william hunt painter 125 



Three Seventeenth Century Botanists. 



The following, which I had intended to print as a separate 

 note, may fitly appear as an appendix to the foregoing. 



In the Correspondence of John Bay, printed for the Ray Society 

 in 1848, occur the names of three Irish botanists of whom nothing 

 further appears to be known. Their names occur in a letter 

 written to Ray on Aug. 26, 1696, by Dr. Francis Vaughan, " a 

 learned physician of Ireland, living at Clonmel, in the county of 

 Tipperary " — so Ray describes him in a letter to Sloane (p. 313) — 

 in which Vaughan says : " Dr. Wood, Dr. Mitchell, and I have 

 resolved to be as curious as our leisures will permit in making a 

 collection of what plants this kingdom affords. We have begun 

 this summer at Wexford, where we casually meet to drink the 

 medicinal waters, and in the month we stayed there we made up a 

 catalogue of about 280 plants, to which we have and design to 

 augment as opportunity offers to any of us " (p. 304). Vaughan 

 sent Ray an account of the poisoning of " eight young lads " in 

 Co. Tipperary by eating the roots of CEnantJie crocata (p. 314), 

 which was sent by Ray to Sloane on March 16, 1697, and is 

 printed also in Phil. Trans, xx. 84 (1698). Later (April 24, 1697) 

 Vaughan sent Ray an account of a case of poisoning by Eupliorhia 

 hyherna which occurred eight miles from Clonmel—" some of the 

 Irish use this root boiled in milk as a cathartic"; and speaks of 

 the local employment of Hypericum elodes — " the native Irish call 

 it Birin Yarragh, which signifies Herha dysenterica, and use it in 

 that distemper with good success," as Vaughan himself did 

 (pp. 319, 320). Vaughan's account of Q^^nanthe is referred to by 

 Threlkeld (Syn. Stirp. Hibern. (not paged) 1727) and that of the 

 EupJiorhia in Molyneux's appendix to that work (p. 22), but 

 neither Threlkeld nor K'Eogh (Botan. Hibern., 1735) mention 

 him or the others among their authorities or subscribers. Wood, 

 who signs himself N. W., writes to Ray on Aug. 31, 1696, from 

 Kilkenny as to the use of "dullysk" in Kerry (p, 305), and from 

 the same place (where he doubtless resided) on April 28, 1697, 

 about the depositing of eggs in rushes by insects (p. 320). There 

 is a letter from Mitchell written from Dublin to Sloane (Sloane 

 MS. 4075 f. 203), dated 6th Oct. 1724, of purely medical interest. 

 Mr. Praeger can tell me nothing of Vaughan, Wood, or Mitchell, 

 but suggests that some reader of the Journal may throw light 

 upon them. 



WILLIAM HUNT PAINTER. 

 (1835-1910.) 



William Hunt Painter was born in Birmingham on July 16, 

 1835. Of his earlier days I know nothing, but in 1861 he entered 

 tlie ministry of the Church of England. He had intended to 

 engage in missionary work in connection with the C.M.S. and for 

 this purpose was trained at the Islington Missionary College, but 

 owing to obstacles he took up home work, his first curacy being 



