The book owes much of its charm to its vivid descriptions of the plants, and the fascinating and unexpected details he gives us about them. The comparison of dodder, for instance, to "a great red harpe strynge," is a happy touch which it is impossible to forget. "Doder groweth out of herbes and small bushes as miscelto groweth out of trees. Doder is lyke a great red harpe strynge and it wyndeth about herbes foldyng mych about them and hath floures and knoppes one from an other a good space.... The herbes that I have marked doder to growe most in are flax and tares." These accurate observations and careful descriptions are characteristic of the writer, and recall similar touches in the Saxon herbals. For example, he records that the stamens of the Madonna lily have a different smell from the flower itself, and that the berries of the bay tree are almost, but not quite, round. There is only space to quote the following:-- "The lily hath a long stalk and seldom more than one, howbeit it hath somtyme II. It is II or III cubites hyghe. It hath long leves and somthyng of the fashion of the great satyrion. The flour is excedyng white and it hath the forme or fashion of a long quiver, that is to say, smal at the one end and byg at the other. The leves of the floures are full of crestes, and the overmost ends of the leves bowe a little backwarde and from the lowest parte within come forth long small yelow thynges lyke thredes of another smelle than the floures are of. The roote is round and one pece groweth hard to another allmoste after the maner of the roote of Garleke, but that the clowes in the lily are broder." "The leaves of the Bay tree are alwayes grene and in figure and fashion they are lyke unto periwincle. They are long and brodest in the middest of the lefe. They are blackishe grene namely when they are olde. They are curled about the edges, they smell well. And when they are casten into the fyre they crake wonderfully. The tre in England is no great tre, but it thryveth there many partes better and is lustier than in Germany. The berries are allmoste round but not altogether. The kirnell is covered with a thick black barke which may well be parted from the kirnell." "Blewbottel groweth in ye corne, it hath a stalke full of corners, a narrow and long leefe. In the top of the stalke is a knoppy head whereupon growe bleweflowers about midsummer. The chylder use to make garlandes of the floure. It groweth much amonge Rye wherefore I thinke that good ry in an evell and unseasonable yere doth go out of kinde in to this wede."