[Proc. B.N.F.C, 



President's Address. 



This Club held the first meeting of the Winter Session on 

 the 15th November, when the President, Rev. C. H. Waddell, 

 B.D., delivered his inaugural address on " Plant Societies, and 

 the Distribution of Plants in N.E. Ireland." The lecturer said 

 the social aspect of the life of plants is an interesting study 

 and aid to understanding the way in which the genera and 

 species are distributed. There is a striking parallel between 

 the process by which the races and societies of plants have 

 spread over the earth and the history of the races of men. An 

 account was then given of what may be called the ethnography 

 of plants. The flora of Ireland is mixed, not a pure race, 

 indigenous to the soil. The main stock is British, but Ireland 

 possesses in the South-West a small but interesting group 

 called the Cantabrians, whose headquarters is in the Pyrenees. 

 By means of a map, which showed how Europe formerly 

 extended its coast line north-west, and included the British 

 Isles, it was pointed out that in this way these Spanish plants 

 reached Ireland. They were cut off from return when the 

 channel came into existence later on. A still smaller group 

 of American plants, which include the blue-eyed grass, pipe 

 wort, and others, probably reached Ireland from the west by 

 way of Greenland and the Faroes. The main progress of 

 plants, however, as of animals, is westwards, and it was shown 

 how the Irish flora, like the nation, consists of a mixed race of 

 immigrants from various parts of Europe, which have now 

 settled down into a natural plant society. The American weed 

 was mentioned as an instance of a colonist. It came to this 

 country first in 1836, when it was observed in a pond at 

 Waringstown, by John Trew, Mr. Waring's gardener. 

 Between 1842 and 1847 it had spread all over England. On 

 the Continent it reached the Loire in 1875. and has been heard 

 of from the Danube, Pyrenees, West Prussia, and Poland. 

 In Canada it does not choke the streams as with us, since the 

 frost cuts it down in winter ; it does not perfect fruit in this 



