1896.] 309 



NOTES ON SOME CASUALS IN COUNTY ANTRIM. 



BY J. H. DAVIKS. 



Galium Moi,i.ugo, Linn. — The usual English habitat for this 

 plant is ** hedges and thickets," whereas in Ireland it is 

 principally *' grassy lawns," which is exceedingly suggestive 

 of the species having been introduced here with seed. It 

 occurs in a large field at Glenmore, where there are several 

 conspicuous patches of it, and where it is thoroughly well 

 established, but although the field has not been disturbed for 

 a long period of j^ears, there would appear to be a possibility 

 of its being an introduction. Mr. Stewart informs me that he 

 has this year found it at Whitewell, Glengormley, in County 

 Antrim. In this country it is decidedly rare, being absent 

 from by far the larger portion of the island, and in the north, 

 though it occurs in Down, Antrim, Derry and Armagh, it has 

 not been observed in any of the other counties. There seems, 

 however, to be some ground for regarding this Bedstraw as a 

 casual, but it may be indigenous. At Glenarm it has certainly 

 held its^place for about half a century. 



SoLANUM NIGRUM, Linn.— The Black Nightshade, which is 

 of rare occurrence in Ireland, having been found in only four 

 of the twelve districts of Cybele Hiber7iica, has this year 

 appeared as a weed in cultivated ground at Glenmore, near 

 Lisburn. It seems to be a very capricious plant and without 

 permanence in any of its Irish localities. Like Hyoscyamus 

 niger, which has also been seen at Glenmore, and is now lost, 

 it springs up for one season, or it may be for two or three 

 seasons in succession, and is not afterwards seen in the same 

 place. In the Copeland Islands, and in the neighbourhood of 

 Donaghadee, where it is recorded to have been noticed by 

 Campbell, it has since been sought for by several observers, 

 but cannot now be found. Rev. S. A. Brenan, who noticed it 

 for five consecutive years, 1867 to 1871, near Cushendun, 

 informs me that it has not subsequently been observed there. 

 Mr. Richard Hanna met with it together w^th a goodly number 

 of other out-of-the-way casuals on rubbish heaps near some of 

 the Belfast distilleries and flour-mills, as noted in the remark- 

 able list of plants supplied by him to the Supplement to the 



A 3 



