March, 1923. The Irish Naturalist. 



21 



THE STUDY OF COMMON WILD FLOWERS: 

 A PLEA FOR CLOSER INVESTIGATION. 



BY C. B. MOFFAT, B.A., M.R.I. A. 



[Read before the Dublin Naturalists' Field Club, 



II January, 1923]. 



I THINK I may be allowed to occupy a small part of your 

 time in inviting your attention to some of the fields of study 

 that I think are open to the most amateur investigators 

 in the study of common plants. 



The late Mr. Colgan, in some letters he wrote to me just 

 a year before his lamented death, informed me that he was 

 comparing a number of common plants with the descriptions 

 given of them in standard works on botany, and was struck 

 with the degree to which they often failed to correspond. 

 In some cases the points on which he found disagreement 

 are such as would need the eye of an expert botanist to 

 follow up the inquiry. For instance Mr. CoJgan found 

 that che fruit of the common Yellow Bedstraw (Galium 

 verum), which is described in the standard manuals (Babing- 

 ton's, for instance) as glabrous, is in County Dublin specimens 

 wrinkled when ripe ; and some heads that I sent him from 

 Co. Wexford were in this respect similar to the Dublin 

 ones ; but I think microscopic investigation would have 

 to be undertaken by those who wish to follow up an inquiry 

 on this subject. In other cases, however, the field of 

 in\'estigation is open to everybody. Mr. Colgan was 

 particularly struck with the fact that the common Bird's- 

 foot Trefoil [Lotus corniculatus) is described in the leading 

 manuals as having from five to ten flowers in a head. (This 

 is the statement in Babington's Manual, Groves' edition, 

 1904, while in Bentham's Handbook the estimate is still 

 higher, and the umbels are said to be of " from five or six 

 to twice that number of bright yellow flowers ".) Whereas 

 in Mr. Colgan 's own experience the number of flowers 



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