90 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [Sess. lxxxvi 



P. LUSITANICA, L. 



Babington in the first edition of his Manual (1843), 

 p. 239, remarks: 'P. villosa, distinguished from this {lusi- 

 tanica) by its acute spur and obconical capsule, may be 

 expected in the north of Scotland." The distribution of 

 P. lusitanica in Europe is v^ery limited — Portugal, Spain, 

 and France, west and north. Usually a lowland species, it 

 occurs in Ireland on the Mourne Mountains at 1560 feet. 

 It is found in 31 of the 40 divisions employed by Mr. 

 Praeger (Irish Top. Bot., 1901) and exhibits a curious 

 distribution, being absent from the centre of Ireland as 

 shown by the map given by Praeger in Proc. Roy. Irish 

 Acad., xxiv, B, (1902), p. 38. The plant is included among 

 those which show a " Marginal Type " of distribution in 

 Ireland. The species occurs at Dunkirk in France about 

 51' N., its most northern locality in Europe, except the 

 British Isles, where it extends north to Orkney, occurring 

 at 58° 58' N. lat. 



I do not find that tiie hibernacula in tliis genus are often 

 referred to. Hopkirk in Flora Glottiana (1813), p. 10, 

 mentions the little green balls, and they are mentioned by 

 Withering, British Plants, ed. 7, ii, p. 23 (1830). I have 

 examples on fruiting plants of P. lusitanica from near 

 Loch Naver, W. Sutherland (E. S. Marshall, 2, ix, 1887), 

 and on the same species from Ophir, Mainland, Orkney 

 (W. A. Fortescue, September 1911), and on P. vulgaris 

 from Islay (A Somerville). In Leighton's Flora of Shrop- 

 shire (1841), p. 11, he remarks: "On the gradual decay of 

 the leaves in autumn, small, round, leafy buds or hyber- 

 na'cula are formed, which survive the winter and are 

 capable of developing new plants in the spring." 



