. My business however is with Ireland ; and I shall 

 first inquire what had been done towards a botanical know- 

 ledge of that country previous to 1780 ; and then whether it 

 accompanied England in its advance, or by unaccountable and 

 shameful neglect, left all to be done, and by strangers, within 

 the last few years. 



We have no records of the first discoverers, but we know 

 that a Rev. Mr. Heaton communicated the names of plants 

 he had found to How and Merret, and that, probably through 

 him, those plants which at present constitute the most re- 

 markable difference of the Flora of this island from that of 

 Great Britian, were known and recorded long before the time 

 of Threlkeld. In 1727 appeared the first list of Irish plants, 

 except what may possibly exist in the Irish language. I will 

 not repeat the slighting terms in which this work is spoken 

 of, but by giving a fuller account of his work, show that the 

 distinguished Robert Brown did not estimate the author of it 

 too highly when he thought him deserving of a place amongst 

 the promoters of botanical knowledge. I allude to the cir- 

 cumstance of his having called a genus of plants by his name, 

 which he would hardly have done if he considered his work 

 so useless as some regard it. The title was " Synopsis Stir- 

 pium Hibernicarum, &c. &c, being a short treatise of native 

 plants, especially such as grow spontaneously in the vicinity 

 of Dublin, with their Latin, English, and Irish names, and an 

 abridgement of their virtues, with several new discoveries ; 

 with an appendix of observations made upon plants by Dr. 

 Molyneux, Physician to the State in Ireland." The modest 

 motto prefixed is, * Est quiddam prodire tenus si non detur 



