76 JOHN GOODYER 



wealth of Cheddar Gorgfe. This towerins: Hmestone mass 

 and the adjoining Downs, rising to a height of over 

 300 feet, overlook the tidal Avon in so picturesque a 

 fashion that Clifton's river scenery will ever be famous.^ 



And if they are a Nature reserve now, what a paradise 

 these rocks must have been in the days of Lobel and 

 Goodyer when they were clothed with ' millions ' of ferns. 



The father of English botany, William Turner, dis- 

 covered Trinia or Honewort here. It is one of the 

 choicest indigenous plants in England and of great local 

 interest. In 1562 he recorded ' Peucedaimm ... I found 

 a root of it at Saynt Vincentis rock a little from Bristow '. 



The next visitor, L'Obel, found the ' Mules Fern ' about 

 1569. Gerard 'spent two dales upon the Rocks to seeke 

 for Meum ', which had been reported to him as growing 

 there, probably in mistake for Trinia. In 1634 Johnson 

 and his ' socii itinerantes ' guided by John Price, a jovial 

 apothecary of Bristol, directed their steps to the famous 

 Rocks and the precipitous cliffs commanding the banks 

 of the Avon. It is no wonder that Goodyer was drawn 

 thither also. 



And he was rewarded by finding a species new to the 

 British flora, the Welsh Spiked Speedwell {Veronica hybj'ida 

 L.), which he called 'Veronica recta mas, Lob. Ger., vulgaris 

 recta Clus.' It is the same as the * Great Speed-well or 

 Fluellin. Found at Saint Vincents Rocke by Master 

 Goodyer'.- White" states that it is still abundant on the 

 more inaccessible ledges of the rocks, and occasionally 

 strays on to the riverside masonry below. It is the most 

 beautiful of our native Veronicas, and in the Avon gorge 

 often grows twice as large as on the Great Orme's Head in 

 North Wales. 



He verified the occurrence of the Tutsan {Hypcricnni 

 Androsaemum L.), already recorded by Lobel {1570), Lyte 

 (1578), and Johnson (1634), Dropwort, and Trinia, and 



' White, Flora, 191 2. 



^ Johnson, Mercuriiis, pars altera, 1641. ^ Flora, p. 463 (1912). 



