HISTORY OF THE COUNTY BOTANY OF WORCESTER. 303 
HISTORY OF THE COUNTY BOTANY OF WORCESTER. 
BY WM. MATHEWS, M. A . 
(Continued from page 281.) 
The next step in our history takes us to the neighbour¬ 
hood of Birmingham, where the parishes of Yardley, King’s 
Norton, and Northfield, which occupy the north-east angle of 
Worcestershire, adjoin on the south the borough of Birming¬ 
ham and county of Warwick. The hamlet of Balsall Heath 
in King’s Norton parish is, at its most northerly point, within 
a mile of the centre of the town; south of it is the hamlet of 
Moseley. About a mile to the south-east of Moseley Church, 
but in the parish of Yardley, was an open tract of common, 
partly covered with bog, called Moseley Common, the 
remnant of a still larger tract, known as Moseley Wake 
Green. It produced some of the rarest plants in the county, 
such as Drosera rotundifolia, Radiola millegrana, Hypericum 
elodes, Parnassia palustris, Carduus pratensis, Vaccinium 
Oxycoccos, Menyanthes trifoliata, Scutellaria minor, Anagallis 
tenella, Centunculus minimus, Narthecium ossifragum, 
Rhyncospora alba, Eriophorum vaginatum, Osmunda regalis, 
Lycopodium Selago. The Commons Preservation Society 
not being at that time in existence, the Common was 
enclosed and drained in or about the year 1842, and all its 
characteristic plants destroyed. 
It is strange that none of the above species, with the 
exception of Osmunda regalis, were noticed at Moseley by 
Withering, although the Common was within three miles of his 
house. We are indebted to the late Dr. William Ick, Curator cf 
the old Philosophical Institution of Birmingham, for the first 
notice of Moseley plants. It is contained in a paper entitled 
“Remarkable Plants found growing in the vicinity of 
Birmingham in the year 1836,” published in “ The 
Analyst,” Vol. VI., 1837, pp. 20-28. Miss Mary Anne 
Beilby, the present Mrs. Avery, of Edgbaston, who com¬ 
menced the study of Botany under the guidance of the late 
Mr. Edward White Benson, the father of the present 
Archbishop of Canterbury, was a frequent visitor to Moseley 
Common in the years 1835 and 1836. She drew up a list of 
plants, which was contributed by Mr. Benson to the same 
volume of “ The Analyst ” as that above referred to, where it 
will be found at pp. 293-296. The list may be easily over¬ 
looked, as it is not noticed in the index. A further list by 
Dr. Ick was sent to the Midland Counties Herald on the 
