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The first Bnglist Herbal was one entitled " XLbC (BrCtC 



Iberbal wbicbe givctb part^t ftnowle&Qe an& un&erstan5* 

 ittG of all maner ot berbes ant) tbere gracious vertues," 



and was published in 1516, being based on a work shortly before 

 published on the Continent, called 'Ortus Sanitatis ; it contains 

 chapters devoted to drugs and plants^ and abounds with fairly re- 

 presentative woodcuts, and gives a few details concerning the ap- 

 pearance and habitat of the plants. In the year 1540, or earlier, 

 a small work called /IDaCCt'S IDcrbal was published, and was a 

 translation of certain Latin verses, written by one Macer Floridus, 

 in the 12th century, it contains no woodcuts, the arrangement 

 as in the preceding Herbals being alphabetical. Dr. Wm. 

 Turner, the Father of English Botany as he has been called, 

 published the first part of his Herbal at London, in 1551, a 

 work subsequently completed and published in 1568. Lyte's 

 translation of Dodon^us, the Flemish physician and botanist, 

 an author already well-known on the Continent, appeared 

 in 1578. It is a black letter folio, entitled " ^ Nietue Herball or 

 Historic of Plantes" and is adorned with a fine allegorical frontis- 

 piece and some hundred wooHcuts. It is divided into six books, 

 in which the alphabetical arrangement of the earlier Herbals 

 has to a certain extent been departed from, and there is a 

 tendency to group plants according as there is a natural affinity 

 between them. The following description of one of the plants 

 in this Herbal may be interesting : — 



OF GOAT'S BEARD OR JOSEPH'S FLOWER, CHAPTER XVIII. 



Goates beard hath a round straight knottie stem covered with long 

 narrow leaves, almost like to garlick leaves. At the top of tlie stems it 

 beareth fayre double floures, and full of colour, sometimes blewishly 

 purple with golden threades in the middle and sometime yellow, the 

 whiche in the morning at sunne rising do open and spread abroade, 

 and do turne and bend towards the sunne and do close again and 

 go togither at noon ; after the vanishing of whiche floures, out the 

 knoppes or heads, from whence the floures are fallen there groweth 

 a certayne long seed with a hearie tuft at the top. And when this 

 seed is ripe his knoppie head openeth and is changed or turned 

 into a round hearie baull lyke to the heads of Dantedelyon, which 

 fleeth away withe the winde. The roote is long and as thicke as 

 a finger, in taste sweete. The whole herbe withe his stemmes, 

 leauves, floures, and roote is full of white sappe or iuyce like milk, 

 the whiche commeth forth when the plante is broken or brused. 



Contemporary with Rembert Dodoens, lived certain other 

 botanists to whom attention was directed as men who were 



