35 



nth December^ igoo. 



Mr. J. Brown, President, in the Chair. 



THE BOTANY OF THE SHORES OF LOUGH NEAGH. 

 By John H. Da vies. 



f Abstract. ) 



Mr. Da vies said that prior to the close of the seventeenth 

 century there had been very Httle, if an>, systematic investi- 

 gation of the botanical productions of Lough Neagh. The 

 first records were those supplied by the celebrated English 

 botanist. Dr. William Sherard, who endowed the chair of 

 Botany at Oxford, the distinguished Dillenius being the first 

 Sherardian Professor. When visiting his friend. Sir Arthur 

 Rawdon, at Moira, in 1692, Sherard spent some time in 

 herborising along the lake shores. Following Sherard about 

 the end of the next century, nearly 100 years later, came their 

 townsman, John Templeton, than whom there had been 

 no more zealous and devoted naturalist. In the course of his 

 frequent visits to the lough and to Portmore, which are con- 

 nected, he added much to the then meagre knowledge of its 

 botanical history. In 1833 Dr. David Moore, when associated 

 as botanist with General Portlock in the Ordnance Survey of 

 Derry, had splendid opportunities which, at Lough Neagh, he 

 used with the greatest advantage in the exercise of bis love of 

 botanical research. In more recent years their knowledge of 

 the lake flora had been extended by not a few of the ardent 

 and active botanists of the present time. Mr. Davies described 



