1912. CoLGAN, — Burnt Liround Flora of Killiney. 75 



Scorodonia — occurred both as seedlings and as fresh shoots, 

 •so that five species, all of them perennials as might have been 

 •expected, succeeded in living through the fire in their 

 old stations. 



The survival of these perennial root -stocks offers nothing 

 very worthy of notice ; but the appearance along with their 

 renascent shoots of numerous seedlings belonging to eleven 

 ■distinct species raises a question of considerable interest. 

 Are we to assume that the seeds of all of these eleven species 

 w^ere somehow conveyed to the burnt ground areas after the 

 fire from adjoining areas untouched by the fire ? And, if not, 

 how many and which of them may wc conclude to have 

 sprung from seeds which lived through the fire in the areas 

 where they appeared as seedlings after the fire ? Three out 

 •of the eleven species, Senecio vulgaris, S. sylvaticus and 

 Sonchus oleraceus, since they grow freely all round the burnt 

 areas and have seeds provided with highly efficient con- 

 trivances for seed dispersal, may, with little fear of contra- 

 diction, be assumed to have migrated to the burnt ground. 

 With one exception, the Gorse (Ulex europaeus), none of the 

 remaining eight species possesses any very efficient means of 

 seed dispersal, for the elastic pods of Cardumine hirsuta can 

 project the seeds for only a few inches. In the case of 

 the Gorse, however, it is by no means improbable that the 

 seeds found germinating on the burnt areas were forcibly 

 discharged from the Gorse bushes that bore them by the 

 action of the fire on their elastic pods, and this explosive 

 discharge may have projected the seeds from the active 

 fire zone to an adjoining burnt area where the fire had already/ 

 spent itself. 



We are not, then, coerced to the conclusion that the Gorse 

 seeds lived through the fire in the very spots where they were 

 found germinating less than two months after the fire. Are 

 we coerced to such a conclusion in the case of the remaining 

 seven species found on the burnt ground in the seedling- 

 stage, i.e., Cardamine hirsuta, Potentilla Tormeniilla, Galium 

 saxatile, Glechoma hederacea, Teucrium Scorodonia, Ana- 

 oallis arvensis and Rumex Acetosella ? I think not, and for 

 the following reasons. The seeds of most of these species 



