SOME ESSEX NATURALISTS 309
wrote "Early British Botanists", published in 1922, and
give a detailed account of Goodyer and his works. One of
the items mentioned is entitled :—
" Mr Coys his garden 24 and 25 March 1616-1617."
It lists some 200 species of plants growing at Stubbers,
and is, as far as is known, the oldest manuscript list of an
English garden in which the plants were given scientific
names. The original of this list is in Goodyer's handwriting.
Either Goodyer supplied the names or they were furnished
by William Coys. Subsequent lists in Goodyer's writing
relate to the plants grown at Stubbers, and are dated 1621
and 1622, and there is a list of seeds supplied to Goodyer
by William Coys and which, it seems, Goodyer grew in his
own garden in Hampshire.
In fairness it should be explained that these gifts of seeds
by Coys to Goodyer were not all on the one side. Goodyer,
in turn, supplied plants to Coys, and amongst them may be
mentioned the Jerusalem Artichoke, about which Goodyer
writes :—
" Where this plant groweth naturally I know not. In
1617 I received two small roots no bigger than hens' eggs;
the one I planted and the other I gave to a friend."
The friend was almost certainly Coys, for in his list of
plants he adds the note :—
" You had lately planted it when I was at your house,
25th March, 1617."
Goodyer goes on to describe the virtues of the Jerusalem
Artichoke and various ways of cooking it, but closing with
the following comments :—
"... but in my judgment which way soever they be
drest and eaten they stir and cause a filthy loathsome
stinking wind within the body, thereby causing the belly
to be pained and tormented and are a meat more fit for
swine, than men."
It was in 1620 that John Goodyer, whilst on a visit to
Stubbers, first noted a species of Elm which had not hither-
to been recorded for Britain. This Elm is today known as
the Smooth-leaved Elm Ulmus carpinifolia. Goodyer sup-
plied descriptions of the Elms to Thomas Johnson, who