I920. 



Praeger. — A^o/fs on Antrim Plants. 



97 



Glenariff. The seven stations now known lie on a transverse 

 line across the plateau, from Parkmore south-eastward for 

 four miles. 



Carex pauciflora Light foot. — This also was first found 

 near Parkmore^ in a station not clearly defined — " on the 

 mountains near Parkmore," i,ooo feet elevation, in 1889, 

 b}^ Canon Lett (see Joiirn. Bot. xxxiii., 216, 1895). 

 vSubsequently J. Adams recorded it (/. N., viii., 59, 1899) 

 from " near a lakelet in the mountains above Carnlough " ; 

 that is, four or five miles east of Parkmore. The four 

 days which we devoted to this area showed that it is locally 

 abundant on the plateau, mostly in the wettest bogs and 

 the floating felt which fringes the lake-margins — similar 

 habitats, in fact, to those of C. irrigua. We found it in 

 nearly twent}'^ stations, often in abundance and over many 

 acres, where its tiny yellow semaphores caught the eye at 

 every step ; growing sometimes half under water, more 

 rarely on the tops of tussocks of sphagnum more than a 

 foot high. A line drawn from Parkmore station enclosing 

 Loughnacally, the Trosks, Craigfad Loughs, Cranny Lough, 

 Loughgarve, and back to Parkmore, defines the region of 

 its growth so far as our observations went : an area of 

 about ten square miles. 



As C. irrigua and C. pauciflora have been evidently 

 passed over by previous botanists w^ho have explored this 

 area (ourselves included), it ma\^ be worth while indicating 

 their field-characters, in the hope that their present restricted 

 range may be extended. C. paucifl,ora cannot be passed 

 over when one knows what to look for. Its (usually) three 

 bright yellow fruits, resembling those of C. pulicaris in shape, 

 but standing up like a tiny semaphore, are quite easily 

 " spotted " in the bog vegetation, no matter how dense or 

 rank it may be. C. irrigua, though not so conspicuous, is 

 quite distinct, and cannot be mistaken in the field for its 

 close ally C. limosa. In the latter, the dark glaucous green 

 leaves are very narrow (owing to their being folded) and 

 stiff, and the shoot,- whether barren or fruiting, is character- 

 istically, not vertical, but inclined : the bract below the 

 fruit is inconspicuous and short. In C. irrigua the eye is 

 mostly caught first by the bract, which is quite flat, broad, 



