46 IHE FLORA OF IRELAND. 



THE FLORA OF IRELAND. 



To a British botanist nothing can be more enjoyable than his first view 

 of the typical Irish plants to be found in Connernara, m Counties Kerry, 

 Cork, or Donegal. With the salmon-smugglers' friend, the beautiful Irish 

 Spurge, in profusion along the coast, the royal fern forming hedges on the 

 earth banks dividing fields, every pool, it may be, containing Lobelia Dort- 

 manni, the Pipewort, with possibilities of the Quill-wort and the Pill-wort, 

 the botanist may search for Naias fiexilis, rare heaths. Saxifrages, the filmy 

 ferns, orchids, or other characteristic rarities. Fortunately, he may go well 

 armed with the recently published second edition of the Cybele Hibernica, 

 which gives a general account of the distribution of Irish flowering plants 

 and ferns, and embodies the work of the authors of the first edition, the late 

 Dr. D. Moore and A. G. More ; of the editors of the second edition, N. 

 Colgan and R. W. Scully ; and the late Professors C. C. Babington, J. H. 

 Balfour ; J. T. Mackey, W. Wade, I. Carroll ; of S. A. Stewart, T. Chandlee, 

 R. M. Barrington, R. LI. Praeger, H. C. Plart, R. A. Phillips, and many 

 others. 



The introduction to the Cybele Hibernica contains a discussion of the 

 chief features of the Irish flowering plants, and of the physical causes com- 

 bining to produce these features. Just as the English Flora (1,480 species), 

 may be regarded as an incomplete Continental one, so may the Irish Phaner- 

 ogamic Flora (1,019 species), be considered as an incomplete English one. 

 The Irish Flora consists largely of English migrants, and would have been 

 still more English in character had not Ireland incontinently separated itself 

 by the sinking of the difference (in land) between itself and Ireland in the 

 Irish Sea. Owing to the warm, moisture-laden, south-western winds, the 

 sedges, rushes, ferns, etc., are more abundant in the west, to which region 

 Sibthor-pia europcea, Microcala filiformis, and Saxifraga Genni are con- 

 fined. A few species found in the west and south-west are true Hibernians, 

 being absent from Great Britain, and include the London Pride, the Straw- 

 berry tree, and several fine heaths in Connemara. This distribution is 

 brought out in an accompanying map, showing the twelve well-known dis- 

 tricts into whicn Ireland has been botanically divided. 



The publication, in 1901, by the Royal Irish Academy of the " Irish Topo- 

 graphical Botany," by R. Lloyd Praeger* {Proc. R LA., third series, vol. 7, 

 1901) usefully supplements the Cybele Hibernica, and gives, as far as is 

 known, a detailed list of the distribution of the flowering plants and ferns 

 in the forty botanical divisions into which Ireland has been divided by 

 Praeger. The book contains a valuable introduction and several maps, and 

 is intended to show the actual state of the Flora as ascertained during the 

 preceding five years. As the names of authorities for earlier records when 

 these have been confirmed during the past five years, disappear, the last 

 person to see or record any particular species being the authority quoted, 



* During the past few years some 5,000 specimens, illustrative of this work have been 

 obtained for the herbarium in the Department's Museum in Dublin. 



