208 BOTANICAL NOTES 
The soil of the south of Ireland is so dry, that you are told that 
although rain every day is more than is desirable, rain every other 
day is too little. With little wood and a soil so unretentive, the 
bogs are the chief reservoirs from which the streams are main- 
_ tained; and if those were all reclaimed, there is danger that most 
_ of these would become alternately destructive torrents and dry 
' beds of stones. In this second walk I met with Bunium verti- 
cillatum (Carum verticillatum, Koch, etc.), and hunted im vain 
through a very promising bit of wood, rocky and boggy, for some 
rarity. 
Another excursion from Rossbeigh took me to the Lake of 
Coomasaharen, probably the finest mountain in Kerry. It is 
very much shorter than Coom na Capel, and the mountain is not . 
so high as Mangerton, but there is a greater height of perpendi- 
cular cliff, and a mixture of wood adds something of a softer 
beauty to the scene. There is another lake higher up the moun- 
tain, which discharges its waters into this. The only rarity I found 
here was Orchis albida ; but I conceive that something might be 
met with about the upper lake, or by coasting the rocks of the 
western extremity of the one I visited (the highest in the hollow), 
and crossing the neck to another lake situate at the foot of the 
mountain Drung. The mountains here are indeed not high 
enough for alpine plants, but in fact the south of Ireland yields 
no alpine plants, and very few which can be called subalpine; 
perhaps Sazifraga stellaris and one or two Saxifragas found on 
Brandon and on Gheran Tuel, and Sazifraga aizoides which 
grows on Connor Cliffs near Dingle, constitute the only exam- 
ples. S. umbrosa and the others of that type which are found 
everywhere in Kerry, are not even mountain plants, though 
they ascend to a considerable height. This lake is accessible in 
a car, and I found a boat on the shore which took me at once to 
its upper end. 
I left Rossbeigh in the mail-cart for Killarney. A violent but 
very local storm the preceding evening had so much damaged a 
bridge, that it seemed doubtful whether we should be able to 
proceed; but by unharnessing the horses and conducting the 
vehicle with much care over what remained of the structure, we 
passed without accident. The finest views of Gheran Tuel are, 
I think, from about Beaufort; and here we see how distinct it 
is from the Reeks, and the latter divide themselves from this 
