Praeger : Vegetation Committee in the TV. of Ireland. 413 



Disembarking at Ballynahinch Station, we had not to go 

 a hundred yards to find the beautiful Daheocia polifolia brigh- 

 tening a rocky knoll on the roadside, and our walk to Round- 

 stone was enlivened by the sight of the three species of Drosera, 

 Rhynchospora fusca, Osmimda regalis, Pingniciila lusitanica, 

 and in roadside drains grand clumps of Eriocanlon septan- 

 gular e. After lunch we visited Cregduff Lough, long known as 

 the home of Naias fiexilis, but the heavy rains of the previous 

 week had raised the water-level hopelessly high, and we had to 

 content ourselves with Lobelia and Eriocaulon, and on the knolls 

 Jujiiperus nana and Dabeocia. On Urrisbeg Mountain hard 

 by, the profusion of Ulex Gallii, extending up to about 300 feet, 

 gave to the lower half of the hill a rich golden yellow hue. 

 Thence to Dog's Bay, where a long isthmus of white sand, 

 composed largely of the tests of Foraminifera, stretches out to 

 a rocky promontory. Here we studied a dwarfed sand flora con- 

 taining much Asperula cynanchica, and yielding such rarities 

 as Arabis ciliata and Euphrasia Salishitrgensis. It is a remark - 

 abl.'; fact that the ne ghoourhood of the sandy bays of south- 

 west Connemara, lying in the very heart of the metamorphic 

 area with its calc-fuge flora, yields many of tne calcicole plants 

 which arr^ characteiistic of the limestone ' clints of western 

 Ireland — Neutinea intacta. Orchis pyramidalis, Chiora per- 

 foliaia, Euphrasia Salishiirgensis, Spiranthes autumnalis, and 

 so on. The explanation no doubt is that the limy sand is 

 scattered by storms, and provides the soil with the constituent 

 needful for the welfare of these species. Out on the promon- 

 tory beyond the sands we gathered Samphire, fringing the 

 boulders on the rocky beach, and spent the last hour of daylight 

 watching the Atlantic waves hurling themselves on the granite 

 reefs. 



Next day ample opportunities were afforded for the study 

 of the moorland associations of Connemara. Our course lay 

 north-westward from Roundstone across the soaking bogs to 

 Graigga Moor, long famous as the home of Erica Mackaii ; 

 thence southward through a maze of lakes to Lough Bollard, 

 and then over Urrisbeg, and back to Roundstone. 



The bogs were drenching wet after the continued rains. 

 The surface consists mainly of a comparatively smooth 

 Molinia moor, with Rhynchospora alba, Eriophorum vaginatum, 

 E. angustifoliiim, Scirpus ccEspitosus and Sundews. In the 

 wettest places Rhynchospora becomes the most conspicuous 



1908 November i. 



D 2 



