489 
‘Notes from the Journal of an Irish Lady. 
On the 25th of July, in the present year, a small party of us 
sallied forth, provided with baskets and vasculums, with the hope 
of adding to our collection, in a district we had not yet explored ; 
the grand object of our search being Lastrea Oreopteris, said to 
be so “ plentiful in Ireland.” The country about the town of 
Galway is of a singular kind: there are numerous fields of flat 
rocks, which are frequently mingled with high, rounded ones ; 
Furze, Heath, and plots of Grass grow around, where cows are- 
turned out to graze, and where I am told they can pick many a 
sweet bit of herbage, and to our dismay, as we found many a fine 
specimen. of Botrychium Lunaria also, if we might judge of the 
bitten parts left. One very large field we found full of rocks, with 
deep fissures, in which Rubia peregrina grew abundantly ; Asple- 
nium Adiantum-nigrum, sparingly ; Ceterach officinarum, im consi- 
derable quantity ; and Dryas octopetala dotted the grassy part 
of the surface with its lovely white blossoms: it seemed a strange 
locality for a subalpine plant. We afterwards took the road 
along Taylor’s Hill, commanding a good view of the Bay of 
Galway, which is bounded on the opposite side by hills of the 
county of Clare, where Sir Charles Giesecke expressed his sur- 
prise, some years after his return from Greenland, to find a 
flower of the Ledum palustre 1 in the buttonhole of the coat of a 
peasant whom he met in a wild part of that county, and who 
pointed out where he had plucked it. Far in the distance stretched 
out the Isles of Arran, the Irish abode of that most graceful Fern 
Adiantum Capillus-Veneris, also of the rare plants Matthiola si- 
nuata, or Great Sea-Stock, and of Brassica monensis, or Isle of 
Man Cabbage. To the left lay the “City of the Tribes;” the 
old Spanish houses of it form an object of much interest to tra- 
vellers, and in one of which resided the celebrated Warden of 
Galway, an inhuman parent, who with his own hands put his son 
to death for a political offence. The fields we wished to cross 
were separated by walls composed (Galway fashion) of piles 
of stones heaped one upon another, without the aid of mortar ; 
which added greatly to our convenience, as we had only to knock 
down the walls to cross over them comfortably, and rebuild them 
when on the other side. We came to a clear stream, where we 
gathered Osmunda regalis, and saw some splendid plants of Athy- 
N.S. VOL. I. 3R 
