XCIV FLORA OF BERKSHIRE 



Kartheciicm ossifragum, AnagalUs tenella, Drosera rotundifolia, Hypericum 

 elodes, Carex clioica, C. pulicaris, C. echinata, C. hinervis, C. fulva, Eriophorum 

 angustifolium, Scirpus caespitosus, S. paucijlorus, S. Jluitans, Eleocharis multi- 

 caulis, Bynchospora alba, Ranunculus Lenormandi, R. hederaceus, Epilobium 

 palustre, Molinia, Festuca ovina, var. paludosa, Chara vulgaris, Erica Tetralix, 

 and Dryopteris dilatata. 



THE BOTANOLOGIA OF BERKSHIRE. 



Ti'KXER. The first notice of a Berkshire phmt appears in a book published by 



William Turner in a.d. 1548, and entitled The Names o/Herhes in Greke, 

 Latin, Englishe, Duclie, ayid Frenche, in which it is stated that ' Clinopodium 

 groweth plentuously aboute Bon by Rehne-syde ; I heare saye that it 

 groweth also about Oxford.' Of Teucrium Scordium Turner says : ' I heare 

 saye that Scordium groweth also besyde Oxforde.' The identity of the 

 former plant is not quite certain. Mr. Britten, in a reprint of the 

 above work by the English Dialect Society dated 1881, identified it 

 with Calamintha Clinopodium. In the Flora of Oxfordshire I placed it with 

 some doubt under C. Acinos (C. arvensis) ; the figure and description in 

 Turner's Herbal (p. 150) do not suggest C. Clinopodium to me. C. Bauhin, 

 however, treats it as synonymous with that plant, as does Dr. Trimon 

 in the Flora of Middlesex. 



William Turner was born at Morpeth, in the county of Northumber- 

 land, about the year 1512. He is believed to have been the son of 

 a tanner. We learn from Cooper's Athenae Cantahrigienses that he took 

 the degree of Bachelor of Arts at Cambridge in 1529-1530, and was 

 Fellow of his College (Pembroke) in 1531 (see Wood's Athenae Oxonienses, 

 i. p. 361), He was still a Fellow when he issued his earliest botanical 

 work, the Libellus de re Herbaria novus, published in 1538 ; tliis is a small 

 treatise of twenty pages, and contains the earliest printed records of 

 any British plants. No Berkshire or Oxfordshire records are given 

 in it. 



During his residence at Cambridge he formed the acquaintance of 

 Ridley, and embraced the tenets of the Reformation, in support of 

 which he published and preached, travelling, as we are told, ' through 

 a good part of England, and preaching not only in towns but also in 

 cities. In his rambles he settled for a time in Oxfordshire among 

 several of his countrymen whom he found there, purposely for the 

 conversation of men and books.' He was imprisoned and kept in 

 close durance for a considerable time, but being at length set at 

 liberty and banished from England he travelled into Italy. Here he 

 spent some time, studying Botany under Luca Ghini at Bologna, and 

 Medicine in various places. Having taken the degree of Doctor of 

 Medicine either at Bologna or more probably at Ferrara, he retraced 

 his steps through Switzerland, and visited Conrad Gesner at Zurich, and 



