*S99-] 221 



MATRICARIA DISCOIDEA DC. IN WEST IRELAND. 



BY NATHANIEL COLGAN, M.R.I.A. 

 With a note by R. Lloyd Prarger, B.E., M.R.I.A, 



When recording the first recognition of this North American 

 alien in a wild state in Ireland some five years ago (I.N., vol. 

 iii., p. 215), the opinion was hazarded that the plant had come 

 to stay with us. Further observations made this year in the 

 Co. Mayo show that this opinion was justified. Driving into 

 Westport from L,eenane on the 20th July last, I found the 

 roadsides about half a mile from the town in the direction of 

 Knappa lined with a luxuriant growth of the plant, and on 

 passing through the town it re-appeared in great abundance on 

 the open space between the head of the Mall and the railway 

 station, spreading up to the station, where it occupied the 

 goods platform and adjacent waste places. There was no 

 time available at Westport to examine the town and its 

 outlets ; but at Newport, which was reached the same evening, 

 I made a few days' stay for the purpose of exploring some of 

 the higher points of the Mayo mountains, and so had ample 

 opportunity of searching for this interesting but unlovely 

 stranger. Here it seemed to have become even more firmly 

 established than at Westport. It turned up first of all at the 

 railway station and its approaches, next appeared in profusion 

 on waste ground by the river near the new railway bridge, 

 and again in greater profusion along the grass-grown quays 

 whence it continued at intervals all along the road skirting 

 the O'Donel demesne. On walking out to Borrishoole, some 

 two miles from the town, the plant was observed, abundantly 

 in many places, along the main-road and the bye-road leading 

 to the old abbey. On another grass-grown bye-road branching 

 off northward from the main-road it spread in profusion for a 

 distance of nearly a quarter of a mile, and scattered plants 

 continued to appear along the main road to beyond Deraddha, 

 fully three miles out of Newport. In another direction, along 

 the road leading north-east to Eough Beltra, the plant was traced 



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