98 
NATURE NOTES 
prior to her execution, and Henry VIII.’s body rested there one night when 
being conveyed for burial to Windsor. In 1547 Edward VI. granted the pro- 
perty to his uncle, the Protector Somerset, who built the shell of the present 
house. 
William Turner, “ the father of English botany,” a native of Morpeth, 
graduate of Cambridge, and the friend of Ridley and Latimer, in 1538 published 
his “ Libellus de re herbaria novus,” a quarto pamphlet, the now unique copy 
of which in the British Museum has been reproduced in facsimile, a copy being 
shown to the party. After suffering imprisonment, Turner, in 1542, left England, 
studied under Luca Ghini at Bologna, where he probably graduated as M.D., 
and became acquainted with Gesner. Becoming physician to Somerset, w r e read 
that he had a garden of his own at Kew, and, in 1548, he published his “ Names 
of Plerbes” in English, dedicating it to Somerset from Syon. A reprint of this 
rare book, edited by Mr. Britten, w f hen living at Isleworth, was also shown. 
Turner received various ecclesiastical preferments before being ordained, and 
in 1550 became Dean of Wells. During Mary’s reign he again left England, 
the first part of his folio Latin Herball being published in London in 1551, but 
the second and third parts at Cologne, in 1562 and 1568 respectively. Turner 
died in London in the year last mentioned, and was buried in St. Olave’s, Hart 
Street. In Aiton’s Hortus Kewetisis , the introduction of numerous trees and 
shrubs is attributed to the year 1548, and, by implication, to Turner, including 
the Pomegranate, Bay, Almond, Apricot, Rosemary, Hyssop, Old Man, Mul- 
berry, Fig, Oriental Plane, Spruce, Savin and Cypress. Of these the Mulberry 
was very probably first planted by Turner at Syon. 
After Somerset’s attainder, King Edward granted Syon to Northumberland, 
who was beheaded in 1553. Sir Henry Sydney was then made Keeper of the 
Park and Woods; but in 1557 the Convent was restored and re-endowed, only 
to be again dissolved by Elizabeth, who, in 1560, made her kinsman, Sir Francis 
Knollys, Keeper for life. In 1604 the estate was granted to Henry Percy, Earl 
of Northumberland ; but he was imprisoned till 1621 for alleged complicity with 
the Gunpowder Plot. Under his successor the house w'as altered and repaired, 
under the direction, it is said, of Inigo Jones. In 1646 Algernon, Earl of 
Northumberland, was empowered to remove King Charles’s children to Syon on 
account of the plague in London ; and during the autumn of the following year 
Charles frequently came here from Hampton Court to see them. The property 
then passed into the female line, Elizabeth Percy marrying Charles, Duke of 
Somerset, w-ho lent the house for some time to the Princess (afterwards Queen) 
Anne; and from them it was inherited by Hugh Smithson, the first duke of the 
present (1766) creation. 
The north facade of the House was designed by Adam and the laying out of 
the grounds was largely the work of “Capability” Brow'n. 
In 1838 Loudon dedicated his Arboretum el Fruticelum Britannicum to the 
then duke, and no less than a hundred species of trees are figured in the plates 
of that work from specimens at Syon, their measurements at that date being also 
recorded. Magnolia acuminata , for instance, was then 49 feet high, Sophora 
japonica, introduced in 1763, 57 feet, a Walnut, 79 feet, Corytus Colin na, 61 feet, 
the largest Cedar 72 feet high, and 8 feet in diameter, with branches spreading 
1 17 feet, and the Deciduous Cypresses from 60 to 70 feet high. 
As these trees were seen by the visitors, it was possible to form an estimate 
of their growth during the last seventy years. 
NEWS FROM THE BRANCHES. 
Birmingham and Midland Branch. — On April 3, Mr. T. H. Russell, 
F.L.S., delivered an interesting lecture entitled “ Our Woodland Trees, their 
Leaves and Fruits,” in the Exhibition Hall of the Botanical Gardens, Edgbaston, 
before a large and appreciative audience. 
The lecturer dealt with some of our common trees, with especial reference to 
their leaves, and incidentally to the fruits of certain of them. Thirty kinds of 
trees and shrubs to be met with in the lanes and woods of the country, including 
such well-known instances as the Oak, Ash, Sycamore, Maple, Beech and Lime, 
and also some that are less familiar, were thus treated. The provision made by 
