[Vol. 2 



188 ANNALS OF THE MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN 



trees and plants scientifically arranged, and the gardens at 

 Chalco, which were preserved after the Conquest, furnished 

 Hernandez with many of the specimens described in his book. 1 



The cases cited, however, have little more than an academic 

 interest for us and have in no way influenced the founda- 

 tion of modern botanic gardens. These we can trace back 

 to monastic institutions and probably to the famous injunc- 

 tions of Charlemagne, 2 the direct outcome of which was the 

 establishment, among others, in the ninth century, of the 

 "hortus" at St. Gall with the attendant "herbularis," or 

 Physic Garden, this latter being the precursor of the physic 

 gardens established in connection with the medical faculties 

 of the Italian and other universities in the sixteenth century. 



It is fortunate that we have preserved to us exact details of 

 the "hortus" and " herbularis ' ' at St. Gall, with lists of the 

 plants cultivated therein. 3 The hortus was an obloi 

 containing eighteen rectangular beds, while the Physic 

 Garden, or herbularis (see fig. 1), formed a square set with 

 similar beds and having the doctor's house close at hand. 



The monks being bound to live on pulse, vegetables and 

 fruits and to gather the same for themselves, the garden and 

 its cultivation were of especial importance in the monastery. 

 To the fostering care of the monks and to their knowledge 

 of drugs, horticulture and botany, in common with other arts 

 and sciences, we owe a debt the magnitude of which it is 

 difficult to estimate. 



We do well to recall at this point the services rendered in 

 recent years to the biological sciences by the labors of 

 Gregor Mendel in the monastic garden at Brunn, if only to 

 emphasize how widespread and far-reaching are the functions 

 involved in the true idea of the botanic garden. 



The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, as is well known, 



s 



times of a great revival 



and 



1 Hernandez, F. Nova plantarnm aniiiialmm et mineralium Mexicanorum 



historia. Rome, 1651. 



2 Holmes, E. M. Horticulture in relation to medicine. Roy. Hort. Soc. Jour. 



31: p. 50. 1906. 



8 Archaeological Inst., Jour. 5: P- 113; see also Amherst, A. History of 



gardening in England p. 6. 1896. [2nd ed.] 



