76 THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
in a field by Mrs. Movers house, Leyton April 1799, also some in
a field at the back of Leytonstone May 1799 in Fl. Have doubts
whether ever found actually wild," a commentary on blue paper,
written and signed by William Pamplin,3 but not dated, which
runs:
"N.B. About 1780 or perhaps a little later my Grandfather
and my Father wrought in the Garden of this Mrs. Moyer at
Leyton—and my Father has frequently mentioned the circum-
stance here referred to by Mr. Forster—viz., this particular
field was completely overrun by quantities of the Common
Daffodil and moreover that in labouring to eradicate them as
ordered by his employer he has often left off work with his hand
sorely blistered. Also he has told me that he had supplied from
this source specimens for the Forsters when they first began
collecting for their Herbaria in boyhood."
Here, then, we have direct evidence that to William Pamplin's
knowledge one of the three brothers Forster was the author of
the manuscript annotations.
G. S. Gibson tell us, in his ''Flora of Essex," 1862, that when,
in 1843, he conceived the idea of compiling this work, he wrote
to Edward Forster on the subject. Forster replied that he had
himself collected considerable materials for such a Flora, and was
in process of arranging them. Indeed, Forster informed him
that he had, at one time, entertained the idea of printing a second
edition of Warner's "Plantae Woodfordienses." But Gibson
assures us that after Edward Forster's death no "prepared
manuscript" was found among his papers, although elsewhere
he speaks of "manuscripts of the late Edward Forster contain-
ing botanical memoranda extending over a. period of more than
sixty years." As a matter of fact, Edward Forster published
nothing in separate form.
I have examined, by favour of Dr. Rendle, a selection of
Edward Forster's plants now merged in the General British
Herbarium at the British Museum (Natural History), and there can
be no reasonable doubt that the handwriting on the herbarium
3 William Pamplin (1806-1899). a native of Chelsea, was, during his earlier years, in partner-
ship as a nurseryman with his lather at Chelsea, his father having formerly carried on a similar
nursery business with his father at Walthamstow. At the age of 33, William undertook a botani-
cal bookselling business at 45, Frith Street. Soho, and published among other works, Sir W. J.
Hooker's "Species Filicum," in 1846 and Gibson's "Flora of Essex," in 1862; in the latter
year he retired to North Wales, where he died some 37 years later. He was an indefatigable
botanist, and was for 69 years an Associate of the Linnean Society. His autograph (dated 1830),
occurs in a copy of Deering's "Catalogus Stirpium," 1738, in the Club's Library.
He it was who gathered the rare fern, Cystopteris albina, from Leyton in 1835. (See post).