PAR 
PAR'KI, a town of Bengal: thirty-two miles north 
of Ramgur. 
PAR'KINSON (John), a celebrated old Enghfli herb- 
alift, was born in 1567, and bred up as a London apo¬ 
thecary. He is mentioned by his contemporaries as a man 
of eminence in his profeflion, and was at length appointed 
apothecary to king James I. Charles I. afterwards con¬ 
ferred upon him the title of Botanicus Regius Primarius. 
A great fliare of his attention, during a long life, was de¬ 
voted to the ftudy of plants. He had a garden well ftored 
with rarities, and he bellowed equal notice upon the cu- 
riofities of the flower-garden, in all their luxuriant Pro¬ 
teus-like varieties, and on the native productions of his 
own and other countries, embracing their literary hiftory, 
as well as their practical inveftigation. 
His firft publication was his “ Paradifi in Sole Paradifus 
terrejlris-, or, a choice Garden of all Sorts of rareft Flowers, 
&c. to which is annexed a Kitchen Garden, &c.” This 
was printed at London, anno 1629, in a folio of 612 
pages. A fecond edition, “much corrected and enlarged,” 
appeared in 1656, after the deceafe of the author. Both 
editions are dedicated “ to the Queen’s moft excellent Ma- 
jefly,” which could hardly have been, as Dr. Pulteney 
fuppofed. Queen Elizabeth; but rather the Queen of 
Charles I. About a thoufand plants, either fpecies or 
varieties, are defcribed in this book, of which 780 are 
figured in wood-cuts, partly copied from Cluiius and 
Lobel, partly original, but all of them coarfe and ftiff, 
though fometimes exprefiive. Numerous remarks are 
interfperfed, refpeCling the botanical hiftory or medical 
virtues of the plants, as w'ell as their culture ; but the 
latter fubjeCl is, for the moft part, given in the intro¬ 
ductory chapters, which difplay no fmall degree of in¬ 
telligence and experience. This book affords a very 
correCt and a very refpeCtable idea of the gardens of our 
anceftors at the time it was written; and has been 
confidered, by the learned authors of the Hortus Kew- 
enfis, unequivocal authority as to the time when any 
particular fpecies was introduced or cultivated among us. 
The florift and the kitchen-gardener will find fome pro¬ 
ductions recorded which have fince difappeared ; and, 
though our kitchen-gardens had not arrived at fuch lux¬ 
uriant perfection or variety as they afterwards attained 
in king William’s days, and have fince preferved, there 
is reafon to think the fcience of horticulture declined 
confiderably after the time of Parkinfon, previous to its 
reftoration at the end of the 17th century. As to the 
botanic garden, Dr. Pulteney remarks, from an invefti¬ 
gation of the Paradifus Terreftris, that “ intertropical 
productions had, at this period, been but fparingly im¬ 
ported. The real ftove-plants are very rare throughout 
the book. There are fome American fpecies, and par¬ 
ticularly from Virginia, as being a part of that continent 
with which England had the moft frequent intercourfe. 
But the principal productions of the Englifh gardens 
were exotic European and Grecian plants, fome Afiatic, 
and a few from the northern coafts of Africa.” It is no 
fmall praife to the work before us, that the late Mr. 
Curtis held it in particular eftimation. He always cites 
it in his Magazine with peculiar pleafure and refpeCt; 
giving many a fpecimen of the old writer’s amufing 
quaintnefs, whilft he enriches us with his information. 
In 1640 our author publiftied his principal work, the 
“ Tkeatrum Botanicum ; or Theatre of Plants, or an Her¬ 
bal of large extent; &c.” This is a ponderous folio of 
1746 pages, with innumerable wood-cuts. This work 
and the Herbal of Gerard were the two main pillars of 
botany in England till the time of Ray, who indeed gave 
them frefti importance by his continual reference to their 
contents. Thefe volumes were difperfed throughout the 
country, one or other, or both, being the inexhauftible 
refource of all who had any love for plants, or any in- 
tereft in enquiring into their qualities. The benevolent 
country divine, the lady of the manor, the village-doCtor, 
and the humble herb-gatherer employed in the fervice of 
PAR f?07 
all the reft, confulted Gerard or Parkinfon, as they would 
have confulted their Bibles, and with little lefs implicit 
confidence. Of thefe two writers it is juftly obferved, that 
Parkinfon was by far the moft original and the moft 
copious; but, his cuts being of vaftly inferior merit to 
thofe admirable ones, prepared for Conrad Gefner, with 
which Gerard had the means of adorning his publication, 
the latter has greatly prevailed in popularity, as a book 
of reference. It is indeed chiefly for the figures that w'e 
now cite thefe works. Nice diftindtions of fpecies, or 
any difcrimination between fpecies and varieties, are not 
to be expected ; ftill lefs, any ideas of claflification or 
fcientific arrangement worthy a moment’s confideration. 
