v] Dodoens and de VEcluse 127 



herbal of 1578 was a translation of the ' Histoire des 

 Plantes,' which is itself a version by de l'Ecluse of the 

 Dutch herbal of Dodoens. We may thus fairly illustrate 

 the style of plant description of this school by a quotation 

 from Lyte, since it has the advantage of retaining the 

 sixteenth-century flavour, which is so easily lost in a 

 modern translation. As a typical example we may take 

 a paragraph about the Storksbill (Erodium). It will be 

 noticed that it does not represent any great advance upon 

 Fuchs' work. 



"The first kinde of Geranion or Storckes bill, his leaves 

 are cut and iagged in many peeces, like to Crowfoote, his 

 stalkes be slender, and parted into sundry braunches, upon 

 which groweth smal floures somwhat like roses, or the 

 floures of Mallowes, of a light murrey or redde colour : 

 after them commeth little round heades, with smal long 

 billes, like Nedels, or like the beakes of Cranes and 

 Hearons, wherein the seede is contayned : The roote is 

 thicke, round, shorte, and knobby, with certayne small 

 strings hanging by it." 



In his ' Pemptades' of 1583, Dodoens gave a glossary 

 of botanical terms. His definitions suffer, however, from 

 vagueness, and are not calculated greatly to advance the 

 accurate description of plants. As an example we may 

 take his account of the flower, which may be translated as 

 follows : — 



" The flower (avOos) we call the joy of trees and plants. 

 It is the hope of fruits to come, for every growing thing, 

 according to its nature, produces offspring and fruit after the 

 flower. But flowers have their own special parts." 



The descriptions from the pen of de l'Ecluse are 

 characterised by greater fulness and closer attention to 

 flower structure than those of his predecessors. The plant 

 which he calls Sedum or Sempervivum ma/us, of which his 

 wood-cut is reproduced in Text-fig. 59, is described as being 

 "a shrub rather than a herb; occasionally it reaches the 

 height of two cubits [3 ft] and is as thick as the human 

 arm, with a quantity of twigs as thick as a man's thumb : 

 these spread out into numerous rays of the thickness of a 

 finger. The ends of these terminate in a kind of circle, 

 which is formed by numerous leaves pressing inwards all 



