I9O0] Prakgkr. — Bota7iical Exploration. 143 



clearly requires further observation. The rest of the day, 

 spent amid delightful scener}^, and surrounded by the 

 fascinating flora of Counemara, need not be enlarged on here" 

 About the railway west of Ougliterard an interesting group of 

 plants turned up — Arenaria temiifolia, Filago germanica, 

 F. viinima, and Sderantlncs anmius, all in some abundance. 

 The first is becoming a notorious railway denizen, but the 

 others are native plants, and the last two distinctly calcifuge 

 in their distribution : and as local material only was used in 

 making the line, I am inclined to treat them as indigenous here ; 

 they probably spread to this tempting open ground from other 

 stations in the vicinity. The Arenaria and Scleranthtcs have 

 no previous record from District VIII. On my last day I 

 started from Moycullen, and w^orked along the chain of lakelets 

 to Ross I^ake, thence eastward to lyough Corrib, and along its 

 shore to Kilbeg Ferry, and back to Oughterard. This is the 

 strangest country I have seen in Ireland. It lies on the very 

 verge of the great limestone plain, where the latter runs up 

 against the ancient highlands of Connemara. Wide bogs, the 

 flora ofwhich recalls Connemara rather than the limestoneplain, 

 in the apparent absence of Vaccinlum Oxycoccos 2i\i^ Andromeda 

 poll/olia, are interspersed with stony esker-like limestone ridges 

 thick with boulders, on which grow Gera7imni sangidneicm, 

 Ardostdphylos Uva-tiisl, Jnniperus nana, Aspenda cy7ia7ichica, 

 Gentlana verna, and other characteristic plants of what we may 

 conveniently term the Burren flora. With them Erica cmerea^ 

 usually reckoned as a confirmed lime-hater, grows in plenty — 

 the only time I have ever seen it on limestone. Rising abruptly 

 out of the bogs are plateaus of limestone, their level tops some- 

 times composed of bare " crags " with their peculiar fiora, more 

 often covered with a low growth of hazel and briars so dense 

 that for the first time in Ireland I found myself absolutely 

 compelled to abandon my line of march. After half an hour 

 spent in struggling along, slipping on the smooth and deeply 

 crevassed rock, and pushing a way by sheer force through the 

 dense tangle, I thought myself fortunate in emerging, with 

 clothes, face and hands considerably damaged, not at the 

 opposite side of the thicket, but close to the point where I 

 had entered it. To return to the rarer plants — Oiionis 

 dfvensis and %Cichorimn Intybns at Moycullen, and Ejiphorbia 



A 3 



