198 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 



The marshes for bog plants, to be seen at Kew and elsewhere 

 at the present day, which are the admiration of lovers of a 

 " wild garden," are no new thing. Bobart had one at Oxford, 

 which is thus described by Robert Sharrock. 1 " The Artificial 

 Bog is made by digging a hole in any stiff clay, and filling it 

 with earth taken from a bog ... of this sort, in our garden here 

 in Oxford, we have one artificially made by Bobart, for the 

 preservation of Boggy plants, where being sometimes watered, 

 they thrive for a year or two as well as in their natural places." 

 A catalogue of the garden, which contained some 1,600 species 

 and varieties, was published by Bobart in 1648. Of these 

 nearly 600 were native plants. The catalogue is a tiny 

 book, and no space is given to describe the flowers. It is 

 merely a list of names, the first part Latin-English, the second 

 English-Latin. The list contains among trees " Abies mas," 

 " male Firretree," " Arbutus," " Strawberry tree," " Arbor 

 Judas," " Judas tree," " Ash tree," etc. Among the flowers 

 are about 20 sorts of Roses, including " York and Lan- 

 caster, Provence, Austrian and Cinnamon, 11 Violas, 9 Cle- 

 matis, 7 Colchicum and 9 Crocus, double and single Peony, 

 4 Foxgloves, 10 Lychnis, Campian, Bee Orchis, Orchis serapius," 

 etc. The list also contains " Nicotiana, English Tabacca," 

 " Yucca, Indian Bread," " Stinging nettle," and four kinds of 

 moss, " cup, club, hard sea, and tree mosse." 2 The plant 

 names follow each other in alphabetical order, quite regardless 

 of any classification. The first attempt to separate indigenous 

 from foreign plants was made by William How in his work 

 entitled Phytologia Britannica, 1650. 



Although this is not an attempt to compile a history of the 

 progress of Botany, a task performed by Richard Pulteney with 

 chronological accuracy more than a century ago, that science 

 is so intimately connected with gardening that some references 

 to it cannot be left out, for how could the immense number of 

 plants now cultivated be understood or identified if it were 



1 An Improvement to the Art of Gardening, 3rd edition, 1694. 



3 A second and enlarged edition was published in 1658, with the 

 co-operation of Philip Stephens and William Brown, both botanists of 

 Oxford. It is a great improvement on the first, and makes frequent 

 reference to Gerard and Parkinson. 



