The Presidential Address. 
28 
stances would lead me to attribute its origin to the mediaeval 
garden. It may be doubted whether before the days of weirs 
and mill-dams any exact analogue of its favourite habitat 
existed, and no doubt the other denizens of those meadows 
which are now the glory of English landscape, the buttercups 
and daisies, must before the days of agriculture have been 
far less general. 
Coming to the plants of the estuaries and the low cliffs 
from Harwich to Southend the changes during the human 
period have been mainly due to the natural encroachment of 
the sea, and probably the Marsh Mallow ( Althcea officinalis), 
the Fennel, 32 the Sea-holly (Eryngium), 33 and the wild Cab¬ 
bage ( Brassica oleracea) u flourished there, then as now. 
Besides the plants to which I have alluded, I may mention 
the Mulleins (VerhasGum thapsus and T . nigrum ), Scorpion- 
grasses ( 2Iyosotis) and Mallows ( Malva ) of our waste spots, 
our rare Essex Hare’s-ear (Bupleurumjalcatum), at Ongar, 
the Earth-nut (Bunium flexuosuin), of which we read as the 
food of the Caledonians in the 3rd century a.d., 30 the para¬ 
sitic Mistletoe, 36 and perhaps the Soapwort ( Saponaria ) and 
the Gooseberry ( Grossularia ), as indigenous. The Soapwort 
32 “ in the inland localities it has probably only escaped from cultiva¬ 
tion, but appears truly indigenous on the cliffs at Southend, if not else¬ 
where along the Thames.”—Gibson, ‘Flora of Essex, p. 138. >l Me 
parait indigene en Angleterre, comme sur le continent voisin, nialgre le 
doute de M. "Watson (‘ Cybele Britannica,’ vol. i., p. 447).''—DeCandolle, 
op. cit., p. 667. 
33 “ At Landamer lading, at Harwich, ... Gerard, ‘Herball (1597), 
p. 1000. “ Colchester is noted for the first inventing or practising the 
candying or conditing of its roots, the manner whereof may be seen in 
Gerard’s Herbal.”—Ray, in Gibson’s Camden’s ‘ Britannia.’ 
34 “ Je ne vois pas pourquoi iln’auraitpas ete spontane, avant 1 homme, 
en quelques points de 1’Angleterre, puisque sa patrie doit etre, d apres 
divers indices linguistiques, l’Europe occidentale temperee, et qu on le 
trouve sur des falaises en Angleterre et en Irlande.'—DeCandolle, op. cit., 
p. 653. 
35 ‘ The Scottish Gael,’ by James Logan, vol. ii., p. 113. Dion Cassius, 
lib. lxxvi., cap. 12. 
36 “ I never sawe more plentye of righte oke miscel, then Hugh Morgan 
shewed me in London. It was sente to hym oute of Essex: where as 
there is more plentye then in anye other place of Englande that I have 
ben in.”—Turner, ‘ Herbal’ (1568), lib. ii., p. 165, 
