FLORA OF KENT 255 



of the latter contain the arms respectively of the Universities of 

 Cambridge and Oxford, and of Queen Margaret of Anjou, foundress 

 of Queen s College, Cambridge. 



It was written by William Mount in 1583 ; and the hand is 

 identical with that in which the entries in Goodyer's copy of Lobel's 

 Icones at Magdalen College are written. 



M(iunl'.s botanical localities were mostly within four miles west 

 and north-west of Maidstone, indicating that he was living in Kent 

 in 15N1 at Kast Mailing, where he had an orchard. And even in 

 the case of plants for which Mount gives no localities, it may safely 

 be assumed that he was reterring to specimens growing near his 

 Kentish home. His notes appear to have been written between 

 1582 and 1584. The plants which he may then have observed in 

 Kent, and for which his are the earliest references, are about thirty- 

 three in number. Of these thirty-three plants we find that Gerard, 

 who wrote thirteen years later than Mount, mentions only eight, 

 and to these Johnson adds only eleven more in his various works 

 printed 1629 to 1633, forty-five and more years later. These notes 

 of William Mount, therefore, constitute an important contribution to 

 a first Flora of Kent,^ with a few notes on the virtues of imported 

 garden and medicinal plants ; and it must be remembered that they 

 were compiled in days when the idea of local floras was as yet 

 unknown. 



The modern names of some of the plants for which he has 

 recorded dates and localities are included in the following lists. 



NATIVE PLANTS. 



Modern Names. Localities recorded by First printed 



Mount c.\^%i. records. 



Poa pratensis, L. Gerard, 1597. 



Poa trivialis, L. (?) 



Eragrostis major, Host. Ger. 1597. 



Phleum pratense, L., var. nodosum. Mount's 'Alderes'. Johnson, 1629. 



Carex acuta, L. East Mailing. Curtis, 1670. 



Juncus acutiflorus, Ehrh. Snodland. Johnson, 1632. 



^ I have found some other references to plants dating from the sixteenth 

 century in a copy of Lyte's Herbal, 1578, belonging to the RadcHffe Trustees in 

 Oxford. Two of the notes certainly refer to Kent, possibly the others may too. 

 There was a Smallbrydge in the manor of Horsmonden. 



Ground pyne {Ajuga Cha7naepithys L.) 'luxuriat in Cantio'. 



Rhus sylvestris Plin. [Myrica Gale L.) ' Canterberyie Call and Cole '. 



Rhamnus {Rkamnus caiharticus L.) ' au pres de la forest de Hatiele ' (?). 



Buckthorne {Hippophae Rham/ioides L. ) ' au pres de small bregge '. 



Plane {Platanus orientalis L.). Planted in England 'at Small brege'. 

 The signature of the recorder is doubtless on the title-page, but it has been 

 obliterated by over-scribbling. 



