HISTORV OF ESSEX BOTANY. 



By Piof. G. S. BOULGER, F L.S., F.G.S., Vice-President. 



Part I. 



The Botanists of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth 

 Centuries. 



A CLUB such as ours, the object of which is to record the 

 Natural History of a county, must be interested in the 

 gradual introduction of new plants and animals into the area it 

 investigates, and in the growth of our knowledge concerning 

 them. My present object is in the main the growth of our 

 knowledge of the Essex Flora. It may be possible to some 

 extent to separate the indigenous plants of the county from those 

 introduced b)' man, and to discover approximate^^ the dates of 

 these additions to our objects of study. This I propose doing, 

 on the hues of the valuable appendices in Mr. Gibson's Flora, in 

 the fourth part of my paper. Perhaps also a good deal of matter 

 of biographical interest might be collected with reference to 

 botanists resident in Essex, whose work did not relate to the 

 county ; but, as I thought it advisable to limit my enquiry, it is 

 a history of Essex Botany rather than of Essex plants, or of 

 Botany in Essex. 



It may be a subject of congratulation to us that this history 

 of Essex Botany is conterminous with that of the science in 

 Britain generally. We are not now concerned with plants that 

 may have have been introduced by Romans in the first century, 

 by the missionaries in the seventh century, by Normans in the 

 eleventh century, or by the monks during the following five 

 hundred years,' nor with any records previous to the revival of 

 learning in the sixteenth century. The history of Essex Botany 

 begins with William Turner, justly styled " the Father of English 

 Botany," for, though we have no distinct statement that Turner 

 was ever himself in the county, he mentions four species as 

 growing in Essex, and most of his records, unlike those of his 

 successors, seem to have been the result of personal observation. 

 Commencing then with Turner, I find that our subject divides 

 itself chronologically into three divisions : first, the botanists of 

 the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Turner, Gerard, 

 Johnson, Parkinson, How, Robert Turner, Merrett, Ray, 



I See "The Influence of Man upon the Flora of Essex," Trans. Essex Field Club 

 iv , p. 13. 



