48 PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 



covered with the rich brown tufts of a Hy drums, one of the forms of 

 Palmellacean AlgaB, probably If. Vaucherii, Kuetz. The same species 

 occurs in the river Lea, as it issues from Gouganbarra Lake, in the west 

 of the county of Cork ; and I have noticed and collected it abundantly 

 in streams near Lenane, in Galway, at high elevations on the Tonabrick 

 mountains. 



Singularly enough, the immediate neighbourhood of Lac d'Estom 

 also furnished me with specimens o£ Pinguicula grandiflora, another Irish 

 plant whose restricted distribution in the south-west of our island has 

 always attracted the notice of the botanist. Familiar as I have been with 

 its appearance in the neighbourhood of Cork, where it reaches its most 

 eastern British habitat, I was much gratified by detecting it in this re- 

 mote locality, probably near its original centre of creation. The theory 

 of Professor Forbes recurred to my recollection, and I recognised in 

 this lonely flower a satisfactory corroboration of his ingenious specula- 

 tions on the distribution of plant life, and the parentage of our British 

 Flora. 



Close to Lac d'Estom I also obtained fine specimens of Aspidium lon- 

 eJtitis, a beautiful fern, only known to British botanists by rare specimens 

 occurring on the highest mountains of Scotland and Ireland, and in 

 England and Wales confined to one county in each. Of this species, and 

 AUosoros crispus, I here collected several roots, which have survived the 

 journey homewards, and are now alive in the garden of Queen's College, 

 Cork. 



I must not forget to mention one redeeming feature in the rude 

 chaos of rocks and stones which surrounded the Lac d'Estom, — the nu- 

 merous little groves of Rhododendron ferrugineum, which formed little 

 •oases of green amidst the gray waste around. I was too late to see 

 this beautiful shrub in full perfection, but the brilliant crimson of the 

 few remaining flowers strikingly contrasted with the dull green of its 

 foliage, and told with what splendour it must, at an earlier season, have 

 decorated its desert home. 



The immediate neighbourhood of Cauteretz furnished me with 

 valuable additions to my herbarium, too numerous to be here noted in 

 detail. I. may, however, mention a few of the more common and con- 

 spicuous plants, that must, from their home rarity and beauty, attract 

 the attention of any one accustomed only to the Flora of the British 

 Isles. Dianthus monspessulanus, with its pink circlet of fimbriated 

 petals, was everywhere abundant; the deep blue of Prunella grandiflora, 

 and the paler hue of Viola cornuta, adorned every little thicket, and the 

 membranous bracts of Astrantia major shone conspicuously in the mea- 

 dows. The campanulas were equally numerous in the woods; the 

 mountain denies were green with the singular Cynanchum vincetozicum, 

 while the rocks were profusely covered with Saxifrages and Sedums, 

 many of the species found only on our highest mountains, and rare even 

 there, or else quite unknown to our Flora. 



Not being able to ascend to the loftier summits of the mountains 

 around, I sought for some local botanist who could aid me in procuring 



