CXll 



FLORA OF BEKKSHIRE 



Harding. 



Plot, 

 Robert. 



Oxford Botanic Garden he is said to have pointed out the white- 

 rtowered Hounds-tongue to the editors. John Watlington was buried 

 at Reading on Oct. 2, 1659. 



A copy of Ray's Catalogiis Plantarum Angliae is contained in the British 

 Museum Library with press-mark 968 f. 4 -5, which formerly belonged 

 to Michael Harding, of Trinity College, Oxford. He made a consider- 

 able number of notes in it relating to plants which he had observed 

 in the neighbourhood, but only one Berkshire locality is mentioned, 

 namely '' Asperula qidnta GerarcU. Small Red flowered Woodroof found 

 near Hinksey,' which refers to Asperula cynanchica. 



Robert Plot was born at Sutton Baron or Barne in Borden, Kent, in 

 1640. He was educated at Magdalen Hall, in the University of Oxford, 

 and took the degree of B.A. in 1661, of M.A. in 1664, and of D.C.L. 

 in 167 1. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1667. His 

 Natural History of Oxfordshire appeared in 1677. This folio volume is 

 divided into ten chapters, the sixth of which is devoted to plants ; 

 the few figures given are fairly good, and the descriptions clear. The 

 plates are said by Pulteney to be the first copper-plates used in 

 England. The species noticed are, as might be expected, almost 

 exclusively such as occur in Oxfordshire : of Viola paliistris, however, 

 it is said that ' it grows most plentifully at Chilswell, in Berkshire, 

 amongst the moistest boggs,' which is the first printed record of it 

 as a Berkshire plant, though Morison, in the Historia Oxoniensis 

 of 1680, states that both Viola palustris and V. liirta were detected 

 by Jacob Bobart in 1670. Plot also records that ' Oenanthe aquatica 

 minor, Park, is common almost everywhere about Oxford,' the plant 

 intended being Oe. fistulosa ; and that ^Atriplex vulgaris sinuata spicata 

 is equally common on dunghills with sinuata major, amongst which we 

 suppose it has hitherto lay hid.' The latter plant is probably Atriplex 

 patula (see Parkinson's Theatrum, p. 748) ; the former I suggested in 

 the Flora of Oxfordshire might be Ghenopodium rubrum or a form of 

 C. album ; Plot's plants, without localities, which were named by 

 Bobart, are in the Sloane Herbarium, but they do not assist us in 

 determining the true names. Dr. Plot published in 1679 his Natural 

 History of Staffordshire, yvhich. v^sis reprinted in 1686. These two works 

 elicited warm expressions of approval fi'om Ray. Dr. Plot was the 

 first Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and was also 

 Professor of Chemistry in that University. He died at Sutton Baron, 

 leaving a large quantity of material for a natural history of Kent ; 

 and according to Cough's British Topography (see page 161) he had also 

 collected material, which came into the possession of the late Mr. 

 Warburton, for a natural history of Berkshire, but I have been unable 

 to trace it. 



In the Natural History of Oxfordshire Plot describes ' a kind of Rosa 



