The Shamrock : a further Attempt to fix its Species. 21 



sary to make further investigation, so that my ignorance of 

 Mr. Britten's paper has had the result of strengthening the 

 case for T. minus, which, as I believe, he was the first to make 

 out. Though Mr. Britten does not tell us that T. minus is 

 exclusively used as the Shamrock in the thirteen counties 

 covered by his inquiry, the evidence he has brought forward, 

 coupled with that given in these pages, fully warrants, in my 

 opinion, the conclusion that T. rcpens can no longer claim 

 pre-eminence as the true Irish Shamrock.' It must hereafter 

 be content to share the honour, at least evenl}^ with its rival 

 T. minus. Future writers and editors of English and Irish 

 Floras, if they aim at accuracy in their popular plant-names, 

 must bracket these two species of Trifolium under the name 

 Shamrock and must give, too, to Mr. Britten the credit of 

 having been the first to clearly discern and boldly advocate the 

 strong claims of T. mimis. 



While conceding that in the present day the neater Trifolium 

 minus is equally in favour with T. repens as our national badge, 

 some may be disposed to argue that the true Shamrock of 

 earlier times, before modern culture had spread abroad a taste 

 for the elegant and the delicate, was, nevertheless, the coarser 

 T repens. The fact that a decided majority of the specimens 

 collected by me from the Irish-speaking districts of our island, 

 where old national usages may be assumed to have the greatest 

 tenacity of existence, belonged to this latter species, might be 

 taken as lending a certain support to this view. But the 

 discussion of such antiquarian aspects of the question, how- 

 ever fascinating it might be as opening up wide fields of 

 speculation and inquiry, cannot properly find a place in the 

 pages of a natural history Journal. I must content myself, 

 then, with this endeavour to place clearly before those interest- 

 ed in the subject the available evidence as to the species of the 

 modern Shamrock, leaving it to others, who may feel dis- 

 satisfied with the mass and tendency of this evidence, to pursue 

 theinquiry still further on the lines laid down.^ 



1 There is no reason why the name should not be written shamroge, as it 

 is pronounced by Irishmen, and written by many of the earUer Enghbh 

 writers. 



2 Taken together, Mr. Britten's inquiry and my own have covered 

 twenty- five out of thirty- two Irish counties. The follo-s^dng counties 

 still remain outside the inquiry :—Cavan, Kildare, Kilkenny, King's 

 County, Leitrim, Lrongford, and Monaghan. 



