"liotanical Rambles," in four jiarts according to the seasons, wliich 

 \Yas not completed until 1852 ; and about the same time he made 

 his most important botanical discover)', viz. the wealth of rarities on 

 the promontory of the Lkard, In his "Notes on British Plants," 

 contriliuted to Hooker's "London Journal of Botany "in 1847, 

 Johns was the first to record Trijolium stridum as a British plant, 

 and was also the first to add T. procumh'ens, T. filifomie and 

 ThaUdriim iiiinus to the list for Cornwall. His only geological 

 publication was a note " On the Landslip at the Lizard " in the 

 "Journal of the Geological Society " for 1848 ; and in that year he 

 published one of his most successful little books, "A Week at the 

 Lizard," which has been recently described by a writer of great 

 local knowledge as ''still our only reliable guide to that romantic 

 corner of Cornwall.' 



Although Johns availed himself, of course, of the researches 

 and records of his predecessors, he was an assiduous collector 

 during most of his life, not only in Cornwall, but also in the 

 mountains of both the north and the south of Ireland, when he 

 was an undergraduate in Dublin, and in other districts in his 

 later years. 



A former pupil, Mr. ^^'. F. Collier, writing in the " Cornish 

 Magazine" (vol. ii, pp. 117-Sj, says — 



"My recoiled ion as a sctioolboy of Charles Alexander Johns is, that he was 

 not a good teacher, and did not make his lessons interesting, as Derwent 

 Coleridge did. He heard lessons sharply enough, blit was often all the time 

 setting up specimens of botany, no doubt for publication, as I thought them 

 beautifully done. I well remember now some pretty specimens of mosses in 

 flower, set up whilst I was hammering over Virgil.. He sat all school-time 

 with us, in his own desk, whilst Dei went Coleridge w^as in his den . . . whence 

 he issued at times to lecture the boys or to administer punishment. C. A. Johns 

 proved himself afterwards to be a good teacher, and had a preparatory school 

 of his own near Winchester, of such good repute thafe it was diflicult, and took 

 some time, to get a boy into it. My schoolboy impression of his teaching 

 ]iower nni^t therefore be held to be not justified. He used to take some of 

 the older boys out with him to study botany on holidays and half-holidays, and 

 we looked on the tin cases for holding specimens, which they hung round 

 their shoulders, as a priggish sort of affair, not to be compared for a moment 

 with the manly fishing-basket." 



Johns left Helston at the end of 1S47, and took a house in 

 ^^'alpole Street, Chelsea ; but in the following summer he became 

 incuiribent of Beenham, near Newbury, where he was living at the 

 time of the first publication of "Flowers of theTield." In 1S56 he 

 established a private school at Callipers Hall, near Rickmansworth, 

 remaining there till 1863. 



" First Steps to Botany," published in 1853, was introductory to 

 " Flowers of the Field," which first appeared in the same year, 



