460 PEATTIE 



"There groweth also upon the Larch tree a sort of Mushrum or excresence, 

 not such as is upon other trees, but whiter, softer, more loose and spongie 

 than any other of the Mushrums, and good for medicines, which beareth the 

 name of Agaricus or Agaricke. Among all the trees that beare Agarkus, the 

 Larch is the chiefe, and bringeth most plenty of Agarick. 



"The Larch tree groweth not on the mountains of Greece or Macedon, but 

 chiefly upon the Alpes of Italy, hard by the rivers Benacus and Padus and 

 also in other places in the same mountains; it is also found in the hills of 

 Moravia . . . also in Silesia . . . and the border of Poland. ... It groweth 

 plentifully in the woods of Gallia Cesalpina. ... In Lumbardy and Pied- 

 mont, in Italy, there be whole woods of Larch trees. 



"Of all the Cone trees only the Larch tree is found to be without leaves 

 in the Winter: in the Spring grow fresh leaves out of the same knobs from 

 which the former did fall. 



"This tree is called in Greek Xapt^: in Latine also Larix: in Italian and 

 Spanish Larice: in High Dutch Lerchenhaum: in Low Dutch Lorkenboom: 

 in French Meleze. ..." 



This is enough to show that Thoreau was right; the old herbalist does 

 indeed describe a plant so that we can see it, while Fernald, who could talk 

 fascinatingly about all the North Woods trees, from a rich field knowledge 

 of them, did not permit himself to be fascinating when writing of them. He 

 even passes over an outstanding feature of the Larch, one by which you can 

 tell it almost as far as you can see it — the mast-like and unbranched trunk 

 that goes straight up through the tree, giving out horizontal branches. But 

 Gerard, you will note, presents this fact in the very first sentence, as if he 

 were looking, as he wrote, not at an herbarium specimen but at a living tree. 



One may say of course that Fernald was a busy botanist engaged in the 

 production of a long and serious-minded work, and, life being so short, he 

 had not the time to go into all the details which a leisurely and gossipy old 

 sixteenth-century herbalist indulged in. The facts are, however, that Fernald 

 (1873-1950) lived longer than Gerard (1545-1611), and Gerard's herbal 

 is an even more compendious work than Gray's Manual, eighth edition. So 

 who had more time at his disposal? 



The essential difference between the two botanists must lie in their ap- 

 proach. Gerard's is that of the popularizer. 



A definition of popularization is probably overdue in this article. IVIy defini- 

 tion would be that popularization of a science is the communication of the 

 enthusiasm one feels for a subject to a reader who has essentially no previous 

 knowledge of it, certainly no technical knowledge, and cares about it only 

 in so far as the writer makes him care. The popularizer is one who "makes 

 old things sound new and new things sound familiar." 



There is a sharp distinction between popularization, which is in general 



