INTRODUCTION clxXXl 



deiit, and Sisyrinchium Bermudiana by E. Willett, the son of my 

 revered friend, Mr. H. Willett of Brigliton. Galium erection, Rosa 

 spinosissima, Orohanche Hederae, Carex filiformis, and Sderochloa distans of 

 the list are either wrongly named or are not Berkshire plants ; it 

 must be borne in mind that very many of the localities in these lists 

 are in Hampshire, and a few in Surrey. Many of the plants mentioned 

 in the above lists are preserved in the College herbarium, of which 

 Mr. Edgar Willett (now a well-known London surgeon) was once the 

 keeper. 



Mr. Penny was a valued correspondent of Mr. Britten's, and the 

 Wellington lists were freely quoted in the Contributions. We owe to 

 Mr. Penny precise localities for Silene anglica, Pidicaria vulgaris, Eamm- 

 culus hirsutus {R. sardous)^ and Botrychium Lunaria, which had been 

 previously recorded on old or not very satisfjictory authority ; he also 

 found Alyssum incanum (a casual), and has sent me many notes on 

 the flora of the neighbourhood of Wellington and Wokingham. 



Mr. Henry Bosweul, of Oxford, the eminent bryologist, contributed Boswell, 

 to the Phytologist for i860 (see p. 99) a paper on the botany of the ■"^• 

 neighbourhood of Oxford. Of the plants he enumerates. Vicia lathyroides, 

 Oenanthe fiuviaiilis, and Viola Jlavicornis (F. eanind) are additions to the 

 flora of Berkshire,- while Rosa villosa, R. micrantha, and Hieracium 

 rulgatum (H. sciaphilum) are noticed precisely in print for the first time 

 by Mr. Boswell for the same county. He lent very important aid in 

 the preparation of Mr. Britten's Contributions, in which he appears as 

 the first to publish Vicia gracilis, Juncus diffusus, Lastrea {Bi-yopteris) 

 spinulosa, and L. Oreopteris {Dryopteris montana) ; he was also a contem- 

 poraneous I'ecorder of Viola Reichenbachiana, Cerastium seniidecandrum, 

 an*d Chenopodium ptolyspennum, and, as his notes show, the first observer 

 of several unlocalized plants in the Contrihidions. He is reported in 

 that work to have found Osmunda regalis, Potamogeton rufescens, and 

 P. 1ieterop)hyllus in North Berkshire, but there is no mention of either of 

 these plants in his note-book, and he says that he certainly never saw 

 them in Berkshire. These three j^lants are therefore not given on 

 Mr. Boswell's authority in the present work. His specimens of 

 Scirpus setaceus and Poa compressa are the earliest vouchers for these 

 species as Berkshire plants. Mr. H. Boswell was born at Oxford, of 

 an old city family, on Jan. 27, 1837. From his boyish days he was 

 fond of flowers. At the age of twenty-five he succeeded, on the death 

 of his father, to the old-established business of portmanteau -maker in 

 the Cornmarket, which he carried on till the end of 1895. His chief 

 botanical field-work was done in the fifties, at which time he became 

 well acquainted with the botany of the district. His first published 

 paper with which I am acquainted is the one alluded to above, which 

 appeared in the Phytologist for i860. In conjunction with Prof. Lawson 



