INTRODUCTION 



providing a critical text, founded not on the 

 Aldine edition, but on comparison of the manu- 

 scripts then known ; the Medicean and Viennese 

 had been collated a few years before by J. Th. 

 Schneider. We find also full use made of the 

 ancient authors, Athenaeus, Plutarch, Pliny, 

 Dioscorides, Nicander, Galen, etc., who quoted or 

 adapted passages of Theophrastus, and copious 

 references, often illuminating, to those who 

 illustrate him, as Varro, Columella, Palladius, 

 Aelian, the Geoponica. 



Spr. Kurt Sprengel, Halle, 1822. This is not an 

 edition of the text, but a copious commentary 

 with German translation. Sprengel was a better 

 botanist than scholar ; Wimmer speaks dis- 

 paragingly of his knowledge of Greek and of 

 the translation. (See note prefixed to the 

 Index of Plants.) 



VV Fr. Wimmer: (1) An edition with introduction, 

 analysis, critical notes, and Sprengel's identi- 

 fications of the plant-names ; Breslau, 1842. 



(2) A further revised text with new Latin 

 translation, apparatus criticus, and full indices ; 

 the Index Plantarum gives the identifications of 

 Sprengel and Fraas ; Didot Library, Paris, n.d. 



(3) A reprint of this text in Teubner's series, 

 1854. 



These three books are an indispensable supplement 

 to Schneider's great work. The notes in the edition of 



xviii 



