October, 191 1. JJie Irish Naturalist. 165 



NOTES ON THE FLORA OF INISHBOFIN, 



BY R. I.r OYD PRAEGEK. 



Not long ago I had occasion to draw np comparative 

 lists of the floras of Clare Island, Inishturk, and Inishbofin, 

 for the purposes of the Phanerogamia section of the Clare 

 Island report. The result was to show so remarkable a 

 poverty in the Bofin flora, that I determined to pay a 

 brief visit to the island to try to fill some of the more 

 conspicuous gaps in the list of its plants. Accordingly 

 three days (of which half a day was lost owing to heavy 

 rain) were spent on the island in the last week of July 

 of the present year, in company of A. W. Stelfox, T. J. 

 Westropp, and Dr. G. Fogerty, who were also engaged on 

 comparative work in connection with the Clare Island 

 Survey. 



The flora of Inishbofin was investigated, under a grant 

 from the Royal Irish Academy, by A. G. More and R. M. 

 Barrington, who visited the island in July, 1875, and devoted 

 five days to the work — one of these days being spent on the 

 adjoining island of Inishark. More's report,' issued 



during the following year by the Academy, contained a 

 list of 303 plants. This number More did not consider 

 unduly small, as he surmises that the combined flora of 

 Bofin, Shark, and Turk may eventually be brought up 

 to 350 species. But my suspicion that the Bofin flora 

 was richer than this proves correct, as the two and a half 

 days' work recently carried out has added 82 species, or 

 27 per cent., to the flora ; while hiost of these were plants 

 of wide distribution, as was to be expected, some of them 

 were of considerable interest, such as Arabis ciliata, Coch- 

 learia graenlandica, Bartsia viscosa, Ophrys apt/era, Lyco- 

 podium inundatum. 



Inishbofin is nearly four square miles in area. It attains 

 a less elevation than most of the western islands, none of 



i Report on the Flora of Inish-Bofin, Galway, by A. G. More. Proc. 

 ' R. I. Academy (2), vol. ii. (Science), 553-578, 1876. 



A 



