90 JOHN GOODYER 



In 1654 we have evidence of the return of Goodyer to 

 his old love, field botany. There is the short note 

 ' Behen album . . . Rotherwort 5 Maij i'^>.54'- 



And there is an interesting description of a station where 

 ' Dryopteris Tragi ' used to be found.' 



' It growes on a bottome called Rogers Dcane in y'^ parish of 

 Faringdon in Hampshire^ about a mile and halfe from y^ church, 

 a furlong from one John Trybes dwelling-house on y*" north-east 

 part of y^ hoUse about 2 miles from Alton above a mile north-east 

 from Dogford Wood. Great antient beeches kept y'^ sunne from 

 shining on y'= Plants. Anno 1654 many of those trees were cut 

 downe. The Plants y*-' sunne shoane on y" summer 54 were short 

 y*" leaves growing on short stemms neere y^ earth, as Tabernae- 

 mont pictureth it, pag. 501, torn. 2, under y"" title oi Filicula petraea 

 fern. 3. Those y* grew under y« trees were much higher agreable 

 to Tragus' figure pag. 538.' 



In the beginning of August 1654 he recorded a new 

 Crane's bill {Geranium cohimbinum) in his native county.^ 

 The Rubia sylvestris described by him on 12 August 

 1655, if it be the Wild Madder {R. peregrina L.), is of 

 historical interest because of its having been one of the 

 first Hampshire plants to be recorded by our first botanist. 

 William Turner, more than a century previously, wrote of 

 it, ' The most that ever I saw is in the Isle of Wight, but the 

 fairest and greatest that ever I saw groweth in the lane 

 besyde Wynchester, in the way to Southampton '. It is 

 now very rare on the mainland, but that is where Goodyer 

 may have found it. 



His botanical labours in the field were almost done. We 

 only note two occasions in the last ten years of his life on 

 which he may possibl)' have left home and herborized. 



Again, the summer of 1656 he found the Marsh 

 Isnardia {Ludwigia apetala Walter), ' Holosteum perpusil- 

 lum ', which he had previously observed near Holburie 



' In Goodyer MS. 9, under Pin. 358, there is a note 'Dryopteris Tragi, 

 17 Aug. 1650, J. Ci. first saw it'. 



''■ Morison, in ignorance of (loodyer's discovery, attributed this species to 

 Jacob liobart in 1C80. The plant should be called Goodyer' s long cut Crane's 

 bill rather than ' I^obarts long cut Crane's bill '. 



