THE WILD FLO WEES OF THE WEST OF IRELAND. 303 



Ireland, reappearing occasionally along the west coast as far north 

 as Donegal; it is also met with in the south-west of England, but we 

 do not meet it again till we approach the Mediterranean. Another 

 Kerry plant with a similar distribution (south-west Ireland, south- 

 west England, and south-west Europe) is the little Sihthorpia 

 europaea. Again, the hills around are glorious in May with the great 

 purple blooms of the large-flowered Butterwort {Pingnicula grandi- 

 flora). This plant is southern, but not lowland, in its continental 

 range, occurring on the Pyrenees and on the Alps. And, as in Conne- 

 mara, we find associated with these southern species northern plants 

 like the American Pipewort, and (in the adjoining county of Cork) the 

 interesting American orchid Spiranthes Romanzoffiana, unknown in 

 Europe outside of Ireland. The occurrence of the last-named plant is 

 of very great interest, for it goes far to reinforce the suggestion sup- 

 plied by the Pipewort, of an American element in the West Irish flora. 

 A third species also comes in to join these two. Along the stream 

 banks and in other wild situations we find in abundance the pretty little 

 blue starry flowers and grassy leaves of the " Blue-eyed Grass " of 

 Canada {Sisyrinchium angustifolium), another typical American plant, 

 which is widely spread along the West Coast of Ireland. 



Turning northward now we must pay a brief visit to the strange 

 district of Burren in county Clare, to which I referred in my lecture last 

 year. This differs from Connemara and Kerry in being a limestone 

 area. Instead of rugged heathery mountains formed of folded and 

 crumpled slates or sandstones or quartzites, Burren presents a group 

 of broad, undulating hills formed of horizontal beds of limestone. But 

 its remarkable feature is that these hills are entirely bare of any cover- 

 ing of clay or soil. The glaciers that smoothed over their slopes 

 passed away without leaving any blanket of drift. Percolating water 

 sinking into the vertical joints of the bare rock has dissolved out in- 

 numerable drainage passages, by which any insoluble detritus has been 

 carried off; and the grey rock, all water-carved and weather-worn, lies 

 bare and naked, rising terrace upon terrace, or broken up into wilder- 

 nesses of angular blocks of stone. Vegetable soil has slowly formed in 

 innumerable crevices and pockets, and the vegetation, spreading out- 

 wards from every httle centre, has covered up with a green carpet a 

 good deal of the naked rock. But the aspect of the hills is still that of 

 a waterless grey desert, and it is surprising to discover the wealth of 

 rare plants tucked away in the crevices, just as it is surprising to find 

 that this land of rock has quite a high value for sheep-grazing. 

 The moist, warm climate is no doubt the chief contributory 

 cause in both cases. Here on these hills, equally at sea-level 

 and a thousand feet above it, we are struck at once with the abund- 

 ance and luxuriance of several plants which we are accustomed to con- 

 sider alpine species. The Mountain Avens (Dryas octopetala) is 

 present in sheets, the most abundant plant over many square miles, 

 its blossoms whitening the ground as far as the eye can reach, like 

 daisies in pasture-land. A little earlier in the season an equally large 



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