HILLS : E. G. VARENNE, OF KELVEDON, BOTANIST. 293 
I can add little or nothing ; but, having many friends in Kelvedon 
(where I was in early infancy a tiny patient of the old Doctor), 
I am able to add some personal anecdotes to the facts in regard 
to him which have been recorded already. This article is, 
indeed, an article about a botanist, rather than an article about 
botany. 
As to the ancestry and family history of Ezekiel George 
Varenne, it is difficult now to obtain any reliable information. 
All tradition still surviving at Kelvedon asserts that he was 
FIG. I.-EZEKIEL GEORGE VARENNE (181I-1887), M.R.C.S., 
OF KELVEDON, BOTANIST. 
(as his name implies) of Lrencli descent. His widow (his second 
wife) informs me definitely that his family was French, and 
adds that his direct ancestors came over to this country as 
refugees at the time of the Edict of Nantes in 1598. At all 
events, the name is extremely uncommon in England, and 
does not appear even once in the enormous list of names to be 
found in the London Directory. 
Varenne himself (fig. 1) was born on 6 May 1811, in the 
Infirmary of the parish of Marylebone, in which his father, 
