[Vol. 2 



196 ANNALS OF THE MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN 



In the botanic garden at Paris, for example, in the year 1636, 

 there were about 1,800 species under cultivation and the num- 

 ber had risen in 1640 to 2,360, and in 1665 to as many as 



4,000 species. 



With the interest aroused in the collection and cultivation 

 of plants came also the interest in their description and illus- 

 tration, and many bulky and costly works were produced to 

 illustrate the plants grown in botanic gardens. 



In Great Britain the foundation of the botanic gardens at 

 Oxford, Chelsea, and Edinburgh, was preceded by the estab- 

 lishment of several interesting private gardens devoted to 

 the cultivation of medicinal herbs and plants of botanical 

 interest, catalogues of which were published. The Rev. Wil- 

 liam Turner (1510-1568), who has been called the "Father of 

 English Botany," had a garden somewhere at Kew and after- 

 wards a renowned garden at Wells, when he was Dean of the 

 Cathedral. Then there was the noted physic garden of John 

 Gerard (1545-1612) in Holborn, at that time the most fashion- 

 able district in London, the catalogue of which — published in 

 1 596 — enumerates 1,030 plants and is of interest as being the 

 first complete catalogue ever published of the contents of a 

 single garden. His 'Herball,' published in 1597, was not his 

 own work, but was simply a translation by a certain Dr. Priest 

 of the 'Stirpium Historiae Pemptades' of Dodoens, which 

 Gerard adopted and published as his own. On the title page 

 of the edition of 1597, a garden is figured which has been 

 generally considered to represent Gerard's own garden in 

 Holborn, but as Sir Frank Crisp 1 points out, he obviously bor- 

 rowed his illustration from an engraving by A. Collaert, 

 representing a garden of A. D. 1590, in April, much in the 

 same unscrupulous manner as he borrowed his text. 



Among other early private physic gardens of interest in 

 connection with the history of such institutions in England 

 may be mentioned the garden of Thomas Johnson, M.D., the 

 apothecary who had a garden on Snow Hill, in 1633 — he it 



1 Guide for the use of visitors to Friar Park, Henley-on-Thames, Pt. II. 

 Illustrations of some mediaeval gardens p. 87. 1914. 



The illustration reproduced by Gerard is to be found on the title page of 

 Tabernaemontanus, J. T. Kreuterbucb. [eds. of 1664 and 1687.] 



