Botany. 1 29 



district for Mosses. Most families of Mosses and Hepatics 

 are well represented, with the exception perhaps of the 

 "wood mosses," Orthotrichacece, which may be accounted 

 for perhaps by the absence of large tracts of woodland. 



The district does not produce any group of special 

 interest like the south-west of Ireland, although we have a 

 few species, such as Lejeunea /iiicroscopica, Radula aquilegia, 

 znd. Jubula Hutchinsice, which have their headquarters there. 

 Nor do we possess any peculiarly northern or American 

 forms. A few southern species reach their northern limit 

 here. Ditrichum vaginafis (Sull.) Hampe, a continental 

 species, which was lately found on Colin Mountain, County 

 Antrim, is the only British species peculiar to the district. 



From 1795 to 1825 the cryptogamic flora of the counties 

 near Belfast was studied with great diligence and success by 

 John Templeton of Cranmore, Belfast. He was familiar 

 with the Mosses and Hepatics, Lichens, Fungi, and Algae, 

 freshwater and marine, of the north of Ireland, and had 

 devoted particular attention to the Mosses and Hepatics, of 

 which there are records from localities in Antrim and Down 

 and drawings in the MS. of his unfinished Hiberniaji Flora. 

 The coloured drawings of Hepatica are particularly good and 

 lifelike. To the great loss of Irish Botany this work was 

 never published. Robert Brown, Dr. Stokes, and Dr. Scott 

 also collected in the north of Ireland, and at a later period 

 Thomas Drummond. Dr. ]3avid Moore collected extensively 

 in Co. Antrim, and added largely to our known flora in his 

 lists of Irish Mosses and Hepatics, published in 1872 and 

 1876. The most complete account of the bryology of the 

 two counties was published in 1888 in Stewart and Corry's 

 Flora of the North-East 0/ Ireland, where a full list with 

 localities is given of 301 Mosses and 84 Hepatics. 



In i8go there appeared in the Proceedings of the Royal 

 Irish Academy a List of the Mosses and Hepatics of the 

 Mourne mountains, by the Rev. H. W. Lett, and in 1895 

 was issued a Supplement to the Flora of the No?'th-East. 

 These made many additions to the original lists, and with 

 the later researches of a number of local bryologists, 

 published in the Irish Naturalist, the number now stands 

 at 384 Mosses and 102 Hepatics. 



