CXXX FLORA OF BERKSHIRE 



plants and a collection of Botanical works for the Library. Two 

 years later he died at Eltham. James Sherard, writing to Dr. Richard- 

 son on Aug. 20, 1728, says : 'We buryed him last Monday at Eltham, 

 he desiring to ly where I thought to be buryed my self. . . . He has 

 left his books and plants, &c., and £3,000 for the maintenance of 

 a Botany Professor at Oxford. . . . He has nominated Dr. Dilleuius to 

 be the first Professor for life.' No monument marks his grave, the 

 actual position of which is not known ; nor have we seen any en- 

 graved likeness of him. An oil-painting in the Library of the Botanic 

 Garden at Oxford is presumed to be a portrait of him. The books 

 mentioned above, and now known as the Sherardiau Library, are 

 rather more than six hundred in number ; many of them are rare, and 

 a few contain notes by Sherard. Vaillant gave his name to a genus 

 of Verbenaceae, which Linnaeus however reunited with Verbena. A 

 shrub, now known as Galena africana, was named Sherarclia by Ponte- 

 dera,. but the Dillenian genus Sherarclia was adopted by Linnaeus and 

 is still retained. Sherard on one occasion visited Jersey and there 

 discovered several plants, among them Bartsia viscosa, Bromus madri- 

 tensis var., and Gnaphalium luteo-albiim. 



Sherard' s hei-barium, preserved at Oxford, consists of about twelve 

 thousand specimens, for the most part without localities. It is in- 

 teresting as containing many plants from Vaillant, Jussieu, Micheli, 

 Boerhaave, Linnaeus, Buddie, and Richardson ; a large number of 

 specimens from America collected by Uvedale, Catesby, Vernon, Bar- 

 tram, Bannister, Soldau, Tilden, Houstoun, from Africa by Commelin, 

 and from Russia by Ammann. The MS. of the Pinax, which has never 

 been published, is also preserved in the Library of the Botanic Garden 

 at Oxford. 



The plants from Berkshire, which Sherard recorded in Ray's Synopsis 

 of 1690, are ' Salix caprea acuto longoque folio, found frequently about 

 Oxford,' which is S. Smithiana, yVilld. ^ Salix minima fragilis folio lon- 

 gissimo utrinque viridi non serrato ; in the osier-holts between Maiden- 

 head and Windsor,' which is referred to S. rubra. ' Canjophyllus 

 holosteus arvensis medius, near Oxford,' which is Stellaria palustris. In 

 the edition of 1696 (p. 191) he records ' Orobiis sylvaticus nostras. In the 

 upper part of Merley Wood near Oxford.' By this name is intended 

 our Vicia Orobus, but Sherard probably mistook for it Vicia sylvaticaj 

 which occurs in that wood. No other botanist has found V. Orobus in 

 the locality, and Dillenius' specimen from the same wood is V. sylva- 

 tica. This throws doubt on Sherard's record of V. Orobus from Ireland. 



On a specimen of Bromus erectus in his herbarium Sherard has 

 written : ' This was first found by me and given to Mr. Bobart.' 

 A memoir of Sherard by Mi*. Daydon Jackson will be found in the 

 Jownal of Botany for May, 1874, at p. 129. 



