PREFACE 



The need of an Irish " Topographical Botany " was forcibly 

 brought to my mind in 1895, when perusing a copy of the ninth 

 edition of the "London Catalogue of British Plants," sent me by 

 the editor, Mr. F. J. Hanbury, f.l.s., on noticing that Ireland was 

 still necessarily excluded in the census-numbers appended to the 

 species, owing to absence of detailed information concerning the 

 distribution of plants in this island. In the "London Catalogue," 

 in fact, Ireland was placed on the same footing as the Channel 

 Islands, its very existence being recognized only when a plant 

 occurred in Ireland, but not in Great Britain. To assist in 

 remedying this unsatisfactory state of affairs, if nothing more, I 

 set about collecting information respecting the county-distribution 

 of plants in Ireland. 



In Great Britain, Hewett Cottrell "Watson had laid the founda- 

 tions of a detailed knowledge of plant-distribution in 1873-74, 

 by the publication of his "Topographical Botany." The second 

 edition of this work, edited by Mr. J. G. Baker and Eev. W. W. 

 Newbould, and published in 1883, showed great progress in the 

 mapping of the range of each species. My first idea as regards 

 Ireland was to follow Watson's book in detail as well as in general 

 conception, and to aim merely at quoting one reliable authority 

 for the occurrence of any plant in any county-division. The 

 desirability soon appeared of giving, in place of a bare authority, 

 a definite locality, date, and author for each county record, and 



