I899-.1 Matricaria discoidea hi West Ireland. 223 



As Mr. Colgan has referred to further stations recently 

 discovered for Matricaria discoidea, some more definite informa- 

 tion concerning them may be useful. I first met with the 

 plant this year on June 10, when it turned up on the roadside 

 near Carrick-on-Shannon railway station, in Roscommon, and 

 the same afternoon I found it again on the railway at 

 Ballaghaderreen, East Mayo. Next day it appeared again> 

 this time in Co. Sligo, growing in profusion on roadsides at 

 Ballysadare, on the southern side of the river, half a mile from 

 the railway. On my way back to Dublin I saw it in profusion 

 about the cattle-platforms at Ballinasloe. On July 2 I found 

 it in immense abundance along the railway at Athlone, 

 especially about the cattle-platforms on the Roscommon side, 

 more sparingly on the Westmeath side, and next day it was 

 seen swarming about the cattle-platforms at Mullingar, 

 extending to the road and canal bank adjoining. It turned up 

 at Tuam on July 15, growing by roadsides on the western 

 outskirts of the town, well removed from the railway, where 

 it was quite absent. On August 25 I found it by a bye-road 

 near a cottage four miles north-east of Galway — a spot remote 

 from any railway or port ; and lastly, on August 30, it was 

 noticed forming a close carpet on the fair-green at Clara, 

 King's Co. 



That this alien is thoroughly established in Ireland is beyond 

 a doubt. Its present head-quarters are the towns from the 

 centre to the west coast, the original station in Dublin being 

 quite an outlier. Its favourite haunts are cattle-platforms and 

 railway tracks in the vicinity of stations, and in such situations 

 it often occurs in immense profusion, forming a close green 

 carpet and crushing out all other vegetation. So far it has 

 not been reported from Ulster, nor have the vigilant botanists 

 of the South yet given notice of its arrival in Munster. It 

 appears to be still absent from the South-east, as I saw it 

 nowhere during a good many days spent in Waterford, 

 Kilkenny, and Carlow. A census shows that this plant is 

 now known to grow in nine out of the forty Irish county- 

 divisions, six of these belonging to Connaught, and three to 



L,einster. 



R. Li<oyd Praeger. 



Dublin. 



