1897-1 105 



EUPHRASIA SAI.ISBURGKNSIS, FUNK., IN IREI.AND. 



BY NATHANIKI. COI.GAN, M.R.I. A. 



In the Journal of Bota^iy for November last attention was 

 drawn to the Irish forms of Euphrasia by the publication of 

 an instructive paper from the pen of Mr. F. Townsend, an 

 acknowledged authority on this difficult genus. In this paper 

 E. Salisbur^c7isis, Funk., an alpine or sub-alpine species of 

 wide range on the European continent, is recorded as an 

 addition to the Irish flora on the faith of specimens gathered 

 by the Rev. E- S. Marshall on the shores of Lough Mask, Co. 

 Mayo, in Julj^ 1895. The Lough Mask plant, as figured by 

 Mr, Townsend in the plate which adds so much to the value 

 of his paper, is obviously far from typical, but from a note in 

 last month's issue of the Jourjial oj Botany it appears that 

 Messrs. H. and J. Groves have discovered amongst material 

 collected in 1892 near Menlough in Co. Galway, specimens 

 which Mr. Townsend considers much closer to the Con- 

 tinental plant. An elegant, slender-stemmed Eiiphrasia, 

 gathered by myself in August, 1895, near Bally vaughan, Co. 

 Clare, where it grows in abundance on limestone crags, has 

 since been kindly examined by Mr. Townsend, who 

 unhesitatingly refers it to E. Salisburgensis, and informs me 

 that it is similar to the Menlough plant. 



This interesting EupJu'asia is thus shown to range over a 

 considerable area on the low-lying limestone tracts of West 

 Ireland ; but it cannot justly be regarded as a recent addition 

 to our flora. The plant, in fact, was gathered in Ireland so 

 long ago as 1852, and was recorded as Irish, under another 

 name, in the Cybde Hibernica in 1866. We find it first 

 referred to in the following passage from a paper by Daniel 

 Oliver published in the Phytologist for 1854, ^'^^ describing a 

 botanical tour made in Ireland two years earlier : — 



" Euphrasia } On Aran I collected a curious little form some three 



inches in height much branched from the base, stem with a minute, 

 adpressed pubescence, lanceolate or lanceolate-oblong leaves with one, 

 two, or three strong teeth on each side. I did not know to what species 

 or form to refer it, but examples being sent to C. C. Babington, he kindly 

 informs me that he thinks it a form of the E. gracilis of Fries., although 

 it strikingly resembles and possibly may be E. Salisbtirgensis.^^ ''. 



^Botanical Notes of a Week in Ireland (August, 1852), Vol. IV., p. 679. 



