196 
A List of the Ferns and their Allies found in the County Dublin, 
with special reference to the Dodder Valley. By JoHN RoBERT 
Kryauan, M.B., Hon. Sec. Dublin Nat. Hist. Society. 
THE following Catalogue does not pretend to be a correct list of all 
the ferns found in the County Dublin, being merely a record of such 
as have fallen under my own observation in my rambles, during the 
last five or six years, in those parts of the county which lie to he 
South-west of the Liffey. This river in its easterly course to the sea 
divides the county pretty fairly in two. Of the district to the South 
of it, it may be advisable to say a few words. From the river the 
country stretches out South with but few breaks till it reaches the 
Dodder; it then gradually rises, more or less abruptly, till, at the 
extreme boundary close to the head of that river, it attains the height, 
in the ridge of Keppine, of 25 to 27 feet above the sea-level, being, in 
fact, part of the mountain chain to whose picturesque wildness Wick- 
low owes so much of its fashionable scenery. These hills vary much, 
though they are for the most part one immense bog, barren of every- 
thing except heath and Lycopodiums, and such-like plants ; in some 
of the higher peaks not even these will grow, and you have nothing 
but peat, bare of every kind of vegetation. They are, however, inter- 
sected by stream-glens of surpassing loveliness and richness in bota- 
nical treasures. All these, with six or seven exceptions, run into the 
valley of the Dodder, whose stream they swell with their waters. 
This river, rising close to the butt of Kippine, after flowing through 
an open bog for about a mile, plunges into a romantic clay-slate range, 
from which it emerges at Castlekelly, a little below which it is joined 
by the Middleton Brook, which is made up of the Lot Brook and Slade 
Brook, the first rising from Glas-a-vallawn, and the second from part 
of the Feather-bed range. These streams conjoined flow on in a very 
tortuous manner through Kelly’s Glen, between the steep clay bluffs, 
on which is situated the pretty little holy well and graveyard of Kil- 
nasantan, till, having passed through Glenismaul or Thrush Valley, 
beneath and between the breaks of Ballina’s Corney, it finally, just 
below Bohemabreena, at Kiltippet, emerges into a comparatively 
level country, through which it winds for about eight miles to the sea. 
Just as it reaches Bohemabreena it receives a tributary rivulet from 
Shane’s Glen, remarkable as being the only white water, ¢. e., stream 
not boggy, which it receives. This rises at the back of Montpelier, 
and flows chiefly through a gravel district, just before its termination 
