BOTANICAL INVESTIGATION IN MIDDLESEX. 6b\) 



He published in 1730 Index Plantarum Officinalium in Horto Chelseiano, 

 and in 1739 Horti Chelseiani Index compendiarius. We have not been able 

 to find the year of his death. He first recorded in our county, Matricaria 

 inodora, Mentha pubescens, Plantago media, Chenopodium glaiLcum, Eumex 

 maritimus, B. palustris and Car ex paludosa. 



After Petiver's death in 1718 little seems to have been done in British 

 botany for some years. It is true that in 1724 appeared the third edition 

 of Eay's Synopsis, a book which advanced the science to some extent ; 

 but the improvements on the previous edition were made by the men whose 

 labours we have been recording, and by their contemporaries. Dillenius, 

 who edited the book, did not come to England from his native country, 

 Germany, till 1721. He added but little to the stock of knowledge of 

 British plants, being at first occupied at James Sherard's house at Eltham, 

 on the Hortus Elthamensis, published in 1732 ; and then at Oxford, from 

 1728, with his duties as Professor of Botany, the Historia Muscorum, 1741, 

 and the great ' Pinax ' of the plants of the world, which never appeared. 

 Dillenius died in 1747. He first noticed and distinguished in Middlesex 

 Sagina apetala, Cerastium semideca^idricm. Geranium pusillum, (Enanthe 

 jluviatilis, Linaria Cymhalaria, and Festuca sciuroides. 



The other botanists connected with Middlesex whose assistance is ac- 

 knowledged in the preface to the Synopsis by Dillenius are James Newton* 

 and William Stonestreet, M.A., who were dead before the publication of the 

 work; and — besides Eand and William Sherard — Charles Du Bois of 

 Mitcham, Thomas Manningham, D.D. ; Matthew Dodsworth, William 

 Vernon, Thomas Dandridge, and John Martyn, who were all living in 1724. 

 Particulars of all these would occupy too much space ; the pages of this 

 Flora bear witness to their activity and zeal, and the Sloane Herbarium 

 contains much of the results of their explorations. 



During this period, at which botany generally must be considered to have 

 been at a somewhat low ebb in England, a little book was published on 

 local botany of some interest as among the earliest of its class, and especially 

 important to us as the first separate work devoted to Middlesex plants. 

 The author was John Blackstone, of whom we would gladly give particulars, 

 but can find little to record. 



His two letters to Dr. Eiehardson, printed in the Correspondence (pp. 



* Dillenius was indebted to John Martyn, who transcribed them ' from an obscure 

 manuscript,' for the observations of Newton (see Preface to Mart. Tourn.). James 

 Newton was probably in the medical profession, as he wrote a paper in the Phil. Trans, 

 (xx. pp. 263^) on the effects of Papaver corniculatum luteum eaten in mistake for Erjrago. 

 He observed many plants about London, and entered localities in the margin of his copy 

 of Ray's Catalogus. We have made use of a professed transcript of some of these in an 

 unknown hand in the possession of the Rev. W. W. Newbould. He was also, according to 

 Dryander, the author of ' Enchiridion universale plantarum, or an universal and complete 

 History of Plants, with their Icons in a Manual,' of which only 42 pages and 15 plates 

 were printed, comprehending ' Liber 1. De Arboribus Pomiferls ; ' the date of this seems 

 about 1689. James Newton first noticed in Middlesex Ei'ythrcEa Centaurium, Pedicularis 

 palustris, Setaria verticillata, Avena fatua, and Polystichum aculeaium, (It is necessary 

 to mention that Pritzel confounds him with a later James Newton, who in 1752 published 

 A Complete Herbal.) 



