Xxxii INTRODUCTION. 
of the total possible ; this compares very favourably with the 
1534.3 hours, or 35 p.c., registered in Dublin, where the wet 
days average 180 only. It is interesting, moreover, to note 
that from February to June, the growing period of the year, 
the monthly averages of sunshine in Valencia either equal or 
exceed the corresponding averages in the Phoenix Park, Dublin. 
To sum up ; the chief peculiarities of the Kerry climate are, 
the excessive rainfall in the south and west, the mildness of 
its winters, the absence of excessive falls in the temperature, 
and finally the comparative equability of the winter and 
summer temperatures, the latter very rarely indeed exceeding 
a maximum of 80° F. The result of the winter mildness is 
seen in the number of species that flower throughout these 
months, as well as in the presence of such alien plants as the 
Fuchsia which in several parts of south and west Kerry is 
thoroughly established, forming permanent hedges along the 
roadsides and growing with great luxuriance. 
V. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FLORA. 
The flora of Ireland may be taken as including about 1,150 
species and subspecies of native or naturalized plants ; of this 
total 840, or less than three-quarters, are sufficiently estab- 
lished in Kerry to be included in its flora. These figures are 
arrived at by accepting Mr. Praeger’s distributional list in full 
as given in his Irish Topographical Botany. If, however, for 
purposes of comparison with other counties, we follow the 
system suggested by him in the footnote to p. xliii in the 
Introduction to that work, by which a few very natural groups 
such as Rubus, the Hypnoid Sazxifrages, &c., are treated as 
aggregates and certain subspecies included in the distribution 
of their allied species, the Irish total sinks ta about 1,025 and 
that for Kerry to 762. 
This total of 762 is somewhat less than might have been 
expected in a county possessing an area of 1,853 sq. miles, with 
a great extent of coast line, mountain-range and lake, and with 
lowlands of very varied conditions ; it contrasts indeed rather 
unfavourably with the totals enumerated for some of the Irish 
counties on the east coast. Thus Dublin, with an area of 354 
sq. miles, has a total of 754,* and although less than a fifth the 
size of Kerry has a flora almost equalling it in species. Farther 
* The figures here given are calculated on Mr. Praeger’s system above 
referred to, and are revised to July 1916 inclusive. 
