370 A SKETCH OF THE PROGRESS OP 



able botanist and excellent man we have been able to gain little further 

 information than that contained in his own works, and Wood's Athence and 

 Fasti Oxonienses. 



The exact date of his birth, which was at Selby, in Yorkshire, we cannot 

 ascertain, but it was probably at the beginning of the seventeenth century ; 

 nor do we know where he received his education, which, to judge from his 

 writings, must have been a good one. At the date of his first published 

 work, in 1629, he was an apothecary in London, already of some note, and 

 a prominent member of the Society of Apothecaries. His house of business 

 was on Snow Hill. The title of this book is Iter Plantarwn Investigationis 

 ergo susccptum a decern Sociis in Agrum Cantianum Anno Bom. 1629, Julii 

 13, and is a pleasantly written account of one of the herborising excursions 

 which for some years it had been the practice of the Company to make at 

 intervals. This is the first printed account of a botanical excursion in 

 England. An appendix of three pages to this little book is, of special 

 interest, Ericeium Hamstedianum sen Plantarum ibi crescentkim observaiio 

 habita Anno eodem 1 Augusti, which is an account of a similar excursion to 

 Hampstead Heath on August 1st, 1629. The party consisted of the fol- 

 lowing besides Johnson : Jonas Styles, William Broad, Leonard Buckner, 

 Eobert Larking, John Sotherton, John Marriott, Thomas Crosse, and two 

 Edward Browns, of whom one was Broad's servant. They left London early 

 in the morning and proceeded to Kentish Town, then a country place enough, 

 whence they walked to Highgate, where they were caught in a heavy shower, 

 but, nothing daunted, made their way into the wood,* and then on to the 

 heath. They returned to London by way of Hampstead village and Kentish 

 Town. Three lists of the plants observed are given, the names being those 

 of Lobel, Dodoens, and Gerarde, and the very coilimon species being omitted; 

 there is also a short list of some others, which Johnson had seen on the same 

 ground on May 1 of the same year. The whole number of flowering plants 

 observed was 72. The author expresses a hope that this excursion would 

 be a prelude to others in succeeding years ; and the hope seems to have 

 been fulfilled, for in 1632 he published (as an appendix to the Descriptio 

 Itineris Plantarum Investigationis ergo suscepti in Agrum Cantianum) the 

 Enumeratio Plantarum in Ericeto Hampstediano locisq. vicinis cresceniium. 

 This consists of seven pages, six of which are occupied by a catalogue of 

 names. It was intended to have included only those species not given in 

 the former lists, but out of the 97 flowering plants enumerated, 28 are 

 catalogued in the previous account. This leaves 69 new ones, which, 

 added to the 72 species in the lists of 1629, make the whole number of 

 Hampstead plants recorded by Johnson to be 141. Many of these had, 

 however, been previously observed there by Gerarde. This catalogue may 

 be considered as the first Flora of a small district printed in England. 



In the following year, 1633, Johnson publislied his great work, a new 

 edition of Gerarde's Herhall. Thirty ^six years had passed since the original 

 edition appeared, and so weU satisfied were the public with it that, although 

 * Probably Bishop's and Ken Woods, the latter not then enclosed. 



