IXTRODUCTIOX CXXXVU 



in honour of him, gave the name BJackstonia to Eenealm's genus 

 Chlora. 



The Specimen Botanicum enumerates over 360 species of plants -svith 

 localities in various counties, but the only additions to the flora 

 of Berkshire are ^ Hipposelmum Uieophrasti vel Smyrniw7i Bioscoridis 

 officinale, C. B. Pinax 154 ; about Windsor Castle'; ^ Lathyrus Viciae- 

 fonnis, seu Vicia Lafhijroides nostras (Kaii Syn. ed. iii. p. 320) ; in a wood 

 near Abingdon, Mr. Hawkins' ; and 'XijmpJiaea alha major vulgaris. Park. 

 1251 ; on Windsor Lake.' The first plant is Smipnium Plusatrum, L., 

 and has not been seen recently in the locality given. The second is 

 referred to Lathijrus paluslris, L., but no confirmatory evidence exists, 

 since the identification and habitat of Dickson's plants so named and 

 localized are doubtful. The third plant is Castalia speciosa [Xymjjhaea 

 alba''; but the Windsor Lake may possibly refer to a piece of water 

 near Uxbridge in Middlesex. 



The Reverend William Sheffield \ born at Henley in Warwickshire, Shef- 

 was a member of Worcester College in the University of Oxford, where field. 

 he graduated B.A. in 1754, M.A. in 1757, and D.D. in 1778. He was 

 Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum from 1772 to 1795, becoming Provost 

 of his College in 1777. He was a friend of Sir Joseph Banks and the 

 companion of his walks about Oxford. He died on June 23, 1795. 



There is a manuscript note by Dr. Sheffield in a copy of the Flora 

 Anglica in the Library of the Botanic Garden at Oxford, in which he 

 records the finding of HeUeborus viridis. A manuscript volume from 

 the library of the late Mr. William Baxter, 'entitled ' Plantae Oxonienses 

 nondum detectae,' contains some notes on the local flora, the work 

 presumably of Professor Sibthorp. In this volume Dr. Sheffield is said 

 to have found Typha minor ? [r. angustifolia'] at Cowley gravel-pits, and 

 TJiesium limphyllum at Stanton St. John, both places being in Oxford- 

 shire. In the second edition of Hudson's Flora Anglica it is stated 

 that Dr. Sheffield found Carex strigosa near Oxford. The locality was 

 Wytham in Berkshire, but the plant has not been found there since. 

 Forster speaks of Dr. Sheffield as "Botanicus Oxoniensis imprimis 

 peritus ' ; but this is no great praise in the time of the Professorship 

 of Humphrey Sibthorp, when, as Sir James Edward Smith says, every 

 scientific object was all wed to sleep during a period of forty years, in 

 which not one successful lecture was given. Dr. Peter Acharius, 

 writing to Linnaeus in 1755, says: 'I saw nothing of Professor 

 [Humphrey] Sibthorp, he being absent from Oxford, nor of the 

 manuscripts of Dillenius or Sherard, of which I am sorry to hear that 

 the Professor takes little care.' 



William Hudson, born at the White Lion Inn, Kendal, in 1730, was, Hudsox. 

 like many of the preceding botanists, an apothecary ; he served his 

 ^ See Foster, Alumni Oxonienses, iv. 1284 (i 715-1886). 



