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Of the Goose Tree, Barnacle Tree, or the Tree Bearing Geese: Roses

LIB. 3. 181. It is remarkable that Gerard should have described no more than a dozen Roses. Some of those mentioned in his Garden Catalogue, which mostly appear in the Herbal with names amended by Johnson, are identified by the Editor of the Catalogue as follows: "English White Rose," Rosa arvensis, "The Red Rose," R. gallica, the "Damaske Rose," R. provincialis, the "Great Holland Rose," R. centifolia, with the "Province Rose" as a probable variety. 182. Gerard cultivated the Sweetbriar (R. eglanteria) and its double variety. In this chapter he also described the British wild "Rosa Pimpinella, the Burnet Rose," or the "Rose bearing apples," R. spinosissima. 184. In contrast to the few Roses he seems to have known above forty plants as "Holly Roses or Cistus" and "Other Plants reckoned for dwarfe kindes of Cistus," and "Divers sorts of Cistus whereof that gummy matter is gathered in shops, Ladanum." The old Linnean genus Cistus is now limited to certain large-flowered species none of which is British, but include the familiar Gum-Cistuses of gardens. The note on the English Cistus "called of Lobel Panax Chironium" recalls the wonderful tales told of Ginseng, Panax quinquefolium, native of North America, and of China where from time out of mind it has been gathered as the plant of the universal elixir. Travellers say that Ginseng enters into every medicine used by Tartars and Chinese, and that physicians have written volumes on its healing powers. 185. Rosemary is supposed to have been imported to England from southern Europe in Gerard's day. 186. The "Blacke Worts" described is Vaccinium Myrtillus (Bilberry, Blaeberry, or Whortleberry); the "Red Worts" is V. Vitis-idaea (Cowberry). 187. The "Mosse" is Lichen plicatus. 188. The myth of the Barnacle Tree goes back to remote ages, associated with the question whether the Barnacle Goose is flesh, fish or neither. In the twelfth century Giraldus Cambrensis entered his protest against the eating of the geese in Lent, and argued that if a person were to eat the leg of Adam, who was not born of flesh, he could not be judged innocent of eating flesh. Pope Pius II. was anxious to see the Goose-tree when on his travels, but was told that it was to be found in the Orkney Isles alone. Hector Boece in his history and chronicles of Scotland (1536) favoured the theory that the geese grew on boughs which had fallen into the sea, and would have nothing to do with the story told by rude and ignorant people who had seen the fruit falling and changing into geese. Sebastian Munster in his "Cosmographie," 1572, describes the tree with faith. A great cloud of witnesses was marshalled by Gasper Schott in his "Physica Curiosa" of 1662, and in 1677 a paper was read on the subject before the Royal Society, and afterwards published. Illustrations of the tree are found in several works; Aldrovandus in his "Aldrovandi Ornithologia" gave a woodcut of the tree and fruit; l'Obel's "Stirpium Historia" (1571) shows the tree without the geese. Gerard's credence in the myth was shared by William Turner. Gerard's opinions were unsettled to some extent; while he introduced the Goose-tree as a tree, he spoke of the geese springing from decayed wood. Johnson gravely related that some Hollanders had found "another originall" for the geese than barnacles, for in voyaging to find the North-East passage to China they came to some islands on one of which were abundance of the geese sitting on their eggs. Perhaps it is characteristic of our Author that his last words may be taken in two senses, but we shall echo the valediction as a thank-offering for that he lived to see "Finis" crowning his work.