PERIOD I. PREVIOUS TO 1694 3 



Hackney, was appointed botanist to James I. He published at Antwerp 

 a large series of engravings of plants, and added a species of Ramalina to 

 the growing list of recognized lichens. Dodoens 1 , also a Fleming, records 

 not only the Usnea of trees, but a smaller and more slender black form 

 which is easily identifiable as Alectoria jubata. He also figures Lichen 

 pulmonaria and gives the recipe for its use. 



The best-known botanical book published at that time, however, is the 

 Herball of John Gerard 2 of London, Master in Chirurgerie, who had a 

 garden in Holborn. He recommends as medicinally valuable not only 

 Usnea, but also Cladonia pyxidata, for which he coined the name "cuppe- 

 or chalice-moss." About the same time Schwenckfeld 3 recorded, among 

 plants discovered by him in Silesia, lichens now familiar as Alectoria 

 jubata, Cladonia rangiferina and a species of Peltigera. 



Among the more important botanical writers of the seventeenth century 

 may be cited Colonna 4 and Bauhin 5 . The former, an Italian, contributes, 

 in his Ecphrasis, descriptions and figures of three additional species easily 

 recognized as Physcia ciliaris, Xanthoria parietina and Ramalina calicaris. 

 Kaspar Bauhin, a professor in Basle, who was one of the most advanced of 

 the older botanists, was the first to use a binomial nomenclature for some 

 of his plants. He gives a list in his Pinax of the lichens with which he was 

 acquainted, one of them, Cladonia fimbriata, being a new plant. 



John Parkinson's 6 Herball is well known to English students; he adds 

 one new species for England, Lobaria pulmonaria, already recorded on the 

 Continent. Parkinson was an apothecary in London and held the office of 

 the King's Herbarist; his garden was situated in Long Acre. How's 7 

 Phytographia is notable as being the first account of British plants compiled 

 without reference to their healing properties. Five of the plants described 

 by him are lichen species: "Lichen arborum sive pulmonaria" (Lobaria 

 pulmonaria), "Lichen petraeus tinctorius" (Roccella), "Muscus arboreus" 

 (Usnea), "Corallina montana" (Cladonia rangiferina) and "Muscus pixoides" 

 (Cladonia). Several other British species were added by Merrett 8 , who records 

 in his Pinax, "Muscus arboreus umbilicatus" (Physcia ciliaris), "Muscus 

 aureus tenuissimus" ( Teloschistes flavicans), "Muscus caule rigido" (Alec- 

 toria) and "Lichen petraeus purpureus" (Parmelia omphalodes), the last- 

 named, a rock lichen, being used, he tells us, for dyeing in Lancashire. 



Merret or Merrett was librarian to the Royal College of Physicians. 

 His Pinax was undertaken to replace How's Phytographia published 

 sixteen years previously and then already out of print. Merrett's work 

 was issued in 1666, but the first impression was destroyed in the great fire 

 of London and most of the copies now extant are dated 1667. He arranged 



1 Dodoens 1583. 2 Gerard 1597. 3 Schwenckfeld 1600. 4 Colonna 1606. 



5 Bauhin 1623, pp. 360-2. 8 Parkinson 1640. 7 How 1650. 8 Merrett 1666. 



