22 The Irish Naturalist. March, 



never exceeded five. Here we have certainly a disagree- 

 ment worth following up. I may state that I was able, in 

 reply to Mr. Colgan's request, to find a few heads of this 

 plant with as many as six flowers, but nothing to corroborate 

 such an estimate as " from five to ten," and nothing to 

 throw doubt on the vahdity of Mr. Colgan's finding so far 

 as the Counties Dublin and Wexford are concerned, that 

 five is the usual number of flowers on a good head. 



In looking into this matter, I was struck with the fact 

 that while botanists seem to have over-stated the number 

 of flowers proper to a head of Lotus corniculatus they have 

 under-stated those of the nearly allied Greater Bird's-foot 

 Trefoil {Lotus uliginosiis) , which is unfortunately not very 

 common about Dublin, though abundant in most parts 

 of Counties Wicklow and Wexford. Bentham describes 

 it as having onty from six to eight flowers per head. Babing- 

 ton more generously accords it from eight to twelve. In 

 Co. Wexford I found heads of twelve so plentiful as to make 

 Bentham 's estimate of from six to eight seem almost absurd. 

 I found also a few heads with fourteen flowers, a,nd I believe 

 that had I been in the country when the species was in its 

 fullest bloom I would probably have found such heads to 

 be fairly numerous. I cannot help thinking that questions 

 of this kind are worth more careful investigation, and that 

 they also make it appear probable that many similar ones 

 might be found equalh^ calling for more research. 



Another question in which it is known that Mr. Colgan 

 took extraordinary interest was that of the proper assign- 

 ment to different species of their characters as annuals, 

 perennials or biennials. In his ' Flora of County Dubhn " 

 he gives the results of his investigations so far as they were 

 completed when he wrote that book. I think his results 

 show that a great deal of further investigation is needed, 

 for although we will find in any of the leading manuals a 

 character under this heading assigned to each plant, we 

 not infrequently fi.nd that the best authorities differ, and 

 even when they agree, Mr. Colgan's investigations some- 

 times show that they have only agreed in being wrong. I 

 will take as instances of the singular contradictions proved 

 by a comparison of Mr. Colgan's results with the verdicts 



