474 



John Parkinson, Apothecary of London and the King's Herbalist, 

 published in 1640 his Theater of Plants, (London fol.) It contains but 

 few notices of Suffolk plants. Two of these are taken from Gerarde ; 

 he also refers to the Sea Pea. He adds to the County list, Solarium 

 lethale, i.e., Atropa Belladonna, Deadly Night Shade, Framlingham, p. 648 ; 

 Stachys palustris, Clown's Woundwort, p. 588. (See Prior's Popular 

 Names of British Plants, p. 50) ; Asplenium Ruta muraria (p. 1050) and 

 Ceterach officinarum (p. 1048), both from Framlingham. 



Ten years elapsed before another plant was recorded for Suffolk. 

 As its locality is on or near the Cambridgeshire border there might be 

 room to doubt to which County it belonged. Judgment in our favour 

 has come to us by default, as Professor Babington has omitted the plant 

 from his Flora of Cambridgeshire. As Silene Otites is widely distributed 

 in the North-west district of Suffolk, there need be no hesitation in 

 claiming it for this County. It is first recorded in Phytologia Britan- 

 nica of Wm. How, M.D., London, 1650. Otites Taberna sive sesamoides 

 parv. Muscipula salamantica minor ' Spanish Catchfly, <J[ Qttnb on 



U-efmrmrlui Jentlj, Mr. Sare. 



Another plant found on or near the border line has been inserted in 

 the Flora of Cambridgeshire, as it was found convenient to include Ex- 

 ning, an outlying portion of Suffolk in that work. The original notice 

 is a Ms. note in a copy of J. Martyn's Methodus Plantarum 1730 in the 

 Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, by Mr. Jackson. 'Mentha silvestris. 

 In a bushy close near Exning, 1685.' 



Our next authority for Suffolk plants is the justly celebrated Rev. 

 John Ray, Fellow of Trin. Coll., Cambridge : born 1628, deceased Feb. 

 17th, 1705-6. To this eminent Naturalist and Divine much of the 

 after progress of Botany and other Natural Sciences in England is chiefly 

 due. Between 1660 and 1690 he published several Botanical works. 

 In the last-mentioned year his Synopsis Methodica Stirpium Britan- 

 nicarum was published ; which was followed by an improved edition in 

 1696. This work is still recognized as a standard authority on British 

 Botany. Its influence is still felt, though nearly two hundred years 

 have passed away since it first saw the light ; and though the systems 

 of Linnaeus and Jussieu have in the meantime twice changed and vastly 

 improved Botanical classification. The Synopsis adds the following plants 



