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The Irish Naturalist. 



October, 1920. 



BOTANY. 



Poa compressa in Dublin : a Tragedy. 



The late Mr. Colgan placed this grass in the appendix to his " Flora 

 of County Dublin," 1904, stating therein that it had not been seen in the 

 county for upwards of half a century. He would appear also to have been 

 in doubt as to the correctness or otherwise of the previous records, though 

 Wade in his catalogue of Dublin plants, 1794, records it as found 

 occasionally on old walls and dry places in the county, and a MS. record 

 of White's is quoted in " Cybele," 1866, namely, in rocky ground at the 

 foot of the Dublin Mountains. In June last I noticed an unusual- 

 looking grass on a wall-top on the eastern side of Grosvenor Place, 

 Rathmines, the garden wall of 124 Leinster Road. Examination led to 

 the suspicion that it was Poa compressa, and Miss M. C. Knowles confirmed 

 this identification, and I have to thank her also for drawing my attention 

 to the information given above. The plant grew profusely in several 

 patches, apparently long established, with Lolium perenne, Dactylus 

 glomerata, Holcus lanatus and Poa annua, and attained a maximum 

 height of about eighteen inches. 



My frequent visits for specimens must have drawn the attention of 

 the owner to the condition of the wall, and during my absence from 

 Dublin at the beginning of July, not three weeks after the discovery of 

 the Poa, the wall was repaired, the gaps rebuilt, and the whole capped 

 with cement surmounted by a wire fence, so that on my return all trace 

 of its former flora had vanished. As to whether or not the grass could 

 have been derived from a native source there is little use in speculating, 

 but it now lies buried beneath some inches of alien cement — and herein 

 lies the tragedy. 



A. W. Stelfox. 



Rathgar, Dublin. 



Ferns in Dublin City. 



The spores of ferns are so minute that they arc borne everywhere by 

 the wind, and they sometimes germinate and succeed in establishing 

 their species in unfavourable surroundings, as in the middle of the City 

 of DubUn. Thus, at Leinster House in Kildare Street, over the pediment 

 at the southern end, facing west but cut off from the southerly sun, 

 four species grow : — Hart's-tongue [Scolopendrium vulgare), Male Fern 

 {Lastyea Filix-mas), Broad Buckler Fern (L. dilatata) and Soft Shield 

 Fern {Polystichum angulare). Right opposite the Mansion House in 

 Dawson Street is a fine plant of Bracken [Pteris Aquilina). It has 

 established itself in a nook beside a leaky down-pipe at about street 

 level overhanging an area, where it contrives to survive the drought of 

 dry seasons. At the north end of Harcourt Street a well-grown Male 

 Fern, also established beside a down-pipe, embellished one of the house 

 fronts till lately, wlien painters made short work of it. 



Dublin. R. Lloyd Praeger. 



