BOTANY 1 



PLANTS first became of interest to man on account of their value 

 as food, their medicinal virtues or the poisonous properties 

 possessed by so many of them. Hence the first steps in the 

 building up of our science consisted in attempts to describe 

 plants with a degree of accuracy which would enable students to 

 recognize those which could be utilized for food or medicine, or which 

 should be avoided because of their poisonous character. Attempts of 

 this kind slowly developed into the vast subject now known as vegetable 

 biology. 



Owing no doubt to the fact that the metropolis, the home of many 

 of the earlier English writers, is only a few miles from the borders of 

 Essex, the history of the botany of our county is practically coterminous 

 with that of the science tn Britain. Hence we must seek the early 

 records of the Essex flora in the works of William Turner, the father of 

 English botany, and in those of Gerard, Johnson, Parkinson, How, 

 Robert Turner, Merrett, Ray, Morison and Dale. 



Since a brief outline of the botany of Essex is all that space permits 

 of in this article, and an account of the ' History of the Botany of Essex,' 

 by Professor G. S. Boulger is now appearing in the Essex Naturalist, I 

 wish to refer my readers to that publication for details of this interesting 

 subject. 



William Turner was born in Northumberland between 1510 and 

 1515. He was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge. Like many 

 who adopted the principles of the Reformation of that period, Turner 

 spent a portion of his time in prison and in foreign travel. His herbal, 

 which was written just three centuries before the publication of Gibson's 

 flora, contains the first records of Essex plants, viz. Ruscus aculeatus, a 

 7V/W, a hellebore and mistletoe. 



' Butcher's broom (Ruscus aculeatus); he says, ' groweth verye 

 plenteously in Essex.' The ' Lind tre,' he tells us, ' groweth very 

 plenteously in Essekes in a parke within two miles of Colichester, in 

 the possession of one maister Bogges,' but whether he alludes to the 



1 I desire here to express my indebtedness to the following correspondents : Professor G. S. 

 Boulger, F.L.S. ; Dr. M. C. Cooke, M.A., LL.D. ; Mr. Philip Lake, M.A. ; Mr. E. E. Turner. 

 I am under special obligations to Mr. E. M. Holmes, F.L.S., for looking over MS. and proofs, and 

 for revising and rearranging portions of the cryptogamic flora of Essex. 



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