ELIZABETHAN GARDEN LITERATURE 155 



botanists of the day — Clusius, Gesner, Turner, Lobel, Gerard, 

 etc. He must have been well known at the time by the way 

 in which he is referred to by these writers, although his name 

 is now remembered by few. Gerard speaks of him as " Thomas 

 Pennie, of London, Doctor of Physic, of famous memorie and 

 a second Dioscorides for his singular knowledge of Plants, . . . 

 lately deceased . . . whose death myself and many others do 

 greatly bewail." Johnson refers to him in the same way : " Of 

 famous memorie, a good physician and skilfull Herbalist." He 

 was the introducer of several plants, and was the first to find 

 some of our native species. Clusius named Hypericum haleari- 

 cum " Pennaei " after him, as he brought it first from Majorca. 

 Geranium tuberosum was also called after him. This plant 

 was brought to England by Turner, who " bestowed it on 

 Dr. Penny," from whom Clusius received it. 



Other writers on gardening of about this time have been 

 quoted already, but little is known of their lives beyond what 

 can be gathered»from their works. William Lawson, who treats 

 of orchards and fruit-trees, was a North-countryman, and wrote 

 from his own experience. Thomas Hill, or Didymus Mountain, 

 as he sometimes styled himself, published several works, which 

 he did not profess to have composed, but " gathered out of the 

 best-approved writers of gardening, Husbandrie and Physic."^ 

 The names even of some have not been handed down, such as 

 N. F., the author of a good treatise on fruit in 1608 and i6og, 

 who cannot be identified. The initials do not correspond to 

 any of the many names quoted by other writers, unless 

 Fowle, mentioned by Gerard as the " skilful keeper " of 

 Queen Elizabeth's garden at St. James, and famous for the 

 musk-melons he grew there, had a Christian name beginning 

 with N. 



^ Gardener's Labyrinth, 1594. 



