Vlll INTRODUCTION. 



Ray, as found in his Catalogus Plantarwm Anglice. Con- 

 cerning this botanist Ray remarks, " D. Pet. Dent, Medicus 

 pharmacopoeus Cantabrigiensis, insignis botanicus et vetus 

 amicus noster." Hist. Plant, ii. 856. These Appendices, 

 especially the second edition, have long been of great rarity. 



In 1670 Ray published his Catalogus Plantarwm AnglicB, 

 and in 1677 he issued a second edition of it. He states in 

 the Preface that as all the copies of the Gat. PL Cantabr. 

 were sold, he had contemplated a new edition of that book, 

 but had ultimately determined to extend its range so as to 

 include "totius Britannise stirpium;" but at the same time 

 to render it convenient for use at the University by marking 

 the plants of Cambridgeshire. Accordingly, if we take 

 account solely of the plants to the names of which there is 

 prefixed a " C," we have a second and a third edition of the 

 Catalogus PI. Cantabr. in these two editions of the Cat. PI. 

 Anglice. The seventeen years intervening between the first 

 and last of these publications did not add very much to the 

 Flora of this county ; but it must be remembered that Ray 

 was deprived of his Fellowship by the Bartholomew Act, 

 and ceased to reside at Cambridge in the autumn of 1662. 

 In 1695 he contributed a list of the rarer plants of this 

 county to Gibson's edition of Camden's Britannia, but I do 

 not find any new information in it. 



In 1727 Professor John Martyn arranged the plants of 

 Ray's Catalogus and its Appendices according to the then 

 most approved system of classification, in a little work en- 

 titled, Metlwdus Plantarwm circa Cantabrigiam nascentium. 

 Although no new plants are to be found in this book, it 

 must have been most useful at the time of its compilation. 

 It appears never to have been regularly published, and was 



