MILL-MOUNTAIN 21 



authors into the margins of his herbals ; all of which 

 goes to show that he was turning his knowledge to 

 practical use by attending to the medicinal needs of his 

 neighbours. 



But John Goodyer, though mindful of the medicinal and 

 economic value of plants, clearly saw that the science of 

 botany could not be advanced without detailed morpho- 

 logical descriptions from living plants. His ideals were 

 those of his great predecessors Fuchs and Brunfels : but 

 whereas they put their observations into their drawings, 

 Goodyer put his into descriptions. 



One of his local discoveries of 161 7 was the Woolly 

 Thistle, 'Corona fratrum quorundam' {Cardictis eriophorus 

 L.), which he found ' wilde neare London highwaie on the 

 East part of Haliborne in Hampshire'. 



Another was the Purging or Cathartic Flax, or Mill- 

 mountaine, a plant of known medicinal virtue which used 

 to grow plentifully in localities where ' Carduus acaulis 

 septentrionalium L'obelii ' was also found, namely, ' in the 

 unmanured inclosures of Hampshire on chalky downes and 

 on Purfleet hils in Essex, and in many other places'. He 

 owed his information concerning the properties of this plant 

 to one of his apothecary acquaintances. 



' I came to know this herbe by the name of Mil~mountaine, and 

 his vertue by this meanes. On the second of October 1617 going 

 by M^ Colsons shop an Apothecary of Winchester in Hampshire, 

 I saw this herbe lying on his stall, which I had scene growing long 

 before : I desired of him to know the name of it, he told me that 

 it was called Mill-mountain, and he also told me that beeing at 

 Doctour Lake his house at Saint Crosse a mile from Winchester, 

 seeing a man of his have this hearbe in his hand, he desired the 

 name ; hee told him as before, and also the use of it, which is 

 this. 



Take a handfuU of Mill-mountaine, the whole plant, leaves, seedes, 

 flowers and all, bruise it and put it in a small tunne or pipkin of 

 a pinte filled with white Wine, and set in on the embers to infuse 

 all night, and drinke that wine in the morning fasting, and hee 

 said it would give eight or tenne stooles. This Doctour Lake 



