174 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND. 



exact date of his death is uncertain, but it occurred soon after 

 the publication of his work, entitled Theatrum Botanicum, in 

 1640. This book has more to do with botany than with 

 gardening, and although he describes even more plants than 

 are to be found in Gerard, there is no special improvement in 

 classification, the arrangement being chiefly according to their 

 medical qualities. The French botanists, Jean and Gaspard 

 Bauhin, had brought out their works since the publication of 

 Gerard's Herbal, and Parkinson made use of these, as well as of 

 those of L'Obel. The blocks for Parkinson's illustrations were 

 cut in England.* Those for Gerard and Johnson came from 

 abroad, as did also the greater part of Turner's. 



The busiest workers and collectors of foreign plants in the 

 time of James I. and Charles I., were the three generations of 

 John Tradescants. The grandfather, a Dutchman, came to 

 England, probably early in the reign of James I. The next John. 

 " the father," was gardener to the first Lord Salisbury, the 

 Lord Treasurer; to Lord Wolton, to the Duke of Buckingham, 

 and, in 1629, was made gardener to Charles I. They all 

 travelled about Europe, the father in Barbary also, and the 

 grandson made a voyage to Virginia. They collected curiosities 

 during their travels, and formed a museum, called " Tra- 

 descant's Ark," a catalogue of which was published in 1656, 

 Museum Tradescanteanum. When the last Tradescant died, in 

 1662, he left the museum to Mr. Ashmole, who bequeathed 

 it to the University of Oxford. Besides the museum, at their 

 house in Lambeth they had a good garden, where they culti- 

 vated many of the plants they imported. This was visited 

 by the King and Queen, and was the resort of the learned of 

 all classes. The remains of this garden existed in 1749, at 

 which date Sir William Watson wrote a paper describing it, 

 for the Royal Society.f He noticed two very large arbutus 

 trees, which had not suffered from the severe cold of 1729 and 

 1740, when " most of their kind were killed." " In the 

 orchard " there was " a tree of Rhamnus Catharticus " 



* For a history of these woodcuts see Pulteney's Sketches of the Progress of 

 Botany, 1790. Chap. 12. 



f Phil. Trans. Vol. 46, page 160. 



