11 



Art. IV. — Notice of^A Flora of Shropshire.'' By W. A. Leighton, 

 B.A., F.B.S.E. London : Van Voorst. 1841. With addi- 

 tional Notes on many of the Plants described in the Work. 



Previously to the appearance of this excellent work, there was no 

 regular Flora of Shropshire in existence ; the only ilhistrations of the 

 Botany of that county being contained " in the county lists of plants 

 in ' Camden's Britannia,' the ' Botanists' Guide ' [by Turner and Dill- 

 wyn], and the 'Agricultural Survey,' and the few notices scattered 

 throughout the works of How, Ray, Purton, Withering and Smith : " 

 and the only record left by any botanist of the result of his investiga- 

 tions in this district, is a MS. catalogue of the plants of Shropshire, 

 with their localities, compiled by the Re\^. E. Williams, which still re- 

 mains unpublished in the hands of the Right Hon. Lord Berwick, who 

 liberally allowed Mr. Leighton to make unreserved use of its contents. 

 Li this catalogue are enumerated 715 species of flowering plants and 

 300 species of Cryptogamia. 



The present volume of the ' Flora of Shropshire' is complete in it- 

 self, and is restricted to the Vasculares, of which it contains chai'acters 

 and full descriptions of 876 species, aiTanged according to the Linnaean 

 system, with synonymes and references ; and a copious list of localities 

 is attached to the less common plants. 



It was at first the intention of the author, that this work should 

 " appear as a mere catalogue of plants, with localities and observa- 

 tions," but he was ultimately induced to present it in the more ex- 

 tended form of a descriptive Flora. To render it " more comjDlete 

 and comprehensive than could be effected by his single and unaided 

 efforts, circulars, containing queries and heads of enquiry, were dis- 

 tributed, to which many friends of science resident within the district 

 most cheerfully and liberally responded." 



In the list of friends to whom the author returns thanks for assist- 

 ance rendered in this and other ways, we notice the names of many of 

 the first botanists of the day, including Professors Don, Graham, Lind- 

 ley and Nees ab Esenbeck, Dr. Bromfield, Messrs. Babington, BoiTer, 

 Bowman, Dovaston (the friend and biographer of Bewick), Forster, 

 and E. Lees. 



" In the preparation of the work the invaluable Floras of Smith 

 [2nd ed.] and Hooker [3rd ed.] were taken as text-books ; and the 

 Shropshire plants have been compared with their descriptions, and 

 also, when requisite, with the works of Koch, Fries, Reichenbach, 

 Bluff and Fingerhuth, and other continental botanists. The descrip- 



