The Origin of our British Flora 
Co. Cork. The blue-eyed grass (Sisyrhinchium) is found 
in Galway and Kerry, and Eriocaulon in Skye and West 
Ireland, but both of them are typical North American 
species. There are two possible explanations of their 
presence in Ireland, They may be relicts of that very 
ancient Tertiary flora, which seems to have entered 
Europe by way of Greenland and Scandinavia, and 
which have succeeded in living through all the Ice Ages 
in these particular spots.* Or they may have crossed 
the Atlantic perhaps within quite recent times. Drifted 
timber from America occasionally reaches our western 
shores, and it is by no means impossible that seeds of 
Eriocaulon could have been transferred in the crevices 
of a floating log. It is said that the seeds of Mucuna 
or Entada, which float over to the Hebrides from 
America, are sometimes able to germinate. It seems, 
however, more probable that the Sisyrhinchium has to 
thank some wandering migrant bird for its introduction 
to Ireland ; its small hard seeds would appear to be well 
adapted to this form of transport.t 
This short sketch of a very interesting subject will at 
any rate show that there is still a very great deal to dis- 
cover before we can understand the origin of our British 
flora. Before the Ice Age, and even before the intricate 
changes of climate which characterised Tertiary Europe, 
several of our common British genera must have existed 
somewhere. 
The chase of “a panting syllable through time and 
space” is not nearly so fascinating as the story of a 
living plant. One of the most successful hunts of this 
kind is that for the original home of the cinnamons, 
These were found as fossils in the oldest chalk deposits 
* This is the explanation given by Hartz, who found another American 
plant (Dulichium) in three interglacial peat deposits in Denmark. 
+ Compare Guppy, 4¢ 
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