I900.] Coi^GAN AND SCUI.I.Y. — Remarks on Cybele Hihcrnica. 63 



volume of debate — not alwa^'s parliamentary in its diction — 

 might easil}' be written on the i^ppendix alone ; and after all 

 for many readers these problems of plant distribntion are as 

 fascinating as the problems of metaphysics, and for a like 

 reason, because they are well nigh insoluble. In any case, less 

 than a page of Cybele is devoted to (or wasted on ?) the dis- 

 cussion of the history of the Cantabrian group in Ireland, 



Omissions. 



The charges made against us under this head are very 

 numerous. To some of them we plead guilty ; others, and by 

 far the larger number, are not omissions at all in any 

 damaging sense of the word. Tliej^ are not oversights, that is, 

 but deliberate exclusions made on principle. I^et us first deal 

 with the chargers on this point brought against owr Introduction. 

 On page 29 of our critic's Reina?'ks we are charged with the 

 omission of two important plants, the Irish Spurge and the 

 Killarney Fern, from our list of Irish Atlantic Type species 

 (p. xlvii of Cybele). While we at once acknowledge our error 

 as to the Killarney Fern, we wish to point to the inaccuracy of 

 Mr. Hart's statement as regards the Irish Spurge. This is not 

 classified either by Watson or by us as Atlantic, but as 

 Local- Atlantic, or a Local species with an Atlantic tendency. 

 If the t3'pe comparisons between the English and Irish floras 

 are to be made at all a rigid adherence to the limits of 

 Watson's types must be observed. Our error then on this 

 point is only half as serious as Mr. Hart makes it appear. 



Again, on p. 29, we are charged with having omitted from 

 the Irish Highland T3''pe list no less than four plants, Aira 

 alpina, Cochlcaria alpina, Saxifraga hirta, and S. grcenlandica. 

 Here, in his haste to correct us, our critic has stumbled him- 

 self, for Aira alpina is not omitted from our list : Mr. Hart 

 has simply failed to discover it there under its thin disguise of 

 Deschampsia alpina. As for the remaining three plants, they 

 do not belong to the Highland Type at all, and this can be 

 easily seen by reference to our standard, Watson's Compendiiun 

 of the Cybele Britannica, 1870, where the latest revision of the 

 type is given. When Mr. Hart, at the end of his critical 

 paragraph, on this point asks: "Why should our Irish 

 mountains be deprived of the credit of yielding these plants," 



