AN OLD HERBAL 31 



is the fact that shortly after its publication in 1542 it 

 must have come into the possession of an English 

 botanist, who proceeded to write beneath the folio 

 engraving of each species the English equivalent of the 

 Latin and German names. The handwriting almost 

 certainly belongs to the sixteenth century, and was the 

 work of a skilled scribe. It possesses considerable dis- 

 tinction of style, and was written either with a reed-pen 

 or with a broad-nibbed quill. From these English 

 synonyms we get at first hand a knowledge of the 

 popular names of many British plants in the reign of 

 Queen Elizabeth. It is interesting to find that, in a 

 large number of instances, the names remain unchanged. 

 At first sight they may appear strange to us, in their 

 singular " court-hand " dress and sixteenth-century 

 orthography, but we soon recognise some well-known 

 friends. Thus, to mention but a few instances, we meet 

 with bryorye (bryony), mugewort (mugwort), mader 

 (madder), borage, maretayll (mare's tail), betonye, 

 penye wort (pennywort), mother worte (motherwort), 

 sanicle, great and little cellandyne (celandine), gots 

 berde (goafs-beard), hensbayne or cowebayne (hen- 

 bane), fewmetrye (fumitory), eivye (ivy), spurge, 

 houndstonge, wodebynde (woodbine) and many other 

 familiar names. 



But perhaps a deeper interest is attached to those 

 sixteenth-century names of British plants which have 

 now become obsolete among us. The yellow flag, so 

 common on the banks of our streams and ditches, is 

 called the " gladyon," and its first cousin, the blue iris, 

 " the blewe flore de lyis." The great hellebore, which 

 still flourishes at Selborne, is known, as it was to Gilbert 

 White, as " the berefot " (bear's foot). Colymbine is 



