MIDLAND UNION PEESIDENT's ADDRESS. 177 



Nottiugliam. Distribution according to Mr. Eay. By C. Deering, 

 M.D., Nottingham. Printed for the author by G. Ayscough, and 

 sold by Eivington at the Bible and Crown, St. Paul's Churchyard, 

 London, 1738." He refers (as to a newly-ascertained fact) to the 

 dilatation produced in the pupil of the eye by application of 

 a bit of leaf of Atropa BeUadonna. In naming some habitats of 

 plants, he refers to the Castle Rock, the Park, the Hell-closes 

 by the Leen, the Nottingham Gallows; and naines some plants 

 that are now extinct in this neighbourhood, as the Nympluea alha, or 

 White Water Lily, which he states is found in " the great Cheney 

 Pool, and in a ditch between Lenton and Beeston." He describes as a 

 new plant, " Solanum tuberusimt eaculeHtiiiii, Battatoa, of late much culti- 

 ated, and turned to good accouiat." 



Ordoyuo wrote "Flora Nottinghamiensis : T. Ordoyno, nurseryman 



and seedsman, Newark, 1807," dedicated to a botanist, Mrs. Sherbrooke, 



of Oxton. He mejitions the fact of Dr. Smith acknowledging in his 



Flora Britannica," the receipt of the Crocus from the above-named 



lady. 



Howitt wrote •• The Nottinghamshire Flora : containing the 

 Flowering Plants, Ferns, Mosses, Hepaticae, Lichens, Characeas, and 

 Algas : By Godfrey Howitt, M.D., London, 1839," a small, but in- 

 valuable work, embracing the facts as to local distribution observed by 

 Deering, Ordoyno, Jowett, and himself. Jowett was a collector (and 

 writer ?). Lowe, of Beeston High Fields, wrote "A History of British 

 Grasses," and also " Ferns, British and Exotic," both profusely 

 illustrated, and the latter work an authority on the jSubject. Dr. 

 Mitchell made a large collection of dried plants, now in the Museum 

 of the University College. Lastly, Dr. Wilson largely verified Hewitt's 

 book, and collected a nearly complete County Flora. This collection 

 is the finest we have in the town ; many of the specimens are qiaite 

 remarkable for the beautiful preservation of the colours. An attempt 

 is being made to make of this collection a Flora Britannica, but there 

 are many gaps to till up. 



At a meeting like this, composed largely of workers in natural 

 history, it is impossible not to refer to the great naturalist who has 

 recently departed from us, Charles K. Darwin. Always more or less 

 an invalid, but ever an incessant worker, he had the good fortune to 

 live to see his famous theory of evolution almost universally adopted — 

 an anti-evolutionist being now as rare as an evolutionist once was. 

 His modesty, justice, and fairness to others were proverbial. He was 

 the intellectual parent of hundreds, and his burial at Westminster was 

 a great testimonial to the growth of liberal thought among our clerics. 

 In the future, Darwin must rank among the world's foremost truth- 

 seekers, after Plato and Cicero, and as the greatest man of science 

 England has produced since Newton. 



