THE FLORA OF HANTS 115 



centuries. When prehistoric man reared his barrows 

 or tumuli over the remains of his distinguished dead, 

 there is no reason to doubt that then, as now, the 

 frog-orchis blossomed on Old Winchester Hill, and 

 the autumnal gentian was abundant on Crawley Down. 

 When the Druid priest, clothed in white raiment and 

 bearing a golden sickle, went forth to cut the mistletoe, 

 the Selago flourished on the heath, and the Samolus 

 by the running stream. When the Romans made 

 their straight road from Portchester to Winchester, 

 through the dense forest of Anderida, the dogwood 

 and the spindle tree fell before their axes, and the 

 wild daffodil was trampled under their feet. When 

 the black boats of the Northmen made their way up 

 the Hamble River, the marsh sapphire covered the 

 muddy banks, and the sea holly blossomed on the 

 shore. Unnoticed and uncared for, the wild flowers, 

 then as now, each in their own season throughout the 

 changing, year, " wasted their sweetness on the desert 

 air." As time went on, a knowledge of simples began 

 to be cultivated, and more than one Saxon herbal has 

 been preserved ; but we wait for long centuries before 

 any real record of native plants is met with. It is 

 not, indeed, before the revival of learning in the six- 

 teenth century that the true history of our flora can 

 be said to begin. In the year 1551, the first part of 

 Dr. William Turner's Herbal appeared, and it is in 

 this work that we find the earliest information with 

 regard to the localities of British plants. It will, there- 

 fore, be seen that our flora, as we now possess it, 

 from a literary and historic standpoint, is the result 

 of botanical observation during the last three hundred 

 and fifty years. 



The " first records " of British plants are naturally 



