BACK PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETY FROM 1849 TO 1866. 



BEPRINTKD BY RESOLUTION OF THE SOCIETY. 



Part I.— BOTANY. 

 JUNE, 1852. 



NOTES OF A BOTANICAL EXCURSION IN CLARE. BY REV. T. o'mAHONY. 



In hastily putting together the following brief notes of an excursion which 

 my esteemed friend Mr. Whitla and myself made through parts of the county of 

 Clare, about the end of last July, my object has been merely to bring under the 

 notice of your Society a few plants which, I believe, are new to the Flora of Ire- 

 land, and to record the discovery of some of our rarer plants in places not gene- 

 rally regarded as habitats. To this object 1 shall confine myself; for though 

 strongly tempted to dwell at some length on the magnificent coast and mountain 

 scenery of those districts we visited, and on the interesting antiquarian remains 

 scattered everywhere throughout the country, I feel such subjects would be out 

 of place in a meeting like this; while the consciousness of my own inexperience 

 as a botanist warns me to abstain both from entering minutely into a description 

 of these plants, and from attempting an enumeration, strictly scientific, of the 

 rich floral treasures which the county of Clare, and more especially the barony 

 of Burren, displays to the eye of the naturalist. I shall only observe, that the 

 lover of wild scenery, the antiquarian, and the naturalist, could all find there 

 enough to gratify their respective tastes, I shall first present to your notice a 

 species of Epipactis evidently differing from any of those described in our Floras, 

 both in its mode of inflorescence and in its place of growth. Mr. Whitla is in- 

 clined to consider it as identical with Epipactis ovalis of Babington. I do not 

 feel myself competent to give an opinion on the subject, not having had an op- 

 portunity of consulting such works as would enable me to speak definitely with 

 regard to it; but now that it has been submitted to you, I hope some one of 

 our eminent botanists — and I am happy to say we can boast of many such in 

 Dublin — will examine the plant and ascertain its true specific designation. As 

 I have said, it differs no less in its external characters from the other species of 

 Epipactis hitherto known as natives, than it does in the peculiarity of the posi- 

 tion where alone we met with it, near the very summit of one of the highest lime- 

 stone mountains in Burren— in the immediate vicinity of the Arbutus uva-ursi 

 and the Juniperus communis. While these last named plants love the somewhat 

 moist hollows between prominent ridges of loose rock, the Epipactis springs up 

 fearlessly on the very surface of the loose ridge, exposed to every wind, and to- 

 tally unprotected. I cannot well describe the exact nature of the ground, but 

 such gentlemen as have been in the district, and have seen the native haunts of 

 the Arbutus uva-ursi, are aware of the particular kind of limestone ridges, with 

 surface broken and chinky, that are to be found there running along the sides of 

 the higher mountains. On such ridges, among stones that can be separated 

 without much difficulty, and that, when removed, rattle over each other with a 

 peculiar metallic kind of ringing sound, the Epipactis, of which you have speci- 

 mens before you, grows in tolerable abundance. It was in flower when we found 

 it, in the last week of July — the flower of a deep purple. The slope on which it 



