INTRODUCTION clxix 



Berkshire are Primus insititia, Pyrus communis, Epilohium parvijlorum, 

 Horclenm muriniim, Onopordon Acanthimn, Petasites vulgaris, Urtica urens, 

 Scolopendrixim xidgare, and Eqiiisetum Umosum. 



In the year 1843 Mr. G. G. Mill, son of James Mill, the author of the Mill, G.G. 

 Histortj of British India, and brother of John Stuart Mill, visited Great 

 Marlow and made notes of the plants which he found growing round 

 that town, and published the list in the same year in the Phytologist 

 (old series, vol. i. pp. 783-995). As Mai'lowis on the Buckinghamshire 

 side of the river, and the country examined by Mr. Mill was partly in 

 Buckinghamshire and partly in Berkshire, it is not easy to say whether 

 plants which — like Anthriscus vnkjaris for example— have no localities 

 specified are to be found in both counties, or not ; but the list is one 

 of the most valuable to be found as yet in our Botanologia, whether we 

 consider the large number of plants (389) enumerated, or its accuracy 

 and the general correctness of the names of the species which it 

 contains. Many of the localities given are in Buckinghamshire, but the 

 Berkshire ones are numerous and interesting. More than eighteen 

 species are additions to the Berkshire flora, among them MiirioplujUum 

 spicatmn, Crepis foetida, Lusida {Jimcoides) pilosa, Koeleria cristata, Epipadis 

 purpurata{E. violacea), Caucalis nodosa, a.il with localities ; and confirmatory 

 notice is grven of Calamintha officinalis (mon(ana). The additions with no 

 localities specified are Ranunculus auricomus, Papaver dubium, Anthriscus 

 vulgaris [Cerefolium Anthriscus), Erigeron acre, and Carex pahidosa (cicuti- 

 formis). The records of Pohjga^a vulgaris, Epilohium teiragonwn, and some 

 other species are intended, no doubt, in the aggregate sense ; ih.eEpdo- 

 biumwaa probably E. obscurum. The list also puts on firm ground many 

 XJlants only reported before in general terms or on weak evidence. 



In 1845 a Guide to Beading was published under the title of 'J. C. 

 Robertson's Environs of Reading.' This work contains a list of some of 

 the more interesting plants indigenous to the vicinity of Reading 

 contributed by Mr. T. Bruges Flower. About 200 species are inserted. Flower, 

 but no localities are given ; and, as Reading is close to Oxfordshire, it T. B. 

 by no means follows that all of the plants were observed in Berkshire, 

 nor are we told that the author had himself seen all the plants that 

 he enumerates, so that some of the records may be old ones on more 

 or less trustworthy authority. My efforts to elicit further information 

 from Mr. Flower, who is still living in Bath, have not been marked 

 with success. His work on the Flora of Wilishire has appeared in the 

 pages of the Wilts Magazine, and he was a correspondent of Mr. H. C. 

 Watson's, contributing notes on the botany of several counties to Topo- 

 graphical Botany. The list of plants growing round Reading contains 

 seven species not previously published as belonging to Berkshire. The 

 first, which can scarcely be described as 'indigenous to the environs 

 of Reading,' is the not infrequent garden escape or casual, Papaver 



