324 [Proc. B. N. F. C, 



would seem now to be of English and Scotch descent, and dur- 

 ing the various wars, the Irish of Tyrone and the West rarely 

 made any footing here. Besides the earthen fort, with its long- 

 vanished wooden structures, and the subterranean rock-cut 

 chambers, and the English castle, of which the name only sur- 

 vives, in the '* castle field," the site of the " Church of Rath- 

 more," is still marked by one or two ancient fragments of 

 wall in one of the farm enclosures. Bones, and silver coins 

 have also been found here in some quantity. 



Muckamore, the next spot visited, is the site of a priory 

 founded by the King Diarmid, whose murder is recorded above. 

 Of the priory ruins, once of great extent, nothing can now be 

 seen but a fragment, in the garden wall of the present seat of 

 Muckamore Abbey. 



The botanists of the party had not been idle. The course 

 of the Sixmilewater has long been known to local botanists 

 as yielding many scarce plants. Amongst these is the very 

 rare water crowfoot (^Ranunculus fluitans\ which has not 

 been met with elsewhere in Ireland. It formerly occurred in 

 some plenty in the river near Doagh and Templepatrick, but 

 was destroyed in that locality some years since, and it was 

 feared that it was extinct now in this country. It still survives, 

 however, and was found by the Field Club on this occasion 

 growing plentifully in the stream near Dunadry and Mucka- 

 more. At Rathmore was found the penny cress {Thlaspi 

 arvense). Another plant found there is rather puzzling ; it is 

 evidently a close ally of the horseshoe vetch of England {Hip- 

 pocrepis comosa\ but differs both in flowers and foliage from 

 that species. Whence it came, and how it happens to be 

 located at Antrim, are questions easily asked, but not so easy 

 to answer. There is one of the helleborine groups of orchids 

 which has been stated more than fifty years ago to occur in 

 several places in County Antrim. None of the botanists of the 

 present generation have met with the plant in this county, and 

 as its time of flowering is June, and Muckamore one of its re- 

 puted haunts, an attempt was made on the present occasion to 



