Noteworthy Plants of the Burren: A Catalogue Raisonné Author(s): D. A. Webb Source: Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. Section B: Biological, Geological, and Chemical Science, Vol. 62 (1961 - 1963), pp. 117-134 Published by: Royal Irish Academy Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20494847 . Accessed: 08/08/2013 20:52 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Royal Irish Academy is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. Section B: Biological, Geological, and Chemical Science. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 140.203.12.206 on Thu, 8 Aug 2013 20:52:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions [ 117 ] 9. NOTEWORTHY PLANTS OF THE BURREN: A CATALOGUE RAISONNt BY D. A. WEBB. School of Botany, Trinity College, Dublin. [Received 6 NOVEMBER,1961. Published 30 JUNE, 1962.] SUMMARY. AN annotated list is provided of those elements in the flora of the Burren region of north-west Co. Clare (and a small region of Co. Galway adjoining) which are noteworthy for their abundance, their rarity elsewhere in Ireland or in north-west Europe generally, or for their unusual habitat in this region. The list comprises 140 species of flowering plants, 2 gymnosperms and 11 pteridophytes. It is curious how little has been written on the flora of that remarkable district of western Ireland usually known as the Burren. (Purists deplore the use of the definite article before the name, but as Burren is the name of a village and of a barony which forms part, but by no means the whole, of the district here considered, I think it is best to adhere to popular usage). Some seven pages in Praeger's Botanist in Ireland form the only coherent account, whatever appears in other books being largely based -on this. The special papers devoted to the subject are slight and mostly very old. Yet for at least fifty years this district has been famous far outside Ireland for its flora. The botanical visitors keep to a well-worn track, admire, photograph and collect the same plants from the same stations year after year, but make little or no addition to our understanding of the floristics or the ecology of the region. It was to remedy this state of affairs that I proposed to the British Ecological Society that some sort of ecological survey of the region should be undertaken. It has been impossible to mobilize as much man-power as had been hoped, but over the past few years a considerable number of botanists and zoologists have visited the region with definite programmes of investigation; an attempt has been made to collect sufficient meteorological data to provide some sort of answers to the queries about the climate which inevitably arise; and I have myself tried to traverse the whole region systematically and thereby to see it in better perspective than is possible for a worker who has spent his time on intensive investigation of limited areas. The results of this work will, I hope, appear in print in the next few years. The present paper, which arises as a by-product of my systematic PROC. R.T.A., VOL. 62, SECIT. B. [NJ This content downloaded from 140.203.12.206 on Thu, 8 Aug 2013 20:52:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 118 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. survey of the area, is intended as a background against which the others may be viewed-an attempt to defiine more precisely the nature of the flora and of its peculiarities which have attracted attention to the region in the first instance: to re-state, in fact, in greater detail, the problems which are waiting to be solved. It is too easy, in a perusal of the available literature, to get the impression that the flora of the Burren consists of rarities alone; in fact the background of relatively common species provides, in the form of unusual abundance or scarcity or of unusual habitat, almost as much of interest. I include, therefore, in this catalogue the following categories of plants: (1) Those which, whether common or rare elsewhere, are sufficiently abundant in the Burren to form a conspicuous element in its flora; (2) Those which are notably commoner in the Burren than in other limestone districts of Ireland; (3) Those which find in the Burren a habitat strikingly different from that which they usually favour elsewhere; (4) Those whose presence in the Burren is of special ecological or phytogeographical interest. This includes all species present in the Burren which are distinctly rare or local in Ireland as a whole. Naturally many plants common in the Burren but common also elsewhere on limestone are omitted. Furthermore, specieswhich occur mainly or entirely in hedgerows, tilled fields or other man-made habitats are excluded. The comments must be understood as being based on my own observations unless another authority is cited. DELIMITATION OF AREA. The Burren area, for the purposes of the survey and for this paper, is delimited as in Fig. 1. It is bounded on the north and west by the sea, on the south-west by the shales which overlie the Imnestone and bear an entirely different flora, with a dramatically sudden contrast at the geological boundary, and on the south-east and east by arbitrary lines which separate the mainly karst like country of the Burren area from the adjoining country which, though it contains patches of karst, is mainly drift-covered and similar to the rest of the central limestone plain. (The somewhat tortuous geological boundary has been simplified near Kilfenora and N.E. of Lisdoonvarna by excluding small areas which, though limestone, are mainly farmed and have no floristic interest.) The area so delimited measures 34 Km. from east to west and 25 Km. from north to south; the total area is about 450 sq. Km. For convenience of reference it is divided, as is indicated in Fig. 1, into western, central and eastern portions. The lines of division follow the roads from Ballyvaughan to Lisdoonvarna, and from Bell Harbour, via Carran and Corofin to Ennis. All three divisions contain suminits over 1,000 ft. (c. 300 m.). This content downloaded from 140.203.12.206 on Thu, 8 Aug 2013 20:52:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions WEBB -Noteworthy Plants of theBurren: A Catalogue Raisonne' 119 BURRENREGION WSALCEOF MiLES 0+Li0fntv 0 The Aran Islands are similar to the Burren in their topography and, to some extent, in their flora; they might well have been included in the survreyarea had not reasonsof inconvenience of access ruled them out. They are referred to in this catalogue whenever a Burren species is absent from Aran, or when its abundance or distribution is strikingly different in the islands and the mainland. These data for Aran are extracted from the literature* and are not based oxnpersonal observation. It will be seen that despite a general similarity the Aran flora is a good deal poorer. How much this is due to isolation and how much to greater exposure it is not easy to say. Thalictrum minus L. Scarcely as widespread as might havhebeen expected. Fairly common in crevices near Black Head and thence south to Poulsallagh; recorded also by Praeger (1905) near the S.E. margin of the Burren. Rare in Aran. Anemone nemorosa L. Frequent in remarkably exposed situations, e.g. at about 500 ft. above Black Head. It seems probable that in such situations at least low hazel scrubmust formerly have existed. It does not, as a rule, grow in crevices. Not in Aran. Berberis ulgains L. Usually seen as a hedgerow plant in Ireland; it is conspicuous among scattered pine-trees on limestone pavement about a mile N.E. of Lough Bunny. Not in Aran. *Hart (1875), Nowers and Wells (1892), Colgan (1893), Praeger (1895). Nothing seems to have been published on the botany of the islands in this century. This content downloaded from 140.203.12.206 on Thu, 8 Aug 2013 20:52:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 120 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. Arabis hirsuta (L.) Scop. Rather common and occurring from sea-level to the mountain summits; often abundant on summit cairns, e.g. Slieve Carran. A. brownii Jord. Reported from the roadside between Ballyvaughan and Black Head by Murray (1887), but the habitat is rather unlikely and the plant has not been recorded from the Ballyvaughan or Fanore dunes. Recorded also from Aran by Hart (1875) and Praeger (1895); the records here are more convincing. Erophila verna (L.) Chev. Extremely abundant on the pavement every where, usually growing in a few millimetres of soil at the edge of closed vegetation or where a hollow contains some humus. The main flowering is in March and April, but Foot (1864) maintains that it flowers throughout the winter, and I have seen it flowering in early August. Rare in Aran. Cochlearia scotica Druce. A very neat, dwarf Cochlearia is fairly common on rocks near the sea at Poulsallagh and is usually referred to this species.