392 A SKETCH OP THE PROGRESS OF 



Linngean classes, orders, and genera. The latter are frequently misapplied, 

 and the trivial names of Linnaeus are not given. In this book are several 

 new localities, and three additional species for Middlesex. Mr. Clements 

 contributed many of them. Hill^ died in 1775. A volume of 100 speci- 

 mens of British plants preserved by him ' in a manner vrhich prevents the 

 common misfortune of their being destroyed by insects,' is in the British 

 Museum. 



This inadequate work was quickly superseded by the Flora Anglica of 

 William Hudson, F.E.S., an apothecary living in Panton Street (afterwards 

 in Jermyn Street), Haymarket, and sub-librarian of the British Museum 

 from 1757 to 1758.t This appeared in 1762, and, as Sir J. E. Smith 

 says, it ' marks the establishment of Linnsean principles of Botany in 

 England.' Prom this time the artificial scheme reigned almost supreme 

 in this country for more than sixty years, fostered by Smith and his 

 followers, and owing to the facilities of study which its simplicity conferred, 

 to which the binominal system of nomenclature still more contributed, nume- 

 rous workers appeared, and the dead period was in turn succeeded by a 

 time of activity. 



Hudson's Flora contains many Middlesex localities,! especially about 

 Highgate and Hornsey ; the majority stand on his own authority, but there 

 are some contributed by Drs. Watson and Wilmer, already noticed as corre- 

 spondents of Blackstone, and some by Stanesby Alchorne § and Peter 

 Collinson. || A second edition of this was published with considerable 

 additions in 1778. Hudson died in 1793, and left his herbarium to the 

 Apothecaries Society. The plants which he first noticed in this county are 

 Viola palustris, Geranium pt/renaicum, Herniaria glabra, Sedum clasy- 

 jphyllum, Datura, Mentha viridis, Potamogeton compressus, P. yectinatus, 

 Poa pratensis, and P. compressa. 



Between the two editions of the Flora Anglica several books, bearing 

 more or less on our subject, were published. Of these, the first in point of 

 time is the Plantce Cantabrigieoises of Thomas Martyn, M.A., printed in 

 1763, in the appendix to which are 'Lists of the more rare plants 

 growing in many parts of England and Wales.' These are arranged in 

 counties, and Middlesex occupies pp. 64-74. Very few of them are 

 original, being taken chiefly from Blackstone and the Dillenian Synopsis ; 

 a serious omission is found in the want of all quotations of the authorities. 

 T. Martyn was born at Chelsea in 1735, and was perpetual curate of 

 Edgware in our county ; he succeeded his father, John Martyn, as Professor 



* For an account of the extraordinary life of this versatile biat unscrupulous genius 

 see the Biographia Dramatica, vol. i. p. 341. 



t For some particulars of Hudson see vol. xviii. of Rees" Cyclopoedia. 



X His own copy, in the library of the British Museum (969, f. 25), has many MS. notes. 



§ Of the Mint ; died 1800. His dried plants are preserved in the British Museum. 



I; Died 1768. Mr. Pamplin has kindly lent us a copy of Blackstone's Fasciculus, con- 

 taining MS. notes by Collinson, who lived at Mill Hill, on Middlesex plants. It after, 

 wards belonged to his son, Michael CoUinson, who has added many notes of interest on 

 the orchids formerly found at Harefield. 



