1869] Discovery of Air a uliginosa. 215 



Oliver's original locality for Naias flexilis, he searched 

 many of the little lakes near Roundstone, besides that in 

 which Dr. Moore was known to have afterwards found it. 

 In this last, but nowhere else, he got the Naias ; and 

 though Greg-duff, as it is called, is somewhat nearer 

 Roundstone than accords with Professor Oliver's descrip- 

 tion of his locality, the conclusion seemed at last to be 

 fairly warranted that here was the plant's original and 

 only ascertained Irish station. But Naias flexilis was not 

 the only prize now obtained at Greg-duff. Beside the 

 lake was growing, in some quantity, a grass not quite like 

 any he had seen before. It was, as he at once guessed, a 

 new addition to the flora of Ireland, Aira uliginosa. This 

 species was not, at the time, known to botanists as actually 

 growing in any part of the British Islands; but specimens 

 preserved in herbaria proved at least its former occurrence 

 in the east of Scotland ; and the question " does it grow 

 there still?" was asked in the current (sixth) edition of 

 Babington's Manual. Mr. Baker, also, on the strength of 

 the same facts, had endeavoured, in the Journal of Botany, 

 to instigate a search for the lost British grass. But its 

 turning up here in the wilds of Connemara was a botanical 

 surprise. A few weeks later (in September) an equally 

 unexpected discovery of the same grass in the south of 

 England was made by Mr. H. C. Watson, at Fleetpond, 

 Hants. 



The exploration of Greg-duff took place on the 25th of 

 July. On the 28th, when a dead calm stopped the hooker, 

 he hurried off to another spot of at least equal botanical 

 interest, the hill of Craigga-more, between Roundstone 

 and Clifden, where Erica ciliaris was recorded as having 

 been gathered, once in 1846 by Mr. J. F. Bergin, and 

 again in 1852 by Professor J. H. Balfour and a party of 

 his pupils, but of which other botanists, Mr. Babington 

 included, had been unable to find the least trace. His 

 search for this heath was entirely unsuccessful. "I walked 

 (he writes) all round the hill, commencing on the left 

 (east) side, following its low grounds. Everywhere Erica 

 mackayi, but I could not see E. ciliaris. On flat spongy 

 bogs, on low sloping banks, on hillocks amid the spongy 



