Page:VCH Leicestershire 1.djvu/66

 A HISTORY OF LEICESTERSHIRE botany, conchology, and ornithology in various periodicals, and contributed the 'List of Leicestershire Plants' to Potter's Qbarnwood Forest. He devoted himself, as no other botanist has hitherto done, to the investigation of the brambles, mosses, lichens and all other kinds of fungi. Most of Mr. Bloxam's life was spent in and on the border of this county. Before he became perpetual curate at Twycross he had resided at Calke, where he made a collection of Leicestershire and Derbyshire plants. This collection was examined and criticized by his friend, the Rev. W. H. Purchas, in the Journal of Botany, 1887, p. 145. When, in 1871, Mr. Bloxam became rector of Harborough Magna, near Rugby, he was still quite near enough to con- tinue his study of Leicestershire plants. He died in 1878 at the last-named place (Harborough Magna). The Rev. W. H. Coleman, M.A., was an assistant-master at the grammar school at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, where he died about 1864. His knowledge of flowering plants was exceptional. The Flora of Leicestershire, 1886, was based on the MS. which Mr. Coleman had written, as stated in the preface to the Flora. This MS. was placed in the hands of the Leicester Literary and Philosophical Society in 1875 by the late Mr. Edwin Brown, of Burton- on-Trent. Mr. Coleman rendered great service to future investigators by collecting and very carefully drying excellent examples of the brambles of the county, many of which have proved to be exceptionally interesting. Without this material it would have been impossible to have correlated them with any of the forms which have been distinguished during the past quarter of a century. Mr. Bloxam was Mr. Coleman's chief colleague in the preparation of the MS. Flora of Leicestershire. The Rev. Churchill Babington, D.D., Fellow of St. John's, Cambridge, son of the Rev. M. D. Babington, of Thringstone, in this county, was born at RoeclifFe, Swithland, in 1821. He contributed the article on ornithology, and assisted Mr. Bloxam with the article on botany in Potter's Gharirwood Forest. He died in 1889 at Cockfield in Suffolk. Miss Mary Kirby, formerly of Friar Lane, Leicester, published a Flora of 'Leicester -shire in 1850. She was born in Leicester 27 April, 1817, married the Rev. H. Gregg in 1860, and lived at Brooksby near Melton Mowbray, where she died 15 October, 1893. Mr. Frederick Bates of Leicester contributed a most valuable account of the freshwater algae to the Flora of 1886. The importance of this article cannot be over-estimated. Mr. Bates left much to be done in this depart- ment of botany, yet after twenty years scarcely anything of importance has been added to his list. The Rev. W. Moyle Rogers has rendered a great service to the litera- ture of Leicestershire botany by his study of the brambles, not only in the herbarium, but in their homes in Charnwood and other parts of the county. In the Flora of 1886 there are many names of persons who have supplied information, and also a list of works relating to the botany of Leicestershire. The list of ' authorities for recorded stations ' is too long to insert here, but some of their names appear in these pages after the names of the plants which they have found. Since the publication of the Flora of Leicestershire in 1886, by Messrs. Mott, Carter, Cooper (E. F.), Finch, and Cooper (C. W.), for 28