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40.

17th June 1946. 

A wild day with showers & thick cold wet fog on coast & mountains over 1700 ft.  Walked from hotel (10.30 AM.) to Faha & over ridge to N. into Owenafeana Valley & then made straight across wet Schoenus X Scirpus moor for Pierasmore, but spent some time & had lunch amongst scarps facing E. about 1/2 mile E. of that little nunatak (Pierasmore):  on reaching Pierasmore turned N. in thick fog - very wetting & cold when driven by a gale from NW. crossing the ridge - next located the rocky scarp & then the nearby "Monument" of Ord. Map & referred to by Hart (1884) apparently as "the ruins of an old signal tower", & commenced to search round the last for Hart's Polygonum viviparum on the grand flats between belts of vegetation.  P. vivparum eventually discovered by Daisy in centre of square of rough walling which now forms "The Monument" - very like Sorrel in its leaves but these simple at base & not saggitate, also decidedly more elongate as a rule, but near enough to excuse me mistaking a queer little form of sorrel for it under the conditions prevailing on 13-6-46;  eventually found one specimen with flower spike showing & as we had much to do pushed on N.W., in mist, towards W. shoulder of Masatiompan & 


41.

on along cliff edge to Knocknabreestee to locate place where R.J. Welch & I found Mossy Saxifrages in Sept. 1910:  eventually under the highest & most dangerous piece of cliff located these in plenty & in good flower:  three main forms located & specimens taken:

(1) A large hairy form very near the Clare Island rosacea
(2) A smaller greener form & 
(3) An affinis like form with stellate flowers with incurved petals & denser rosettes.

Here (Knocknabreestee cliffs) saw much Oxyria digyna, Silene maritima, Sax. Geum & umbrosa, Filmy Fern, Solidago, & the usual common plants of the cliffs in this district.  After afternoon tea, returned to The Monument & after considerable search found a lot of Polygonum viviparum on the edge of bare ground close by the Monument & to NE of same.  Here it grew plentifully in a "sward" partly of mosses, including Rhacomitrium lanuginosum;  the following is a rough section of the habitat:-

[[image]]
[[captions]]
Bare ground with odd seedlings, between pebbles
2 to 3 feet.  Sward of mosses, &c. with Polygonum viviparum
Higher vegetation where competition too strong for Polygonum! 
[[/captions]]