[ 8 ] 

 NOTES ON THE DUBLIN FLORA. 



BY R. IXOYD PRAEGER, B.A., M.R.I. A. 



Mr. Nathaniel Colgan's remarks on the flora of County 

 Dublin, recently published in this Magazine 1 , are of consider- 

 able importance to local observers, and have, no doubt, been 

 read with interest by botanists throughout Ireland. While 

 the writer's remarks on the history of Dublin botany are concise 

 and instructive, and while his lists of new or rare species form 

 a valuable contribution to our knowledge of local plant-distri- 

 bution, decidedly the most important feature of the paper is 

 the announcement that the writer is actively engaged on the 

 compilation of a Flora of County Dublin, on which, by his own 

 statement, he has been hard at work for the last two years. 

 With what painstaking care and accuracy Mr. Colgan will 

 carry out the task which he has undertaken, those who have 

 read his several communications to the Irish Naturalist 

 can judge; as can the present writer also, from the experiences 

 of several pleasant days spent in botanizing in the home 

 county with his friend, the author of the forthcoming Flora 

 of Dublin. While we must congratulate ourselves that the 

 laborious work of gathering together material for the new 

 Flora is already so far advanced, it is at the same time to be 

 regretted that Mr. Colgan has not earlier made public a scheme 

 'which is of such general interest. At last, however, Mr. Col- 

 gan has issued an invitation to his brother botanists (howbeit 

 only in a foot-note) to assist him by transmitting notes (and 

 specimens, no doubt) of rarer plants observed in the county. 

 This is only as it should be ; for there are many botanists in 

 Dublin, some of them possessing a long and intimate acquaint- 

 ance with the surrounding district ; and among them there 

 must be information respecting the local flora which it would 

 take a single observer many years to acquire, if, indeed, it 

 could now be acquired; it is to be hoped that all such informa- 

 tion will be freely tendered to Mr. Colgan. Naturalists will 

 judge the local flora, and also the industry and observation 

 of the custodians of that flora — the local botanists — by such 

 accounts as may be available ; and it behoves the Dublin 

 botanists to make the forthcoming account of their flora as 

 comprehensive, as detailed, and as accurate as is possible. 



1 Irish Naturalist, Nov., 1893. 



