The Wild Plants of Sherkin, Cape Clear and adjacent Islands of West Cork

This illustrated publication brings together 20 years of floristic data from the islands of Roaringwater Bay, S.W. Cork, Ireland. A total of 592 flowering plants, conifers and ferns have been recorded on these islands. This makes this small area the richest 10-kilometre square in Ireland. Twelve Irish Red Data book species, over 30 significantly rare Irish plants and several taxa new to the Irish flora have been recorded. This is the first Flora for any part of County Cork, the largest county in Ireland, since T. Allin’s Flora of the County Cork, over 100 years ago in 1883.

Oleg Polunin, the internationally noted botanist and author of the famous series of Field Guides, spent a number of summers recording the Flora of Sherkin and other islands in Roaringwater Bay in the late 1940s. He reported 441 flowering plants and ferns and began a study of the vegetation. His work has provided the young botanists working at Sherkin Island Marine Station with a foundation and inspiration for their research.

John Akeroyd, a former student of Oleg Polunin, has a degree in Botany from the University of St. Andrews and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. He held a post-doctoral fellowship at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1979-81, after which he revised Flora Europaea/Volume I at the University of Reading. He is now a freelance botanical consultant and conservationist.