68 The Irish Naturalist. March, 



POLYGONUM MITE AT LOUGH NHAGH. 



BY J. H. DAVIES- 



(Extract from a paper ''On the Botany of the Shores of Though Neagh," 

 read before the Belfast Nat. Hist, and Phil. Society, December nth, 

 1900). 



The interest belonging to the occurrence of Polygonum 

 Mite, Schrank, at Lough Neagh — where it was my good 

 fortune to meet with it this year (1900) on both the County 

 Antrim and Count)' Armagh margins — consists in its being 

 a very rare plant in Ireland. When the second edition of 

 Cybele Hibernica was published there was only one .station, 

 Lough Ramor, Co. Cavan, where, in 1897, -it was discovered 

 by Mr. Praeger ; but the same botanist has since met with it 

 hi Co. Leitrim (Jr. Nat., vol. ix., p. 144). It is also a scarce 

 plant in England, being recorded in Topographical Botany for 

 only sixteen 1 of the one hundred and twelve counties and vice- 

 counties of Cybele Brilannica; and it is not known in Scotland 

 nor in Wales. Between the mouth of the Sixmilewater and 

 Shane's Castle, on the Co. Antrim shore, there is an extent of 

 sandy and gravelly ground, on which, in August last, I 

 noticed a plant which I suspected to be this species ; but it 

 was so stunted in growth, by reason of being half-buried in 

 sand thrown up by the waves, as to make identification un- 

 certain. Revisiting the place about three weeks later, when 

 the water that had been raised to an unusually high level by 

 recent floods had subsided, sufficient specimens were obtained 

 to satisfy me that it was the plant at first supposed. Later, 

 in the month of October, when rambling round Raughlan 

 Point, on the Co. Armagh side of the lake, I was further 

 rejoiced to meet with it in soil having much the same 

 character as that on which it was first seen ; the plant, in the 

 present instance, being very plentiful and well developed. 

 The nature of the ground there seems conducive to the 

 growth of Polygon a. In a very small area there were no 



1 The latest census (London Cat., 9th ed.) says twenty vice-counties,-^ 

 Eds. 



