Excerpt from Flowers of the Field

When, in 1900, I had completed my first revision of Johns "Flowers of the Field" for its twenty-ninth re issue, I had a kindly appreciative letter from the veteran chief of British botanists, Sir Joseph Hooker. In this he writes: "When you shall have to prepare a still other Edition I venture to suggest that a few lines of Preface as to who Johns was, and an outline of the successive enlargements of his work would be very interesting." The time has now arrived when this suggestion can be adopted, though the story to be told is but a simple tale of long-continued literary industry prompted by an enthusiastic love of Nature and a zeal for education

Charles Alexander Johns was a Cornishman by descent, although he happened to be born in Plymouth. He was the grandson of Tremenheere Johns, a solicitor of Helston, his father being Henry Incledon Johns, and he was born on the last day of the year 1811.

In 1832 Henry Incledon Johns published by subscription a little volume entitled "Poems addressed by a Father to his Children, with Extracts from the Diary of a Pedestrian and a Memoir of the Author." From this it appears that the father of the author of "Flowers of the Field" was fond of long solitary rambles, of drawing, of poetry and of flowers He was, however, placed as junior clerk in a bank at Devonport, then Ply mouth Dock, and, after many years, became co-partner in the concern. In 1825, however, the bank failed, and Henry Johns was compelled to fall back on his early artistic attainments and become a drawing-master. On the title-page of his "Poems" he is described as Professor of Drawing to the Plymouth New Grammar School, and he tells how, as his own health failed, he was assisted in his teaching by his daughter. The excellence of Miss Johns' illustrations have undoubtedly contributed largely to the success of her brother Charles's chief work.

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