INTEODUCTION clxl 



engaged on the Flora Britannica, Smith was selected by the executors 

 of Professor Sibthorp to complete the Flora Graeca. The drawings for 

 that work, by Ferdinand Bauer, the first of the kind ever produced, 

 are preserved in the Library of the Botanic Garden at Oxford. The 

 lettei-press, written by Smith from the scanty notes left by Sibthorp, 

 is very good, and the work, completed in ten large folio A^olumes 

 bound in five, is one of the most sumptuous works ev^er pub- 

 lished on a botanical subject: it is said that an incomplete copy has 

 been sold for £500. Sibthorp's plants are in the herbarium of the 

 Botanic Garden at Oxford. Sir James was a contributor to Rees' 

 Cyclopaedia, and wrote all the articles on botanical subjects which ap- 

 peared in it after 1808, with the exception of a few by Drake. These 

 articles are in number 3,348, exclusive of fifty-seven biographies. He 

 also contributed fifty-two papers to the ■ Transactions of the Linnean 

 Society. In 1821 he published Selections from the Cojrespondence of Linnaeus 

 and other Katuralists, in two volumes. His next work was 27(6 English 

 Flora, the first and second volumes of which were published in 1824, 

 the third in 1825, the fourth in 1828. To this work he had devoted 

 much of his time for many years. It was pursued with ardour, in 

 spite of the interruptions of declining liealth, with the anxious desire, 

 often expressed, ' that he might live to finish it.' In this work and in 

 English Bo'any several Berkshire plants are mentioned. In English 

 Botany, Mijrica Gale is said to occur near Bagshot ; Orchis niilitaris is 

 recorded by Mr. Bicheno as growing near Streatley, and the figure is 

 taken from a Berkshire specimen, but both these plants were already 

 on record. New records are given by Mr. Murray (in 1799) of Leucojum 

 aestivum and Friiillaria Meleagris, both from the neighbourhood of 

 Beading ; also of Salix ferruginea by Anderson, and Viburnum Lantana. 

 In the English Flora Mr. T. F. Forster records Myosctis cespitosa and Elaiine 

 tripetala {hexandra) ; Mr. Bicheno is the authority for Rosa systyla, Bn.bus 

 leucostachys, B. nitidus, and R. glandulosus i^the last two being Bubus plicalus 

 and R. Koehleri). Muscari, Herminiiim, and Salix imrpurea are also given. 

 The Sherardian herbarium was examined by Smith when he 

 visited Sibthorp at Oxford, and many sheets have his notes on 

 them. In a letter which he wrote to Mr. Roscoe from Hall Place, 

 near Maidenhead, in 1810, he says: * I am going with Lady East in 

 search of Monotrojja Hijpopittjs, which I never yet saw growing, but 

 which I hear grows in the woods at Bisham Abbey hard by, where 

 the unfortunate Plantagenets lie buried. Among these are the famous 

 Earl of Warwick, the king-maker, and the last Earl who died in the 

 Tower.' In 1814 Smith received the honour of knighthocd on the 

 occasion of the King granting a charter to the Linnean Society. 

 Sir James' health began to fail soon after the completion of the 

 English Flora, and he succumbed to an attack of illness on Monday, 



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