CVl FLORA OF BERKSHIRE 



Browne. William Browne, or Brown, was a native of Oxford, and was 



educated at Magdalen College. We learn from Dr. Bloxam's Register 

 that he took his B.A. degree in 1647, his M.A. degree in 1650, and his 

 B.D. degree in 1665. He became Fellow in 1657, was Praelector of 

 Moral Philosojihy in 1658, Dean of Divinity in 1659, and Vice Pi-e- 

 sident in 1669-70. He died in 1678. Bloxam says : 'In 1652, July 2, 

 Anthony Wood was examined for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 

 the Natural Philosophy School by Wm. Browne of Magdalen College, 

 a native of Oxford' (see Wood's Diary). He was son of Wm. Brown, 

 Mercer of Oxford, and was born in St. Mary's parish. See Peshall's 

 City of Oxford, add. 29. 'This divine, who was an Oxford man born, 

 was one of the best Botanists of the time, and had the chief hand in 

 the composing of a book entitled a Catalogue of the Oxford Gardens. 

 This Mr. Browne died suddenly on March 25, 1678, aged fifty or 

 thereabouts, and was buried in the Antechapel of Magdalen College, 

 of which he was a Fellow,' Wood's Fasti, ii. 282. On a black marble 

 gravestone under the north-west wall is the following inscription : 

 • H. S. E. Gulielmus Browne, S.T.B., Hujus Collegii Socius. Vir 

 industriae indefessae et eruditionis perspectae, qui Sanctae Theologiae 

 hoi'as compositas Rei Botanicae succesivas impendens in utraque 

 emicuit. Apoplexia correptus succubuit fato multum lugendo nisi 

 vixisset, indies moi-iturus. Ob. Mar. 25, anno aetatis 49 mdclxxviii.' 

 ' He was son of John [sic] Browne, sometime one of the Bailiffs of the 

 City of Oxford,' Wood's Hist. p. 344 (1786), ed. Gutch. 



Browne contributed many plant- records, as will be seen presently, 

 to Merrett's Pinax ; among them those of the thi-ee Orchises which 

 have been referred by subsequent writers to Orchis militaris, 0. Simia, 

 and Aceras anthropophora, but the last has never been verified ; also 

 Orchis ustulata and Lonicera Perichjmenum. Contemporary writers, Merrett 

 for example, gives the credit of preparing the Oxford Garden Catalogue in 

 the chief part to Browne, and Anthony Wood says 'that he had the chief 

 hand in it.' Merrett calls him 'Vir exercitatissimus et eruditissimus.' 

 The Bodleian Library acquired recently a copy of Lyte's Herbal, 

 in which were a large number of MS. notes giving the habitats of 

 plants chiefly from the neighbourhood of Oxford. The allusions by 

 the writer of these notes to his college-grove and cloisters show that 

 he was connected with Magdalen, no other college possessing both 

 a grove and cloisters ; and it is not improbable that the notes were 

 written by Browne, though up to the present time no certain writing 

 of Browne's has been discovered with which to compare them. They 

 add about thirty-three species to the flora of Berkshire, as follows : — 

 Anthijllis Vulneraria, Veronica serpxjlUfolia, Linaria spuria, Cotyledon Um- 

 bilicus, Thalictrum flavum, Pohjgala serpyllacea, Reseda Luteola, Lysimachia 

 Nummularia, Mercurialis perennis, Coronopus procumbens, Sisymbrium Sophia, 



