xlviii IlfTEODUCTION. 



Hibernian type plants, as ttey have been named, are set out in tbe 

 following list : — 



Saxifraga umbrosa. Eanunculus^ tripartitue. 



S. Geum. Arenaria ciliata. 



Artutus TJnedo. Inula salicina. 



Pinguicula grandiflora. Euphrasia Salisburgensia. 



Dabeocia polifolia. Habenaria intacta. 



Erica mediterranea. Spiranthes Eomanzoffiana. 



E. Mackaii. Sisyrinohium angustifolium. 



Carex rbynohopliysa. 



To these may be added two Irisb. species of Cha/raceiB, Chwra 

 denudata, and Mtella JSfordstetiana, wbicli, so far as tbe present 

 evidence sbows, are absent from England. 



Cantalrian Qrowp. — To tbe seven plants placed in tbe first 

 colnmn of this Hst, tlie name Cantabrian group maybe conveniently 

 given. In Ireland aU of these are western or south-western, and 

 range under our favourable conditions of climate to a higher northern 

 latitude than they reach anywhere on the European continent. 

 Some of them are found sparingly in Western France so far north 

 as the Loire, but the group finds its nearest full development, as a 

 whole, some 600 miles south of Ireland in the maritime highlands 

 of Cantabria and Galicia in Northern Spain. The most wide-spread 

 of all is Saxifraga umhrosa, the common London Pride of English 

 gardens. This ranges from the east of "Waterford, south-west to 

 Kerry, and thence at intervals along the Atlantic coast to the 

 extreme north of Donegal. The other members of the group axe 

 confined to much more limited areas, and from the point of view of 

 distribution in Ireland divide themselves into two sub-groups, a 

 south-western and a western. 



The first of these sub-groups is made up of the three species, 

 Arhutus Unedo, Saxifraga Geum, and Pinguicula grandiflora, and 

 is confined to those parts of the counties of Cork and Kerry which 

 form the extreme south-western angle of the island. The most 

 southern in character of these three species, Arhutus Unedo, the 

 wiiU known Strawberry Tree, is in Ireland the rarest and the most 

 restricted in range. Save at the Killarney Lakes, where it grows 

 in great luxuriance, it occurs only in scattered groups or individuals, 

 and at all or most of its outlying stations seems doomed to early 

 extinction. The other species are far more abundant and widespread, 

 the beautiful Pinguicula grandiflora making in early summer a 

 striking ornament both of the lowland bogs and of the dripping 



