106 J. W. REED ON PLANTS COLLECTED IN THE PYRENEES. 



varied information with regard to many of them, and for his more 

 than kind offices in getting them so beautifully mounted for me. 

 Their being so well dried and displayed is mainly due to the 

 care and skill bestowed on them by Mr. F. H. Ward (my travelling 

 companion), and to the use of an admirable botanical press designed 

 by him, and described and figured in " Science Gossip," No. 280, 

 April, 1888, page 80 ; it was also described and figured in the 

 " Bulletin of the French Linnean Society " the same year. 



My authorities for the number and distribution of the species are 

 Bentham and Hooker, whose "Genera Plantarum " has been 

 referred to throughout. It may be mentioned, also, that the 

 11 Mediterranean Region," for geographical and botanical purposes, 

 includes all the South Coast of Europe, North Africa, and Asia 

 Minor, and also the Isles. 



Botanically, the Pyrenees is one of the most interesting regions 

 of Europe, and a point of special interest to the British botanist 

 is the existence of a colony of Pyrenean plants in the West of 

 Ireland. It is no doubt another of the woes of that " distressful 

 country " that even some of its plants appear " in a foreign garb." 

 Amongst these plants may be mentioned Arbutus unedo, Dabcecia 

 polifolia, Neotinea intacta, Saxifraga Geum, Saxijraga umbrosa, 

 Erica mediterranean and Meconopsis cambrica, and their presence 

 at once opens up the wide and difficult, but profoundly interesting, 

 question of plant distribution. 



It has been suggested that this colony immigrated along a range 

 of now submerged mountains, which extended from Spain to 

 Ireland across the Bay of Biscay. Whilst the theory of this 

 particular continental extension has not been supported by sufficient 

 evidence to secure its general acceptance by geologists, it is 

 believed that in Tertiary times Britain was connected with France, 

 and Ireland was not so far removed from Great Britain as she is 

 now. Whether or not our flora had a continental origin, having 

 immigrated prior to the existence of the English Channel and the 

 German Ocean, Mr. J. G. Baker, Keeper of the Herbarium at 

 Kew, in his Presidential Address to the Yorkshire Naturalists' 

 Union in 1883, said that " the most important general character 

 of the British Flora is its utter want of any distinctive individuality. 

 Leaving out of count a few doubtful hieracia, willows, rubi, and 

 roses, I can give only two good instances of British plants that do 

 not occur in continental Europe." The two plants mentioned by 



