i899-i9°°-] 563 



The paper was illustrated by limelight views of plans, sketches, 

 measured drawings, and photographs, made by Mr. Fennell, 

 and those who accompanied him to the island. 



16th February. 



R. LLOYD PRAEGER, B.A., M.R.I.A.— " BOTANIZING 

 IN THE CENTRE AND WEST OF IRELAND." 



The lecturer said that, owing to its position as the most 

 westerly portion of the Continent of Europe, Ireland was of 

 peculiar interest to the student of botanical and zoological 

 geography. Here, on the extreme edge of the Continent, we 

 might expect to find vestiges of the plants and animals that had 

 gone before, pushed out to the very verge of the ocean by 

 stronger species spreading from the great Eurasian land area. 

 Likewise, the absence from Ireland of plants might help us to 

 discover which species were the most recent comers into 

 Western Europe, not having yet spread into this remotest 

 corner. The flora of Ireland was found to contain several 

 well-marked groups of plants of widely different origin. By far 

 the most interesting of these groups were found along the 

 western coasts. Here grew, ofttimes in abundance, a number 

 of plants which elsewhere in Europe were to be found only in 

 the Pyrenean area. With these were others belonging to the 

 North American flora, the more characteristic of these being 

 completely absent from the whole European Continent. How 

 and when these plants came to Ireland is a very difficult question, 

 but there can be little doubt that they represent the very 

 oldest element in our flora, and migrated to this country over a 

 former land surface when the distribution of sea and land along 

 the western edge of Europe was very different from what it is 

 now. The present distribution of plants in Ireland was 

 profoundly influenced by soils, and, according as the prevailing 

 rocks were limestone or non-calcareous, a large number of 



