ESSEX AND THE EARLY BOTANISTS.
long since ceased; but even now, in certain seasons, a few plants
will occasionally appear. This discontinuance is the more to be
regretted if we may believe our old friend Gerarde, that 'the
moderate use thereof is good for the head, and maketh the sences
move quicke and lively, shaketh off heavy and drowsie sleepe, and
maketh a man merry.'
Here and there, along the roadside wastes, which of late years
have been considerably curtailed, some rare and interesting plants
may occasionally be met with. As old Gerarde rode along 'Col-
chester highway from Londonward' he noticed 'very plentifully
by the wayes side between Esterford and Wittam' the small
'greene-leaved Hounds' Tongue.' Now Esterford was the mediaeval
name of the parish of Kelvedon ; and there, one hundred years
later, 'on the London road between Kelvedon and Witham, but
more plentifully about Braxted by the wayes-side,' John Ray
noticed the same species. It is a rare plant with dull purple
flowers, and but seldom met with in Essex ; but until quite
recently, and perhaps even now, a few specimens might be found
in their ancient habitat. Another local plant which attracted the
notice of Ray ' on the banks by the High-wayside as you go up
the hill from Lexden to Colchester' was the smooth-tower
mustard, and one is glad to know that this very uncommon plant
is still occasionally seen in its old locality.
In Essex, as in many other parts of England, ferns seem to
have become scarcer of late years, far scarcer, at any rate, than
when old Gerarde noticed the wall-rue 'upon the church-walls
of Railey,' and found the adder's tongue 'in the fields in Walt-
ham Forest.' The noble royal or flowering fern grew, he tells
us, 'upon divers bogges on a heath or a common neere unto
Brentwood, especially neere unto a place there that some have
digged, to the end to finde a nest or mine of gold, but the birds
were over fledge and flowne away before their wings could be
clipped.' He even found the rare moonwort—never since observed
in Essex—'in the ruines of an old bricke-kilne by Colchester, in
the ground of Mr. George Sayer, called Miles' end.' The ancient
walls of Colchester do not appear to support many rare species.
Wallflowers, of course, blossom in abundance as in the days of
Gerarde and of Ray. Pellitory-of-the-wall, too, will be noticed in
considerable plenty on the Castle keep, together with the beautiful
ivy-leaved linaria, and a few plants of the viper's bugloss. Not
far from the Castle will be found the stately remains of the once
famous Priory of St. Botolph. Vast masses of ivy cling about