ii8 



Ihe Irish Natu7alist 



May, 



NOTES. 



BOTANY. 

 Vegetation on Brickwork in Cork. 



In the February number last year, Mr. W. H. Patterson called attention 

 to the contrast between the absolutely bare walls of the old bottle -works 

 cone at Belfast and those of a similar old cone at Cork, also brick-built, 

 but now covered with luxuriant vegetation. I have been in Cork since 

 then, and noticed that old ruins, and indeed any old walls built with 

 brick or limestone, had a luxuriant crop of the Wall Pellitory {Parietaria 

 officinalis), a plant that flourishes on the limestone walls of many old Irish 

 abbeys, castles, etc., this being especially the case in the west or south. 

 At Cork I only noticed the Pellitory ; it was thick also on the quay walls 

 at Patrick's Bridge, bringing a breath of the country into the heart of 

 the city. Mr. R. A. Phillips tells me however that a much more con- 

 spicuous plant on the old cone is Senecio sgtialidtis, which gives it quite a 

 yellow appearance, markedly so in early summer and early autumn. 

 Plants flourish more, he thinks, on old walls and ruins about Cork than 

 elsewhere in Ireland, especially the 6'^/z<;'«<? mentioned and other aliens, 

 such as Linaria Cymbalaria^ Centranthus ruber, Erinus alpinus, and Hypericum 

 hircinutn. In the north-east the Pellitory is not uncommon on some old 

 walls, but not with the luxuriant growth that the Conference party ob- 

 served on Sligo Abbey, and on the bridge at the hotels there last July. 



Belfast. R. WEI.CH. 



The Distribution of Cochlearia officinalis and C. anglica. 



My experience during several years past of the distribution of these 

 two species in the South of Ireland leads me to believe that the first is 

 not so common or the last so rare as the information given in various 

 works on Irish botany would seem to show, and that the two have been 

 more or less confused. Taking the County of Cork as an example of 

 what I mean, we find that Drummond (1819) gives only one locality for 

 C. officinalis, i.e., the top of Hungry Hill; Power (1845) records it as com- 

 mon about Cork and the mouths of rivers ; and AUin (1883) states, with- 

 out giving localities, that it is common on muddy shores. 



C. anglica is recorded by Drummond from Cork and Bantry, and Power 

 gives four additional stations, but throws some doubt on the plant's 

 existence near Cork city, while AUin states that all these stations belong 

 almost certainly to C. officinalis. 



My own experience, having examined every likely spot about Cork 

 Harbour and the- river Lee, from its estuary to its tidal limit, also the 

 Blackwater and Hen estuaries, is that the plant of our muddy shores and 

 banks is C. anglica, var. Hortii. I have also seen the same plant in estuaries 

 in Counties Waterford, Kilkenny, lyimerick, Clare, and Wexford, and it 

 has been found near Kenmare, Co, Kerry, by Dr. Scully. 



