ROCK GARDENS, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL. 165 



while some alpines are strictly limited in their distribution, many others 

 have now a wide and discontinuous range. (The conditions under which 

 Arctic plants exist, and the character of the Arctic flora, were then 

 described). 



Let us choose, for close examination, a natural rock-garden which lies 

 much nearer to our own doors than those of the Alps, but is yet much 

 less known, though it presents problems quite as interesting as any of 

 those furnished by the flora of the great mountain chains. As we stand 

 in Connemara in the West of Ireland, and look southward across Galway 

 Bay, we see the hills of Burren, in Co. Clare (fig. 51), rising gaunt and bare. 

 Even at this distance it can be seen that these hills are grey instead of 

 green. This is owing to the fact that soil or other covering is absent and 

 the naked limestone rock lies open to the sky over many square miles. 

 But light vegetable soil has by degrees accumulated in the pockets of the 

 rock, and on the flat-shelves, so that every chink is decked with flowers, 

 and this seeming desert forms valuable grazing land for sheep. The 

 remarkable feature of its flora is the vast profusion in which a number of 

 plants, which are usually alpine in their habitat, here occur right down to 

 sea-level. And stranger still, mixed with these we find some plants of 

 southern origin, which here occur further northward than in any other 

 country in Europe. The lecturer proceeded to describe the district and its 

 flora, and showed a series of lantern slides of these plants growing in their 

 native surroundings. 



Returning to the question of the cultivation of alpine plants, the best 

 methods of building rock gardens and of planting, were discussed. The 

 "pocket system" was recommended as combining suitable conditions with 

 ease and cheapness of construction. A series of lantern slides was shown 

 illustrating rock gardens (fig. 52) in various parts of the British Islands, 

 and their good and bad points were commented on. 



