56 



HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY OF TREES. 



PART I. 



was about 70 ft, high, and perhaps 100 years old, being the first 

 tree of the kind that was raised in England. " It had, for many 

 years, the visitation of the curious, to see its flowers, and admire 

 its beauty. It was as straight as an arrow, and died of age, by 

 a gentle decay." {Abridged f writ Mr. Collinson's paper, as quoted 

 hy Mr. Lambert, in the Linnean Transactions, vol. x. p. 282.) 



On a blank leaf of another copy of Miller's Dictionary, Col- 

 linson adds the following names of proprietors of gardens to the 

 above list : — Reynardson, at Hillingdon, near Uxbridge, whose 

 fine collection, he says, was sold to Mr. Robert Walpole; 

 Mr. Parker, near Croydon; Dr. Lumley Lloyd, at Cheam in 

 Surrey, " who gave his house and great collection of plants to 

 the Duke of Bedford Sir Harry Trelawney, of Buttshead, 

 near Plymouth, who had a great collection of hardy trees and 

 shrubs; Sir Harry Goodrick, at Ribstone in Yorkshire, who 

 was a great collector and naturaliser of exotic trees ; Mr. Charles 

 Dubois, at Mitcham, remarkable for his collection both of house 

 and of hardy plants ; and Mr. Blackburne, at Orford, near 

 Warrington in Lancashire [a catalogue of whose garden was 

 published in 1779], who had a great collection, particularly of 

 stove plants, kept in the highest degree of perfection. Collinson 

 also mentions, in one of the memoranda in this volume, that 

 Tradescant junior was the first who propagated American plants 

 for sale in England. 



In Collinson's garden at Mill Hill, the Periploca grse^ca, and 

 numerous other trees and shrubs, as w^ill be seen by the list at the 

 end of this section, flowered for the first time in England. It 

 was kept up some years after Peter Collinson's death, by his 

 son, Michael Collinson. Afterwards it fell into the hands of 

 Richard Anthony Salisbury, Esq., F.R.S. About the end of 

 the century it was purchased by the protestant dissenters, for 

 a foundation grammar school : the house was turned into 

 lodging-rooms for the boys, and Collinson's stable fitted up as 

 a chapel. A new house has since been built. 



On examining the grounds which formerly belonged to Ridge- 

 way House, in January, 1835, several trees and shrubs planted 

 in the time of Collinson were found to be still remaining. A 

 platanus 40 ft. high, and l|^ft. in diameter at a foot from the 

 ground ; a deciduous cypress 48 ft. high, and 1^ ft. in diameter; 

 four pinasters, the diameter of the largest of which was 3 ft.; two of 

 Pinus Cembra with trunks nearly 2 ft. in diameter, and from 50 to 

 60 ft. high, which must be the finest specimens of this tree in Eng- 

 land ; a tulip tree 30 ft, high, diameter 9 in. ; and two cedars with 

 clear trunks between 30 and 40 ft. high, and diameters of nearly 

 4 ft., the branches of which cover a space of 60 ft. in diameter. 

 Near the spot where Collinson's house stood (for it is now pulled 

 down) there is a cedar 60 ft. high, with its low^est branches re- 

 chning on the ground, and covering a space of 70 ft. in diameter. 



