FLORA OF OXFORDSHIRE. 397 
He was fond of poetry, and composed some verses of no inconsiderable 
merit. The following was written by him on Feb. 21, 1864:— 
SONNET 
On a Botanical Visit to Hanwell Plantatton. 
Mid leafless trees, and rugged banks that sink 
To marshy hollows, and grotesquely rise, 
Strewn with last Autumn’s leaves, there meet the eyes 
Fair forms that Flora fondly gives to link 
Summer with Summer; there in angel guise 
The milk-white snowdrop hangs its humble head, 
The Eranthis peeping from the ground doth rise, 
And gilds it with its thousands in a bed, 
While here and there the verdant Hellebore 
In little drooping clusters sweetly grows ; 
The blended life and ruin hanging o’er 
Th’ unwithered lengthy Harts-tongue doth repose ; 
There all the winter blooms some pretty thing 
That smiles with radiant promises of Spring. 
In the Preface I have stated that French contemplated a Flora of 
Oxfordshire, and it is there explained what amount of material he had 
collected for that purpose. In addition to copying out the records in 
Ray, Sibthorp, Walker, and the Banbury lists, French’s personal additions 
were numerous. They include Barbarea precor, Polygala vulgaris, 
Trifolium hybridum, Filago apiculata, Avcna strigosa, Atriplex erecta, 
Monotropa hirsuta, Arctium intermedium, Rosa stylosa, Briggsii, Rubus 
Koehleri, rudis, etc., and a large number of casuals. 
In 1857, Maxwell T. Masters read a paper on the Oxfordshire Flora 
before the Ashmolean Society, in which Dr. Masters has contrasted the 
Floras of Yorkshire and Oxford, and put ina tabulated form the way in 
which our Flora is built up’ of alien, and native plants, and the relative 
percentage of Monocotyledons and Dicotyledons, etc. The principal aliens 
are enumerated, and the more interesting plants mentioned. 
Dr. Masters estimated the number of native plants in Oxfordshire to be 
728, Denizens 29, Colonists 31, total 788, with 59 aliens and Ig incognita. 
Of these 573 are Dicotyledons, 192 Monocotyledons, and 23 Ferns. As to 
duration, 196 are Annuals, 36 Biennial, 481 Perennial, and 75 woody. 
Their types of distribution being 502 British, 235 English, 4 Scottish, 
39 Germanic, and 5 Atlantic. But 2 of the 4 Scottish Festuca 
sylvatica and Polypodium Dryopteris do not occur in the county, and the 
remaining two Sanguisorba officinalis and Pyrola minor are not very 
characteristic types of the Scottish Flora. Of the 5 Atlantic types 
Hypericum elodes is extinct. Wahlenbergia has not been found in Oxon, 
