62 JOHN GOODYER 



G illy- flowers, Roses, Musk- Roses, &c.), doth not make 

 them Double ' } 



The idea of the sudden appearance of a new species as 

 a Mutation would have been quite familiar to Goodyer. 

 We have already quoted a passage ^ (under 1620) in which 

 he put forward a theory, as worthy of consideration, that 

 the seed of Sweet r^Iarjoram might degenerate and send 

 forth Acinos odoratissinium. 



Francis Bacon, seven years later, accepted the possibility 

 of such a change, and suggested an experiment for the 

 Transmutation of Flowers, ' The second rule shall be 

 to bury some few seeds of the herb you would change, 

 amongst other Seeds ; And then you shall see whether the 

 juyce of those other seeds doe not so qualify the Earth, as 

 it will alter the seed, whereupon you worke. As for 

 Example . . . put Basill-seed amongst Thyme-seed, and see 

 the change of taste, or otherwise.' "^ The effect of a chancre 

 of environment was illustrated by the classical instance of 

 Lobel,* who sowed ' Papaver nigrum' in Somersetshire 

 and found it to come up changed ' by the sport of Nature 

 and metamorphosis' into ' Papaver album'/ And in 1632 

 Goodyer found what was believed to be an instance of the 

 partial change of an ear of wheat into oats. Our modern 

 knowledge of the possibilities of plant-breeding will of 

 course not permit us to believe in his explanation of the 

 phenomenon : he was probably misled by some monstrosity 

 in the ear, but the record is of value as showing the frame 

 of mind in which these early botanists tried to describe 

 honestly what they saw. A later generation would have 

 cast the thing aside as being 'against nature' and not 

 worth a serious thought. Johnson records it as 'a rare 



' Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 513. 1627. Here the word ' flower' is used in different 

 senses, first as a bloom, secondly as a plant. Bacon's science was occasionally 

 muddled. 



' Ger. einac. 65. ^ Bacon, /. (•. § 527. 



^ Lobel, OJJicitia Phannaceutices Rondellet, 1605, p. yj. 



'" A change of colour from blue or yellow to white in the case of Wild Succory 

 and Moth Mullein was attributed by Merrctt to a change to a poor soil. Piiiax, 

 Epistle to reader, i6th page. 1667. 



