312 The Irish Naturalist. October, 



the 3rd August, to see how it fared with the plauts noted a 

 few weeks earlier, and which I now knew were growing at 

 practically the same locality as that discovered by Mr. West. 

 As soon as I entered the immediate area, and before I was 

 near to the spots where my marked plants had been located, 

 I detected two or three fairly fine plants of unmistakable 

 Spiranthes Romanzoffiana, just coming into bloom. It was 

 evident therefore, that the plant was in fair plenty. Indeed, 

 I incautiously set my foot on one or two less conspicuous 

 specimens, as I walked over to examine more closely the more 

 conspicuous ones that first drew my attention. So, taking 

 pencil and notebook in hand, and keeping my eyes fixed on 

 the immediate area in front, I moved about in a bee-line over 

 the sinuous area and wherever the ground seemed promising, 

 jotting down as I went the number of fresh plants that 

 simultaneously met my gaze. Mostly a single specimen 

 appeared, but not infreqently 2 to 5 would be in such close 

 proximity to each other as to focus themselves on the retina 

 at the same instant. The detailed numerical record thus 

 made, during a survey lasting from two to three hours, is as 

 follows:— i; 3, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 

 1, 2, 2, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 4, 1, 2, 3, 5, 4, 3, 1, 1, 4, 1, 1, i, 3, 2, 1. 3, 1, 1. 

 — A grand total of 81 plants. Surely this eclipses all previous 

 records, and shifts the European centre of gravity of the 

 plant's distribution from the shores of Bantry Bay to those of 

 L,ough Neagh. At Berehaven the plant, for some reason, 

 seems in recent years to have been suffering a process of 

 extinction ; perhaps the insatiable collector has been rather 

 too much abroad there. In any case I notice from Cybr.le 

 Hibernica, second edition, that the greatest number of indi- 

 vidual plants recorded at any time, by a single observer, from 

 that locality was thirty-six. 



Mr. West, on discovering Spiranthes Romanzoffiana in Co. 

 Antrim, informed Mr. Praeger that it grew in " damp grassy 

 places among Spircza Ulmaria, Achillea Ptarmica, Comarum 

 palustre, &c." This is quite correct, still I may say that my 

 observation led me to note down, in addition, the following 

 as typical associates : —Hydrocotyle vulgaris, Mentha saliva, 

 Slellaria'uliginosa, Anagallis tenella, O/chis incarnata, and in 

 some places, patches of Lysi?nachia Nunimularia. The special 



