ii6 The Irish Naturalist. Aug. -Sept 



SOME COUNTY DOWN PLANTS. 



BY R. LLOYD PRAEGER. 



In 1902, a week spent in the Ardgiass district^ resulted 

 in the extension to this portion of the coast of County 

 Down of three local trefoils — Trifoliiim striatum, T. filijorme, 

 and Trii^onella ornithopodioides : the first and third each 

 resting its claim for admission to the flora of the north- 

 east on a single old unverified record, the second previously 

 unknown in that area. T. striatum then proved to be still 

 abundant in the old station referred to — Whitehead, in Co. 

 Antrim. — and to be of fre([uent occurrence in the Ardgiass 

 district. The Fenugreek (Trigonella) could not be refound 

 in its old station (Kinnegar, Holy wood) : S. A. Stewart 

 and others had previously failed to find it there, and it was 

 set down as casual in " Flora of the North-east of Ireland " ; 

 but its occurrence in three places in the Ardgiass district 

 went to suggest that it had previously occupied the Kin- 

 negar as a native. The third plant, T. fdiforme, new to the 

 north-east, was seen in only one station in the Ardgiass 

 district — a rocky knoll in Ardgiass where the sceptical 

 might doubt its being native, for it is certainly introduced 

 in some of its Irish stations, being indeed an accepted 

 constituent of seed-mixtures for lawns. In the following 

 season (1893), in the adjoining area of the Ards, I hoped 

 to extend the range of these plants, but no trace of any 

 of them was seen. The season was, however, unfavourable, 

 and my visit too late (end of Juh^ ; but I wrote at the 

 time tliat there was plenty of suitable ground there for 

 them, and that I thought it probable that some of th^m — 

 T. striatum at least — would yet turn up in the Ards. 2 



1 Praeger : Some Plants ot the North-east Coast. Irish. Nat., xi., 

 200. 1902. 



^Praeger: Botanizing in the Ards. I4'ish Nat., xii., 259, 1903. 



