January, 1902.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



19 



is interesting as showing its early use, and the per- 

 sistency of its growth. Inismacdara {the is/fui<l of thi 

 son of Dam) is a small islet in the Atlantic off the 

 Conneniara coast, windswept and uninhabited, and 

 known among archaeologists as the site of a very early 

 Christian settlement. Here, in the sixth or seventh 

 centuiy. Saint Sinach MacDaa-a built a tiny oratory, of 

 which the walls, fonned of cyclopean masonry, and even 

 portions of the solid stono roof, still remain. That the 

 little colony had not a very long history appears from the 

 fact that no trace of ecclesiastical edifices of later date 

 exists; but tliat the ruins were respected, and that no 

 house or garden at any subsequent time occupied the 

 site, may be assumed from the reverence in which the 

 memoi-y of the saint, his church, and stone cross are 

 stilL held — not to mention the remoteness and desolate 

 inhospitablcness of the place. Visiting the spot a few 

 years ago. a colony of the Elecampane was observed hard 

 by the church, where, no doubt, the saint had his modest 

 kitchen-garden. Even allowing the establishment to 

 have existed for three or four centuries, a clear thousand 

 years is left during which this plant has maintained its 

 existence. As instances of other cultivated medicinal 

 herbs now widely distributed among the native flora 

 may bo mentioned the Horee Radish (Voclileiirin 

 Armoracia), Gout^weed {^gopodium Pudagraria), 

 Alexanders (Smyrnium Olusatrum), Sweet Cicely 

 (Myrrhis odorata), and Dwarf Elder or Dane's-blood 

 {Samhucus Ebulus). 



In the same section of the flora we may place a few 

 non-indigenous fruit-ti-ees, now widely spread — the Wild 

 Plum {I'ritnun dumestica), Bullace (/'. insitifia), and 

 Dwarf Chen-y (/'. Ceramtf) ; likewise many species of 

 Willow. The Willows have long been planted by river 

 sides, for the pm"pose of basket-making and as a pro- 

 tection to the banks, and as they are naturally riverside 

 species, much difiiculty now arises in discriminating 

 between indigenous and introduced forms. 



Lastly, a long list might be compiled of plants which 

 have been introduced into our gardens, shnibberies or 

 lawns for ornamental purposes, and have effected a more 

 or less permanent lodgment beyond the bounds of culti- 

 vation. The Wall-flower {Cheiratithus Gheiri), Yellow 

 Fumitory {Corydalis lutea), Red Valer-ian {Centranthm 

 ruber), and several species of Stouecrop have escaped to 

 walls and rocks, which they brighten with an abundance 

 of brilliant blossoms; all ai-e natives of Europe, but 

 none of Britain. Among sluubs, several of the 

 St. Johns-worts, notably the large-flowered U . cdhjcinum, 

 a native of S.E. Europe, may be quoted as examples. 

 A remarkable case is that of the Yellow Monkey-flower 

 (Mimulus guttafux). a North American native, which has 

 not only spread widely along river-sides, but shows a 

 preference for invading quite wild ground, ascending 

 the streams to their soiuces among the hills, and ousting 

 the rank native vegetation of the swamps at the river- 

 mouths. The Winter Heliotrope {Petaxite^ frayrans), an 

 Italian epecies, is a relentless invader, before whom most 

 of our woodland plants are as powerless as the Britons 

 before the armour-clad phalanx of Rome. With 

 perennial creeping rootstock and dense foliage which 

 chokes off every other plant, it advances steadily, 

 entirely usurping the ground. And as the fleshiness of 

 its un;Urgrouiid stems ensures for it a prolonged vit.ality, 

 it colonises every garden rubbish-heap in which a scrap 

 of its stems occur. Thus it has attained a wide distri- 

 bution - in Ireland it is recorded from 34 out of the 40 

 divisions. Steller's Wormwood {Artemisia Stelleriana), 

 a native of distant Kamtachatka, cultivated in gardens 



on account of its pretty felty grey foliage, has spread 

 to wild sand-dunes on the coasts of the United States, 

 Sweden, and Ireland, among such purely natural sur- 

 roundings that it has been claimed as a native by 

 botanists of high repute. 



Summing up all that has been said, we see how com- 

 posite a thing our present-day flora is, and how many 

 difficulties the student of geographical botany has to 

 contend with in endeavouring to trace the history of 

 the vegetation of the country. A weed may jjcrhaps 

 bo defined as a flower in the wrong place; but in Nature 

 there are no wrong places. Let tillage cease on any 

 portion of the earth's sui-face, Nature takes it in hand ; 

 and through more or less rapid progi-essive changes of 

 flora, the land is occupied by the plants best fitted to 

 hold it, and the natural eciuilibrium restored. And 

 while our beautiful aboriginal vegetation has for all 

 scientific minds a surpassing interest, not less interesting 

 is the strangely heterogeneous collection of plants that 

 stand ranged about the works of man. The native flora 

 speaks to us of pre-historic times, and links the present 

 with the past ; our " weeds," using the tenn in a wide 

 sense, aa-e full of human interest, and furnish indeed a 

 floral history of mankind, telling us of his migrations, 

 his early civilisation, his arts and crafts, and his trade- 

 routes by land and sea. 



COLLECTING AND PREPARING FORAMINI- 

 FERA. 



By A. Earland. 

 The Foraminifera, in spite of their beauty, the im- 

 portant part which they have played in the building 

 up of oiu" earth, and the many interesting features of 

 their life-history, have not met with so much favour 

 among microscopista as many gioups of far less im- 

 portance. This comparative neglect is largely due to 

 mistaken ideas as to the difficulty of obtaining and 

 prepai-ing suitable material, and it is proposed to show, 

 so far as possible within the limits of a brief paper, 

 that the collection of material is vrithin the reach of 

 every visitor to the seaside, and that the subsequent 

 prepai-ation presents no unusual difficulty to the 

 microscopist. 



The chief sources from which Foraminifera may be 

 obtained are : — 



1. — Dredged material, including anchor muds and 

 sands. 



2.- — Shore gatherings made between tide marks. 



3. — Sands, clays and limestones of various geological 

 ages, especially from Cretaceous and Tertiary 

 deposits. 



Probably vei-y few readers of Knowledge will have 

 the opportunity of dredging for material, and anchor 

 muds, which often contain an abundance of shallow 

 water forms, are rarely obtainable, owing to the strange 

 reluctance of seamen to lend themselves to the collection 

 of scientific material, but the method of preparation for 

 materials of this class is essentially the same as that 

 for shore gatherings. 



The apparatus required by the shore collector is of 

 the simplest character, and consists of a scraper for re- 

 moving the surface film of sand, which alone contains 

 Foraminifera, a spoon for scraping material from ripple 

 marks and depressions, and a metal box or canvas bag 

 to contain the gathering. The best scraper ia a thin 

 plate of celloidin. such as a " Freua " film, as the 

 thinness and flexibility of this material enable the 

 collector to make his scraping with less admixture of 



