THE COUNTY EECOEDS xciii 



tion to the plan is purely a personal one. It may be urged that, by 

 this method, the original finder of a plant is ignored, the credit of 

 discovery taken from its rightful owner, and the historical and 

 biographical interest of Irish botany seriously impaired. The reply 

 is that the plan of this work, as deliberately thought out, requires 

 that the latest information respecting each species should be given ; 

 that names of persons are here published, not with any reference to 

 original discovery, but simply as vouchers for the records ; and that 

 the historical element, and the claims of first discoverers, are so 

 fully and excellently dealt with in the second edition of " Cybele 

 Hibernica," as to render unnecessary their republication, and to 

 justify the mode of treatment here adopted. In " Cybele," the first 

 and subsequent discoveries of each rare plant are accurately and 

 sympathetically traced, and the most captious field-botanist will find 

 himself fully credited with whatever " new records " he may claim 

 to have made. In the present work, the personal name attached to 

 a station is not claimed to represent more than the latest passer- 

 by who published, or favoured the compiler with a note of his 

 having seen, the plant in the station quoted. For my own records, 

 at least, I claim no more than this ; and on account of the large 

 amount of field-work which I have carried out during the last five 

 years, in order to make the county lists complete, my name occurs 

 with a frequency which I would willingly have avoided. 



The first portion of each line, then, following on the number and 

 name of the division, gives the latest satisfactory record of the 

 occurrence of the plant in the division, with locality, authority, and 

 date. The second portion (where a full stop or colon intervenes) 

 gives, in the briefest possible terms, a general indication of the dis- 

 tribution or frequency of the plant in the division. 



Each record or note consists of two parts, separated by a dash — 



(1) the LOCALITY or other topographical or distributional item, with 

 the year, when obtainable, in which the observation was made ; and 



(2) the AUTHORITY for the record or note, giving the person's name, or 

 the reference or reference number showing the source of information, 

 and also the date of publication or transmission of the note in cases 

 where the date of observation is not obtainable. Thus " Dundalk 

 '99 — A." signifies that A. found the plant at Dundalk iu 1899. 



