THOMAS JOHNSON 21 



Bermoothes " in a sailing vessel. Johnson 

 hung them up in his window on April 10, 

 1633, and they lasted until June, when they were 

 " soft and tender." The air of London could 

 not have been so very insanitary in those days 

 even on the banks of the Fleet ! 



Johnson had his bananas carefully drawn and 

 engraved. He cut small slices of them, and 

 found that they had a pleasant taste, and no 

 seeds. Little he thought of the millions of 

 Londoners who would some day follow his 

 example ! 



Johnson was a good fellow companionable, 

 and fond of making botanical excursions into 

 the country with those of like mind. The first 

 local list of wild flowers published in England 

 was made by him. 



Two of these expeditions were published. 

 One a journey into the fields of Kent " Iter 

 in agrum Cantianum " by ten companions in 

 1629 ; another to Hampstead Heath ad 

 " Ericetum Hamstedianum " with an account 

 of the flowers met with. Wild Bugloss was 

 then growing on the dry ditch banks about 

 " Piccadilla," l and Belladonna in Islington. 



These " herbarizing " parties became organ- 

 ized institutions of the Apothecaries' Company. 

 The present County " Field " Clubs are no 

 doubt their direct descendants possibly, too, 

 the great herbarizing excursions led, later on, 

 by Linnaeus in Sweden. Johnson was given 

 an M.D. degree of Oxford, and the freedom of 

 the Apothecaries' Company. The outbreak 

 of Civil War stopped all his botanical studies. 



1 Almost the earliest notice of Piccadilly is in Gerard's Herball. 



