BOTANICAL FEATURES OF IRELAND xix 



It will be seen that the most striking point is the poverty, in 

 the Irish flora, of Germanic type plants. This is quite to be ex- 

 pected, when we remember that the plants of this type are those 

 which, in the sister island, are grouped along the eastern shores, 

 fronting the German Ocean, where soil, climate, and proximity to 

 the Continent no doubt affect, or have affected, their present distri- 

 bution. Ireland has her due proportion, or nearly so, of the other 

 types, excepting the British type. This, consisting as it does of 

 plants of universal or very wide distribution in Great Britain, is 

 represented in Ireland by 98 per cent, of the British list. 



Topographical Groups. 

 The South and West Coasts. — The subject of topographical 

 groups in the Irish flora, and of natural botanical provinces, must be 

 reviewed in a less cursory manner. The most remarkable featm-e in 

 the botany of the island, and one which gives it a special interest to 

 students of plant-distribution, is the occurrence, in the southern 

 and western counties, of a number of plants which have their head- 

 quarters in the Pyrenees, or along the Mediterranean shores, and 

 which reach in Ireland a latitude higher than that which marks the 

 limit of their range on the Continent. A few of them are also found 

 in the south-west of England. Commingling with these plants, we 

 find a small group of species of widely different origin — a boreal, 

 almost sub-Arctic group, made up of plants whose home is in the 

 northern United States and in Canada. Also, owing no doubt to 

 the same climatic conditions which allow of the continued existence 

 of these northern species at such low latitudes, a number of plants 

 characteristic of alpine situations, or of higher latitudes in Great 

 Britain, descend from their usual boreal or mountain haunts, and 

 flourish on the warm western coast, often in abundance, right down 

 to sea-level. The range in Ireland of these three remarkable groups 

 — the southern plants, North American plants, and low-level alpines 

 — is in general well defined. With Kerry, Clare, or Connemara as 

 centres, they spread, with few exceptions, along a comparatively 

 narrow strip of country up and down the west coast, the most 

 widely-distributed ranging northward to Donegal, and south- 

 eastward to Waterford. 



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