DESCRIPTIONS OF PLANTS 173 



in a budd alone by them selves. Those that are conceived within ye 

 leaves come forth together with them, and growe at the ioynt stoppe 

 or knott betweene the last yeres twigge and the newe shoot, some- 

 times on the lower part of the newe shoot, those that are conceived 

 by themselves, soe come forth without any leaves or shoot, and 

 these growe by the sides of y^ last yeres shoot. This cachrys is 

 composed of small yealowish crudled bunches or clusters grow- 

 inge a little asunder, on a footstalk about 2 ynches longe, 3 or 4 

 forth of one budd, and some wither and fall away, seldome continu- 

 inge above a weeke or two. When there are plentie of these 

 cachryes, it is a signe there will followe good store of Acornes. 



9 Maii. Forth of the bosomes of the leaves on the newe shoot 

 corne forth small foot stalks on y® toppes whereof growe 2 or 3 or 

 more very small redd flowers : ech flower beinge no bigger then 

 a small pinnes head, and devided into 3 ptes (not worth the 

 name of leves) at the toppe, in the place whereof cometh uppe 

 the Acornes. 



4 Maii. In the springe when the leaves first beginn to come 

 forth there often groweth from the topps and sides of the last 

 yeres shootes certaine swellinges as bigge as little aples, not alto- 

 gether round but bunched out here and there, reddish on that part 

 towards the sunne, contayninge an austere or harsh spongie matter 



of conifers, for catkins, and for the winter buds of the deciduous trees. Though 

 much used by the early botanists, it appears to have dropped out of use at the 

 end of the seventeenth century, and is not even included in many later lists of 

 technical words. Fuchs in 1542, in his Explicatio of difficult words, defined the 

 term as follows: 



Cachryes sunt oblonga panicularum modo nucamenta, quae squamatim 

 compacta propendent e ramis. Crescunt hyeme, vere dehiscunt in flavescentes 

 squamulas, et folio prodeunte, decidunt : qualia in abiete, picea et aliis permultis 

 videre licet. Plinius pillulas nominat. — Fuchs, Hist. Stirp. f. /3 3. 



' The Birch, the Nut, the Walnut, and the Plane Tree have on them things 

 in Greek called Cachryes in English Catkines or Catstailes, if I mistake not 

 which are there the most part of the winter. They are of a burning quality 

 in Physick' (Coles, Art of Simpling, 1656). And this is the meaning given in 

 the New English Dictionary. According to Parkinson (1642) Cachrys is the 

 fifteenth ' Excrescence of the Oke '. It was borrowed from Theophrastus iii. 7 

 to mean ' a round conception or gathering together of leaves, growing betweene 

 the last yeares shoote, and the young bud for the next to come '. And they are 

 borne on ' the Firre tree. Larch, Pitch, Line, Nut, and Plane trees ' as well as on 

 the Oak, all of which ' doe beare a Cachrys alter the leaves are falne, abiding 

 on all the winter'. Elsewhere he defines it as ' a scaly tuft of leaves growing in 

 winter, and falling away, say some, in the Spring : but others think that it is but 

 the bud, which spreadeth into branches with leaves after Winter, when the 

 Spring is come on '.(Park. Theatriun, 882). 



