INTEODUCTION CXVll 



at Oxford, and agrees well witli Bobart's description of the Professor 

 as ' a man of a healthy bodily frame and of plain and open manners/ 

 It is recorded of him that he cultivated science for its own sake, with 

 much less regard to his personal emolument than to the public good, 

 a sordid love of gain having made no part of his character. The genus 

 Morisonia was named after him by Plumier in his Genera (No. 36), and 

 Linnaeus adopted it in his Genera Planiarum (No. 260% 



In the same library there is a volume in Morison's handwriting- 

 labelled ' Morison Cat. 1653, Nomenclator stirpium mihi hiicusque cognitarum 

 et . . . colleciarum.' In this list a continental habitat is occasionally 

 given, but a British locality only once or twice. The volume is much 

 injured. The MS. of the Hortiis Blesensis is said by Plaller (vol . ii. p. 686) 

 to be preserved *in libris Hansii Sloane.' A letter from Morison 

 applying for the arrears of his salary as Regius Professor of Botany is 

 in the Bodleian Libraiy. 



It is frequently stated that Morison's Herbarium is preserved at 

 Oxford. Hitherto we have been unable to find proof that any plant in 

 the collection so named was gathered by Morison, nor does his hand- 

 writing appear on any specimen. The collection was almost certainly 

 the sole work of Jacob Bobart the younger. 



Morison had probably very little acquaintance with Berkshire field 

 botany ; we may conclude that it was Bobart who gave him informa- 

 tion respecting the plants of the neighbourhood of Oxford, as his name 

 is so often quoted by Morison. In the Historia Oxo7iiensis, on page 61, 

 we read : ' Datur et alia hujus major species, quae altius conscendit ; 

 folia habet prioris latiora, hirsuta pariter ; flores subalbidos, lineis seu 

 striis potius caeruleis notatos ; provenit sponte etiam et dumetis et 

 sepibus comitatus Oxoniensis, undo in Hortum Botanicum publicum 

 Universitatis haec species delata fuit a Jacobo Bobert, Hortulani filio.' 

 This is Vicia sylvaiica, already given in Merrett's Pinax. On page 171 

 Morison adds Ononis arvensis to our list. On page 191 Potentilla procmnbens 

 is precisely localized as a Berkshire plant. On page 235 Sisymbrium 

 Thalianum is recorded. On page 475 Viola hirta is called ' Viola Martia 

 major hirsuta inodora,' and is said to occur abundantly ' in montosis 

 sylvis circa Oxonium ' ; and Viola palustris, recorded as ' Viola xmlustris 

 rotundifolia glabra/ is said to grow ' ad margines fluvii Cherwell inter 

 Oxonium et Water Eaton ' (Oxfordshire). ' Utraque haec species,' it 

 is added, ' quarta scilicet et quinta, detecta fuit a Jacobo Bobert 

 decennio abhinc,' so that Bobart, not Plot, was probably the discoverer 

 of these two species. On page 511 is Geranium dissectum. On page 512 is 

 Geranium columbinum. On page 512 Geranium lucidum is recorded ; and 

 on page 541 Lychnis dioica, L,, is nientioned. 



John Ray, or Wray, who did so much to reform botanical science, Ray, John. 

 and to bring together in a compact form the desci-iptions and localities 



