ELIZABETHAN GARDEN LITERATURE 
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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 baleari- 
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.” 1 
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 1609, 
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. 
1 Gardener's Labyrinth, 1594. 
