PEEFACE. ix 



and have enabled us to fill up from their unpublished notes several 

 gaps in the distribution of the Irish Characea. If we have suc- 

 ceeded in our endeavour to make this edition a fuU and accurate 

 guide to plant distribution in Ireland, no small share of that success 

 is due to the help of these valued correspondents, both English and 

 Irish. 



A comparison of the first with the present edition of this work 

 will at once show how great an advance has been made in Irish 

 topographical botany within the last thirty years. Amongst the 

 influences which have contributed to this progress the foremost 

 place must be given to the unobtrusive encouragement and guidance 

 which was at all times freely given to the less experienced Irish 

 botanists by Alexander Goodmum More. His efforts to stimulate the 

 younger generation of explorers were supported by the Eoyal Irish 

 Academy, whose grants in aid of the botanical survey of Ireland 

 were for the most part allocated in accordance with his views. By 

 means of these grants a series of exhaustive and trustworthy reports 

 ■on previously unexplored, or imperfectly explored, areas were 

 procured. The mountain groups of Magillicuddy's Eeeks, of the 

 Brandon peninsula, of Galway and Mayo, of the Graltees, the Com- 

 meraghs, the Enockmealdowns, Ben Bulben, and the Moumes ; the 

 shores of Lough Erne, Lough Allen, Lough Eee, and the Shannon 

 estuary ; the coasts of Waterf ord and "Wexford ; the islands of 

 Inishbofin, Eathlin, Lambay, and the Blaskets ; all these have been 

 carefully surveyed imder the Academy's well-considered scheme. 

 And these researches have been largely supplemented of late by the 

 more purely voluntary labours of many botanists, British as well as 

 Irish, so that little is now wanting to complete our knowledge of 

 the distribution of our flora, at least in its wider aspects. The next 

 step in advance must be in the direction of a Topographical Botany 

 of Ireland on the lines of H. C. Watson's work dealing with the 

 county distribution of plants in Great Britain ; and such a work, we 

 are glad to know, has already been taken in hands by one who is 

 well quaUfled to bring it to a successful issue. 



No attempt will be made here to estimate the precise share con- 

 tributed by each of many field-workers to the advance in Irish 



