At the age of 24 he had already acquired a botanical library 
and through a long life, amidst the distractions of warring Roy- 
alist and Puritan, he accumulated notes on plants and on garden- 
ers and botanists, generally written on odd scraps of paper. On 
his death in 1664, his books and papers were bequeathed to 
Magdalen College, Oxford. Mr. R. T. Gunther, Librarian and 
Fellow of the College, has now deciphered and collated them, 
and, with much other previously unpublished information, has 
made them into a most interesting volume on English botany and 
English botanists of the seventeenth century. 
The serious student will find here a mine of knowledge as to 
the nomenclature of plants before Linnaeus and will be surprised 
at the modernity of many of the names and descriptions. Those 
who take pride in the achievements of England will rejoice to 
note in how serious and scientific a spirit this branch of knowl- 
edge was pursued before the foundation of the Royal Society, in 
a period usually passed over briefly in botanical treatises based 
chiefly on German research. There were many stately gardens in 
which exotic plants were tended for their beauty or for their 
culinary or medicinal virtues, and to the contents of these, as 
well as to the flowers and trees of the wayside, Goodyer and his 
friends devoted a zealous and instructed attention. 
The general reader will find much that is curious and instruc- 
tive. Goodyer introduced the Jerusalem artichoke as a vegetable 
in this country. The globe artichoke was already known, but in 
1617 he received of the new plant "two small rootes from Master 
Franquevill of London, no bigger than eggs, the one I planted, 
the other I gave to a friend, mine brought me a peck of rootes 
wherewith I stored Hampshire." He was acquainted with 
' ' Potatoes of Virginia, ' ' although he does not seem to have culti- 
vated them. On the other hand he described as "common 
potatoes" what are now known as sweet potatoes, Ipomoea 
Batatas. He saw them growing in the garden of his brother-in- 
law at Sheet and recognized them as Batata Hispanorum, 
which "could be purchased at the Exchange in London, and were 
liable to be killed by the first frosts." He added that "howsoever 
they be dressed, they comfort, nourish and strengthen the body, 
procuring bodily lust, and that with greedinesse. " 
The cataloguing of the Goodyer Library drew Mr. Gunther 's 
attention to a number of neglected old printed garden lists. He 
reprints a 1634 catalog of plants grown by John Tradescant in 
his Lambeth garden. It is surprising to find that no fewer than 
48 named varieties of apple, 49 of pears and an even num- 
ber of plums, as well as many varieties of cherries and peaches, 
and several of apricots and nectarines flourished there. In some 
cases the date of ripening, and descriptive notes are given. — 
Ee-printed from The Loudon Times. 
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