176 THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
is illustrated in his delightful little book, A Summer in Green-
land; he describes the plant as highly prized by the Esquimaux
as an article of food. I am also grateful to Mr. Henley for the
slides showing Archangelica growing along the side channels of
the R. Lea. (See Plate XIII.)
In the Middle Ages this plant was much grown in English
gardens on account of its "angelic" properties. Gerard, writing
in 1596, says that "it is very common in English gardens"
he tells of the virtues of the root under seven different headings :
"it is said that the roote availeth against witchcraft and enchant-
"ments, if a man carry some about with him, as Fuchsius saeth,
"also it cureth the bitings of mad dogs and all other venomous
"beasts." In Henry Lyte's Niewe Herbal (published eight years
earlier, in 1588), he writes of the Garden Angelica that "the
"later writers say the rootes are contrarie to all poyson . . .
"and all the naughtie corruption of evil or infected air." I
learn from my friend, Mr. Geoffrey Howard (of Howard and
Sons, Chemical Manufacturers) that Archangelica is hardly
ever employed in medicine at the present day. It is, however,
largely grown on the Continent, there being a good demand for
the candied leaf-stalks which are familiar to us on cakes and
sweetmeats.
When and how did Archangelica arrive in our district ? It is
tempting to think that it might be a survival from plants grown
by the monks in the gardens of West Ham Abbey four hundred
years ago, but evidence does not favour that suggestion. In
Sir James E. Smith's English Flora (1824), the learned Samuel
Doody, who was Director of the Chelsea Physic Garden from
1693 to 1706, is quoted as finding Archangelica "about the Tower
"of London and in the ditches, frequent": also "Mr. Martin finds
"it grows in marshes among reeds abundantly by the side of
the Thames between Woolwich and Plumstead." In Trimen
and Dyer's Flora of Middlesex (1869) the plant is said to grow in
many places by the banks of the Thames ; Hanbury and Marshall
in their Flora of Kent (1899) do not mention Archangelica, nor does
Gibson in his Flora of Essex (1862), nor, as more recent evidence,
does H. B. Guppy in a paper published in 1893, entitled "The
"River Thames as an Agent in Seed-dispersal."6
6 See Journ. Linn. Soc., Botany, xxix, pp. 333-346 : 'This is an account of observations
upon river drift in the Thames, Lea and Roding." See also Water Plants by A. Arber (1920),
p. 373.