I902. Praeger. — Some Plants of the North-east Coast. 207 



Down, the first having two recorded stations, the others only 

 one each. I saw all in at least twenty marshes over the whole 

 district, from Dun drum to Strangford, and from St. John's 

 Point to Downpatrick, and usually in enormous profusion. In 

 one place, near Tyrella Chapel, several acres of C filifonnis 

 were being mown as a crop ! Presumably for bedding. The 

 marshes yielded some other excellent plants. Abundance of 

 the pretty Stellaria palustris was the reward of wading the 

 Ph7'agmites-^\\^^ marshes that surround the little I^ough 

 Keelan ; hitherto unknown in Ulster off the Carboniferous 

 limestone area in Fermanagh and Cavan. The pools in the 

 extensive marsh at Rathmullan were filled with Chara polya- 

 cantha (In Ulster recorded only from the limestone in Armagh 

 and Monaghan), and with Potamogetoii plantagineics, another 

 characteristic Central Plain species, and unrecorded from 

 Ulster. This pondweed was found also in boggy drains in 

 marshes N.W. of Ballymenagh House, and at Tobermoney — ■ 

 a curious abnormal starved form, of which Mr. Bennett writes 

 that the specimens are very like the original ones of P. helodes 

 Dum., which is a synonym of P. plantaginetis, and that they 

 are not one third the size of Yorkshire specimens he has. 



The occurrence in this slate district of several of the plants 

 mentioned — Stellaria palusti'is, Orchis pyraijiidalis, Junais 

 obttisiflorus, Potainogeton plantagiJieiis, Chara polyacantha, which 

 are calcicole in their soil relations and " Central " in their Irish 

 distribution, and with the exception of the second unknown 

 elsewhere in the North-east, is interesting. I believe the clue 

 to the matter is to be found in the fact that the pre-glacial 

 entrance of Strangford I^ough is supposed to have been 

 situated here ; during the Ice Age great quantities of lime- 

 stone were strewn over this district, derived from the Castle 

 Espie area ; numbers of these erratics may still be seen every- 

 where, and the amount of lime that has been dissolved may be 

 gathered from the massive "calcreted" gravels at Benderg, 

 Killough, and elsewhere in the neighbourhood. So that it 

 would seem that the drift supplies sufiicient lime for this 

 group of plants, while the solid geology shows no trace of 

 limestone. 



Two species, Carex limosa and Vacchiium Oxycoccos, which 

 I recorded from a little marsh at Saul Camp some years ago, 



A 4 



