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 A HISTORY OF NORFOLK yet the number of specimens to be obtained in certain localities has much diminished, and it is to be hoped that collectors will recognize this fact and spare them as much as possible, but it seems not unlikely that in some parts of the county, owing to the deplorable depression of agriculture, a few of the lighter lands will ' go back to warren,' thus possibly afford- ing asylum and offering a chance of increase to some of our specially hard-pressed rarities. On the other hand drainage is always being extended, thus last summer the upper pond at Antingham — one of the sources of the river Ant, which, much grown up by marsh and water plants, has been a sure locality for many plants — has had a deep, wide trench dug down the midde of it, the effect of which must be in a few years to ruin it botanically. There can be but few of the counties of England which can claim as many specialties in species and varieties as Norfolk. Naias marina and Carex trinervis are found in it alone, as is also Sonchus angustifolius. Rubus Lintoni, Carex ligerica, C. paradoxa, Ammophila baltica, in but one other county only respectively, viz. Somerset, the Scilly Isles, Yorkshire, Northumberland. In addition it shares in the East Anglian specialties, Silene otites, Holosteum umbellatum, Medicago falcata and M. syhestris, Statice reticulata. Primula elatior, Jacq., Verbascum pulverulentum, Veronica verna, Liparis Loeselii, Carex ericetorum, Apera interrupta, and Weingartneria canescens, in fact it may almost be doubted, if judged on precisely equal terms, whether any other of the lowland counties of England exceeds it in number of species ; of course comparison with such counties as Devon or Yorkshire, the latter three times the size of Norfolk, and both with the advantage of mountains, would be absurd. No account of the Norfolk flora however short can be considered even passably complete without mention of the distinguished botanists who have been born or lived in the county within the last hundred and fifty years. Sir James Edward Smith, 1 759-1 828, author of English Botany, 1790-1814; Flora Britannica, 1800-1804; English Flora, 1824-1828, who did so much for the study of botany in England by the purchase of Linnaeus's Herbarium in 1783 and the formation of the Linnasan Society of which he was 'projector and president' in 1788. Dawson Turner of Yarmouth, 177 5-1 858, author of The Botanist's Guide, 1805, znd History of Fuci, 1808. Sir William Jackson Hooker, 1 785-1 865, born at Norwich, author of British "Jungermannia, 1 8 1 6 ; Muscologia Britannica, 1818-1827 ; Flora Scotica, 1821 ; and British Flora, 1830, besides other works on botany too numerous to mention, Vice-President of the Linnaean Society and Director of the Royal Gardens at Kew. John Lindley, Ph.D., F.R.S., born at Catton, 1 799-1 865, author of Synopsis of the British Flora, 1820, and Vegetable Kingdom, 1846. These occupy the first rank among our local botanists of note. Nor must we omit those lesser lights whose names are frequently occurring in the botanical literature of the same period. T. J. Woodward (of Diss), James Crowe, Hugh Rose, John Pitchford, Lilly Wigg (of Yarmouth), the Revs. H. Bryant and R. B. Francis, S. P. Woodward, the Rev. G. 40