302 ALISMACE. [Alisma. 
at Killarney and Caragh, as well as in various spots along 
the course of the River Laune. In deeper water, these 
nodes, in addition to a tuft of short grass-like leaves, throw 
up long tapering stems which expand on the surface into 
narrow acute floating leaves. In several places where this 
Alisma occurs in abundance, as about the Lower Lake, 
Killarney, these extreme submerged forms may be seen as 
the water shallows passing through all the stages into the 
typical plant growing on the adjoining shore. 
ELISMA Buchen. 
E. natans Buchen. Alisma natans Linn. 
District — — — — — WE ~—~ — — 
Native. Boggy ditch. Very rare and local. Peren. July— 
August. 
VI. In two or three feet of water in a ditch near Muckross, 
Killarney, not in flower, 1875 (fide Prof. Gliick) : G. C. Druce, 
Trish Nat. 1910, p. 237. [In ditches near the Upper Lake of 
Killarney (Moore) Cyb. 1866. In the Middle and Lower 
Lakes, Killarney (Rev. LH. F. & W. R. Linton) Journ. of Bot., 
1886, p. 16—latter record subsequently withdrawn]. 
Previous to 1910, Elisma natans had been reported on 
several occasions as growing at Killarney as well as in 
several other localities in Ireland, but in all these instances 
there was reason to fear that a barren form of one or other 
of the Alisma species had been mistaken for it. However, 
in the year mentioned, Prof. Gliick of Heidelberg, a well 
known authority on the subject, when examining the aquatic 
plants in Mr. Druce’s Herbarium, referred a submerged 
barren plant gathered at Killarney in 1875 by Mr. Druce, 
as well as another gathering by Mr. Bolton King from Co. 
Clare, to Elisma natans without any hesitation. 
Mr. Druce has been kind enough to send to the writer one 
of the Killarney plants identified by Prof. Glick, which, to 
the unaided eye is quite indistinguishable from submerged 
states of Alisma ranunculoides. It is most unfortunate that 
the inclusion of this rare and interesting species in the Irish 
flora should depend solely on the recognition of immature 
plants, and though Prof. Glick, who has made a study of 
such aquatic growths, is not likely to have made a mistake, 
the discovery of flowering Elisma natans in Ireland is much 
to be desired. 
