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Botanical Notes from the Journal of an Irish Lady. 
Ireland has now ceased to be a terra incognita to tourists ; 
the railroads enable people to visit the most distant parts of our 
lovely island with a facility and ease before unknown. Each of 
the four provinces presents an attraction to the admirer and 
seeker of fine scenery, and the entire island is rich in natural 
productions. In Leinster there is the county of Wicklow, with 
its glens and vales; nor is the least lovely of the latter the one 
immortalized by Moore in the lines so familiar to all readers 
of the ‘ Irish Melodies,’ beginning ‘ Sweet vale of Avoca.’ This 
beautiful spot abounds in Blechnum boreale: it is generally 
visited from the ‘ Wooden Bridge,’ as it is called, which the tra- 
veller will find, as a dear English friend of mine did, when he 
asked the coachman, “‘ Are we near Wooden Bridge?” ‘“ Yes, 
yer honour, but you’ll find the wooden bridge to be a stone 
one !” 
Ulster presents magnificent scenery on the Antrim coast, ex- 
tending from Belfast to that wonder of geologists the Giants’ 
Causeway, all of which is now fully displayed by the new line 
of road, which at every bend reveals some pleasing feature, now 
passing the ruin of an ancient castle rich in legendary lore, 
such as that once inhabited by O’Halloran, the bandit chief, 
whose exploits are so ably recorded by the talented author of 
‘The Collegians,’ then winding at the base of vast limestone 
cliffs, in which are numerous caves, three of which are inha- 
bited, one by a blacksmith, who there followed his trade. Near 
Red Bay the road is cut through tunnels of rock, forming a fine 
setting to the valleys around, of which Ossian has sung. The 
algologist will find much to interest him on these shores: about 
Cushendall Bay Nitophyllum punctatum has been found five feet 
long by three wide; at Ballycastle, nearer to the Causeway, 
Delesseria sanguinea waves its rosy fronds of a very large size, 
and there abounds the rare Odonthalia dentata. 
Munster can boast of Killarney, with its far-famed lakes, to 
the beauty of which I believe neither pen nor pencil can do 
justice. To those tourists who need not economize in time or 
money, the first best view of the Lakes is admitted to be from 
the Kenmare-road. There is much to interest the botanist in 
the neighbourhood of Killarney: there flourishes Arbutus Unedo, 
NS) VOL I: Z 
