The Presidential Address. 37
I do not know of any plant that can definitely be said to
have been introduced into this country during the Hundred
Years' War with France. The accounts of gardens that we
read in Chaucer do not differ widely from what we know of
those of three centuries earlier, and it was not until the dis-
covery of America and the revival of Medicine and Botany,
in common with other learning, that the influence of man
was again marked by the introduction of new plants.
Essex agriculture is well presented to our notice, in the
condition in which it was during the 16th century, by the
'Hundreth Good Pointes of Husbandrie,' by Thomas Tusser
of Rivenhall, published in 1557, and by his 'Five Hundreth
Points of good Husbandry,' issued in 1573 ; and a few years
later Gerard, whose 'Herball' appeared in 1597, must have
been paying his visits to our county. From his predecessor
among botanical writers, William Turner, "the Father of
English Botany," we learn that the Annual Mercury (M«reu-
rudis annua) was introduced as a vegetable from France,89
and Gerard tells us of the cultivation before his time of
Salsify (Tragopogon porrifolius),90 Alkanet (Anchusa semper-
virens),91 and of Snapdragon.92 The Ivy-leaved Toad-flax was
introduced into gardens about the year 1600,93 and all five of
these plants had become more or less common escapes within
the next 150 years. During the 16th century also the Small
Bugloss (Lycopsis arvensis) had apparently been accidentally
introduced as a corn-field weed from the South of France, as
was also the Least Toad-flax (Linaria minor) in the following
century, together with the Lesser Bur-parsley (Caucalis
daucoides) and the Night-flowering Catchfly (Silene noctifolia).
This last is a remarkable plant, having been introduced into
Northern Europe, before the time of Ray, apparently direct
not known to have had any distinctive Latin name.—De Candolle, op.
cit., p. 617.
89 'Herbal,' 1568.
90 'Catalogus,' 1596 ; 'Herball,' p. 595.
91 'Catalogus,' 1596 ; 'Herball,' p. 653.
92 Both white and red, 'Catalogus,' 1596 ; 'Herball,' p. 438.
93 Not mentioned by Gerard, but recorded by Parkinson ('Theatrum,'
p. 682) as beginning to spread.