XXxiv INTRODUCTION. 
Orders are given for Kerry, the wettest known county of 
western Ireland, for Dublin, probably the driest of its east 
coast districts, for Kent, a maritime county clearly showing 
the influence of its drier continental neighbour while still 
retaining insular characters, and finally for Europe. The 
figures are calculated for Kerry from this flora, for Dublin 
from Mr. Colgan’s Flora of Dublin 1904, for Kent from Messrs. 
Hanbury and Marshall’s Flora of Kent 1899, and for Europe 
from Nyman’s Conspectus. 
Kerry Dublin Kent Europe 
Cyperaceze 8.27 6.43 5.38 2.52 
Filices 3.81 2.79 2.08 0.78 
Naiadacez 3.28 2.39 1.82 0.52 
Total 15.36 11.61 9.28 3.82 
In addition to its poverty in introduced plants, Kerry, having 
regard to its extended sea coast, is unexpectedly deficient in its 
maritime group, only 60 species out of a total for Ireland of 80 
being known to occur in the county. Of this 60 rather more 
than half are true halophytes or salt-lovers, a few more, like 
Glaucium flavum, Apium graveolens, Scirpus maritimus, Carex 
arenaria, &c., while almost exclusively maritime in Kerry are 
known in one or two inland stations either there or elsewhere 
in Ireland, and appear to be as much drawn to the neighbour- 
hood of the sea by the nature of the habitats found there as by 
any need of salt. This deficiency in maritime species is cer- 
tainly not due to any want of suitable localities ; the cause is 
most probably to be found in the very exposed nature of the 
Kerry coast and in the strength of the Atlantic gales which 
exercise a most destructive influence especially on the sand- 
hills and their flora. Dr. Smith in his History of Kerry, 1756, 
gives a quaint account of the violence to which these storms 
occasionally attain—‘ A few winters ago there happened a 
great storm in this place [Inch sandhills, Dingle Bay] whereby 
the sand was blown about so furiously, that a large herd of cows 
were driven off the peninsula, the poor animals chusing rather 
to betake themselves to the enraged ocean, where many of 
them were drowned, than to be overwhelmed on shore. Several 
of them swam across the bay, near two miles, through the 
highest waves imaginable, and saved their lives.” Similar 
storms in more recent times have probably caused the destruc- 
tion of two very interesting plants in Kerry as neither Lathyrus 
maritimus nor Diotis maritima has been recently seen in its 
recorded sandhill station. 
