16 HISTORY OF BOTANY 



with, but Gesner, most injudiciously, consented to the 

 introduction of the crude woodcuts prepared for Bock's 

 Kreuterbuch, with the result that new plants described 

 for the first time by Cordus were confused with those 

 discovered and figured by Bock. This is all the more 

 unfortunate seeing that Tournefort, Linnaeus, and other 

 later writers were thus led to believe that the illustrations 

 had been prepared by Cordus himself. 



The principles which Cordus followed in preparing his 

 descriptions have fortunately been recorded for us by 

 the author. He composed his account with the living 

 plant in front of him, and he took care to see that the 

 subject was full-grown and in flower, if not in fruit also. 

 He begins his description with an account of the organs 

 that first attract attention, the stem or leaves, and 

 discusses the root last, as the least conspicuous. After 

 stem and leaf he deals with the flower, giving at the same 

 time the period of flowering. Then comes fruit and seed, 

 where he mentions the number of loculi, the placentation, 

 the mode of dehiscence in capsular fruits, and the form 

 and colour of the seeds. The duration of herbaceous 

 plants is always recorded. He adds data with regard to 

 odour, flavour, and any economic values, such as the use 

 of the plant in medicine. In a word, Cordus is primarily 

 a botanist, and a medical man only in a very subordinate 

 fashion. He had the courage also to describe afresh 

 plants that had been outlined by his predecessors, when 

 he felt that the accounts given by these authors were 

 inaccurate, misleading, or imperfect. 



Cordus's contributions to morphological botany were 

 very considerable. He adopts Theophrastus's hint that 

 not everything below ground is necessarily a root, and 

 explicitly defines a rhizome as a " cauliculus " or little 

 stem. Adventitious roots are recognised as such, and 

 inflorescences receive the first scientific treatment they 

 have had since the days of Theophrastus. Cordus was the 

 first to recognise the bracts subtending inflorescences 



