26 The Irish Naturalist. January, 



THE LEVINGE HERBARIUM. 



The Lcvlngc Herbarium. By Prof. T. Johnson, D.Sc. F.L.S , and 

 Miss M. C. Knowi^ES. Sci. Proc. R. Diihliii Soc. v. (n.s.) part i, 

 No. lo, 1903. 



We welcome this paper as the first official publication of any portion 

 of the fine collection of Irish flowering plants now gathered together in 

 the National Herbarium, and we sincerely trust it may be looked on as 

 the first of a series dealing with the same subject. Mr. Ivevinge's re- 

 searches in Irish botany, and more particularly in the flora of his own 

 county of Westmeath, are well known to readers of this Journal through 

 the papers which he himself contributed to its pages. His Irish 

 herbarium, which suitably finds a resting-place in the National Museumi 

 consists largely of Westmeath plants ; the counties of Clare and Dublin 

 are also well represented. 



"In the present paper the object is to record the species of which 

 specimens are found in the collection . . . and not yet recorded." 

 Under each species dealt with, after giving the record from the herbarium 

 label (often including valuable comments by critical botanists), the 

 authors add quotations from Cybele Hibernica and Irish Topographical 

 Botany dealing with the distribution of the plant in question — a delight- 

 ful convenience for a reader of the paper, but one which, if generally 

 applied, would eventually break the bank of any publishing society ; 

 in the present case two-thirds of the matter consists of such extracts. 



An examination of the paper shows that the collection, while full of 

 interesting plants, is not so rich in new material for the working out of 

 plant-distribution in Ireland as might have been hoped, considering that 

 Mr. Levinge published only a selection of his notes. The county-records 

 given in the paper number 78. Of these 31 are marked or noted as new 

 county records ; but using the standard adopted in Cybele and h'ish Top. 

 Bot., this list becomes seriously denuded. Eleven of the plants are 

 varieties, of which the species is already on record; four more {Oxyria di^yna 

 from Clare, and Ulvius viontana, Taxus baccata^ and Polystichiim Lonchitis 

 from Westmeath) cannot be included in the respective county floras, 

 without further information as to their standing ; Erysimum orientate^ 

 Poteritwi muricatum^ and Leomirus Cardiaca cannot claim even naturalized 

 rank in Ireland ; ^.x).A Juncus compressus will hardly be admitted to the 

 Irish flora on the evidence brought forward in this paper, though its 

 eventual admission is quite possible. So that the Levinge herbarium 

 yields us so far twelve new county records — namely, one for lyimerick, 

 four for Clare, one for N.E. Galway, and six for Westmeath. The 

 best of these are Rosa mollis (N.E. Galway and Westmeath), Callitriche 

 vernalis (Westmeath), and Galcopsis versicolor (Clare). But while the 

 plunder which the collection yields in the way of new plant-records is 

 small, the possession of such an interesting series of Irish plants, 

 beautifully mounted and arranged, is a thing on which the nation may 

 congratulate itself; and the present paper, by making the riches of the 

 collection more widely known, serves a very useful end, and is a 

 valuable contribution to the detailed working out of the Irish flora. 



R. Ivi.. P. 



