Moore — On the Mosses of Ireland. 
329 
XXXYII. — A Synopsis of the Mosses of Ireland. By Datid Moore, 
Ph. D., P.L.S., M. R.LA. 
[Read 24th. June, 1872.] 
In offering to the Academy the present synopsis of Irish Bryology, I 
have to observe that the muscological department of our flora has not 
been suffered to lag behind the other cryptogamic sections, but has rather 
been kept in advance of them. Two complete works on the subject 
tave appeared in which all the species are described which were 
known at the respective periods of their publication to inhabit Ire- 
land. The first of these books, written by Dawson Turner, was 
published in 1804, with the title of ' ' Muscologise Hibernicae Spicile- 
gium the second, by the illustrious muscologist. Dr. Thomas Taylor of 
Kenmare, who in 1836 contributed the second part of Mackay's ''Flora 
Hibernica," containing the Mosses, &c. In 1855 the late "William Wil- 
son, of "Warrington, published his classical '' Bryologia Britannica," 
in which he notices as Irish, some species not included by Dr. Taylor 
in his work, but which the author had found when examining the 
herbaria of Dawson Turner and Sir William Hooker, to whom these 
plants had been sent by the late Miss Hutchins of Bantry, whose 
name is well known to all cryptogamic botanists both here and abroad. 
About the period when that lady contributed so many novelties 
from Ireland to the late Sir James Smith, for his " English Botany,*' 
as well as to Dawson Turner and Hooker, there were a number of 
bryologists in this country. In the preface to the '' Spicilegium," 
Dawson Turner mentions Dr. Robert Scott, then Professor of Botany 
in Trinity College, Dublin ; Dr. Whitley Stokes, Fellow of Trinity 
College, Dublin ; and John Templeton, of Belfast, as gentlemen from 
whom he had received contributions towards his work. He also quotes 
Dr. Wade, Professor of Botany to the Boyal Dublin Society, as the dis- 
coverer of Buxhaumia aphylla, a rare and very curious moss, which is 
figured in the ''Transactions of the Royal Dublin Society," vol. iv., 
1804, but has not been rediscovered in Ireland since Wade's time. 
I know further that Dr. Francis Barker paid considerable attention 
to Mosses, and communicated his observations to Mr. Mackay and 
Dr. Whitley Stokes. In 1829 Mr. Wilson, the distinguished author 
of " Bryologia Britannica," paid a long visit to Ireland, for the pur- 
pose of investigating the Mosses, &c., of the Southern counties, where 
he collected a number of kinds not previously known as Irish, and 
also detected several species new to science, some of which he had 
figured and described in the Supplement to " English Botany," and 
other works. At a somewhat earlier period Mr. Thomas Drummond, 
who was Curator of the Botanic Gardens at Cork (when that estab- 
lishment was extant), and a good muscologist, added a considerable 
number of rare and some new species, which are included by Dr. Tay- 
K. I. A. TROC. VOL. 1., RER. TI., SCIEXCF,. 2X1 
