BOTANY 1 PLANTS first became of interest to man on account of their value as food, their medicinal virtues or the poisonous properties possessed by so many of them. Hence the first steps in the building up of our science consisted in attempts to describe plants with a degree of accuracy which would enable students to recognize those which could be utilized for food or medicine, or which should be avoided because of their poisonous character. Attempts of this kind slowly developed into the vast subject now known as vegetable biology. Owing no doubt to the fact that the metropolis, the home of many of the earlier English writers, is only a few miles from the borders of Essex, the history of the botany of our county is practically coterminous with that of the science tn Britain. Hence we must seek the early records of the Essex flora in the works of William Turner, the father of English botany, and in those of Gerard, Johnson, Parkinson, How, Robert Turner, Merrett, Ray, Morison and Dale. Since a brief outline of the botany of Essex is all that space permits of in this article, and an account of the ' History of the Botany of Essex,' by Professor G. S. Boulger is now appearing in the Essex Naturalist, I wish to refer my readers to that publication for details of this interesting subject. William Turner was born in Northumberland between 1510 and 1515. He was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge. Like many who adopted the principles of the Reformation of that period, Turner spent a portion of his time in prison and in foreign travel. His herbal, which was written just three centuries before the publication of Gibson's flora, contains the first records of Essex plants, viz. Ruscus aculeatus, a 7V/W, a hellebore and mistletoe. ' Butcher's broom (Ruscus aculeatus); he says, ' groweth verye plenteously in Essex.' The ' Lind tre,' he tells us, ' groweth very plenteously in Essekes in a parke within two miles of Colichester, in the possession of one maister Bogges,' but whether he alludes to the 1 I desire here to express my indebtedness to the following correspondents : Professor G. S. Boulger, F.L.S. ; Dr. M. C. Cooke, M.A., LL.D. ; Mr. Philip Lake, M.A. ; Mr. E. E. Turner. I am under special obligations to Mr. E. M. Holmes, F.L.S., for looking over MS. and proofs, and for revising and rearranging portions of the cryptogamic flora of Essex. 31
