3-2 LINKS WITH THE PAST [cH. 



Europe was iniich warmer than it is now, and long- 

 before the beginning of the climatic changes which 

 culminated in the (Jlacial period, there was a land- 

 connexion between the west of Ireland and the 

 south-w^est of the continent. Mr Praeger, whose 

 work on the Irish flora is well known to systematic 

 botanists, agrees with the conclusions of Forbes, and 

 sees in the Portuguese and Mediterranean plants 

 'relics of a vegetation which once spread along a 

 bygone European coast-line which stretched unbroken 

 from Ireland to Spain '(23). If this explanation is 

 correct it entitles Arbutus, St Dabeoc's heath and 

 other members of this southern group to be regarded 

 as a very old section of our flora. There is, however, 

 another side to the question : granting that a certain 

 number of Irish plants were able to w^ithstand the 

 rigours of an Ice age, it is hardly likely that the 

 strawberry tree and other southern types, which it 

 is admitted flourish in the south-west of Ireland 

 because of the mildness of the climate, w^ere of the 

 number of those which endured an extreme Arctic 

 phase. Moreover, if these Mediterranean species are 

 survivals from the Tertiary period, if they have been 

 isolated since pre-( glacial days as an outlier of a 

 southern flora, Ave might fairly expect that during 

 the long interval between their arrival and the 

 present day ncAV forms would have been produced 

 closely related to, though not identical with, the 



