A HISTORY OF ESSEX indigenous or to the planted species is uncertain. Of hellebore he says, ' I dare not saye that ever I found the righte black hellebor, but thys I dare holde, that a man for defaut of it, may use verye well that kinde of bear foot that goeth every yeare into the grounde, whereof groweth greate plentye in a parke besyde Colchester.' Of the mistletoe he tells us that it grows more plentifully than elsewhere. Essex perhaps owes more to John Gerard than to any other early botanist. Gerard was born at Nantwich in Cheshire in 1545. He was educated in a neighbouring school, but at an early age he studied medi- cine and travelled in Denmark, Poland, Sweden and Russia. In 1577 he had charge of the gardens of Lord Burleigh in the Strand and at Theobalds in Hertfordshire, and at one time he had a house and garden of his own in Holborn. In 1597 he became a warden of the Barber- Surgeons Company, and issued his celebrated herbal, which was illus- trated by i, 800 woodcuts, mostly reproduced from the Eicones Stirpium of Taberncemontanus. This herbal records about seventy-five Essex plants. I must not pass from these pioneers in botanical science without referring to Ray, who filled an important place among the great founders of botany and zoology. To his works Linnaeus, BufFon, Jessieu, Brown, De Candolle and others were largely indebted. Ray was born at Black Notley near Braintree. The son of a blacksmith he studied at Cam- bridge, entering at St. Catharine College and subsequently at Trinity College. He was elected a fellow of Trinity in 1649. He was appointed Greek lecturer of his college, and at the age of twenty-five he was made mathematical tutor. He finally settled in our county, and the house he lived in was destroyed by fire quite recently. The county may well be proud to have given birth to this great man. More recent records of Essex botany are to be found in a catalogue of plants in Cough's edition of Camden's Britannia, in Warner's Plantce Woodfordiensis (pub. 1771), Watson's Botanical Guides, in the Phytologist, in Smith's English Flora, Withering's works and several herbaria which are preserved in the British Museum, and finally in Gibson, who, assisted by a band of workers, published the first complete Essex Flora in 1862, a work which will compare favourably with any county flora since published. During the last twenty years many lists of plants found in the county have been published in the journal of the Essex Field Club (Essex Naturalist, edited by W. Cole). The plants thus added to the records of the Essex flora are chiefly those belonging to the so-called critical genera, which were not recognized as species in Gibson's day, and casuals, some of which may establish themselves as permanent resi- dents. The cryptogamic plants included in this article are almost entirely derived from the above journal, and afford an example of the value of such publications. That the contributors include the names of Mr. E. A. L. Batters, Dr. M. C. Cooke, the Rev. James Crombie, Messrs. English, E. M. Holmes, G. P. Hope, Worthington Smith 32
