The Rev. W. T. Bree, Rector of Allesley, near Coventry, was a well-known Botanist. He contributed to Purton’s Midland Flora, to the Magazine of Natural History, and to the first series of the Phytologist, many notices of the plants of the northern part of his county.
The first volume of the last named serial, 1844, pp. 508-514, contains an account of the ferns of Stafford, Warwick, and Worcester, from the pen of the Editor, the late Edward Newman.
The second series of the Phytologist, 1855 to 1863, was edited by the late Alexander Irvine of Chelsea. Several plants from the neighbourhood of Clent and Churchill are recorded by the Editor, in an article on the “Botany of the Clent Hills,” Vol. ii., p. 385, April, 1858.
The Studies of Warwickshire Fungi, made by the late Mrs. F. Russell, of Kenilworth, will be noticed in the article on that group of plants.
The County Botany of Worcester has been associated for upwards of half a century, with the name of the veteran Worcester Botanist, Mr. Edwin Lees. His first observations, made in conjunction with the late Dr. Streeten, were published in Hastings’s “Illustrations of the Natural History of Worcestershire,” (1834). These, together with a further list supplied by him to the late H. C. Watson, are incorporated in the Catalogue of Worcestershire plants in “The New Botanists’ Guide,” (1835). The same work contains lists of the plants of Warwick and Stafford. In 1867, Mr. Lees published his “Botany of Worcester,” the only complete record of the flowering plants and ferns of the whole county, which has yet appeared. His “Botany of the Malvern Hills,” which has passed through three editions, relates to a part of the county outside the limits of the Birmingham district.
The plants of the north-east of the county are enumerated in the “Flora of the Clent and Lickey Hills,” by the present writer. First edition, 1868; Second Edition, 1881. He has been indebted for assistance to many friends, too numerous to mention in this notice.
“The Natural History of Stafford,” by R. Garner, 1884, contains a list of the rarer plants of that county. Our more recent knowledge of its botany is due to Dr. Fraser, of Wolverhampton, whose discoveries are published in the Reports of the Botanical Record Club, 1873-1883. These reports contain also many district records communicated by the Editor, Dr. F. Arnold Lees, and by Mr. J. E. Bagnall.
The modern geographical botany of Warwick is the work of members of the Birmingham Natural History and Microscopal Society, and especially of Mr. J. E. Bagnall, Mr. A. W. Wills, and Mr. W. B. Grove. The volumes of “The Midland Naturalist” have been enriched by numerous papers from these Botanists, for one of which, the monograph on the Pilobolidæ, published in Vol. vii., 1884, the Darwin Gold Medal of the Midland Union of Natural History Societies was awarded to Mr. Grove. Those relating to the Botany of the county are, by Mr. Bagnall, “The Distribution of the Roses,” (Vol. i, 1878), “The Moss Flora,” (Vols. ii. and iii., 1879-80), “The Hepaticæ,” (Vol. iii., 1880), and “The Flora of Warwickshire,” (Vols. iv.-ix., 1880-86); by Mr. Wills, “The Desmidiæ of Sutton Park,” (Vol. iii., 1880); by Mr. Grove, “The Fungi of the neighbourhood of Birmingham,” (Vols. v.-vii., 1882-84.)
The works of the late Hewett Cottrell Watson, the founder of the Science of the Geographical Botany of Great Britain, must not be passed over. Those containing provincial or comital records, besides the new Botanists’ Guide already mentioned, are the Cybele Britannica, 1847-1872; Topographical Botany, 1st edit., 1873-4, 2nd edit., 1883.