STEWART AND CORRY S FLORA OF N.E. IRELAND. 23 



notice a very few of the stranger floral features mirrored for phytologists 

 in the pages of this book. 



Among notable Absentees in N.E. Ireland we notice Thalictrum 

 alpinum, Corydalis daviculata, Chrysosplenium alternifolium, Cam- 

 panula latifolia, Statice binervosa, Polypodiiifn dryopteris, and 

 Asplenium viride, the absence of the second and fourth named being 

 inexplicable. The common Betony (Stachys betonica) is likewise 

 said to be 'very rare.' The infrequency of Arabis hirsuta is note- 

 worthy, too ; and the prevalence of trap rock in the area does not 

 seem to give Asplenium septentrionale to the flora, although it does 

 give Silene acaulis ; and the rare Red Broomrape (Orobanche rubra), 

 a limestone plant in North Anglia, is said to be frequent on the trap 

 hills of Antrim and Derry. The lovely Trientalis too, is 'conspicuous 

 by its absence'; whilst, per contra, the Pinguicula lusitanica is present, 

 nay ' frequent,' and the Bladderworts seem in the same force as they 

 are in Cantyre, Islay, Mull, and other of the western Isles. Another 

 statement (pp. 2, 3) is so strange that one almost doubts its being 

 really a fact. Stations in all three counties are given for the star- 

 flowered water Crowfoot, Ranunculus ' trichophyllzts,' and in two 

 counties for Ran. ' heterophyllus Fr.,' whilst Rati, drouetii is not 

 included at all — a very singular thing, and one much more improbable 

 than (which we suspect) that R. drouetii has been classed with it — 

 the two not differentiated. Ran. trichophyllus is a plant almost 

 wholly of still marsh waters, mostly near the sea; whilst Ran. drouetii 

 is very frequent in upland inland districts, and frequently produces 

 floating-leaves variously cut, which are hairy below. The flaccidity 

 of the capillary leaves is so variable in R. drouetii, rigidly-segmented 

 non-collapsing ones being common enough in certain waters, that no 

 reliance can be placed on that character ; whilst R. heterophyllus in 

 its early states is frequently called drouetii, and drouetii in its later 

 states with floating leaves so often styled heterophyllus (even by 

 ' authorities '), as to make it very doubtful whether the two are not, 

 indeed, one species. 



A strong point in this flora seems to be the attention given to the 

 local vulgar names for common plants. Many are of a most suggestive 

 and interesting sort, and some we have not seen before. True rustic 

 plant-names are naturally often very local, and almost of necessity 

 need also for their inception and perpetuation an abundance of the 

 species in its restricted locale — a commonness sufficient to have 

 rendered it familiar to unbotanical eyes. It is so in Yorkshire — 

 witness the name Bog-Bell for Andromeda, only to be heard on 

 rustic lips about Thorne — and is doubtless the same among the Irish 

 peasantry, if any are left in North-East Ireland. A rare thinly spread 



Jan. 18S9. 



