February, 1912 The Irish NaUifalist, 29 



NOTES ON WEST GALWAY LICHENS. , 



BY M. C. KNOWLES. 



Last summer I spent a fortnight in West Galway with 

 some friends who had rented Cleggan House for the month 

 of August. During my visit I did some desultory collecting 

 among the Lichens and Flowering Plants. I shall deal only 

 with the results of my Lichen collecting in this short paper. 

 These have turned out much more interesting than I 

 expected. 



County Galway, Mr. Adams' Ci, is the best worked for 

 Lichens of the 12 sub -provinces into which he divides 

 Ireland, having a total of 466 recorded species. Our know- 

 ledge of the Lichens of this district is due chiefly to Charles 

 Larbalastier, though Wade, Isaac Carroll, and other Irish 

 botanists have also contributed to it, but in a lesser degree. 

 In the seventies of last century Larbalastier made several 

 tours in Connemara and one has only to turn over the leaves 

 of the Lichen Floras of the British Isles to see that he found 

 it a veritable mine of new and interesting species. Leighton 

 in the Introduction to the 3rd edition of his " Lichen Flora 

 of Great Britain " refers to " the marvellous discoveries of 

 Mr. Larbalastier in the west of Ireland," and no wonder, 

 for in the body of the book more than 100 species are 

 recorded from Connemara, on his authority, that are found 

 nowhere else in the British Isles ; many of these being 

 species hitherto undescribed. As Kylemore, Letterfrack, 

 Renvyle, Ballynakill, &c., places within easy reach of 

 Cleggan, and Cleggan itself, occur frequently as the locali- 

 ties in which these new and rare Lichens were collected, I 

 did not expect to be able to add many rare species to those 

 already recorded. The earlier lichenologists, however, were 

 often more concerned with collecting rare species than with 

 noting the commoner ones, and a study of Mr. Adams' 

 paper "The Distribution of Lichens in Ireland" showed 

 me that such was the case in this district. I therefore turned 

 my attention to trying to find some of the species that were 

 not in the Connemara list, but of frequent or general oc- 



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