326 A SKETCH OF THE BOTANY OF 



Of naturalists who have made this district the scene of bota- 

 nical discovery, the first of whom I find any mention is Dr WIL- 

 LIAM TURNER, who was born at Morpeth in Northumberland, 

 and died at London in 1568. He attained great eminence as a 

 physician, naturalist, and divine ; and was the author of the first 

 Herbal written in the English language. He discovered Arte- 

 misia gallica on Holy Island. The Cornus suecica " was first re- 

 vealed to the curious" by Dr THOMAS PENNY, and it was on 

 Cheviot that he made this interesting addition to our Flora. 

 PENNY died in 1589, leaving behind him the reputation of great 

 learning in his profession ; and for his " singular knowledge of 

 plants," he was accounted, according to GERARDE, " a second 

 DIOSCORIDES." GERARDE also commemorates a Mr WILLIAM 

 BROAD, who informed the worthy herbalist that the Parnassia 

 palustris, a flower of unfrequent occurrence in the southern coun- 

 ties, grew on our Castle-hills, and the existence of the plant there 

 at the present day is certain evidence of the accuracy of the in- 

 formation. Who or what this BROAD was, is uncertain ; nor does 

 such a name occur in our medical biographies. But the name of 

 JOHN RAY is one famous and pre-eminent in the annals of natural 

 science. This great man visited Berwick and the most remarkable 

 places in its vicinity in the summer of 1661, and again in the year 

 1 671 ; and he has recorded the rarer plants which he observed, in his 

 Synopsis Stirpium Britannicarum. They are not numerous, and two 

 of his species have certainly disappeared, viz. the Pulmonaria offici- 

 nalis and Tofieldia palustris, for the conjecture I formerly hazarded 

 relative to the station of the latter is erroneous, as appears from 

 the following passage in his Itinerary. " About two miles from 

 Berwick, by the side of a rivulet, in a boggy ground, not far 

 from the road leading to Edinburgh, we found a sort of Pseudo- 

 asphodelus which I had never before seen, much less than that 

 common in England, having, as I guess, white flowers in a spike, 

 to which succeed roundish seed-vessels. The stalk of the spike is 

 naked, or not having above one leaf, the spike itself short, the 

 root fibrous, as that of the common*." Nor did the researches of 

 the Rev. JOHN WALLIS " a worthy English divine" who pub- 

 lished his elaborate work on the Natural History of Northumber- 

 land in 1760, add much to an acquaintance with the plants in 



* Select Remains, p. 182. 



