230 THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
bearded wheat into this country from Smyrna. He was a
follower of Rousseau and this affected the training and education
of his three sons.
The eldest of these, Thomas Furley Forster (1761-1825)
was attracted to natural history in boyhood. The publication
of Richard Warner's local Woodford flora "seems to have
"given a spring to my father's juvenile exertions and he very
"soon became perfectly acquainted with the Plantae Wood-
"fordienses. . . . He had certainly the quickest and
"longest sight for discovering plants at a distance, as he rode
"along, of any person I ever knew; and I feel convinced, that
"if he had confined himself more exclusively to botany during
"his later years, instead of occupying his mind with other
matters, he would have become one of the first botanists of
"the age we live in." He is bast known for his Flora
Tonbrigensis, which he dedicated to his friend Sir James E.
Smith—Smith had previously dedicated his Lachesis Lapponica
to him. In his introduction Forster says:—"The whole order
"of Fungi being so very little known, the author has only
"been enabled to put such in the catalogue as were figured in
"the above-mentioned excellent work of Mr. Sowerby (English
"Fungi). He takes this opportunity of expressing his thanks
"to that gentleman for his assistance in investigating this
''puzzling tribe, and of mentioning that coloured figures of these,
''as well as of all the British plants, may be had at his Museum
"at Lambeth, either all together or by single genera."
It is possible that Thomas Furley influenced his younger
brothers, both of whom are of more prominence in Essex
mycology. His son, T. I. M. Forster, says of the Walthamstow
household:—
"Leur maison etait comme une ruche dans laquelle tous
"les abeilles etaient en mouvement perpetuel parmi les fleurs
"de la science, pour en cueillir le miel: Omnibus una quies
"operum labor omnibus unus! Car du moment qu'ils avaient
"rempli les devoirs de leur metier ils reprenaient leurs livres
"ou leur vasculum botanicum; enfin le travail de leur profession
"ne faisait place qu'a celui du Jardin des plantes; et quand les
"feuilles du grand livre du negociant etaient fermees, on
"commencait a ouvrir les pages de l'hortus siccus. Tantus
"amor florum et generandi gloria mellis."