HISTORY OF ESSEX BOTANY.
231
Turner apparently records only five plants from Essex,
viz. :—
Eryngium maritimum L.
Althaea officinalis L.
Linum catharticum L.
Crocus sativus L.
Cochlearia anglica L.
His account of the saffron (p. 284) is worth quoting :—
" It is plentifully manured in Fields in Essex and Cambridgeshire: Safron
Walden takes her name from its growing there ; it begins to flower in September,
and presently after the leaves shoot forth and abide green all the Winter,
dying again in April, when it puts forth another Crop of Flowers, which must
be gathered as soon as it is blown, or else it is lost ; so that Jack Presbyter for
covetousness of the profit can reach his Sabbatarian conscience to gather it on
Sunday ; and so he can to do any thing else that redounds to his profit, though
it destroy his Brother."
A second edition of the Botanologia appeared in 1687, when,
however, it had been superseded by a work of a far higher order.43
Two years after the first edition, appeared the Pinax verum
naturalium Britannicarum of Dr. Christopher Merrett. Pulteney
devotes a chapter44 to Merrett, or Merret as he spells it, and
there was not much for the present writer to add when preparing
the notice for the Dictionary of National Biography.45 Merrett,
whose father and son bore names' identical with his own, was
born at Winchcombe, Gloucestershire, February 16, 1614. In
1631 he entered Gloucester Hall (now Worcester College).
Oxford, two years later migrated to Oriel, graduated B.A. in
1635, M.B. in 1636, and M.D. in 1643. He then came to
practice in London, becoming F.R.C.P. in 1651, and Gulstonian
lecturer in 1654. In the same year he was appointed, on the
nomination of his friend William Harvey, the discoverer of the
circulation of the blood, as "Musei Harviani Custos," a post he
retained until 1666, and took a lease of the house belonging to
the Royal College of Physicians at Amen Corner for twenty
pounds. His rent was remitted in "recompence for his pains for
looking after the new library," and Harvey in his deed of gift in
1656 assigned £20 per annum for the librarian. In 1657, and in
seven years subsequently to that date, Merrett acted as Censor
to the College, and he was one of the first fellows of the Royal
43 For all that is known of Robert Turner see Dict. Nat. Biog., vol. lvii., p. 354.
44 Op. cit., vol. i., chap. 22, pp. 290-7.
45 Vol. 37, pp. 288-9.