182 ERICACEA. [Arbutus. 
Arbutus is known only as a planted tree.* A gap of about 
three degrees separates its native Irish stations from those 
in north-west France where it reappears, according to Dr. 
Avice in the Bull. Soc. Bot. France XLIII., p. 123 (1896) 
in lat. 48° 50’ in an isolated locality near Paimpol in the Cétes 
du Nord. It occurs also scattered along the west coast of 
France from about 46° N. in Charente Inferieure to the 
Spanish frontier ; it is abundant in the Iberian peninsula, as 
well as all along the Mediterranean shores. 
The Arbutus appears to have been formerly much more 
widely distributed in Ireland than it is at present. In 
Joyce’s Irish Names of Places, 2nd Series, pp. 338-339, he 
cites several places, the names of which have been derived 
from the Irish for Arbutus—‘caithne’ (cahinyé), and 
‘euinche’ (queenha)—as Owenacahina, “‘ the river of the 
Arbutus,” flowing from Barley Lake to Glengarriff ; _Iskna- 
gainy, near Waterville, “ the stream track of the Arbutus 
trees ” ; Ardnacaithne near Smerwick, north of Dingle, *‘ the 
height of the Arbutus”; while further north, Quin or 
Cuinche, a village, and Feaghquin, a townland, both in 
Clare, and Quinsheen, a small island in Clew Bay, are also 
called after this tree ; in almost all of these localities, how- 
ever, the Arbutus has either long since disappeared, or now 
exists in but small quantity. 
Both Dr. Molyneux in the Phil. Trans. 1712, and Dr. 
Smith in his Hist. of Kerry 1756, repeatedly refer to the 
havoe wrought among the Arbutus and other trees by their 
use as charcoal for the smelting works. On p.°130 of his 
Hist. the latter writer for instance says that this practice 
‘‘ hath been the occasion of a great destruction of this beauti- 
ful tree in other parts of the country ; and it is said that even 
here [Killarney] it suffered much from an accidental fire that 
laid waste a great part of a forest.”’ There were mines and 
* The date of its introduction into English gardens is uncertain, but the 
following extract from Cal. State Papers, Ireland, a.p, 1568, p. 240, shows 
that Arbutus plants were being sent from Ireland to England as early as the 
latter portion of the 16th century—‘ You shall receive herewith a bundle 
of trees called the wollaghan tree,” [ = ubhla caithne, or Arbutus apples] 
‘* whereof my Lord of Leicester and Mr. Secretary Walsingham are both very 
desirous to have some, as well for the fruit as the rareness of the manner of 
bearing, which is after the kind of the orange, to have blossoms and fruit green 
or ripe all the year long, and the same of a very pleasant taste, and growing 
nowhere else but in one part of Munster, from whence I have caused them 
to be transported immediately unto you,” &c. ; vide Elwes and Henry’s T'rees 
of Gt, Britain and Ireland, Vol, III., p. 559, 
