234 PENNY 



i. Thomas Penny, c. 1530-89. 



Thomas Penny, M.D., of Trinity College, Cambridge, B.A. 1551, 

 F.R.C.P. 1582, contributed to a natural history of Insects, which, 

 begun by Edward Wotton and amplified with extracts from 

 Conrad Gesner, was finally completed by Thomas Mufifett of 

 Oxford. Mufifett died in 1604, leaving the book in manuscript. 

 It was eventually published in 1634 by Sir Theodore de Mayerne. 



Penny's botanical reputation has been rescued ' from an almost 

 total obscurity' by Pulteney, who points him out as *A second 

 Dioscorides, for his singular knowledge in plants '. He had resided 

 in Switzerland and had visited the island of Majorca. He was 

 personally acquainted with Gesner, Camcrarius, and Clusius. From 

 Majorca he brought Geranium tnberostun, Szvertia pereimis, and 

 Hypeviaim baleariciim, which Clusius named ' Myrtocistus Pennaei ' 

 in his honour.^ Clusius^ in 1583 thanked him for a drawing of 

 Cniais heteropJiyllus Roth., sent in 1581, and noted '^ his discovery 

 of CoriiHs sicecica L. in the Cheviots. We have Mount's statement 

 that he grew Acortis Calaimcs in his London garden before 1582, 

 Penny communicated the following plants to Camerarius, who 

 describes him as a leading London Physician ' rerum naturalium 

 peritissimus, amicus meus singularis '. Hort. vied. 1588, p. 36. 



Garyophyllata vulgaris or C. altera alpina with white flowers. Monte Lupo 

 in France. Getnn reptans L. 



Lactuca sylvestris ' odore prorsus Opii '. Lactuca virosa L. 



Matricaria tertia fl. pi. in Anglia frequens. Matricaria parthenium L. 



Rhodia radix. Ingleborrow. Seduvi Rhodiola DC. 



And Lobel, Adv. 367, associates ' Myrrhis altera ' {Myrrhis odorata 

 Scop.) with him. 



The mention of the name of Penny by How at a date subsequent 

 to 1650 in an erased passage quoted on p. 280 is of importance, 

 because it may throw new light on his botanical MSS. Pulteney's 

 account of the matter is that ' Dr. Penny died in 1589, and is said 

 by Jungerman to have left his papers to Moufet and Turner ; but, 

 in this account, there is surely a very striking anachronism since 

 Turner himself died in the year 1568'. It is clear, therefore, that 

 Penny's zoological MS. on Insects went to Mufifett, and that his 

 botanical MSS. could not have gone to William, but to some other 

 Turner. As a possibility, a man who would have valued them 

 would have been the well-known astrological botanist, RORERT 



' Ger. emac. 434, 946, 1279. "^ Stirp. Pannofi. Hist. 1583. 



' Rar. Plant. Hist. i. 59, 1 60 1. 



