174 PAST AND PRESENT 
whose English or Irish stations are quite discontinu- 
ous with their nearest Continental habitats. Here 
clearly is something which calls for explanation; but 
before discussing the question attention may be 
drawn to a still more remarkable plant group of our 
western coasts, which mingles with the southern 
group referred to. 
In damp meadows all round Lough Neagh, in the 
North of Ireland, grows an Orchid, Spiranthes 
Romangzo ffiana (Fig. 30), whose greenish-white flowers 
possess a delicious fragrance resembling that of its ally, 
S. spiralis, the Autumnal Lady’s Tresses. S. Roman- 
zoffiana occurs also in Co. Cork, but we may search 
in vain for it throughout the rest of Europe. It is 
an American plant, widely spread throughout Canada 
and the northern States, and found on the Asiatic as 
well as the Alaskan side of Behring Sea. Again, in 
pools along the western Irish coast from Cork to 
Donegal, and also in the Hebrides, grows the Pipe- 
wort (Eriocaulon articulatum), a little aquatic with a 
tuft of grassy leaves from which a slender stem rises 
above the water, bearing a button-like head of small 
grey flowers. This plant also is absent from all the 
rest of Europe and from Asia, but widely spread in 
northern North America. The little Blue-eyed Grass 
of Canada (Sisyrinchium angustifolium), again, grows 
abundantly in many areas in the West of Ireland, 
where it would seem to be undoubtedly native, and is 
otherwise confined to North America. One or two 
other plants, of the same foreign distribution, have in 
Europe a less restricted range; they need not be men- 
tioned individually, for enough has been said to show 
that along the western coasts of the British Isles 
