2 1 6 The Irish Na tit ra list. 



coriaceous texture," and in my County Dublin specimens 

 this toothed or auricled seed appears to be correlated with a 

 marked difference of habit in the plants which produce it. 

 They are upright and stronger in growth than the variety 

 bearing the uncrowned seeds, which is quite procumbent. 



The distribution of the species is thus given by Asa Gray : 

 "West California to Unalaska and Behring Island, E., to 

 Montana, and becoming naturalized in the Atlantic States, 

 near railroad stations (N. Asia and nat. in N. Eur.) " Accord- 

 ing to Wy man's Conspectus the plant occurs in many places 

 in Northern and Middle Europe, where it is thoroughly 

 naturalized. Hartmann (" Skandinaviens Flora," 9 Ed. 

 1 864), records it as then found in streets and cultivated places 

 in Christiana, Upsala and other stations. Willkomm (" Pflan- 

 zenreich Deutschlands," 1882), records it from the following 

 German stations: around Berlin, Frankfort-on-Oder, Breslau, 

 Dresden, Prague, and Constance. On consulting the herbarium 

 of the late Dr. Moore in Glasnevin Botanic Gardens, Dublin, 

 I find a specimen of the plant labelled : " Between Richmond 

 and Kew, J. G. Baker, July, '71," so that the plant has been 

 observed in England, in a suspicious locality, indeed, and 

 perhaps as a mere casual, twenty-three years ago. But it does 

 not appear to have gained ground in England, up to 1884, at 

 least ; for no mention of the plant is made in the appendix of 

 excluded species in the last edition of Hooker's " Student's 

 Flora." Quite recently (September 3rd), Dr. Eeitch, of Silloth, 

 has shown me specimens of a puzzling ballast plant gathered 

 by him at Falmouth on his way by sea from London to Dublin. 

 This plant is undoubtedly M. discoidea, DC, and Dr. Eeitch 

 tells me it is abundant in the Falmouth station. It would be 

 of no small interest to know what is the present English dis- 

 tribution of the species. In Count}* Dublin it cannot be 

 regarded as a ballast plant, the stations of Carrickmines, 

 Lispopple, and Glenasmoil, being respectively two and a half, 

 four, and ten miles distant from the nearest sea. In all these 

 stations it ripens seed perfectly, and it may be that this in- 

 teresting, but by no means handsome, stranger has come to 

 stay in Ireland, as it has in Scandinavia and Germany. 



