BOTANICAL INVESTIGATION IN MIDDLESEX. 389 



He published in 1730 Lidex Plantarum Officinalium in Horto CMseiano, 

 and in 1739 Horti Chelseiani Index compendiaritcs. We have not been able 

 to find the year of his death. He first recorded in oiir county, Matricaria 

 inodora, Mentha pubescens, Plantago media, Chenopodium glaucum, Bimex 

 maritimus, E. palustris and Carex pahidosa. 



After Petiver's death in 1718 little seems to have been done in British 

 botany for some years. It is true that in 1724 appeared the third edition 

 of Ray's Synopsis, a book which advanced the science to some extent ; 

 but the improvements on the previous edition were made by the men whose 

 labours we have been recording, and by their contemporaries. Dillenius, 

 who edited the book, did not come to England from his native country, 

 Germany, till 1721. He added but little to the stock of knowledge of 

 British plants, being at first occupied at James Sherard's house at Eltham, 

 on the Hortus EUhamensis, published in 1732 ; and then at Oxford, from 

 1728, with his duties as Professor of Botany, the Historia Muscorum, 1741, 

 and the great ' Pinax' of the plants of the world, which never appeared. 

 Dillenius died in 1747. He first noticed and distinguished in Middlesex 

 Sagina apetala, Cerastium semidecandriim. Geranium pusUlum, (Enanthe 

 flumatilis, Linaria Cymhalaria, and Festvca sciuroides. 



The other botanists connected with Middlesex whose assistance is ac- 

 knowledged in the preface to the Synopsis by Dillenius are James Newton* 

 and William Stonestreet, M.A., who were dead before the publication of the 

 work; and— besides Eand and William Sherard— Charles Du Bois of 

 Miteham, Thomas Manningham, D.D. ; Matthew Dodsworth, William 

 Vernon, Thomas Dandridge, and John Martyn, who were all living in 1 724. 

 Particulars of all these would occupy too much space ; the pages of this 

 Flora bear witness to their activity and zeal, and the Sloane Herbarium 

 contains much of the results of their explorations. 



During this period, at which botany generally must be considered to have 

 been at a somewhat low ebb in England, a little book was published on 

 local botany of some interest as among the earliest of its class, and especially 

 important to us as the first separate work devoted to Middlesex plants. 

 The author was John Blackstone, of whom we would gladly give particulars, 

 but can find little to record. 



His two letters to Dr. Eichardson, printed in the Correspondence (pp. 



* DiUenius was indebted to John Martyn, who transcribed them ' from an obscure 

 manuscript,' for the observations of New-ton (see Pretace to Mart. Tourn.). James 

 Newton was probably in the medical profession, as he wrote a paper in the Phil. Trans. 

 (XX. pp. 263-4) on the effects of Papaver con, iculatum luteuin eaten in mistake for Eryngo. 

 He observed mauy plants about London, and entered localities in the margin of his copy 

 of Ray's Catalogus. We have made use of a professed transcript of some of these in an 

 unknown hand in the possession of the Rev. W. W. Newbould. He was also, according to 

 Dryander, the author of ' Enchiridion universale plantarum, or an universal and complete 

 History of Plants, with their Icons in a Manual,' of which only 42 pages and 15 plates 

 were printed, comprehending ' Liber 1. De Arboribus Pomiferis ; ' the date of this seems 

 about 1689. James Newton first noticed in Middlesex Erythraa Cenlaurium, Pedicularis 

 palustris, Setaria rerliciltata. Arena fattia, and Polystichum. aculealum. (It is necessary 

 to mention that Pritzel confounds him with a later James JVeicton, who in 1752 published 

 A Comiilele I/erbal.) 



