﻿BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 109 



A Cheshire plant, which Capt. A. H. Wolley Dod has gathered 



for some two or three seasons, and of which he kindly sent me 

 specimens for inspection, must be placed here ; and the Eev. W. M. 

 Eogers so entirely agrees with my suggestion that he combines it 

 with my var. criniger, from which it scarcely differs in any other 

 characters than the less hairy stem with a greater abundance of 

 glandular bristles and acicles. 



There are other forms connected with R. Gelertii which may 

 have to be placed under it ; but I restrict myself in this notice of 

 the species to those forms which I have myself seen growing. 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 

 IV. — Henry Mundy and the Shamrock. 

 While engaged in collecting material for a paper on the earlier 

 literature of the Shamrock, I happened to light on the following 

 paragraph in the first edition of Linmeus 's Flora Lapponica 

 (p. 221) : — " Hiberni suo Chambroch, quod est Trifolium pratense 

 purpureum, aluntur, celeres et promptissimi roboris. Mund. diat. 

 125. conficiunt enim panem e floribus hujus plant® melleum 

 odorem spirantibus, qui magis placet, quam qui ex Spergula 

 paratur." 



As the opening sentence in this passage agrees almost verbatim 

 with John Bay's account of the Shamrock in his Historia Plantarum 

 (i. 944), and this work is amongst those used by Linnaus in the 

 preparation of his Lapland Flora, it seemed at first sight tolerably 

 clear that the great Swede had borrowed directly from his English 

 precursor. But the reference, " Mund. diat. 125," apparently pointed 

 to some other source, while the circumstantial details as to the 

 process of making bread from the clover flowers "breathing a 

 honeyed odour" were undoubtedly not drawn from the English 

 writer, nor indeed from any other of the earlier herbalists and 

 botanists and historians who make mention of the Shamrock. 

 All efforts, however, to discover the work or author referred to by 

 this mysterious Mund. dicet. were in vain. 



I was on the point of abandoning the search, when it was 

 suggested to me by my friend Mr. A. G. More that I should appeal 

 for aid to Prof. Fries at Upsala. He at once sent me a courteous 

 reply, fully clearing up the difficulty, and furnishing me with a 

 valuable bibliography of the work quoted by his illustrious pre- 

 decessor in the Upsala chair of Botany. Henry Mundy is the 

 writer referred to by Linnasus under the contraction " Mund. diat. 

 125"; and the passage cited is from page 125 of the Frankfurt 

 (1685) edition of his work : Commmtarii de Aere vitali, Esculentis ac 

 Pottdentis (Oxford, 1680). This work appears to be largely a 

 treatise on vegetable foods, and Mundy, from the tenour of the 

 passage on p. 125, kindly transcribed for me in extenso by Prof. 

 Fries, seems to have been an ardent vegetarian. Opening with a 



