DID SCRIBONITJS LAEGrS RECORD ANY BRITISH PLANTS. 207 



DID SCEIBONIUS LARGUS RECORD ANY BRITISH 

 PLANTS IN A.D. 43? 



By B. D. Jackson, F.L.S. 



In looking up the old matter for use in tlie Flora of Kent, now in 

 preparation by Mr. P. J. Hanbury, I came across the following 

 paragraph, in Hasted's History of Kent : — " Br. Plot says that Herla 

 Britannica, which Twyne and Johnson think to be bistort ; Trifolkmi 

 acetosum or Oxys ; Empetron, qu(B est petrajindula Britannice prope 

 pecuUaris^ and Crocus ( ^ ), were found at Milton by Scrilonius 



The note ( ^ ) is as follows : — 



*' Dr. Plot says crocus sativus, saffron, was heretofore sown and gathered (as 

 now at Walden, in the county of Mssex) at Milton^ in Kent, and quotes for his 

 authority a manuscript rental of the manor of Milton, in the library of Christ 

 Church, Canterbury:'— 'K'dA%d:% Hist, of Kent, vol. ii., p. 631 (1782), 



Largus, when he came into Britain with the Emperor Claudius. 



Naturally this statement made me anxious to test its truth, as to 

 whether Kentish Botany could fairly be traced so far back as a.d. 43, 

 the date of the invasion by Claudius himself. Owing to the total 

 absence of references in the above-quoted paragraphs, I began by care- 

 fully searching through the printed works of Dr. Plot, but I could 

 find no trace of any such assertion. After I had fruitlessly expended 

 much time upon Plot's papers in the Philosophical Transactions, as 

 well as his separate publications, I discovered the probable source of 

 Hasted's statement on p. 565 of his History in this note, relating to 

 Milton Hundred: — (^ ) ''The whole of the above account of this 

 manor was drawn up by Dr. Flat, and communicated to me, among 

 the rest of the Doctor's papers, by JoJm TJiorpe, of Bexley, Esq. 



I was therefore left to sift the matter without any assistance from 

 Dr. Plot, and, tracing backward, found that Johnson, the editor of 

 Gerard's Herball, made no reference whatever to any finding by 

 Largus of British plants ; but the Twyne mentioned in the same 

 sentence was far more explicit, in a small octavo work published 

 under the title of ''Joannis Twini Bolingdunensis, Angli, De rebus 

 Albionicis, Britannicis, atque Anglicis, Commentariorum libri duo. 

 * * Londini * * 1590." I quote at length from this work, as I 

 think it of some interest, to show how items of Natural History were 

 generally handled by the usual run of writers in those times: — 



'* Multa ver6 Scribonius videre atque intelligere in Britannia 

 poterat, de incolarum antiquitate et moribus, de regionum natura et 

 temperie, de rebus in eadem dignis admiratione : multa de aquis, de 

 potubus atque cibis et eorundem praeparandorum ratione, de locorum, 

 ut ita dicam, genijs. 



Et quid nostra ferat regio, et quid f err e recuset. Multa denique 

 quae ad Medicinalem materiam pertinent ex animalibus, plantis 

 ac terrae visceribus petita, et quas herbas non passim obvias hsec insula 

 producat, observare poterat, non minus quam in Lunse portu, 

 o^urpi<|)yAAov illud, quod apiid nos, ut ego arhitror, non minori 

 quantitate quam in Sicilia vere et aestate enimpit, floretque. 

 Itemque Crithmum marinum, qui in mediterraneis regionibus non 

 succrescit, gustatu salso, quo ad condimenta utimur. Nee minus 



