HISTORY OF ESSEX BOTANY.
169
Hymenomycetes which have appeared in the Essex Naturalist. We are
sure that if any member—or better, a group of members—will adopt Mr.
Massee's admirable suggestion with regard to the systematic observation of
the larger fungi, the Council and officers will give all the facilities in the
power of the Club to afford, and the work-room at the new Essex Museum
may be used for analyses, &c. But how comes it, considering the fact that
the larger fungi have been "foraged," illustrated, and described in Britain for
30 or 40 years, that so little has been attempted by Mycologists beyond fitting
each form with a more or less stable name ? Entomologists have come in for
some hard knocks from time to time ; but the humble collector has, at least,
aided in ascertaining the life-histories of some hundreds, or even thousands,
of British insects. One of our leading Mycologists, in the above article, con-
fesses that a group of most important factors affecting the life-history of an
Agaric are absolutely unknown. Mycologists must evidently bestir them-
selves.—Ed.]
HISTORY OF ESSEX BOTANY.
By Prof. G. S. BOULGER, F.L.S., F.G.S., Vice President.
Part I (continued from page 68).
The Botanists of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth
Centuries.
THE following passage should have appeared after that
relating to Lunaria on p. 68.
p. 391. " Conyza major. Great Fleawort. Conyza minor. Fleabane
Mullet. . . The great and lesser Conyza do growe . . at Grayes in
Essex.".
Johnson (Ger. em., p. 481) re-writes the whole of this
chapter of Gerard and says that the plant "which grows in Kent
and Essex on chalkie hils "is Baccharis Monspeliensium of Lobel,
or Conyza maior of Matthiolus, otherwise Plowman's Spikenard,
our Inula Conyza dc. He then, on pp. 482-3, figures and des-
cribes as common, "Conyza media, Herbe Christopher." which is
Pulicaria dysenterica Gaertn., and as occurring "in like places"
Conyza minium of Lobel and Dodoens, the C. minor of Tragus,
which is Pulicaria vulgaris Gaertn. There is little doubt from the
habitat and synonymy that he gives that Gerard had confused
the first two species, but all three of them occur in the county
and may well have occurred at Grays.
p. 448. " Glaux exigua maritima. Blacke Saltwoort . . . I found it
especially . . by Tilbery Block-house in Essex." [Glaux maritima L]
p. 501. " Veronica faemina Fuchsii, sive Elatine. The Female Fluellen.
Elatine altera. Sharpe pointed Fluellen. Both these plants I haue found in