11^ The Irish Naturalist. Aug.-Sept., 



plant, as there is a specimen bearing his name in the 

 HerV)arium of Mr. xVrthur Bennett, labelled " Rosbegh, 

 Kerry, July, 1841 " ; whilst the latest known specimen — 

 previous to Miss Milliard's discovery- is to be found in the 

 Herbarium of the late R. M. Harrington, and appears to 

 have been gathered by a coast-guard named John Reilly, 

 for some years stationed at Cromane, about four miles 

 distant from Rossbehy, it is labelled " Sandhills, Killorglin 

 Bay, July, 1S45." From this date until the present year 

 no one appears to have found this plant in Ireland. 



Is this simply a case of the Sea Pea having been 

 overlooked for a period of more than seventy 3'ears ? I 

 think not. Three of the records given above are rather 

 vague and might refer either to the ve^'y extensive three- 

 mile stretch of sand-hills on the Inch or north side of the 

 bay, or to the much smaller two-mile range on the south 

 side. But both these areas have been searched several 

 times without success. The Rossbehy or south line of 

 sand-hills moreover is very accessible and not being broad 

 admits of easy examination. On two occasions at least 

 the present writer has walked these dunes, and to his 

 knowledge several other botanists have paid somewhat 

 lengthened visits to this much frequented seaside resort. 

 The only drawback indeed to the peaceful exploration of 

 these wind-swept tracts lay in the dani2:er of the botanist 

 being mistaken for a moving target by the artillery which, 

 for many years, made use of these sand-hills as a practice 



range. 



Several instances are known in its f^nglish haunts of the 

 Sea Pea disappearing for lengthened periods after a storm 

 to reappear when some favourable shift in the surface took 

 place, and to some such storm or storms this gap of 73 

 years in the Irish history of this plant-most probably 

 including one or more unrecorded reappearances— is almost 

 certainly due. 



These Castlemxaine sand-hills lie exposed at the head of 

 the broad Dingle Bay to the full force of the Atlantic gales. 

 A vivid descri|)tion of the violence to which these storms 

 attain is given bv Dr. Smith in his " History of Kerry." 

 " A few winters ago [he wrote in 1756] there happened a 



