ii6 THE WILD-FLOWERS OF SELBORNE 



of considerable interest, and it is most fascinating 

 work searching in old localities for rare species men- 

 tioned by our early botanists. The Herbal of Dr. 

 Turner, Dean of Wells, enumerates upwards of three 

 hundred plants, together with the localities of the 

 rarer species. These localities are, however, mainly 

 in the county of Northumberland, where he was 

 brought up ; about Cambridge, where he was edu- 

 cated ; in the neighbourhood of Dover, which he visited 

 on his way to the Continent ; and about Wells, in 

 Somerset. But one plant only, we believe, is men- 

 tioned as growing in Hampshire, and this entry is the 

 earliest record of any particular species found in the 

 county. It occurs in the second part of the Herbal^ 

 published in 1562, and runs as follows: " Rubia \i.e. 

 the wild madder] groweth in Germany and also in 

 Englande. And the moste that ever I sawe is in the 

 Yle of Wyght. But the farest and gretest that ewer 

 I sawe groweth in the lane besyde Wynchestre in the 

 way to Southampton." After this solitary but inter- 

 esting record we pass to the well-known Herbal of 

 "Master John Gerarde," published in 1597, before 

 meeting with any further information with regard to 

 Hampshire plants. In this work, again, but few 

 Hampshire localities are mentioned, but among them 

 we find the " English scurvie-grasse or spoonwort " 

 and the mugwort recorded as growing "at Ports- 

 mouth," Solomon's seal " in Odiham Parke," and the 

 lady's mantle, or " lion's foote," as Gerarde calls it, 

 "in the towne pastures by Andover." At the time, 

 however, of the publication of this work, interest in 

 British botany was thoroughly awakened, and with 

 the beginning of the seventeenth century we find 

 several competent observers busily engaged in search- 



