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Notes of a Botanical Ramble in Ireland last Autumn. 

 By Daniel Oliver, jun., Esq. 



If these few notes of a ramble in Ireland last summer should serve 

 to induce other and abler botanists to take up their vasculums and go 

 thither, a good object will have been attained. 



In the month of August, in company with my friend G. S. Brady, 

 I visited Colin Glen, which is vvithin a pleasant walking distance from 

 Belfast, our object being principally to see growing, and to collect, 

 Equisetum Mackaii. We found the plant but sparingly, and not 

 in catkin, near the upper end of the Glen. Polystichum angulare 

 adorned the bank near the spot where we entered the wood in profu- 

 sion ; we had at home been accustomed only to P. aculeatum, so 

 were here much pleased with the more graceful and delicate fronds of 

 its ally. Beautiful plants of Asplenium Trichomanes and Adiantum- 

 nigrum were observed. Festuca arundinacea, Schreb., grew by the 

 stream, but F. sylvatica I cannot say that we saw. Our stay at 

 Enniskillen did not allow of a visit to Lough Erne ; I have no doubt 

 that many interesting lacustral and paludal plants may be found 

 thereabouts. Cotyledon Umbilicus we observed between Enniskillen 

 and Sligo, by the way-side, in some places in abundance. 



Near the harbour at Sligo we collected a few coast plants, as Sali- 

 cornia herbacea, Arenaria marina, Aster IVipoHum, and others. On 

 the 8th we took a car to Ben Bulben, a mountain of much interest to 

 the botanist, about eight miles northerly from Sligo. Leaving the 

 conveyance by an Irish cabin near the base, we ascended a ravine in 

 the side of the mountain, picking by the way Meconopsis Cambrica, 

 Hypericum Androsaemum, Saxifraga aizoides and hypnoides, Gna- 

 phalium sylvaticum, Circaea alpina or a form very near it, Asplenium 

 viride and Ruta-muraria. Amongst steep crags, which prevented our 

 proceeding further up the bed of the stream, we collected Hieracium 

 murorura, var. ?, H. pallidum, Fries (according to C. C. Babington, to 

 whom my kind correspondent F. J. A. Hort seems to have shown one 

 of my examples). A few specimens of an almost inaccessible Thalic- 

 trum were obtained. To what sjDecies we must refer the latter I can- 

 not at present say. My one remaining plant agrees pretty well with 

 Jordan's account of T. calcareum, given in the ' Botanical Gazette,' 

 No. 12, p. 312, by J. Ball, with whose Ben-Bulben specimens it is 

 probable that ours are identical. The carpels are not sufficiently 

 matured to afford good characters. 



Leaving the ravine behind us, we climbed towards some crags 



