240 



SEA SPLEENWORT. 



In the Channel Islands it is abundant and luxuriant. Mr. H. Dou- 

 bleday, in a letter written on his return from spending a few days there, 

 says : — " At a lovely spot on the southern coast of Guernsey, called Petit 

 Bot Bay, I found a large cave, from the roof of which grew thousands of 

 fronds of Asplenium marinum ; many of them were two feet, and one 

 thirty inches m length, including the naked part of the stem." Mr. G. 

 Wolsey also observed it during the present year growing abundantly tightly 

 wedged in between the stones of which the water-mills at Petit Bot Bay 

 are constructed : in this locality there are perhaps a hundred plants. The 

 Rev. Mr. Dobree informed Mr. Wolsey that it also grows abundantly in 

 an old well, behind the parsonage-house at Torteral, in Guernsey. Mr. 

 Wolsey found a few plants in the fissures of rocks on the north and east 

 coasts of the Island : at Creux Mahie, the station given by Mr. Babington 

 in his ' PrimitiaB Florae Sarnicae,' there are only a few weak plants. 



In Ireland its localities are far too numerous to be particularized. In 

 my rambles in that beautiful country, I found it on the sea-cli£fs whenever 

 I reached the coast : and I beheve the Irish botanists have observed it in 

 every county that borders the sea. I must, however, mention one looaUty 

 that struck me as remarkable : I allude to the lakes of KiUarney. As you 

 skirt the upper lake on the way to Kenmare, there is a spot where the rock 

 has been blasted by gunpowder, for the purpose of making a good carriage- 

 way between Turk mountain on the left, and the lake on the right. On 

 P^^ (V this rock the sea spleenwort 



>-Aih wi . _- has thoroughly estabhshed 



itself : the plants are of 

 small size and rather re- 

 markable form, and they 

 are not to be procured with- 

 out considerable difiioulty, 

 the face of the rock being 

 steep, and difficult to chmb, 

 and the little plants are very 

 firmly rooted in the fissures. I succeeded after some trouble in detaching 

 two specimens, the largest of which is represented in the margin. I con- 

 fess I feel rather gratified in the belief, that while it can escape the eye of 

 no botanist who may chance to visit the spot after reading this notice, it 

 will long, by its inaccessible situation, be rescued from extermination. The 

 late Mr. W. Thompson, whose valuable memoranda I have so often con- 

 sulted while drawing up my fists of Irish localities, informed me that both 

 of the forms figured in this work are of frequent occurrence to the South 

 of Newcastle, in the county Down. 



