234 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



young man, some time after 1530, and possibly while he was teaching 

 at Tubingen (1535), and subsequent to the death of Brunfels (1534). 



This conception of Fuchs, the first in botanical history, of de- 

 liberately devising a covirse of work and study on an indigenous flora, 

 in addition to the medical standpoint of illustrating the herbs of the 

 national pharmacopa?ia, was a great and original one, and it was carried 

 out on broad and generous lines. He selected a page, folio size, as 

 adapted to the dimensions of the general range of herbs which can be 

 handled readily ; the work was beautifully printed on good paper, 

 which in an undamaged copy is as clean and good to-day as it was 

 in 1542. T^'pography and make-up were perfect, and far superior 

 to much of the work of subsequent herbals a hundred years later *. 

 His illustrators were evidently well-trained and capable draughtsmen, 

 brought up in the best school of the art and technique of the day, 

 while Speckle the engraver, as shown in the cutting of his own 

 portrait was an equally superior craftsman in his own line. 



The special interest of the work of these men lies in the fact that 

 they were not botanists, nor even naturalists in any sense as we 

 sliould say to-day ; there is no evidence that they had any taste for 

 Botany or any sesthetic perception of the beauty of flowers : they 

 drew the plants given them, and drew w^hat they saw in very correct 

 proportions and detail, as good draughtsmen, and greatly improAed as 

 the work proceeded — it is as remarkable to note how^ much detail they 

 reallv did see, as to note what they left out. The technique of the 

 work, using a line 250 /i wide, scarcely admitted of the representation 

 of any really fine detail, as hairs, stamens, or parts of small florets 

 less than 1-2 mm. diameter. But as draughtsmen, retaining a sense 

 of propoi-tion and balance, as in the form and arrangement of foliage- 

 leaves, they had ultimately little to learn ; while as designers, they 

 iehowed a sound instinct for placing a type on paper and displaying it, 

 even to the extent of more than a slight conventionalization in the 

 design. They were more at home with fine large hei'baceous plants 

 suitable for decorative treatment, than in the strict natural study 

 of the minutiie of an organism, and even the name and number of the 

 plant are conspicuousl}' well placed f. 



Perhaps the most striking feature of these plates is the recog- 

 nition of the fact that these earh^ draughtsmen did not pick and 

 choose bits for illustration ; they dre\v the wdiole plant, roots and all, 

 as a scientific and dignified presentation of the organism as a wdiole. 

 To give a man, for example, a cabbage, root and all, a quill pen or a 

 fine brush, and to tell him to make a finished artistic presentation of it, 

 in line only, on a sheet of foolscap, is no mean test of craftmanship. 

 The solution of such a problem by the draughtsmen of Fuchs (F. 416 : 

 Ar. 59 j may Avell be studied by any who propose to illustrate a 

 British Flora %• 



* Cf. in this country Gerard, ed. 2 (1633), Parkinson (1640). 



t Ar. 149, 147, 126 : F. Qiiercns, p. 229 : above all, they did not worry to put 

 their initials in the corner of every figure they did. 



J Ar. 59. Much spoilt in reproduction (the original is much finer) : the line 

 block still prints at 250//, although reduced nearly X^. Good process-blocks 

 print clearly on smooth paper at 100 /<. F. 416: Curly Greens, 414, less satis- 

 factory, the spiral arrangement of the leaves being omitted. 



