FEB 8 1005 



VOLUME XIV. 



SOME MOSSES FROM COUNTY DOWN. 



BY J. H. DAVIKS. 



Amongst recent gatherings of mosses in County Down there 

 are some which, besides being additions to the county list, are 

 of considerable rarity in Ireland. The names and localities of 

 these are here put in the form of a short list ; and the oppor- 

 tunity has been used for noting additional stations for a few 

 of the rarer or less frequent species previously recorded from 

 the county. 



They were met with mainly in the valley of the Upper Bann, 

 but some of them by the sea-coast at Newcastle and near Kil- 

 lough. Parts of the River Bann possess features of much in- 

 terest, and invite scrutiny. At Knocknagor, for example, the 

 river is picturesquely rocky, the banks being high and well' 

 wooded. But there the rush of water is generally such that 

 the bed of the river is not accessible for close examination. 

 Even in times of drought that is so, the water then, for indus- 

 trial purposes, being let down by the Bann Reservoir Com. 

 pany, from the extensive storage dam at I^ough Island Reavy. 

 Taking advantage of a week-end afternoon, when the water 

 was unusually low, I had the satisfaction of gathering there 

 Fissidejts decipie7is, a species which in Ireland was known 

 hitherto only from Killarney, where it was detected by Wilson 

 in 1866. Another Fisside7is, of yet greater interest, also found 

 there, was F. rufulus. Not only was it in a good state of fructi- 

 fication, but in so great abundance, — growing on the face and 

 in the crevices of the rocks, that are nearly always sub- 

 merged — that one might take as much as he needed without 

 feeling that he was committing a botanical theft. Once be- 

 fore I had found it some distance higher up the same river, 

 but in that case sterile and only sparingly ; the Bann being 

 the only Irish river in which it is known to occur. The find- 

 ing of it in fruit removes any possible doubt that might have 



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