1898.] 7 



BPII.OBIUM ROSEUM, SCHR. NATIVE IN IREIvAND. 



BY J. H. DAVIES. 



lyATK in the season as it is — October, 1897 — I have just now 

 had the satisfaction of finding this Willow-herb in both the 

 counties of Down and Antrim. In the former it occurs on a 

 wall, overshadowed by a hedge, at Ballyskeagh, close by the 

 bridge over the I^agan Canal ; in the latter, in an old plan- 

 tation by the River Lagan at Glenmore, and also by a stream- 

 side not far away, on a moist shady wall overgrown with 

 Chrysosplenium oppositifolium and Marchantia polymorpha ; 

 and in all these places it is associated with the ubiquitous E. 

 viojitaniim. That the .species in both counties is truly native, 

 there seems nothing to suggest the slightest misgiving. 



Many times I must have seen it in these spots before, and 

 partly perhaps because it was not in my mind, but chiefly 

 because I was unacquainted with lis fades, I have hitherto 

 failed to recognise it, and have passed it by as the common 

 species {E. viontamtm) amongst which it grows. It might still 

 have been unnoticed were it not that some reference was 

 made to it in a recent letter from m}^ constant correspondent, 

 Mr. Foggittj who supplied me with precise information as to 

 the character of the places in which he usually meets with 

 it in Yorkshire, and I was thus led to make particular exami- 

 nation oi Epilobia growing in such situations as he indicated. 



According to the authors of " Flora of the North-East of 

 Ireland" (1888) its only previous claim to a place in the list of 

 Irish plants is that in the Babingtonian herbarium there is a 

 specimen marked " Belfast, 1846, W. Thompson." Both Mr. 

 Stewart and the late Mr. T. H. Corry, as I know, have made 

 diligent search for it about Belfast and in other places where 

 it is said to have been found, but in vain. It is, therefore, 

 recorded by them within brackets, as a casual only.^ 



In Cybele Hiberjiica it is noted for the north-eastern district 

 only, and that as doubtfully native. The localities of " Banks 

 of Lagan near Cranmore" and " Glen in the Holywood Hills" 

 are mentioned as requiring confirmation, "since they may 

 prove the plant to be an undoubted native." The identifica- 

 tion, therefore, near the side of the canal at Ballyskeagh, 

 which is little over two miles from Cranmore, and by the bank 



^See note in " Flora N.E. Ireland," p. 54. 



