Page:VCH Kent 1.djvu/99

 BOTANY Clusius mentions Blackstonia perfoliata, Gentia?ia Amarel/a, Calamintha parvtflora. Salvia Verbenaca and Orchis latifolia. John Gerard, in his Herball (1597), gives eighty-three new records, mainly noted in districts i and 2. Thomas Johnson (Gerard's reviser) was the first to write works dealing solely with Kent plants, adding altogether no fewer than 332 species, if the identifications are correct, which is doubtful in a few cases. He made two excursions into the county, the results of which were published in 1629 and 1632. John Parkinson, author of the Faradisus Terrestris (1629), is re- sponsible for seventeen first notices. Christopher Merrett's Pimx (1666) contains twenty-six novelties. John Ray in his various writings furnished twenty-nine new records. John Blackstone's Specimen Botanicum (1746) has fifteen additions of his own, besides four others in a list of Faversham plants bequeathed by John Bateman. Passing by various minor contributors, we come to William Hudson, whose Flora Anglica (1762 ; ed. ii. 1778) contains nineteen novelties. Flantce Favershamienses (1777), by Edward Jacob, was the pioneer of Kent local floras. It is a work of considerable merit, and enumerated about 140 fresh species. William Curtis added eleven plants in his beautifully illustrated Flora Londinensis (ijyj-gS). This brings us down to the period of English Botany (1790-18 14), by Sir J. E. Smith. It includes half a dozen Kentish novelties due to the author, and several others sent by correspondents. L. W. Dillwyn's paper on plants of the Dover neighbourhood in the Transactions of the Linnean Society (1802) contains eleven first records, including such rarities as Cnicus eriophorus, Liparis, Cladium and Poa bulbosa. In 1805 (with Dawson Turner) he brought out the Botanist's Guide^ which includes five additions for Kent. Robert Pocock of Gravesend was an industrious field botanist, whose herbarium is now at the British Museum. His Natural History of Kent (1809) is the earliest authority for Erysimum cheiranthoides and Setaria viridis. Of greater importance was T. F. Forster's F/or^ Tonbridgensis (18 16), with no fewer than sixty-one new species ; but its accuracy cannot always be relied on. G. E. Smith's Catalogue of the Plants of South Kent (1829) deals mainly with the neighbourhood of Dover, Folkestone and Hythe, and embraces thirty-six first notices. T^ Flora Metropolitana of Daniel Cooper (1835) furnished eighteen novelties, but its information is not always trustworthy. M. H. Cowell's Floral Guide to East Kent, deaUng chiefly with the plants of the Faversham neighbourhood, gives twenty-one first notices. T, I. M. Forster in 1842 issued a supplement to his father's Flora Tonbridgensis, soon (1845) to be followed by Edward Jenner's Flora of t 49 7