295 
was easily recognised, as it alone possessed the remarkable property 
of causing clear water when soaked in it to assume an azure blue 
colour which gradually deepened, and this, as Monardes points out, 
in spite of the fact that the wood itself was whitish. Monardes 
knew of no name for the wood or for the tree, and simply classed it 
i l 
100. Francisco Hernandez, physician at the Escorial and the 
fo 
Protomedico de las Indias, and stayed there until 1577, amassing 
an enormous amount of notes and illustrations whic ed 24 or, 
after effects of his strenuous labours. Not a line of his report II 
x4 till then, been published. Subsequently Kin ne cee 
charged his physician, Nardo Antonio Recchi, of Monte Cm 
m Italy, with the preparation of an abstract from A paareeus 
voluminous manuscript, which was to contain wat ig out lid 
usetul for the art of healing. This Reechi did, but he in ast 
not live to see his epitome published. A copy of his Nehty ae 
however, revised by Francisco Valles, a Seen eee of _— 
reputation, somehow found its way to Mexico, w apse us 
translated from the original Latin into Spanish, and, wit naesone 
additions, was published by the Dominican Francisco one ted LF 
1615 under the title « Quarto libros de la naturaleza y virtudas d 
las plantas y animales que estan recevides en el uso de Medicina en 
la ss ha.’ Meanwhile Recchi’s manuscript had, after his 
of Constanz, better known as Jo 
* Leén, Bibl. Bot. Mexicana, Suppl., Pp. 307. 
