68 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



upon which the author has not begrudged his pains to class them and name 

 them." 



Caleb Threlkehi M.A., M.D. (1676-1738, buried in Dublin), was a native of 

 Cumberland, and came to Dublin as a Dissenting minister, but afterwards 

 was reconciled to the Established Church. He practised as a physician on week 

 days. His botanical excursions extended into the North of Ireland. He men- 

 tions eleven species, which was all that was known in his day of mosses found 

 in Ireland. His descriptions are partly in Latin, and never extend bej^ond 

 eight or nine words. Here is a specimen: "MUSCUS TEICHOIDES 

 LANUGIISFOSUS ALPLNUS, Bryum trichoides erectus Capitulis, Lanugino- 

 sum, A Tough, Thready Moss, called in the North, ' Old Wives Tow.' " The 

 title of Threlkeld's work is — "Synopsis Stirpium Hibernicarum Alphabetice 

 Dispositaruni, Sive Commentatio de Plantis Indiginis praesertim Dublinen- 

 sibus instituta . . ." He gives a locality for one moss, which he takes 

 verbatim from Ray, viz., " On the Mountains in Crevctenau, Ballina-hinch 

 in the County of Down." Threlkeld quotes an interesting remark made 

 somewhere by a Mr. King, that "Ireland doth abound with mosses more 

 than other Kingdoms," which is as true now as it was in those olden days. 



The next writer is Walter Harris, whose " The Antient and Present State 

 of the County of Down " (Dublin, 1744) gives " A Catalogue of the more rare 

 Plants found spontaneously growing in the County of Down," in which two 

 mosses are described at p. 184, "Muscus repens major foliis & flagellis longis 



et tenuibus, donatus Sherardi. Hist. Oxon. Hypnum repens surculis magis 



erectis, foliis reflexis longioribus cinctis, operculo capituli magno. Raii Syn. 



On the Mountains near Ballinchinch." This is not much, and it reads as 



if it were borrowed from Pay ; but the book is interesting, as it was the 

 first attempt to produce a distinctive County Flora, and mosses have a 

 share in it. 



Then came Walter Wade, M.D., a.l.s., 1792. Died in Dublin, 1825. He 

 was Professor to the Dublin Society (now the Royal Dublin Society), and 

 he instigated the establishment of their Botanic Garden at Glasnevin. In 

 "Plantae rariores in Hibernia inventae" (1804), Transactions Dublin Society, 

 i\\ i-xiv, 1-214, he gives the names of, and localities for, twenty-seven 

 mosses, viz., Phascvm curvicollum, Fontinalis antipyretica, F. squamosa, 

 Cryphaea arborea, Buxbav/niia aphylla, Webcra secunda, Tctraplodon bryoides, 

 Polytrichum alpinvrn, P. urnigerum, P. aloidcs, Zcucobryum glaucum, Bryum 

 ventricosum, Blindio acuta, Bartramia norvegica, Campylopus flcxuosus, 

 Svarf:iti montaiw Amblystegiitni strammevm, A. filieimm, HylocomAwm 

 lor cum, Pterigynandrum filiform c, Acrocfadium cuspidatum, Leucodonsciuroid.es, 

 Plagiothecium sylvaticum, Thuidium abietinum, Hypnum veluti'/ium var. 



