Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 34 (1896).djvu/82

 62 ON THE BOTANICAL SUBDIVISION OF IRELAND. counties by a line following the River Flesk, the northern shore of the Lower Lake of Killarney, and the River Laune. Mr. R. W. Scully, F.L.S., whose researches in the Kerry flora readers of this Journal well know, has kindly favoured me with his views. He points out that the Dingle promontory, which Babington includes in North Kerry, belongs botanically to South Kerry ; and this, indeed, Babington himself admits in his paper.* Mr. Scully also kindly informs me that, when his forthcoming Flora of Kerry is published, the distribution of species will probably be shown by baronies : it will therefore be an advantage to use barony bound- aries in fixing the Kerry vice-counties ; and the best division is evidently a line separating the baronies of Mahgunihy and Trugh- anacmy on the one hand from Glanarought, Dunkerron, Iveragh, and Corkaguiny on the other ; this forms roughly a N.W. and S.E. line, and divides the county into a mountainous south-western part, composed of Silurian and Devonian rocks, intersected by deep bays, and rich in alpine and Atlantic plants, and a more level and less maritime north-eastern portion, composed of Carboniferous lime- stone, and Coal-measures. Mr. Scully agrees as to this being the best division of Kerry into two vice-counties. Galway. — Connemara forms a division in every way distinct, and Babington's line correctly cuts off the mountainous meta- morphic maritime district lying west of Lough Corrib, with its peculiar flora, from the inland limestone plain of East Galway. The latter area is so very extensive (1613 square miles, twice the size of an average county), that there can be no doubt as to the desirability of forming it into two vice-counties, and a convenient east and west dividing line is formed by the Midland Great Western Railway from Oranmore, at the head of Galway Bay, to Ballinasloe on the River Suck, the eastern boundary of the county. It may be remarked here that the Aran Islands, though part of Co. Galway, belong botanically to Co. Clare, and are so treated in Cybele Hihernica ; and that Inishbofin, formerly included in Co. Mayo, is now a part of West Galway, to which it naturally belongs. Donegal. — This large county (1870 square miles) should evi- dently form two vice -counties, in order to keep the variation of size of our ultimate divisions within reasonable limits, and thus ensure that a statement of the number of county-divisions in which a plant occurs in the country may be a tolerably correct indication of its area of distribution. The boundary which I suggest is the roughly east and west line which separates the baronies of Inishowen and Kilmacrenan on the north from Raphoe and Boylagh on the south. This line crosses the Inishowen isthmus at its narrowest point, follows the shore of Lough S willy, and then the River Swilly almost to its source, and descends to the western ocean along the course of the Gweedore River ; and it divides the county into two almost equal parts. The whole of Ireland, 32,513 square miles, is thus divided into forty portions of as nearly equal size as conditions will permit, the
 * p. 356, lines 1-3.