316 THE ESSEX NATURALIST
He translated the Plays of Plautus, five volumes in all, the
first two appearing in 1766 and the last in 1774, a year
before his death.
Our chief interest in this scholarly and industrious worthy
of Woodford lies in his naturalist activities. His garden was
obviously his chief pastime, and John Ellis, a friend of every
naturalist of that day, wrote to Linnaeus in 1758 :—
"Mr Collinson, Ehret (a famous botanical artist) and
I were the other day at Mr Warner's, a very curious
gentleman, at Woodford near this City, to see his rare
plant like a Jasmine with a large double flower, very
odiferous, which he received about four years ago from
the Cape of Good Hope. The flowers are so large that a
specimen, which he gave me to dissect, was four inches
across from the extremities of the limb. If you find this
plant to be no Jasmine but an undescribed genus, you will
oblige me in calling it Warneria after its worthy pos-
sessor."
But ten days later Ellis wrote again :—
'' Mr Warner begs of me to write to you not to call it
Warneria."
Following this correspondence, there was some bickering
about the name for this plant, and eventually it was satis-
factorily settled and the name Gardenia was agreed to by
Linnaeus. It may be wondered how many of us, when
wearing Gardenias at weddings and similar functions, know
that the first time this plant bloomed in England was in
Warner's garden in Woodford.
When in 1743 Warner's mother died, Richard had an
inscribed stone to her memory set up in the garden.
It is from a pupil of Linnaeus in Sweden that we can
form the best idea of Richard Warner and the place in which
he lived. Peter Kalm was born in Sweden in March, 1716,
and in 1747 he was commissioned by the Swedish Govern-
ment and the Swedish Academy of Science to visit North
America for the purpose of describing the natural history
of that part of the world. He started his journey on 16th
October of that year, but was forced by storms and adverse
winds to seek harbour in Norway, where he remained until
8th February of the next year. Eventually he arrived in