1854 J Third Visit to Ireland. 39 



CHAPTER VII. 



THIRD VISIT TO IRELAND. 



[1854-] 



A FORTNIGHT'S stay was made at Liverpool after leaving 

 St. Catherine's in February, and a few days were devoted 

 to such botany as the season allowed of. On February 25th 

 he made an excursion to the Liverpool Sandhills, in the 

 vicinity of Crosby still a rather favourite spot with 

 botanists, though several of its former rarities are said to 

 be now extinct. Crosby was already the nearest point to 

 Liverpool at which the dunes could be found " in their 

 original condition." " The building has advanced so fast 

 that as far as Waterloo the whole shore is lined with houses. 

 At first sight the sand-hills are rather different from the 

 Hayling and St. Helens ; in the first place, the hills are 

 higher and more abrupt, and less clothed with vegetation, 

 owing, no doubt, to their constant shifting, being exposed 

 to the full force of the westerly winds. Then there are 

 wet, swampy hollows in some places, almost like lakes, 

 filled with rushes, docks, &c. Along shore, especially, the 

 sand is heaped up in the most irregular manner, and an 

 unceasing cloud of it keeps flying in your face, so that it 

 was rather a matter of difficulty to make any head against 

 it. The star-grass, Ammophila, and a dwarf willow in the 

 lower parts are with Carex arenaria the only stay against 

 the shifting tendency of the ground ; and I could see in 

 many places only the panicle of the star-grass exposed/' 



" No fluffy silky appearance on the willows yet " could 

 be detected, and the only plant in flower was the daisy. 

 But among the species gathered at Crosby were Pyrola 

 rotundifolia, Erythrsea (?) latifolia (" new to me ") ; Cyno- 

 glossum officinale ; Euphorbia portlandica (" plentiful : no 

 paralias ") ; Cerastium tetrandum and (?) semidecandrum ; 

 Parnassia palustris (" rather common on the wetter 



