HILLS : E. G. VARENNE, OF KELVEDON, BOTANIST. 293
I can add little or nothing ; but, having many friends in Kelvedon
(where I was in early infancy a tiny patient of the old Doctor),
I am able to add some personal anecdotes to the facts in regard
to him which have been recorded already. This article is,
indeed, an article about a botanist, rather than an article about
botany.
As to the ancestry and family history of Ezekiel George
Varenne, it is difficult now to obtain any reliable information.
All tradition still surviving at Kelvedon asserts that he was
FIG. I.—EZEKIEL GEORGE VARENNE (18111887), M.R.C.S.,
OF KELVEDON, BOTANIST.
(as his name implies) of French descent. His widow (his second
wife) informs me definitely that his family was French, and
adds that his direct ancestors came over to this country as
refugees at the time of the Edict of Nantes in 1598. At all
events, the name is extremely uncommon in England, and
does not appear even once in the enormous list of names to be
found in the London Directory.
Varenne himself (fig. 1) was born on 6 May 1811, in the
Infirmary of the parish of Marylebone, in which his father,