380 FLORA OF OXFORDSHIRE. 
results the reasons which influenced Bobart’s dismissers were rather social 
than scientific. Gilbert Trower of Merton succeeded Sandys. 
It will be here necessary to go back to Jno. Ray, the great naturalist, 
whose writings commenced a new era in Botany. In 1670, before Plot’s 
History of Oxfordshire was issued, Ray published his Catalogus Plan- 
tarum Anglia, which at once superseded Merrett’s incorrect Pinaw. In this 
catalogue Ray gives Ranunculus aquatilis and Cephalanthera grandiflora 
as natives of Oxfordshire. In 1688 Ray issued his Fasciculus Stirpium 
Britannicarum, and in 1686-1688 his Historia Plantarum. In 1690 
appeared the first edition of the Synopsis Methodica Stirpium Brit. 
The first systematic Flora of Great Britain. In this edition, besides the 
plants already quoted under Bobart, appear Trigonella ornithopodioides 
(with a plate) from Oxfordshire and Salix species. A second edition, 
much revised and improved, appeared in 1696, in which Sherard added 
Vicia sylvatica to the Oxford list; Bobart contributing those already 
mentioned. Ray does not appear to have personally visited Oxfordshire, 
but his writings indirectly did much to stir up enthusiasm in Oxford as 
elsewhere, Bobart’s own work being probably to a great extent due to the 
example set by Ray. Linneus termed this ‘the golden age of Botany.’ 
There are several prints of Ray in the Hope collection. 
In none of the editions of Gibson’s Camden are any additions made to 
our Flora; the discoveries of Parkinson, Plot, and Bobart being quoted in 
the list of rare plants of the county. 
William Sherard, born in 1658, at Bushby in Leicestershire, is the 
next botanist to notice. He was educated at Merchant Taylors’ School 
and St. John’s College, of which society he became fellow in 1683. He 
travelled much on the continent as tutor of Lord Townsend ; being chiefly 
occupied in collecting flowers, and did such excellent work as to secure the 
esteem and friendship of Ray. He then made several tours in England 
and the Channel Islands, finding many rare plants, which Ray inserted in 
the Synopsis. These included Scirpus pungens, Gnaphalium luteo album, 
Asplenium lanceolatum and Bartsia viscosa from Jersey; Subularia and 
Cephalanthera from Ireland, etc. 
In 1703 he was appointed Consul at Smyrna, and there laboured 
diligently in making a large collection of plants, and also began the 
celebrated Pinawx. After residing in Asia fifteen years, he returned to 
England, when the degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred on him by 
Oxford, Although he had made a large fortune in the East, he lived 
in the greatest privacy in London, devoting his time to the study of 
Natural History and the preparation of his Pixax, keeping up a corre- 
spondence with Tournefort, Boerhaave, Richardson, and other eminent 
naturalists. Seventy-five letters to the latter scientist are printed in the 
first volume of Nichols’s Literary Anecdotes. He, however, indulged in 
occasional tours to Holland, France, and Italy. It is stated that whilst 
botanising on the rocks of the Alps he was nearly shot by a peasant, who 
