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4.

30th May '46. 

After a fairly fine & calm night, wind back to S.E. & rising, glass down & an ominous look about the too clear mountains.  

Nevertheless decided we must do something & as plant all we could do, got lunch & made for Coumaknock on Brandon Mt. at 11 AM. just a drizzle started:  proceeded by path to Faha & then on round shoulder of hill with gale & increasing rain on our backs & soon pretty wet on one side & one (left) boot full.  Well into coomb by one o'clock, so had lunch in shelter of huge boulder & watched rain drive up the coomb in waver.  Waterfalls everywhere & increasing!  During a lull we pushed on 1/4 mile & then had to seek shelter again as a deluge of rain, sleet & hail swept up the corry.  After hiding behind a boulder with umbrella for a roof, for nearly an hour, the wind changed, rain ceased to drizzle & we emerged and picked our way across the coomb to foot of black cliff at about 1750 ft. & just below upper coomb, where I know some Mossy Saxifrages were to be found.  Spent some time here & collected some Sax. [[strikethrough]] drucei [[/strikethrough]] cespitosa-like forms (= KB. Nos. 1 to 8) & then as mist much warmer & inclined to lift 


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& wind gone SW., went on into upper coomb to foot of path on to col N. of the summit.  From this spot worked up to base of cliffs to S. (alt. ca. 2500 ft.) up slope of scree covered with Foxglove plants.  On cliff about 8 ft. above slope saw a patch of white flowers, which looked like gigantic Sax. stellaris, but on approach proved to be a Mossy & on closer inspection proved to be Don's Sax. affinis, said to have been originally taken on summit of Brandon by J.T. Mackay in 1805 & now said by Praeger ("Botanist in Ireland") to be "? extinct."  This plant had enormous (3/4 inch diam.) stellate flowers, with narrow concave, elongate, petals, tending to curve in along the sides - in fact as Don says & as Babington (in late ed. of English Botany) repeats, this character distinguishes it from all other Mossy Saxifrages, at least those which I have seen.  Other mossies round about the upper tarn were not yet in flower, so I cannot say if they also are affinis.  Close by the above affinis (= KB-10 of my list & notes!) grew five or six small plants of Holly Fern in hollow of the cliff, about 3 ft. from base.  Alchemilla alpina was seen on N. side of ridge, below upper tarn, in centre of the coomb, & again frequently at base of upper cliffs, where I