The Presidential Address. 
‘61 
I do not know of any plant that can definitely be said to 
have been introduced into this country during the Hundred 
Years’ War with France. The accounts of gardens that we 
read in Chaucer do not differ widely from what we know of 
those of three centuries earlier, and it was not until the dis¬ 
covery of America and the revival of Medicine and Botany, 
in common with other learning, that the influence of man 
was again marked by the introduction of new plants. 
Essex agriculture is well presented to our notice, in the 
condition in which it was during the 16th century, by the 
‘ Hundreth Good Pointes of Husbandrie,’ by Thomas Tusser 
of Bivenhall, published in 1557, and by his ‘ Five Hundreth 
Points of good Husbandry,’ issued in 1578 ; and a few years 
later Gerard, whose ‘ Herball ’ appeared in 1597, must have 
been paying his visits to our county. From his predecessor 
among botanical writers, William Turner, “ the Father of 
English Botany,” we learn that the Annual Mercury ( Mercu - 
rialis annua ) was introduced as a vegetable from France, 89 
and Gerard tells us of the cultivation before his time of 
Salsify ( Tragopogon porrifolius) 90 Alkanet ( Anchusa semper- 
virens), 91 and of Snapdragon. 92 The Ivy-leaved Toad-flax was 
introduced into gardens about the year 1600, 93 and all five of 
these plants had become more or less common escapes within 
the next 150 years. During the 16th century also the Small 
Bugloss ( Lycopsis arvensis ) had apparently been accidentally 
introduced as a corn-field weed from the South of France, as 
was also the Least Toad-flax ( Linaria minor ) in the following 
century, together with the Lesser Bur-parsley ( Caucalis 
daucoides) and the Night-flowering Catchfly ( Silene noctifolia). 
This last is a remarkable plant, having been introduced into 
Northern Europe, before the time of Bay, apparently direct 
not known to have had any distinctive Latin name.—De Candolle, op. 
cit., p. 647. 
89 ‘ Herbal,’ 1568. 
90 ‘ Catalogus,’ 1596 ; ‘ Herball,’ p. 595. 
91 ‘ Catalogus,’ 1596 ; ‘ Herball,’ p. 658. 
92 Both white and red, ‘ Catalogus,’ 1596 ; ‘ Herball,’ p. 438. 
93 Not mentioned by Gerard, but recorded by Parkinson (‘ Tlieatrum,’ 
p. 682) as beginning to spread. 
