Professor, and Falconer we accidentally find in 
"nere, we find in the possession of two 
Rus and Aldrovandus. We do not know when they began to collect, but it 
‘is possible that their herbaria were older than Falconer’s. Of Ghini's 
“Own herbaria nothing definite is known ; we have seen that he sent plants 
ON THE ORIGIN OF HERBARIA. 301 
were. deseribed by Gronovius in- his * Flora Orientalis). Rauwolf him- 
self, in his *Aigentliche- Beschreibung der Reiss,’ etc. (Laugingen, 
1583), page 37; says, of two plants which he found near Tripoli, in 
Syria, “ which I have glued among my other foreign plants.” 
» Older still than these must have been that carried by the English- 
‘man John Falconer in his travels, which must also have been very ex- 
tensive. Amatus Lusitanus, who was at Ferrara from 1540 to 1547, 
— of it as of a singular curiosity, such as he had never seen before. 
"Quum Ferrarie mihi contigerit herbatum ire cum nonnullis viris doc- 
tissimis et rerum naturalium diligentissimis inquisitoribus, inter quos 
ion nominandi veniunt Joannes Faleonerius Anglus, vir mea sententia 
tum quovis doctissimo herbario conferendus, et qui pro dignoscendis 
herbis varias orbis partes perlustraverat, quarum plures et varias miro 
be ae codici cuidam. consitas ac agglutinatas afferebat," etc. I find 
that Pulteney in his ‘History of Botany in England,’ i. p. 72, when 
speaking of Turner, refers thus to Falconer, “ Turner, in treating on the 
Glauz, says, “I never saw it in England, except in Master Falconer’s 
k, and he brought it from Italy From this," continues Pul- 
— , “and other like citations it may reasonably be conjectured, that 
Falcotier’s book’? was an Hortus Siccus, and, if so, must have been 
“among the earliest collections of that kind that is noticed in England.” 
That this is really the case can hardly be doubted after reading the 
. above passage from Amatus Lusitanus, so that his book, as Pulteney 
; Say: dm not only one of the first, but the very first, not only in England, 
but in the world, of which I can find any definite information. 
Shall we then consider John Falconer to be the inventor of herba- 
ra? I think not. Medicine and all the natural sciences were quite 
"neglected in England up to the middle of the sixteenth century. Turner, 
the contemporary of Falconer, was the first botanical author in Eng- 
“land. Both these men acquired their medico-botanical education in 
where Luca Ghini was 
his travels at Ferrara. 
the greatest bota- 
foreign countries ; Turner chiefly at Bologna, 
It is extremely likely that he visited Ghini, who was 
nist of his age. ‘Then the two herbaria which in age are next to Falco- 
scholars of Ghini, viz. Czesalpi- 
