26 THREE DAYS AT KiLLARNEY. [February, 



north-west extremity, I made my way across the picturesque Gap 

 of Dunloe. Before leaving the shores of the Lake I was de- 

 lighted by the appearance of the beautiful Pinguicula grandiflora, 

 Lam., of which I gathered about a dozen specimens, but found to 

 my no small mortification in the evening that the splendid blos- 

 soms had nearly all fallen. This plant I afterwards found tole- 

 rably plentiful in the Gap of Dunloe, where also I gathered 

 Viola palustris, Lin., V. stagnina, Kit., and Pedicularis sylvatica, 

 Lin. [florihus albis) . Crossing a shoulder of the Purple Moun- 

 tain, where, with the exception of Schcenus nigricans, Lin., and a 

 few plants of no greater rarity, there was not much to arrest the 

 attention, I had the good fortune to meet with, if not a new 

 species of Drosera, at least a very marked variety of D. longifolia. 

 The plant was growing in a muddy ditch close to the highway 

 and in considerable quantity, and all the specimens having the 

 peculiarity of being caulescent. As I did not remark this unu- 

 sual feature at the time, I only gathered three or four plants ; but 

 I am fully convinced that all the plants growing in the locality 

 indicated had the same characteristic feature. The annexed 

 woodcut vaW sufficiently show the peculiarity : the leaves of the 

 plant wanted the bright straw-colour usual in our native Drosera, 

 and were of a very faint yellowish-green. None of the plants 

 had flower-scapes, unless what I suppose to be an unexpanded 

 leaf prove to be a one-flowered scape.* 



* Since writing the above I have learned, through the kindness of the Editor, 

 that the caulescent form of Drosera has been found by other collectors, and among 

 these by Mr. Pamphn iu the New Forest. It has however been ignored by all 

 modern writers on British plants smce the time of Smith, although it was observed 

 and described by Dr. HiUl in the first edition of liis ' British Flora,' 1799. It is 

 unnoticed in the thii-d edition of Withermg's Botanical Arrangement of 1796, and 

 ta Symonds's Synopsis of 1798. 



Drosera longifolia (D. intermedia, Sayne). "Scapes from the root (curved at 

 the base, passing off horizontally and becoming sudderJy erect) ; leaves ovah-oblong. 

 Capsule oblong. 



"Var. 2. Scape branched. 



" Yar. 3. Caulescent. H. ox. xv. 4. row 1, fig. last but one, only the scape is too 

 straight." (The above hieroglyphical characters or signs are meant to represent 

 'Morison's Historia Plantarum.') " Ols. This is in every respect Hke var. 1, except 

 that there is a stem, which in some instances is full two inches in length, with 

 nmnerous leaves. I have always found it growing among Sphagnum palmtre in 

 moist bogs on heaths, and at fu-st thought that the plant pushed up to a greater 

 height on account of the moss growing quickly around it, and that this appearance 

 of stem was rather to be considered as an elongation of the root ; but I have doubted 



