ioo The Irish Naturalist. September, 



BOTANICAL NOTES FROM S.E. WEXFORD. 



BY A. W. STELFOX, M.R.I. A. 



In July last I spent a few days in Co. Wexford with the 

 intention of collecting Hymenoptera, but the weather was 

 so unpropitious, dull, cold and stormy, that my attentions 

 not unnaturally wandered towards the vegetable kingdom. 

 Staying at Rosslare the dunes there naturally absorbed a 

 good deal of my time. The golf links is certainly a sporting 

 one, J uncus acutus acting as an excellent " bunker," while 

 the sward of the " greens " consists to a very large extent 

 of Er odium maritimum. The fringe of dunes between the 

 links and sea, is richly decorated with Pastinaca sativa, the 

 Common Parsnip, and at one spot I found a great colony 

 of a pretty little Evening Primrose, which was very fragrant 

 towards dusk. Miss Knowles has identified this as Oenothera 

 odorata Jacq., a South American species (Chili, Patogonia, 

 &c.) which has occasionally been found as an alien in Great 

 Britain. 



I failed to find Trifolium glomeratmn recorded by the 

 late E. S. Marshall as abundant in two sandy fields " near 

 Rosslare House " ; but Trigonella ornithopodioides seemed 

 common. Orchis pyramidalis is thinly scattered over the 

 dunes, but 0. ericetorum and 0. incarnata are confined to 

 the damper hollows where Salix repens grows. 



A short visit to the marshes west of Rosslare for Orchids 

 3/ielded only 0. incarnata and 0. Fuchsii. 



I spent a day at Carnsore Point and the south-eastern 

 corner of Lady's Island Lake and of course went to see 

 Diotis candidissima on the shingle between the lake and 

 the sea. At the present time there is nearly an acre of it 

 about a quarter of a mile west of the old outlet of the lake. 

 East of this now filled up channel I found a Dodder {Cuscuta 

 sp.) not then in flower. It grew profusely in one place on 

 Lotus corniculatus and Galium verum ; more sparingly in 

 another spot on Thymus Serpyllum. This plant — assuming 

 it to be C. Epithymum — always seems to me to be native. 

 If an alien why is it not of more frequent appearance 

 amongst crops, like Orobanche minor, and why does it seem 

 to prefer coastal districts where local and unquestionably 

 native plants are usually to be found ? 



