xiv 
PREFACE. 
those of Ireland only, (where they seem quite at 
home,) have been the means of affording us consi- 
derable information ; and that, too, of a kind not 
to be satisfactorily acquired, but by an examina- 
tion of these very variable plants in their sponta- 
neous places of growth. 
Thus it was among the wild mountains of Kerry, 
especially about the lofty ** Reecks,"" in the ro- 
mantie * gap of Dunloe," and in the neighbour- 
: hood of the far-famed and beautiful banks of Kil- 
larney, that he gathered every possible shade of 
intermediate variety, between Saxifraga Geum of 
English Botany, and Saxifraga hirsuta of the 
same work, (but not exactly the Airsuta of Liun., 
which he thinks is not a distinct species;) including 
moreover pretty near similitudes of the continental 
Saxifraga punctata and Sax. "umbrosa of Lin- 
neus; yet assuredly not, at least, the latter, nor 
any thing than can be mistaken for it: nor even 
the exactly continental punctata. n short, he 
scarcely found any thing constant amongst them, 
except their constant tendency to endless varia- 
tion : and all this, apparently, through the hybri- 
dizing processes of cross i regnation, Hence lie 
finds the greatest difficulty in determining which 
, are the original species, from whence all this pro- 
fusion of mongrels have gradually arisen ; and con- 
cludes they are but two. ^ Neither is he satisfied 
that. Rolertsonia umbrosa, which he gathered in 
Wenitton. Gill, Yorkshire, (the placa mentioned 
in Euslah fiseéewe7 oL. ix dh x 
MUVMIEF YS] 
L2 
FETILZTITI] 
—P 23 
