122 



FLORA OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 



the citizens of Dublin. It has also, Mr. Hart tells us, been at all 

 times favourite ground for botanists, from the time of Threlkeld, 

 whose ■ Synopsis Stirpium Hibernicarum ' appeared in 1727, down 

 to the present. Some of the writers on its botany have possessed 

 a zeal not according to knowledge, for Mr. Hart mentions two 

 pamphlets which " unfortunately contain many erroneous 

 statements. " 



The present Flora — the value of which is the more apparent 

 when we consider how comparatively few districts of Ireland have 

 been thoroughly examined — is the outcome of the author's personal 

 researches during most of the last twenty years. It is " of parti- 

 cular interest in two special ways : (1) from the variety of several 

 of the species found; and (2) on account of the large number of 

 forms assembled in so small a space.' ' Howth itself comprises an 

 area of 2670 acres, and Ireland's Eye is about a mile in circum- 

 ference. Mr. Hart's list contains 545 species of phanerogams and 

 ferns, of which 25 are introductions— a total " probably above the 

 average— certainly as regards Ireland — for a district of about four 

 square miles in the British Islands." Mr. Hart's introduction 

 occupies only ten pages, but is singularly full of information and 

 comparative statistics, and may well be taken as a model of what 

 such essays should be. 



Among the more interesting plants of the flora of Howth, many 

 of them now first recorded, may be noted Lavatera arborea, in two 

 localities " difficult or impossible to reach except from a boat ; " 

 Erodium maritimum, a very local species in Ireland; Ornithopus 

 perpusillus, very rare as an Irish plant; Liyustrum vulgar*, " native 

 on steep grassy cliffs in almost inaccessible places," growing " in a 

 fringe at the juncture of the sea rocks with the steep grassy slopes, 

 prostrate and stunted, having stems often an inch in diameter." 

 Mr. Hart considered this and the Waterford coast to be the only 

 indigenous stations for the Privet yet discovered ; and he can bear 

 testimony to the nativity of the plant at Tramore, in habitat 

 exactly similar to that above quoted. There are several appendices 

 devoted to plants excluded from the Flora on various grounds, with 

 a list of the species found in Dublin County but not occurring 

 in Howth. An excellent map of the island completes the work, 

 which is appropriately dedicated to Mr. A. Gr. More. 



>/ 



>f 



and Vascular Cn/ptoijams. By William Hillebrand, M.D. 



Annotated and published after the author's death by W. F* 

 Hillebrand. London : Williams & Norgate. 8vo, pp. xcvi. 

 673. 4 maps. 



This is an extremely interesting and valuable work, and in many 

 ways a remarkable addition to our list of Floras. The lamented 

 author, who died on the 13th of July, 1886, had only corrected a 

 few pages of proof when his long and trying illness was terminated 

 by death ; and all will regret that he was thus prevented from seeing 

 the outcome of the twenty years of unremitting study which lie 



