Ix INTRODUCTION. 
limestone area also adversely affects the flora, and calcicole 
plants have to rely almost solely on sandhills and their vicinity 
for suitable habitats. It is not surprising, therefore, to find the 
limestone-loving group reduced to little over half of those 
present in Kerry, only 28 out of a possible 50 being found in 
thig division, one of them, however, Ononis repens, is practi- 
cally confined to it. 
Dingle, with about 1,750 inhabitants, is the only town of 
any importance ; it possesses a well sheltered harbour and has a 
small coasting trade. The only village of any size is Castle- 
gregory with about 500 inhabitants ; it long boasted of being 
the largest thatched village in Ireland, but the advent of the 
light-railway with slates and sheets of corrugated iron has now 
removed its boast as well as most of its picturesqueness. This 
light-railway, which connects Tralee with Dingle and gives off 
a branch from Camp to Castlegregory, runs for fully 25 miles 
within this Barony, and is, no doubt, answerable for the 
presence there of Mairicaria discoidea which occurs abundantly 
in many localities along the track. 
In spite of its deficiency in calcicole plants, the flora of this 
division is a very rich and interesting one, its total of 608 being 
exceeded only by that of Magunihy with 622. As might be 
expected, the Highland Type is very well represented, only 
four out of the twenty-two species present in Kerry being 
absent ; these absentees are—Draba incana, Galium boreale, 
Hieracium iricum and Carex aquatilis. No less than 13 species 
and sub-species are peculiar in the county to this Barony ; 
they are—Thalictrum alpinum, Ranunculus Lingua, Cochlearia 
grenlandica, Alchemilla alpina, Hieracium vulgatum, Orobanche 
rubra, Polygonum viviparum, Rumex Hydrolapathum, Poa 
alpina, Asplenium lanceolatum and Chara canescens, with two 
introduced species Orobanche minor and Hippophe Rham- 
noides. One other species, Sibthorpia europea, is almost 
confined to this division ; it is found, however, quite close to 
the extreme eastern limit of the peninsula in a locality which 
lies just inside the boundary of District VII. While the 
Robertsonian Saxifrages, Pinguicula grandiflora and Bartsia 
viscosa are especially abundant in this Barony, such characteris- 
tic Kerry species as Carum verticillatum, Euphorbia hiberna and 
Rynchospora fusca prove to be unexpectedly rare although 
suitable localities occur in many places, and a few like Micro- 
cala filiformis and Hriocaulon septangulare are altogether absent. 
The latter species is known to occur in several localities on 
the south side of Castlemaine Harbour, the nearest station 
being less than five miles distant from the Dingle peninsula. 
