22 PLANTS CULTIVATED BY coLLiNsoN. [January, 



Is this fine plant entirely unknown in Lancashire and. in the 

 north of England ? If this fact is not new to the botanists of 

 Lancashire, it may be so to the learned author of the ' Cybele/ 

 who names ten counties where the plant is reported to grow ; 

 but Lancashire is not one of them. 



Hellebohus fcetidus has the subjoined memorandum ; — 

 " Mem. July 27, 1757. — I went to R. Warner, Esq., at Woodford, 

 Essex, to see his fine new Jasmine from the Cape. He showed 

 me his thumb and fore-finger, so poisoned, swelled, and inflamed 

 with much pain, from opening the greenish pods or seed-vessels of 

 the stinking black Hellebore or Bearsfoot. It rose in blisters, but 

 ■when the water was let, out the pain abated. — P. Collinson." 



NYMPHiEA ALBA, var., of Dc CandoUc. Letter, indorsed by Mr. 

 Collinson, — " From my learned and ingenious friend. Doctor 

 Dillenius, Botanic Professor at Oxford, who, with infinite pains 

 and application, drew, and then himself engraved, his curious 

 ' History of Mosses ;' and besides that the ' Hortus Elthamensis ' 

 was all drawn and engraved by himself, not to be paralleled. 



The following is the Doctor's letter to his friend Collinson : — 



" On the small Water Lily which I found in shallow waters at Brock-' 

 enliurst, in the New Forest, Hampshire, and brought home speci- 

 mens. 



" Dear Sir, — The Willow with opposite leaves is the 11 of 

 Synopsis (Ray's), p. 448, and the Water Lilly is called iV?/w//)/s<ea 

 alba minor by C. Bauhin and others. It is not a common 

 plant, nor observed to grow in England but by Lobelius, but 

 his direction is so large, that notice hath not been taken of it, 

 for he says in his 'Adversaria,' p. 251, that it grows in slow and 

 not too deep waters, as you travel from London to Oxford 

 and Bristol. Lobelius can't be understood of the Morsus-rame, 

 for he describeth that in the next page, and knew and distin- 

 guished plants very well. Mathiolus (Matthiolus) says that it 

 grows in the lakes of Bohemia, and in his figure makes it a 

 pentapetalous fiowcr, which is wrong, and if there be such a 

 flower nobody has seen it but himself. What most authors say 

 of it they transcribe from Matthiolus, and their figures they have 

 from that author, except the Hortus Eystettensis, where you will 

 find both sorts very well figured in the part vernal, ord. 7, fol. 3. 

 I find a specimen of it in Will. Sherard's collection, gathered 



