1897.] PrAEGKR. — The Botany of a Railway Journey. 215 



In crossing the Boyne we have left Louth behind us, and 

 entered Meath ; and we have also at last changed the 

 Ordovician slates for the Carboniferous limestone. The 

 change of soil makes itself felt upon the flora. We see for 

 the first time the bright rose-coloured spikes of the Pyramidal 

 Orchis, the yellow flower-heads of the Rough Hawk-bit, the 

 erect stems and leaves of the Yellow Goat's-beard, and the 

 fruit-heads of the Cowslip. Just beyond Gormanstown we 

 cross the Delvin River, and enter County Dublin. Balbriggan, 

 with its prett}" little harbour, is left behind, and soon the 

 large gravel-pit at Skerries attracts our attention by its fine 

 section of false-bedded and contorted glacial gravels. This 

 spot yields many of the characteristic plants of the Dublin 

 neighbourhood. The botanist coming from the north will 

 note with interest the occurrence of the Blue Flea-bane 

 {^Erigeron acris), the Greater Knapweed {Centa^trxa Scabiosd)^ 

 Melilotus officinalis, the Carline Thistle, Diplotaxis muralisy 

 Geranitim pyre7iaicum, &c. — plants, many of which extend 

 westward across the Limestone Plain, but are rare or absent 

 further northward. 



We speed onward, and soon cross the muddy estuaries that 

 lie north of Malahide, where Zostera and Salicornia dispute the 

 ground with seaweeds, and the shining leaves of the Beet 

 fringe the stone-pitched margin of the railway. The pace is 

 too fast for botanizing now, and from our carriage we can only 

 guess at the identity of the flowers that show as flashes of 

 colour of varied hue. But this familiar ground brings back 

 many pleasant recollections of long field-days. Lambay 

 Island, Malahide, and Portmarnock are classic ground to the 

 Dublin naturalist ; and yonder rises, a couple of miles away, 

 the heathery Hill of Howth, dear to every botanist. Now 

 we are past Raheny, and dash out of the long cutting, across 

 the Clontarf road. The city bursts upon our view, and behind 

 it the rounded granite hills of Dublin, and the quartzite peaks 

 of the Great and Little Sugar-loaf As we enter the town and 

 slow down, we see banks and patches of waste ground covered 

 with the familiar Field Poppy and Slender-flowered Thistle and 

 Wall-Barley — characteristic plants of the Dublin suburbs ; a 

 minute more and we glide into the terminus at Amiens-street, 

 our three-and-a-half hour run of 113 miles completed. 



