830 
Proeeediugs of the Royal Irish Academij. 
lor in the "Flora Hibernica." In 1845, the Contributions to the Flora 
and Fauna of the County of Cork" was published, in which Dr. Power 
gives a full list of the Mosses known to him as natives of that county. 
This list contains 173 species, six of which had not been pre- 
viously noticed by Dr. Taylor. Again, in 1856, an important list 
of New or scarce Irish Mosses found chiefly in the County of Cork," 
was published by Isaac Carroll, in the Phytologist" for that year, 
vol. i., p. 236. He records fifty-seven species, and claims twenty- 
two of them as not having been before recorded as Irish. 
Among those who have studied Irish Muscology, though they have 
not published many of their observations, I may mention Dr. 
Thomas Alexander, of Cork, who investigated the Muscology of 
the neighbourhood of that city, and some of the results are published 
in the " Contributions to Flora and Fauna of Cork." Mr. David Orr, 
my assistant in the Botanic Garden, Glasnevin, has assiduously and 
successfully collected Mosses for many years, and has been the first 
to discover several rare kinds, which will be found recorded in their 
proper place. Dr. Dickie, formerly Professor of Botany in the Queen's 
College, Belfast, now of Aberdeen University, paid considerable at- 
tention to the Mosses of the ITorth of Ireland, and discovered many 
new habitats of the rarer species. Mr. George E. Hunt of Manchester, 
has frequently visited Ireland for the purpose of collecting Mosses and 
Sepaticece, and has distributed a large number of specimens of them. 
The only other contribution of any considerable extent to our moss flora 
which I have not made myself, is that by Dr. Carrington of Eccles, Lan- 
cashire, who in 1862 published his ''Gleanings among the Irish Crypto- 
gams," in the Transactions of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, 
Vol. vii. The author states that he spent eleven weeks at Killarney 
and other parts of the South of Ireland, in 1861, investigating the 
cryptogamic plants of that portion of the country, which is well known 
to be by far the richest in Ireland. His published list of mosses 
then found, amounts to 119 species, including those for which he 
quotes me as authority, and among them is one which had not been 
previously noticed as Irish, namely,- — Sphagnum auriculatum. 
My own bryological researches have extended over the last thirty-five 
years, and some of the results have already been published by Taylor 
and Wilson in their books. From time to time I have also myself pub- 
lished my subsequent observations in the Proceedings of the Dublin 
University Zoological and Botanical Association, Proceedings oftheEoyal 
Dublin Society, and Proceedings of the Dublin JSTatural History Society. 
Thus it will be seen, that our moss flora has not been neglected ; 
but these separate contributions are so scattered through difl'erent 
publications, that no foreigner or other person unacquainted with them, 
can form anything like an adequate idea of their extent. They can 
only judge from the latest full publication on the subject, which 
is the ''Flora Hibernica" in 1836. In the present synopsis, I have 
endeavoured as far as possible to rectify the unsatisfactory state of 
