INTEODUCTIOX CI 



compiled a list of the plants cultivated in the garden under the title 

 of Catalogus Plantar um Horti Medici Oxoniensis. It enumerates i,6oo species, 

 of which about 600 are British. So large a number of species culti- 

 vated in the garden in so short a time after its foundation speaks 

 well for the zeal and diligence of Bobart. There is a copy of a scarce 

 print of him by Burghers in the Hope Collection, w^hicli represents 

 him standing near the Danby Gate of the Garden ; he is holding 

 a plant in his hand, a stork is flying above him, and a goat is standing 

 by ; his beard, whicli on rejoicing days ' he used to wear tagged with 

 silver,' is depicted as reaching to his waist. Underneath another 

 print by Richardson in the same Collection is written : 



* Thou Germane Prince of plants, each year to thee 

 Thousands of subjects grant a subsidie.' 



Edmund Gayton wrote a poem on him in 1662, in which he notices 

 the quaintly cut yew-trees at the entrance to the Garden, and calls 

 them the Yewmen of the Guards ; probably he was also the author 

 of another ballad published in the same year, and entitled On the Gyants 

 of the Physic Garden ! For further particulars see Wood's Athenae, in 

 which it is stated that Bobart showed to Ashmole in 1669 'manj^ 

 choice plants, herbs, grafts, and other curiosities, to his great content.' 

 Bobart died on February 4, 1679, aged 80, and was buried at the 

 Church of St. Peter in the East, Oxford, where a monument to his 

 memory is placed on the outer side of the wall of the Church near 

 the south-west corner, with the inscription : ' To the Pious memory of 

 Jacob Bobart, a native German. A man of great integrity, chosen 

 by the founder to be keeper of the Physic Garden. He dyed Feb. 4, 

 1679, in the 8ist year of his age. As also of Mary his first wife, who 

 dyed April 17, 1655, and Ann his second wife, who dyed Nov. 21, 

 1696, together with four of their children, Ann, Cordelia, Joseph, 

 and Mai'garet, and also Elizabeth, daughter of their son Tilleman 

 Bobart.' 



What was really the first British Flora appeared in 1650, under How 

 the title of Phytologia Britannica. It was published anonymously, but 

 its author was William How, or Howe, who was born in London in 

 1 6 19. How was a physician and a graduate of Oxford, where he took 

 his M. A. degree in 1645, having been a Commoner of St. John's College. 

 With many other scholars of that time he joined the King's army, in 

 which he became captain of a troop of horse. Upon the downfall of 

 the royal cause he continued his studies in medicine, and practised in 

 that faculty. He died in 1656 and was buried in St. Margaret's, 

 Westminster. The Phytologia is a small i2mo volume of 133 pages 

 (largely copied verbatim from Johnson's Mercurius of 1634-41), 

 in which the plants are arranged in the alphabetical order of the 

 Latin names, with one or two synonyms from foreign authors, or 



