42 



The Irish JSaluralift. 



April, 



approaching 75 years of age, and those who had the pleasure 

 of working with him on those western trips will recall his 

 pleasant companionship, his energy, and his indifference to 

 weather and hardship in that wild tangle of sea and land. 

 He loved the open country, and visited many parts of 

 Ireland — Donegal, Sligo, Connemara and West Mayo, the 

 Galtees and Comeraghs, and the mountainous parts of 

 Kerry, mostly in search of mosses. The present writer was 

 with him on the last of his more extended trips when, at 

 the age of seventy-seven, he accepted R. J. Ussher's in- 

 vitation to join in a week's work on the Saltees, where we 

 lived in a ruined house (the only one on the island) , sleeping 

 on straw on the floor in that portion which still retained a 

 roof. The most interesting plant which resulted from his 

 work among the Trish Cryptogams was Adelanthus dugor- 

 tiensis, a new Hepatic, whose nearest relation (A. unciformis) 

 is an inhabitant of the southern end of Africa and South 

 America. He published in IQ02 a " T.ist with Descriptive 

 Notes " of British Hepatics, which was founded on Pearsnn's 

 well-known work, and brought the list of species up to date ; 

 and two years later issued a " Catalogue of British Hepatics." 

 in which some errois in the former work were set right. He 

 was an original member of the Moss Exchange Club, in 

 which he took a Vv^arm interest. His final publica.tion on 

 Irish cryptogams was the important " Census Report on 

 the Mosses of Ireland, " pubhshed by the Royal Irish 

 Academ}^ in IQ15. 



The Flowering Plants were also well known to him. His 

 herbarium shows that many were collected and named before 

 he left Ardmore, on Lough Neagh, in 1886. Though the 

 Rubi were the only group to which he devoted more than 

 cursory attention, his excellent eye detected some plants 

 overlooked b^^ his predecessors and contemporaries — for 

 instance, the interesting northern Carex patici flora, which, 

 though now known to be abundant over the Garron Plateau, 

 in Antrim (see /. A^., xxix., 27), remained undiscovered in 

 that oft-traversed area till identified by him in 1895 ; and 

 Hypochaeris glabra, found (when in company with C. H. 

 Waddell) at MagiUigan. In both cases Lett's station remains 

 the only Irish one for the plant. 



