104 



The Irish Naturalist, 



October, 



To some extent, the vagueness of location which has 

 been referred to aheady hangs around the only Irish station 

 of Car ex Buxhaumii. " Small island in Lough Neagh near 

 Toome Bridge " is as close as most of the records go. But 

 " Cybele Hibernica," ed. i. (not ed. ii.) audit alone, states 

 definitely " Harbour Island." The next difficulty is that 

 this name does not occur on any map. Fortunately, W. 

 J. C. Tomlinson had ic from S. A. Stewart, the last to 

 collect the plant (in i(S86) that the station was the most 

 easterly of the " Three Islands " S.E. of Toome — the only 

 one which the lowering of the lake has not now connected 

 with the mainland.^ S. A. Bennett recently had the same 

 identification from an old man on the ground : and as this 

 islet alone has on its sheltered side a small deep bay in which 

 a boat might lie or land in windy w^eather, we may take 

 the location as definitely fixed. The water between Harbour 

 Island and the mainland at the time of our visit (the 

 conclusion of a wet spell), was three feet deep, as we found 

 by wading. In a dry season it might easily be reduced to 

 two feet, and the distance being only 200 yards, Stewart's 

 statement that he found the plant trampled down or eaten 

 by cattle is accounted for. The island, which is nearly 

 two acres in area, was originally thickly wooded. Stewart 

 describes it as a bare exposed pasturage in 1886. We visited 

 it on July 4, accompanied by S. A. Bennett and Capt. 

 Chase, and found it covered with a luxuriant vegetation — 

 the central parts a mass of briers, then a fringe of bushes 

 (Almis glutinosa, Fraxinus excelsior, Salix cinerea) and 

 tall herbs and grasses (particularly Spiraea Ulmaria, 

 Vicia Cracca, Phalaris arundinacea, Agrostis alba, Fesfuca 

 arundinacea) — Messrs. Bennett and Chase listed 71 species 

 altogether) ; but close search revealed no trace of C. 

 Buxhaumii. It seemed just possible that a visit a fortnight 

 earlier, before the rains caused rapid and luxuriant growth, 

 might have been *more fortunate. 



1 " Rock lake shore near Toome, 27 : 6 : 86 " is an exact transcript 

 of the label of the last collected specimen (in Herb. S. A. Stewart). Since 

 Stewart states in 1888 (Fl. N.E.I.) that all records refer to one station {i.e., 

 Harbour Island) it follows tliat the low rocky shore at the south end of 

 the islet was where the plant was last seen. 



