Englands chiefeft Herbarift, Mafter 



fobn Tar^n/m. 





.\ THIS AGE of specialization, when more 

 and more seems to be written about less 

 and less and libraries are bursting with 

 the accumulated fruits of inan's scolar- 

 ship, it is sometimes pleasing to be re- 

 minded of a simpler and less cluttered 

 ^a<4C3Bp%m^ era. I had this experience recently 

 when, among books to be catalogued with titles such as 

 A Stereotaxic Atlas of the Brain of This and A Re- 

 vision OF THE Genus That, I came upon the Theatrum 

 BoTAMCXJM of John Parkinson, "Englands chiefest herbarist." 

 Here, in a thick, closely printed folio volume, was a com- 

 pendium of everything known on the subject to that time, 

 written clearly and tersely in English for both the profes- 

 sional and the non-professional alike. Here was the doctor's 

 "current therapy" and the layman's "home medical com- 

 panion," a flora, a materia medica, almost a phannaco- 

 poeia, leavened moreover with a vast range of classical 

 learning and considerable folk-lore. It was the author's 

 second book, published in his 73rd year, and has an inter- 

 esting history. 



\'ery little is known about Parkinson's life except that 

 he was born in 1567, that sometime before 1616 he was prac- 

 ticing as an apothecary, and that he cultivated a famous 

 garden, "well stored with rarities," in what is now the heart 

 of London. Such was his skill in his chosen profession that 

 he was appointed Apothecary to King James I. and re- 

 ceived, from his successor King Charles I., the title Botani- 

 cus Regius Primarius. He died in 1650. 



His first, and most popular, work was published in 1629 

 and bears the punning title Paradisi in Sole Paradisus 

 Terrestris (Park-in-sun's Earthly Paradise). It was more 

 of a horticultural work than an herbal, as its subtitle indi- 

 cates: "A Garden of all sorts of pleasant flowers which our 

 English ayre will permitt to be noursed up : with A Kitchen 

 earden of all manner of herbes, rootes, & fruites, for meate 

 or saiise used with us, and An Orchard of all sorte of fruit- 



bearing Trees and Shrubbes fit for our Land together with 

 the right orderinge planting & preserving of them, and their 

 uses & vertues." This was the first work of its kind of any 

 consequence to be published in England and provides a 

 complete picture of the English garden at the beginning of 

 the seventeenth century. Nearly 1 ,000 plants are described, 

 most of them exotics, and 780 illustrated. About 120 vari- 

 eties of tulip are mentioned, 50 hyacinths, 50 carnations, 

 and more than 40 "Flower de luces," or irises. There are 

 60 kinds of plums, as many apples and jaears, thirty cherries, 

 and more than 20 peaches. But despite its wide range the 

 work was incomplete in its three parts: the "Garden of 

 Pleasure," or flower garden, the vegetable garden, and the 

 orchard. A fourth part, a "Garden of Simples" (medicinal 

 plants), was lacking and the author promises in his preface 

 that it would be shordy forthcoming. 



Eleven years later, in 1 640, this part finally apf>eared as 

 Theatrum Botanicum: The Theater of Plants, or. An 

 Herball of a Large Extent. The delay in apjjearance 

 is attributed to "the disastrous times" and other hindrances 

 — possibly the cutting of the 2,600 wood-blocks. During 

 this time Parkinson's original intention, to supplement the 

 Par.'^disus with a treatise on medicinal herbs, grew into one 

 of a broader nature, to present in its totality the botanical 

 science of his day. 



The Theatrum Botanicum, according to one authority, 

 is the largest herbal in the English langviage and contains 

 descriptions of approximately 3,800 plants, 1,000 more than 

 are contained in one published seven years earlier. Its ar- 

 rangement is somewhat confused and is based primarily on 

 the real or supposed medicinal qualities of the plants de- 

 scribed. Parkinson divides his plants into 17 "Classes or 

 Tribes": 1. Sweete smelling Plants. 2. Purging Plants. 

 3. \'enemous. Sleepy, and Hurtfull Plants, and their Coun- 

 terpoysons. 4. Saxifrages, or Breakestone Plants. 5. Vul- 

 nerary or Wound Herbes. 6. Cooling and Succory-like 

 Herbes. 7. Hot and sharps biting Plants. 8. Umbellifer- 



Pagt2 DECEMBER 



