INTRODUCTION. XV. 



those of East Grinstead, by the Rev. W. H. Coleman.' The 

 Medway district, however, has been the least thoroughly 

 examined. 



HISTORY OF SUSSEX BOTANY. 



The earliest mention of plants, with their localities in 

 this county, with which I am acquainted, occurs in the 

 ' ' Herball or General Historie of Plantes, by John Gerarde, 

 very much enlarged and amended by Thomas Johnson, " 

 1633. In this, the Sea Holly is recorded as found by the 

 writer growing plentifully at " Rie and Winchelsea," and 

 the " Rocke Sampier " at " Winchelsey by Rie." He also 

 gives a figure, without locality, of the Spiked Rampion, now 

 met with in Sussex only, well describing it as " bearing at 

 the top of the stalke a great thicke bushy eare, full of little 

 long floures, closely thrust together like a Fox taile." In 

 1640 appeared " Parkinson's Theatrum Botanicum," which 

 gives the earliest account of Dentaria bulbifera as a native 

 of Britain. " This," he says, " hath been found in our land 

 at Mayfield, in Sussex, in a wood called Highreede, and in 

 another wood there called Foxholes, both of them belonging 

 to one Mr. Stephen Perkhurst, at the writing hereof." 



John Ray, who in 1690 published his " Synopsis 

 Methodica Stirpium Britannicarum," which has been styled 

 by Smith " the foundation of every subsequent English 

 Flora," visited Sussex several times, and in a letter to Mr. 

 Courthope, of Danny, April 28, 1662, thus mentions his 

 observations: "After you parted from us at Cuckfield, 

 I discovered growing about there Anagallis aquatica 

 surrectior, J.B.; Cardamine impatiens, a different sort from 

 that we sowed in our gardens; Pilosilla siliquosa Thalii; 

 Astragalus sylvaticus Thalii; Bulbocastanum; Gramen 

 nemorosum hirsutum, and another pretty sort of grasse." 

 What these species were it would be difficult to determine 

 now. In his " Catalogus " he speaks of the "Wild Black 

 Hellebore or Bear's foot " as being then said to grow about 

 Arundel Castle, where it is still found, and in his 

 "Synopsis" mentions it again as "growing upon the 

 Downs in Sussex, towards Chichester, along the road," thus 

 affording early testimony to its presence in the county. To 

 " Gibson's ed. of Camden's Britannia," 1695, the plant list 

 was contributed by Ray. It mentions Peucedanum officinale, 

 Hog's Fennel, as growing "in the marsh ditches about 



