The Rev. Dr. Hincks on the Flora of Ireland. 5- 
Hudson published his Flora Anglica, that British botanists 
had a systematic manual, but are we therefore to regard the 
works of preceding botanists as useless? An improved edi- 
tion appeared in 1778, and Lightfoot’s Flora Scotica, the first 
respecting the peculiar botany of Scotland which I have yet 
traced, appeared in 1777, the work, be it recollected, of an Kn- 
glishman, at the instigation and even the expense of a native 
of Wales, Mr. Pennant. From this time the progress of the 
science was rapid; in 1786 Dr. Withering published his 
* Botanical Arrangement” in English, and shortly before or 
soon after commenced Curtis’s Flora Londinensis and Bo- 
tanical Magazine, Smith and Sowerby’s English Botany (in- 
cluding Scotland and Ireland), and the Transactions of the 
Linnean Society. Previous to 1780 botany could have made 
little progress in Great Britain, except amongst scientific 
men, though the dawn of a brighter day of botanical science 
may be observed in the records of the period immediately 
preceding. My business however is with Ireland; and I shall 
first inquire what had been done towards a botanical know- 
ledge of that country previous to 1780; and then whether it 
accompanied England in its advance, or by unaccountable and 
shameful neglect, left all to be done, and by strangers, within 
the last few years. 
We have no records of the first discoverers, but we know 
that a Rev. Mr. Heaton communicated the names of plants 
he had found to How and Merret, and that, probably through 
him, those plants which at present constitute the most re- 
markable difference of the Flora of this island from that of 
Great Britian, were known and recorded long before the time 
of Threlkeld. In 1727 appeared the first list of Irish plants, 
except what may possibly exist in-the Irish language. I will 
not repeat the slighting terms in which this work is spoken 
of, but by giving a fuller account of his work, show that the 
distinguished Robert Brown did not estimate the author of it 
too highly when he thought him deserving of a place amongst 
the promoters of botanical knowledge. I allude to the cir- 
cumstance of his having called a genus of plants by his name, 
which he would hardly have done if he considered his work 
so useless as some regard it. The title was “ Synopsis Stir- 
pium Hibernicarum, &c. &c., being a short treatise of native 
plants, especially such as grow spontaneously in the vicinity 
of Dublin, with their Latin, English, and Irish names, and an 
abridgement of their virtues, with several new discoveries ; 
with an appendix of observations made upon plants by Dr. 
Molyneux, Physician to the State in Ireland.” The modest 
motto prefixed is, “ Est quiddam prodire tenus si non detur 
