Welsh Journals

PREFACE CARDIGANSHIRE has had but little attention bestowed upon it by botanists, much less than has been devoted to its sister counties of Pembroke and Merioneth. The older botanists found its wide extent of upland sheep-walks to be monotonous and unattractive, while, until recently, many parts of the county were inaccessible or only to be reached by a pedestrian accustomed to rough hill-tracks. The present work makes no pretence to be a Flora of the county, but, a considerable amount of material relating to its flowering plants and ferns having accumulated, it appeared better to utilise this at once rather than to wait some years until the subject could be treated with a greater degree of fullness and finality. When this is attempted, these notes may find their place as contributions to a larger work. The writer has not hesitated to indicate many instances where his own knowledge is at fault. In the case of several species, he has pointed out that confirmation of their occur- rence in the county is needed or that further information is desirable. The general plan of a County Flora has been adhered to, while Dr. Newton's Plant Distribution in the Aberystwyth District treats the subject from the ecological standpoint. The literature referring to the botany of the county is scanty. The sources to which we are indebted for information may be shortly mentioned. Edwin Lees, F.L.S., in The Phytologist for 1844, published A Notice of Plants gathered in the vicinity of Aberystwyth, Cardiganshire." Next in point of time was a Mr. T. O. Morgan, who investigated the plants to be met with within a radius of sixteen miles from Aberystwyth, in the autumn of 1848 and the spring and summer of 1849. He embodied his results in a Flora Cereticae Superioris. This work enumerates 459 species. A number of these we are quite unable to find at the present day, while the occurrence of a few seems, to say the least, doubtful. Watson's Topographical Botany, Second Edit., 1883, contains the names of 491 Cardiganshire plants. Dr. H. Lewis Jones, in the Reports of the Botanical Record Club for 1879 and 1880, recorded 357 plants as occurring in the county, and the Rev. Augustin Ley contributed a further list to the Reports for 1884, 1885 and 1886. Important additions were made in a paper entitled Botanical Notes from North Cardiganshire," which appeared in The Journal of Botany for January, 1894. Its authors, Messrs. J. H. Burkill, B.A., and J. C. Willis, M.A.,