Parkinfon is much more original than Gerard in his de- 
fcriptions, and more particular in his indications of the 
places of growth ; he is alfo very learned and critical in 
hisfynonymy, and, above all, in the medical part of his 
fubjedt. It is not to be wondered at if thefe great works 
contain fome hundreds of repetitions, when we confider 
how obfcurely many plants had been defcribed and figured 
by previous authors; infomuch that it was, in many 
cafes, next to impoflible to difcover whether a given plant 
had been defcribed before. Parkinfon, however, is en¬ 
titled to fuperior praife on this head, having taken all 
poflible pains to avoid fuch miltakes, by his deep ftudy 
of fy nony ms. Some papers of Lobel are faid to have fallen 
into the hands of Parkinfon, after the death of the former 
which proved of ufe to his undertaking; but it does not 
appear that he implicitly confided in fuch, any more 
than in previoufly-printed authorities, without a due in- 
veltigation ; and therefore they became in fome meafure 
his own. 
The time of Parkinfon’s deceafe is not known ; but he 
appears to have been living when his Herbal was pub¬ 
liftied, in 1640, at which period he was, if Dr. Pulteney’s 
date of his birth be correct, 73 years old. Nothing is re¬ 
corded of his family. Some copies of his Paradifus have 
an engraved portrait of the author, done in his 6 2 d year, 
and there is a fmall oval one in the title-page of his Herbal. 
Pulteney's Sketches of Botany in England. 
PARKINSO'NIA, J. [fo named by Plumier, in me¬ 
mory of the fubjedt of the preceding article.] In botany, 
a genus of the clafs decandria, order monogynia, na¬ 
tural order of lomentaceae, (leguminofas, Juff.f Generic 
Characters—Calyx : perianthium one-leafed ; at the bafe 
bell-fliaped flattilh, permanent; border five-parted ; feg- 
ments lanceolate-ovate, acute, coloured, reflex, almoft 
equal, deciduous. Corolla : petals five, with claws, 
almoft equal, fpreading very much, ovate ; the loweft 
kidney-form ; claw upright, very long. Stamina : fila¬ 
ments ten, awl-fliaped, villofe below, declined. Anthers 
oblong, incumbent. Piftillum : germen round, long, 
declined ; fty-le filiform, rifing, the length of the ftamens ; 
ftigma blunt. Pericarpium : legume very long, round, 
fwelling over the feeds, (whence it is necklace-form,) 
acuminate. Seeds feveral, one to each joint of the 
legume, oblong, fubcylindric, blunt.— EJfential Ckaratter. 
Calyx five-cleft; petal five, ovate ; the loweft kidney- 
form ; ftyle none ; legume necklace-form. 
Parkinfonia acuieata, or prickly parkinfonia, a Angle 
fpecies. It is a fmall tree, with a trunk ten or twelve feet 
high, unarmed, even: branches long,fubdivided, flexuofe, 
prickly. Leaves alternate, in fours from the fame bud, 
pinnate, very long, linear; leaflets extremely fmall, on 
very fliort petioles, ovate, fmooth. Racemes terminating 
and axillary, folitary, ftiorter than the leaves, ereft, 
eight to ten, many-flowered. Flowers alternate, flut¬ 
tered, yellow, on long peduncles ; calyx five-leaved, in- 
ferted into a bell-fliaped receptacle : four of the petals 
ovate, with fliort claws ; the fifth or uppermoft as it 
were pedicelied, roundifli, with blood-red ftreaks at the 
bafe : all waved and curled; anthers purple : feeds 
brown, fmooth. 
Jacquin defcribes it as a very elegant tree, with the 
bark both of trunk and branches remaining a long time 
6 green 
