The Killarney Lakes. 
57 
To turn now to the Mediterranean. The pure Mediterranean 
climate is mild in winter but hot and dry in summer, especially on 
the coasts. Corsica is modified in the insular, i.e. oceanic, direction. 
For instance, the mean humidity of the year at Ajaccio is as high 
as 80%, dew is very frequent, the mean yearly temperature of 
17-6’C varies from 10‘2 to 25 - 6 n C from January to July. Rainfall 
is small, about 630 mm. When we ascend the mountains the 
rainfall increases, the mean temperature diminishes and the 
extremes approach. The most luxuriant Arbutus C/»£rfo-association 
we find from 200-700 m., where the insularity or oceanic character 
of the climate begins to be more pronounced. If we go higher up 
in the Corsican mountains we come to the Vizzavona Pass, with 
beautiful beech-holly-woods (900-1300 m.) which vividly remind us 
of Killarney. The winters are cooler than in Ireland, snow lies 
there for several months of the year. There is no Arbutus, 1 and of 
course no Hymenophyllum, but we still have the suh-dominant Ilex 
Aquifolium. Some plants of the undergrowth we meet again : 
Pteridium, Sauicula europcea, Hedera, Poly podium, Teucrium Scoro- 
donia. The oak is replaced by the beech, the same phenomenon 
we see all over Europe, the oak as the tree of the pronounced 
oceanic climate; the beech of medium moisture and moderate 
extremes of temperature, in other words the medium climate which 
we find in South-east England, in South Germany, the Swiss Plain 
and the Corsican mountains. 
Conclusion. 
The extreme oceanic character of the climate of Ireland, which 
brings the alpines down to the seashore, mixing them with southern 
plants, unites in the Killarney woods elements which in a warmer 
or less oceanic country form different formations in different 
altitudinal belts between 200 and 1400 m. The Atlantic laurineous 
wood, the Canary heath, the insular Macchia (this laurineous 
community contrasted with the continental mdquis of sclerophyllous, 
hairy-leaved scrub), the Corsican beech-holly-wood, all show great 
affinities to the Irish Quercetum sessiliflorce laurineum or Quercetum 
sessiliflorce aquifoliosum as we might call it. This seems to me to 
be the key to the striking features of the Killarney woods which 
we enjoyed on our glorious trip through the British Isles on the 
International Phytogeographical Excursion of 1911. 
Zurich, E. A. RUBEL. 
February, 1911. 
' M. Rikli (Botanische Reisestudien auf einer Friihlingsfahrt durch 
Korsika, 1907, p. 38) found the last Arbutus near Vizzavona 
at 850 m. 
