DESCRIPTIONS OF PLANTS 171 



ye fashion of other cinckfoyles nicket about ye edges, of a mealish 

 greene colour above and whitish underneath, ye 5 leaves not 

 growing on the very upper parte of the footstalk like ye other 

 cinckfoyles, but 1 of them growinge lower about a quarter of an 

 ynch from y^ 3 which growe at the extreme part, y** flowers 

 I observed not. The root creapeth in y^ water & mire, besett with 

 thousand of very small haires, thicker & smaller then the haires 

 of ones head. — MS. f. 10 v. 



[Roughly drafted descriptions on back of Laurence Davis' letter 

 of 9 Nov. 1621.] 



? \c. 1620-1622.] 



round buttons or knapps, as bigge or little bigger then the 

 pease wherein in each button is 2, 3 or 4 3-winded seeds almost 

 as bigg as Radish seed. The root is small white, single and 

 groweth downright, with a fewe threddie shoots with side branches. 

 Both herbe and root doe perish at winter. — Fragment of a 

 description, MS. f. 1 1 v. 



'Capon's Tail Grass.' Not Festuca Mytiriis L.^ 

 Gramen dX^KTpvowpo^. Alectryonurum. 10 Feb. 1622 



[Mentioned with date but without locality. — MS. f. 54.] 

 Gramen murorum spica longissima. 



' I cannot omit this elegant Grasse, found by M. Goodyer upon 

 the wals of the antient city of Winchester, and not described as yet 

 by any that I know of. It hath a fibrous and stringy root, from 

 which arise leaves long and narrow, which growing old become 

 round as those of Sparttim or Mat-weed : amongst these grassie 

 leaves there growes up a slender stalke some two foot long, scarce 

 standing upright, but oft times hanging down the head or top of 

 the eare : it hath some two ioints, and at each of these a pretty 

 grassy leafe. The eare is almost a foot in length, composed of 

 many small and slender hairy tufts, which when they come to 

 maturitie looke of a grayish or whitish colour, and do very well 

 resemble a Capons taile ; whence my friend, the first observer 

 thereof, gave it the title of Gratnen AXeKrpvovovpos, or Capons-taile 

 Grasse: by which name I received the seed thereof, which sowen, 

 tooke root, and flourishes". (Johnson) — Gc7'. emac. pp. 30, 29. 



* The correctness of the determination of this grass as Festuca Mytirus L, by 

 Druce is doubted by D. Stapf. 



