The Herbalists 231 



was then the village of Holborn, he grew nearly 1,100 various 

 species of " simples." " The Herball or Generall Historic 

 of Plantes " is Gerard's claim to fame. Like Lyte's book, 

 it was based upon the works of Dodoens, and there was a 

 bitter quarrel as to the exact amount of credit due to the 

 author of the English edition. Being a physician, Gerard 

 naturally attached considerable importance to the medi- 

 cinal side of plants, but he was also a practical gardener, 

 and the popularity of his book probably depended to some 

 extent upon the fact that it was the first published in 

 English of practical use to horticulturists and gardeners. 



One last herbalist may be mentioned, Thomas Johnson, 

 again a medical man with a physic garden of his own. He 

 was a botanist who travelled in the country inspecting and 

 recording the local flora, in fact his first publication was 

 on the flora of the county of Kent. But his claim to 

 mention depends upon his new edition of Gerard's " Herball," 

 which he enlarged, re-edited, and published in 1633. He 

 added some 800 plants which were unknown, or at any rate 

 unrecorded, by Gerard, and increased the number of figures 

 by 700, raising the total to over 2,700. Further and de- 

 tailed information on herbals may be found in Mrs. Arber's 

 delightful book on the English herbalists. 



At the best, however, these herbals were full of super- 

 stitious and often nonsensical statements. They must 

 merely be regarded as catalogues, compilations as a rule 

 alphabetically arranged, for in the time when they mostly 

 flourished, plants had not been systematically sorted out. 

 Their affinities had not been established ; as Professor Green 

 says, " a herbal may be compared to a dictionary rather than 

 to any other form of book." 



The next outstanding man in the history of British 

 botany is John Kay (1628-1705). He dealt with both 

 animals and plants, and what little space we can afford 

 for biographical details will be found under the chapter 

 dealing with Zoology. Like Turner and like so many other 

 botanists, Ray was a clergyman. He marks a new era in 

 the history of the science of Botany, partly on account of 

 his efforts towards a natural classification of plants, and 

 partly on account of his extreme accuracy in the use of 



