44 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



previous performances, and this publication is quite equal to its 

 predecessors. 



The name of Rauwolff is perhaps best known as the author of 

 some quaintly written travels in the sixteenth century ; but he has 

 a further claim on our interest by the fact of his collection of 

 dried plants being still in existence, and well-preserved, in the 

 University of Leyden. 



The author had the good fortune to secure the help of the 

 French Government in his researches, and received a letter from 

 the Minister for Foreign Affairs to the French representative at 

 the Hague, and the French consuls throughout the Netherlands. 

 In consequence of this potent aid, M. Legre was enabled to pursue 

 his search to the best advantage, and a subvention to the Academy 

 of Science at Marseilles has permitted of the issue of this work in 

 its present form. 



Rauwolff was born at Augsburg between 1535 and 1540 : the 

 first certain date being that of his matriculation at Montpellier, 

 22 November, 1560. He began to study the plants round that city 

 as soon as he settled there, where he remained till 1562 ; the year 

 after that he was in Italy, then, passing by the St. Gothard, he 

 came back to Germany by Switzerland. 



In the year of his return to his native town he made the 

 acquaintance of Clusius, and in 1565 he married. After five years' 

 absence, he came back to Augsburg as municipal doctor of medicine. 

 His brother-in-law, Melchior Mannlich, was settled at Marseilles as 

 a wholesale dealer in drugs and spices ; he induced Rauwolff to 

 undertake a journey to Syria to discover the source of certain 

 drugs, offering not only to defray the cost of the voyage, but a 

 salary also. 



Rauwolff consented, and set out first for Marseilles, thence sailing 

 on 2nd September on board the ' Santa Croce.' After nearly three 

 years of absence, he came back in safety to his own city, where he 

 resumed his interrupted duties, becoming the doctor of the hospital 

 for plague patients. In 1588 he was deprived of his place in con- 

 sequence of his adherence to the Protestant faith ; he left Germany 

 for Austria, became surgeon to the army, and died at Hatvan, in 

 Hungary, in 1596. ' Such in brief is the story of his life, of which 

 fuller details may be found in M. Legre's pages. 



The collection of plants which he formed now consists of four 

 volumes, and these have been carefully gone over by the author, 

 who gives lists of the contents ; the names in some cases have been 

 altered by Clusius, and by an unknown hand. 



The name of Raynaudet may be found more than once in the 

 Adversaria of Pena and Lobel : he was an apothecary of Marseilles, and 

 the three months which were there spent by Rauwolff, when waiting 

 to sail, were profitably employed in botanizing with Raynaudet in 

 his garden or in the neighbourhood of Marseilles. Dates seem to be 

 wholly wanting as regards this early worker, but what little can be 

 discovered has been laboriously pieced together by the author in 

 less than thirty pages. The only thing which appears certain is, 

 that he must have died at an early age, 



