334 • DISCOVERY OF INULA SALICINA IN IRELAND. 
from the locality where I found it in considerable abundance in a 
truly wild condition. The history of the discovery of this plant 
is rather curious, as I shall briefly relate. In June, 1843, I went 
to Portumna, county Galway, for the purpose of getting plants and 
specimens of Teiicriiim scordiian, w^hich grows plentifully on the mar- 
j^ins of Lough Derg. When botanizing along the wild shores of that 
great river-lake, I observed a plant growing sparingly and unknown 
to me in the flowerless state in which it then was. I supposed 
it might be a stunted state of Hieracium prenantJioides^ but could not 
get a flower of it to satisfy myself. I ho weaver picked some specimens 
as they were, which remained in my herbarium unnamed from the pe- 
riod when they were found up to the present year, when it became 
necessaiy to overhaul my Irish plants, for the purpose of preparing 
matter for the little work which Mr. Gr. More and I are engaged upon. 
Among the doubtful plants were placed the Lough Derg specimens of 
Inulay which we could not make out, none of them having flowers- 
Mr. More was going to England at the time, and proposed to take 
these, along with other plants about which we were uncertain, to have 
them compared and shown to some botanical friends. 
When Mr. Syme saw the specimens, he at once suggested that they 
might prove to be Inula salicina ! Prom letters which subsequently 
passed between him au'd me on the subject, I felt anxious to set the 
matter at rest, and determined to make another journey to Lough 
Derg, to try and find the plant again, and if possible in flower. 
Thinking I might have been too early in June, I w^ent this year in Au- 
gust, and had the satisfaction of rediscovering the Liulay but could only 
find two specimens, which had flowered, and were then seeding. The 
flowers appear to be sparingly produced on the plant in its wild state, 
and were on single capitula, without appearance of corymb. It grew 
on the side of the lake among the rough herbage, w^hich consisted 
principally of Scliceuus nigricans, Molinia ccerulea^ Galium boreale, So- 
lidago Virga-aurea^ etc. 
. I traced it for more than two miles along the shore of Lough Derg, 
from Porturana onwards, until the ground became muddy and soft, 
wdien the herbage changed, and the plant ceased to grow. 
After comparing our plant with the figure of Inula salicina in 'Plora 
Danica/ and also with cultivated specimens, I feel constrained to think 
it is at least not the normal form of that species. The midrib, under 
