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agency of birds, monachism, garden escapes, and other problemati- 

 cal and unproved operative causes to account for the dissemination 

 of half the plants of our country whose flowers are a little more spe- 

 cious in appearance than ordinary,* without considering that Nature 

 in her beneficence has not left the most hyperborean regions, or the 

 most sterile wastes, unadorned by some rare and lovely floral produc- 

 tions to gladden the 'general desolation, whilst she scatters, with a 

 yet more unsparing hand, her richer gems over temperate and fertile 

 countries. Cast a glance over the inhospitable and frigid Siberia, on 



* To give one instance out of a hundred that might be adduced, it has been con- 

 jectured that the Arbutus which so profusely adorns the Lakes of Killarney and their 

 neighbourhood, was introduced by the monks of Mucruss from the south of Europe 

 in very early times, because a tree of such exotic aspect was thought very unlikely to 

 be of native growth ; and considering the narrow limits within which it is confined in 

 Ireland, and the long leap it has taken to establish itself so far to the northward of 

 its limitrophe parallel on the continent of Europe, there seemed reasonable ground for 

 the supposition. But more extended observation has amply shown that the sponta- 

 neous growth of the Arbutus in the west of Ireland, is clearly demonstrated by some 

 plants that accompany it being precisely those which are its associates in the south of 

 Europe, and have their vanishing-point in nearly the same parallels and meridians 

 with itself. Such are Erica mediterranea, Dabcecia polifolia and Euphorbia by- 

 berna, all species of an extreme western distribution, and whose absolute spontaneity 

 in Ireland never has been or can be called in question (Phytol. ii. p. 518, note). Had 

 this fact been known or reasoned upon, the gratuitous assumption of the introduction 

 of the strawberry-tree into Ireland by human agency would never have found favour 

 with botanists ; certainly with none who, like myself, have witnessed the wild profu- 

 sion in which no hand but Nature's has flung it forth, in ever-verdant beauty, over 

 mountain, crag and rocky islet, amid the splendid scenery of those unrivalled lakes. 

 It affords also a triumphant illustration of the value of the study of phyto-geography 

 in assisting to ascertain the real limits of plants, and which alone, I repeat as my firm 

 conviction, will enable us to adjust the discordant, and I must add, often absurd 

 views taken by British botanists of the origin of our indigenous vegetables. I have 

 never heard a satisfactory reason, rarely, indeed, any reason at all assigned, why Tilia 

 parvifolia, Fagus sylvatica, Humulus Lupulus, Daphne Mezereon, Phyteuma spica- 

 tum, Vinca minor, Muscaria racemosum, Narcissus Pseudo-narcissus, Lilium Marta- 

 gon, Fritillaria Meleagris, Tulipa sylvestris, Impatiens Noli-me-tangere, Helleborus 

 fcetidus and viridis, Viola odorata, our three Ribes and many others, should not be 

 genuine natives; yet have all these in their turn been starred and daggered, and 

 doubted and denounced, some by one and some by another, in a diversity of conflict- 

 ing opinions that must sorely puzzle French, German, Dutch, Danish and Swedish 

 botanists to comprehend, who are accustomed to consider most of the above species 

 as indisputably belonging to their respective floras, and thankfully accept them at the 

 hand of Nature without carping and cavilling Avith disputatious nicety about their 

 origin. In the 'Manual of British Botany' many of the typographical symbols of 

 scepticism, so frequent in other works on the same subject, have been omitted, which 

 is one amongst the reforms which that useful publication has effected. 



