cxlii 



FLORA OF BERKSHIRE 



WlTHER- 

 TNO . 



>5T()KES. 



Spencer. 



said that JBanks was the first to discover Senecio squalidus at Oxford, hut 

 I have obtained no evidence confirmatory of this statement. A copy 

 of Hudson's Flora Anglica with Banks' MS. notes is preserved in the 

 British Museum Library, press-mark 448. E. 21, in which several 

 localities for plants are given in Berkshire and Oxfordshire. Pedicularis 

 palustris, Vinca 7ninor, and Oxalis are additions to the flora of the former 

 county K 



William Withering was born at Wellington, in Shropshire, in 1741, 

 where his father was engaged in medical practice ; the son adopted 

 the same profession, and obtained the degree of Doctor of Medicine, at 

 Edinburgh, in 1766. He practised first of all at Stafford ; but afterwards 

 Withering removed to Birmingham and there became in a few years 

 a leading physician. 



In 1776 he published in two volumes his Systematic Arrangement of 

 British Plants, a work which became a text-book for British botanists. 

 No additions are made in it to the Berkshire flora. A second edition 

 was published in three volumes in 1787, edited by Dr. Stokes. In 

 this edition Geranium pyrenaicum is added to the Berkshire list on the 

 authority of Mr. Woodward. A third edition of the Arrangement, in 

 four volumes, was published by Dr. Withering in 1796 ; in this edition 

 several Berkshire localities are given, but none of them are new 

 records. Withering died at Birmingham in 1799. L'Heritier dedicated 

 the genus Witheringia to his memory. 



The Dr. Stokes mentioned above was born at Chesterfield in 1755, 

 and was elected an Associate of the Linnean Society in 1790. He 

 prepared a botanical Materia Medica, which appeared in 1812. He died 

 in 1831. 



The Complete British Traveller, by N. Spencer, a folio volume published 

 in London, 1771, a copy of which is in the British Museum Libraiy 

 with press-mark 1854 a, contains a few references to the plants of 

 Berkshire. The plants mentioned are : — Wood Betonny, in many parts 

 of Windsor Forest ; Cranesbill, in the woods near Windsor ; Ground Pine, 

 in the Yale of the White Horse ; Hedge Mustard, near Ockingham ; 

 Catmint, found in the watery places near the Thames [a most unlikely 

 habitat] ; Mugwort, in the neighbourhood of W^antage ; Ptnmjroyal, in 

 the watery places near the confluence of the Ock and Lambourne. 

 [The watershed of the Ock and Lambourne is the White Horse range, 

 the few dew-ponds on the Chalk contain no Mentha Pulegium, so far as 

 my observation goes.] Horse Mint, near Hungerford ; Hedge Hyssop, in 



^ For fiirfclier jiarticulars see the Anmcal Biographies and Obituaries tor 1821, 

 pp. 97-120; Gentleman's Magazine for 1820, vol. i. pp. 574, 637, 6.^8, and vol. ii. 

 pp. 86-88, 99 ; the Annual Register for 1820, vol. ii. pp. 1153-63 ; Weld's History 

 of the Royal Society, London, 1848, pp. 103-305 ; Barrow's Sketches (1849), 

 pp. 12-53 ; and an article by Mr. Daydon Jackson in the Dictionary of 

 National Biography, vol. iii. p. 129. 



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