Moore — On Irish Mepaficce. 591 



LIII. — Report on Ieish Hepatic^. By Dayid Mooee, Ph.D., P.L.S. 



(With Plates 43, 44, and 45). 



[Eead April 24, 1876]. 



Herewith I lay before the Academy the results of many years' re- 

 searches among the Irish Hepaticae. 



Since I received the grant from the Academy, I visited in the early 

 period of 1874 several parts of the County of AVicklow, which I sup- 

 posed to be likely habitats of these minute plants, and among other 

 places the glen of Altadore, or Hermitage Glen, near Delgany, where 

 the rare Irish fern, Trichomanes radicans, once grew very sparingly, 

 but has long since been eradicated. In the autumn of the same year, 

 I went to Connemara, where I made a rather extended search among 

 the mountains of that country, ascending to the top of Mweelrea, the 

 highest in that district. 



In May, 1875, I visited portions of the Counties of Fermanagh 

 and Leitrim, where they join near Manorhamilton, and where I found 

 the sides of the lakes and glens rather favourable for the growth of 

 cryptogams, especially Hepaticse. This district is in close proximity 

 to the Ben Bulben range of mountains, upon which in Ireland is 

 found the most distinct trace of a truly Alpine phanerogamic flora. 

 On the high rocks between the heads of Glenad and Gleniff, Draba 

 rupestris, Saxifraga nivalis, and Arabis petrasa, all three truly 

 Alpine plants, occur, not occurring elsewhere in Ireland. The faces of 

 the cliffs are clothed, in many places, with two of the most lovely of 

 our sub-Alpine species, namely — Saxifraga oppositifolia, and Silene 

 acaulis ; their rosy purple flowers can be seen at some considerable 

 distance, and, on a nearer approach, appear patches of the rare Arenaria 

 ciliata ; this district being its only British locality. Here I gathered 

 several rather rare Hepaticae and mosses. In October I made another 

 journey to the County of Kerry, where some great rarities among the 

 Hepaticae were collected, but very few not previously known to grow 

 there. 



This family of plants, like the Irish mosses, has been well 

 studied and searched for by former botanists, both Irish and foreign. 

 "When it is remembered that the Counties of Kerry and of Cork are 

 those in which dwelt two of the most gifted cryptogamic botanists 

 that Ireland has produced, namely, the late Dr. Thomas Taylor, and 

 Miss Hutchins of Bantry, it is not much to be wondered at that few 

 discoveries remained for their successors. Of Miss Hutchins, Sir James 

 Smith, when writing his English Flora, is reported to have said, " he 

 believed she could find anything." To form some idea of her great 

 success among the Hepaticae, we have only to consult the pages of 

 Hooker's " British Jungermanniae," where her name is more or less 

 connected with nearly every rare species contained in that grand work. 



E. I. A. PKOC, SEE. II., VOL. II., SCIENCE. 3 M 



