Donal Hickey: Kerry's mystery new fern

One of the most exciting botanical discoveries for the last two centuries in the Irish Flora

The very rare Stenogrammitis myosuroides (Kerry Mousetail Fern). Picture Rory Hodd/Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland

Renowned botanist Robert Lloyd Praeger didn’t miss much when he travelled around the country more than a century ago, visiting some areas many times over a five-year period.

He was entranced by the plant life and beauty of the South-West as he moved through places like Roaringwater Bay, Bantry, and Glengarriff before arriving in Kerry and what is now Killarney National Park. “From almost every point of view, the most interesting region in Ireland for the botanist,’’ he wrote.