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If it could be shown that Artemisia Stelleriana was a free- 

 growing species, and was, or had been, cultivated in the neighbour- 

 hood of the North Bull, there would clearly be a strong presumption 

 that it had somehow escaped to the sand-hills from its place of 

 cultivation. A couple of letters, one to Mr. Thomas Smith, of the 

 Daisy Hill Nursery at Newry, where I was informed the plant was 



Ardilaun's gardens at Saint Anne's, Clontarf, distant about a mile 

 in a straight line from the sand-hills station, set both these points 

 at rest. I can hardly do better than quote freely from these letters. 

 " I cannot remember," Mr. Smith writes from Newry, " from whom 

 I originally obtained A,t „>i-ia V<// ii>nut. I think it was from 

 some continental nursery ; but that is fifteen years ago or more. 

 It was introduced as a white-foliaged bedding plant, and was widely 

 distributed for that purpose. It is a plant of the freest possible 

 growth. Any bit of the top or rootstock swept out with refuse 

 would be sure to grow. I have not noticed any seedlings ; but this 

 proves nothing, inasmuch as in nurseries the constant hoeing 

 prevents their becoming established. Nothing seems to stop its 

 growth. In one instance it has gone half-way across a bed of mint. 

 Tops have often been used for mixing with cut flowers, and may 

 have assisted in the make-up of breast-bouquets, which, worn by 

 some visitor to the North Bull, may have been thrown away as 

 withered, and have got covered with sand, and the whole matter is 

 at once accounted for." This extract shows how aggressive a plant 

 the Kamtschatkan Artemisia is, and to what a slight and unregarded 

 incident we may without any reckless use of the imagination 

 attribute its settlement on the North Bull. 



In the second letter, from Mr. Charles Smith, of Saint Anne's 

 gardens, we find ample materials for another and perhaps more 

 satisfactory theory. "I had Artemisia Stelleriana here," the letter 

 runs, " for many years. We generally called it the 4 Siberian Worm- 

 wood.' I cannot recollect where I procured my first plant. I think 

 it is as many as twenty years since. At the time of the rage for 

 carpet-bedding I used it extensively, it being very easy to train in 

 all shapes and keep dwarf. It may perhaps be ten years since 

 I discarded it. We often carted a great deal of our rubbish down 

 to the foreshore, and I am not at all surprised to hear of its being 

 discovered on the North Bull, as I have picked it up several times 

 on our farm, where I have no doubt pieces had got into the manure- 

 heap from the garden-refuse. The species was most aggressive, 

 growing anywhere a piece got on the ground." The foreshore here 

 mentioned, to which the garden-refuse of Saint Anne's was carted, 

 is the inner shore of the "muddy creek a quarter of a mile in 

 width" Bpoken of in the January number of this Journal as sepa- 

 rating the North Bull from the mainland. 



It is hardly necessary to fill up, as anyone may, from the 

 materials given in the letter just quoted from, an alternative 

 theory to that of the withered breast- bouquet. A few scraps of 

 the Artnnisia, probably fragments of creeping rootstock, are shot 

 out with other garden rubbish on the foreshore at low tide, the 



