The Snowflake, Leucojum aestivum L., in Co. AntrimAuthor(s): Nora FisherSource: The Irish Naturalists' Journal, Vol. 4, No. 11 (Sep., 1933), p. 221Published by: Irish Naturalists' Journal Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25532227 .

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Sept., 1933.] The Irish Naturalists' Journal, 221

BOTANICAL NOTES.

THE SNOWFLAKE, LEUCOJUM AESTIVUM L., IN CO. ANTRIM.

Dr. C. J. Milligan recently brought me a specimen of this plant from

Langford Lodge, on the shore of Lough Neagh, where two clumps had been discovered by the gamekeeper, Mr. John Gray. As the species has only one other Northern Irish station I was anxious to see it growing, so Dr.

Milligan, J. A. S. Stendall and I visited the spot. One clump had been

destroyed by Boy Scouts, but the other was in full bloom. It was growing in a thicket of alder in very wet ground about 40 yards from the lough shore. The chief plants growing with it were Mercurialis perennis L., Carex ampullacea Good., and Mentha sp. There were also a few specimens of Iris Pseud-acorus lL. and Spiraea Ulmaria L. The presence of M. perennis

was rather against the possibility of the Snowflake being truly native, and

enquiry revealed the fact that within a few hundred yards of where the

plant was growing were the almost unrecognizable remains of three cottages, abandoned some sixty years ago !

This station is several miles south of Tomlinson's (Irish Nat., 15, pp. 170

171, 1906), which is treated in the 2nd Suppl. to Fl. N.E. Ireland (p. 95) as

" ? escape." As is pointed out, the Snowflake is just the kind of plant

that would suffer at the hands of amateur gardeners and once established in a garden might very well escape and re-establish itself in suitable ground.

Mr. Gray also showed us another clump which had been removed from the

lough shore and now is in the garden of Langford Lodge. He tells me that the Snowflake also has been found on the banks of the Crumlin river, but I have not been able to get more details.

Greenisland, Co. Antrim. NORA FISHER.

JUNCUS TENUIS IN CO. WICKLOW.

I have to record the discovery in Co. Wicklow of yet another of our "western" plants?Juncus tenuis. While staying for a few days in

Aughrim, I first came across this species by the wet margin of a lane, about i mile N.W. of the chapel at Annacarragh. The following day it turned up by the main Aughrim-Aughavannagh road, close to BaTlyteigue

Bridge; and then again a couple of days later by the by-road from Black's

Bridge to Fortfaulkner. These three widely scattered stations lead me to suppose that the rush must be pretty generally distributed about

Aughrim, in. stations similar to those in the west, damp margins of lanes and by-roads.

Rathgar, Co. Dublin. J. P. BRUNKER.

-o

NOTES ON SOIL SCIENCE.

By E. H. Common, B.Sc, M.Agr., A.I.C.

Naturalists in the past have not inclined to interest them selves very much in problems of soil science. A great deal of the knowledge relating to the soil is of a very technical nature, and research on soil problems often requires investigations far

beyond the reach of the amateur. Furthermore, it is only within the last twenty years that a representative literature has been available in the English language; the greater part of the modern work was initiated in Russia, and the results published in Russian. It is hoped that these notes will indicate some of the lines along

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