ESSEX AND THE EARLY BOTANISTS.
with a view of enlarging his knowledge of British plants, and of
marking the localities of the rarer species.
Now Essex being nigh unto Holborn, this good 'Master in
Chirurgerie,' in company with other friends 'skilful in herbary,'
made many excursions into the county. From the entries
scattered up and down the sixteen hundred folio pages of his
Herbal it would appear that he was well acquainted with the dis-
trict north of the Thames, from Ilford to Leigh; he was also
familiar with Mersea Isle, and the salt-marshes about Walton and
Dovercourt; while inland we find him at Chelmsford and Col-
chester, in the neighbourhood of Dunmow and Braintree, and
further north at Pebmarsh and Castle Hedingham. It is most
interesting to note the plants which attracted the attention of
the old herbalist as he went on his 'simpling-voyages' about the
county. Over seventy species he mentions as occurring in
Essex; some, as the wild clematis, the saw-wort, and the
butcher's broom, as found 'in divers places'; others, with exact
reference to the spots where they may be found. The curious
mousetail, so-called because of the arrangement of its carpels
'resembling very notably the taile of a mouse,' he found 'in
Woodford Row, in Waltham Forrest, and in the orchard belonging
to Mr. Francis Whetstone in Essex.' The Burnet or Scotch rose
he notes as growing ' very plentifully in a field as you go from a
village in Essex called Graies (upon the brinke of the river Thames)
unto Horndon on the hill, insomuch that the field is full fraught
therewith all over.' 'Upon the church walls of Railey' the little
wall-rue fern (Asplenium Ruta-muraria, L.) was abundant in
Gerarde's days ; and in 'a wood hard by a gentleman's house called
Mr. Leonard, dwelling upon Dawes heath 'the golden rod was in
flower, and the tutsan or parke-leaves, 'out of which is pressed
a juice, not like blacke bloud, but Claret or Gascoigne wine.'
'Neere to Lee in Essex,' over against Canvey Island, our herbarist
found the lily of the valley, and in the woods thereabouts the
yellow dead-nettle ; while 'in the greene places by the sea side
at Lee among the rushes and in sundry other places thereabouts'
the beautiful meadow saxifrage grew then, as now, abundantly.
On the sea-shore and in the salt-marshes which here stretch away
for many a mile he noticed a number of maritime plants, such as
the marsh mallow, the sea lavender, and the rare Euphorbia
Paralias, L., or sea spurge.
On his herbarising expeditions inland old Gerarde came across
many interesting species, some of them never before recorded as