CHAP. Y. LITERATURE. 187 
CHAP. V. 
OF THE LITERATURE OF THE TREES AND SHRUBS OF TEMPERATE 
CLIMATES. 
A utstory of trees and shrubs would be incomplete, without some notice 
of the literature to which the subject has given rise. In the earlier works 
on plants, trees and shrubs, as being the more conspicuous division of the 
vegetable kingdom, occupy a considerable space ; and, in modern times, whole 
works have been exclusively devoted to them. It is only our intention to 
notice, in a very slight manner, the names of the more remarkable of the 
works which have been exclusively devoted to the history and description of 
trees and shrubs, referring, for a chronological enumeration of all the authors 
who have written on the subject in modern languages, to the second edition 
of our Encyclopedia of Gardening, and to a posthumous work of the late 
Mr. Forsyth (see Gard. Mag., vol. xi. p. 596.), entitled Bibliotheca Geoponica,, 
which will shortly be published. 
We have already noticed Aristotle and Theophrastus, as the principal 
Greek authors who wrote on trees, and Pliny is almost the only Roman 
one. The information contained in the works of these authors, with some 
additions from the writings of Cato, Columella, Vitruvius, and others, was 
used in a new form, on the dawn of literature in the end of the 15th and the 
beginning of the 16th centuries, in the works on husbandry generally, by 
Crescentius in Italy (1471), by Fitzherbert in England (1523), Etienne in 
France (1529), Heresbach in Germany (1578), and Herrera in Spain (1595). 
The first author who wrote exclusively on trees and shrubs appears to have 
been Belon, a doctor of medicine of the faculty of Paris, who produced a 
small quarto volume, entitled De Arboribus Coniferis, Resiniferis, &c., printed 
at Paris in 1523, and illustrated with a number of engravings on wood. Our 
copy is the original edition, and consists of thirty-two printed pages, and twenty 
engravings. Different species of Juniperus and Cupréssus, the 7'huja orien- 
talis, Cédrus Libani, and several pines and firs, including the Larix, are de- 
scribed and figured; and a number of other plants are mentioned incidentally, 
Meursius published De Arborum, Fruticum, et Herbarum, &c., in one volume 
Syvo, at Leyden, in 1600; but, in this work, the medical properties of plants ap- 
pear to be the main object of the writer. The next work exclusively devoted 
to the subject of trees is the Dendrographia of John Johnston, a Pole, 
whose work was published in one volume folio, at Frankfort, in 1662. In 
this work trees and shrubs generally are treated on, and fruit trees at 
considerable length. It is illustrated with numerous figures, and the ob- 
ject of the author seems to have been to direct attention to the trees 
which bore edible fruits, or were remarkable for their medical properties. 
In 1668 the Dendrologia Naturalis of Aldrovandus, in one volume folio, ap- 
peared at Bon. It is a very thick folio volume, illustrated by numerous 
engravings, and the medical qualities of the plants are chiefly insisted on. 
Aldroyandus was born at Bologna in 1557, and died in 1625; he was a great 
traveller, and one of the most laborious naturalists of the sixteen century. 
In England, the first work exclusively devoted to trees and shrubs was 
Evelyn’s Sylva, which was published in one volume folio, in 1664. Every 
one knows the influence which this work had in promoting a taste for plant- 
ing trees throughout England. It went through several editions during the 
author’s lifetime ; and, since his death, an enlarged edition in 2 vols. 4to, 
with several engravings, edited by Dr. Hunter of York, was published in 
1776; and again, with some improvements, in 1786. The first work, after 
Evelyn’s, which was exclusively devoted to trees and shrubs was, the Deserip- 
tive Catalogue of the Trees and Shrubs propagated for Sale in the neighbourhood 
of London, by a Society of Gardeners, which we have noticed in p. 60. It, 
