Domestic Notices : — Ireland. 683 



ground. One or two other New Holland plants, as a composite plant resem- 

 bling a shrubby aster, and another shrub, apparently pomaderris, are thriving 

 well in the open air. 



The kitchen-gai'den appears in beautiful order :- but that is a subject in which 

 I take but little interest. In the conservatory are some splendid fuchsias, 

 and other plants, but nothing particularly rare or new. — W. C. Clapham 

 Road, September 29. 1835. 



The Botanic Garden at Belfast, under the care of the curator, Mr. Camp- 

 bell, may, for excellent culture and high order in keeping, vie with any in these 

 islands. The number of half-hardy exotics which not only stand the open 

 air, but flower freely in this garden, is very^considerable; and I have no doubt, 

 in the course of a year or two after the garden is completed, and all the hot- 

 houses built, that Mr. Campbell will have leisure to send you a list of them. 

 As I was in great haste to reach Dublin in time for the Association, I had no 

 time to take down names. I saw your favourite Wistan'a, which they name, 

 like you, Consequa??^ ; the celebrated white-flowering Irish heath (Menziesia 

 ^oliifolia alba) from the mountains of Cunnemara, and not to be found else- 

 where [a specimen of this was sent us by Mr. John Smith of Lismore, 

 August 31.]; numbers of fuchsias, calceolarias, petunias, &c. — J. D. Liver- 

 pool, September, 1835. 



A cut-leaved Variety of the Comvion Oak is not unfrequent in British nur- 

 series. There is a specimen in Taylor's Nursery at Preston ; and, in 1831, when 

 we were in Dumfries, there were scores of plants of it in one nursery, which had . 

 come up in that form from seed, as the eagle's claw maple (^^cer^latanoides 

 laciniatum) does very frequently from seed of A. platanoides. The acorns, in 

 the case of the Dumfries nursery, were taken from a tree which had sported 

 in several parts of its branches, so that raising from seed is only a test of spe- 

 cies under certain cu'cumstances. Mr. Fenessey of the Waterford Nursery 

 brought us lately some branches of a very beautiful laciniated variety of oak, 

 now growing in his nursery, which he thinks different from any other. It was 

 raised from seed, by Mr. Fenessey, about fifteen years ago. The tree is about 

 15 ft. high, with erect fastigiated branches, thickly covei'ed with pendulous 

 foliage ; and it is very hardy. — Cond. 



Vlnus Vindster, it was stated by Mr. Mackay of the Trinity College Gar- 

 den, at the meeting of the British Association, in August, 1835, is sup- 

 posed to have formerly been abundant in the south of Ireland. {Ed. Phil. 

 Journ., xix. 401.) 



Vhiiis sylvestris is found in bogs in Ireland, in three layers or strata, with 

 a stratum of peat between each layer of from 3 ft. to 5 ft. in depth. In Scot- 

 land the bogs also contain three distinct layers of trees ; " the first layer a 

 foot from the surface, quite fresh ; then a layer of peat ; next, a layer of wood, 

 slightly carbonised ; under that, a layer more carbonised, and slightly bitu- 

 menised." (^Ibid.) 



Tdxus baccdta. — At the same meeting, Mr. C. W. Hamilton gave an 

 account of a yew found in a bog in Queen's County, which, through the kind- 

 ness of Mr. Mackay, we were enabled to notice in our Arboretum Britannicum, 

 p. 106. This yew was found in a bog in Queen's County, and exhibited " an- 

 nual rings indicating a growth of 545 years. Yet so compact was the wood, 

 or so close the layers, that the diameter of the trunk did not exceed a foot 

 and a half. The growth had been very slow during the last three centuries, 

 for near the exterior there were about 100 rings within the space of one inch. 

 From the size and number of the yews found in Ireland, and the elevated sta- 

 tion they take amongst the rocks, where they assume the stunted appearance 

 of a juniper, Mr. Mackay has no doubt of its being a native tree. He exhi- 

 bited the common and the Florencecourt yew, a beautiful variety, growing like 

 the upright cypress. He added that the seeds of the Irish yew would pro- 

 duce the common tree ; but Dr. Graham suggested that, as there might be 

 mules, it would not prove that they were the same species. Mr. Babington 

 stated that another variety had been discovered, in which the horizontal 



