1862.] BOTANICAL NOTES, NOTICES, AND QUERIES. 191 



patate. La plante qui le produit appartient a la famille des gesses, et se 

 reconnatt a ses belles fleurs rouges de la forme de celle des pois." 



The author of the above paragraph intimates that the merits of Lathyrm 

 tuberosus have been strangely overlooked, especially in this age of mate- 

 rial progress, wherein so many successful efforts have been made to accli- 

 matize both foreign animals and plants. " The plant," he continues, 

 " grows spontaneously in our marly soils, terres argilo-calcares, and is 

 known in the environs of Paris as the Lorraine Truffle. It is the macajon 

 or maquehoii, relished by the village children, who follow the plough to 

 pick up these tubers and collect the roots. 



" This tuber has a milky, saccharine taste, with a whitish fecula, and in 

 the rural districts it is eaten raw ; but about Metz, Pont-a-Mousson, and 

 Langres they dress and sell it in the months of February, March and April. 

 It is more palatable than the potato, and infinitely more valuable than 

 the Batatas." The plant, as all our readers know, belongs to the Legiimini- 

 ferce, and is readily known from the yellow Meadow Vetchling by its 

 large, beautiful red flowers, which are about the size of a pea-blossom. 



Note. Will any of our correspondents who have the means make ex- 

 periments on the culture, produce, and economical importance of this 

 native British plant, which grows spontaneously in Essex, and, in Adam 

 Buddie's days, grew in Lincolnshire ; and will such be so kind as to send 



us the results'? ' .h"- " - — ., - 



I9J8Y.8 arjovtsn nwo \ia lo yRnii\zoi\ii amos os 



" John' PAHKii^soN,' ' thi; He^B At^isT. ' 



Sir, — I am desirous to obtain information relative to the family and 

 descendants (if any) of John Parkinson, the celebrated Herbalist. From 

 biographical dictionaries we learn little or nothing about him. The in- 

 scription round his portrait in the ' Paradisus ' proves him to have been 

 born in 1567. His arms are given at the bottom of it: On a chevron, 

 between three feathers, as many midlets, a martlet for difference. Felton 

 (on Portraits, p. 91) states that "he died about 1645, aged about seventy- 

 eight," but gives no authority for his statement. I am inclined to think 

 that he was born in Nottinghamshire. The martlet in the arras proves 

 him either a fourth son, or the descendant of one. His will, were it found, 

 would probably give the best information to be obtained ; but before one 

 can find it, the place of his death must be ascertained. 



George W. Marshall, LL.B. 



Ward-End House, Birmingham. 



Honey-Stalks of Shakspeare. 



Several plants bear the prefix Honey, viz. Melantlms, Honeyflower; 

 Cerinthe, Honey wort; Lonicera, Honeysuckle; but neither the great poet 

 above mentioned, nor anybody else, means by Honey-Stalks a plant, but 

 only part of a plant. "Baits to fish and honey-stalks to sheep" are not 

 of necessity entire animals or whole plants. 



Several plants exude something which becomes thick and clammy when 

 exposed to the air and heat. Sclerochloa fluitans is one ; when young, 

 we have often licked its stalks, and thought " there was nothing half so 

 sweet." We have often sucked the little saccharine juice at the base of 



