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complete collection of the books that were issued from the 
Plantin presses and among them priceless copies of the numerous 
works of De Lobel, of Dodoens, and of Charles de l’Ecluse. 
The story runs that in 1577 Plantin purchased 800 copies of the 
Adversaria Lobelit that had been printed by Purfoot in London 
in 1570, as well as the wood blocks from which the cuts had 
been printed, all for the sum of 1,200 florins. At the auction sale 
of the effects of Jan van der Loe, the first editor of the “ Herdier 
de Dodoens"’ he also purchased for the sum of 420 florins, the 
wood blocks that had served for the first editions of that work. In 
1581 Plantin published, in a collection of 2,191 woodcuts under 
the title of “ Plantarum seu stirpium icones” all the woodcuts 
that had previously been printed in the works of Dodoens and 
1 Ecluse or elsewhere. These same wood blocks are exhibited in 
cases by themselves and according to the statement of the Libra- 
rian who showed them to me, they are all intact, not one is miss- 
ing. Black and often worm eaten as they are they are a most 
interesting and curious monument to the industry of the great 
ancestors of botanical writers. A copy of Charles de l’Ecluse, 
“Rariorum aliquot stirpium per Hispanias observatorum historia, 
1576,” is shown in a glass case and on its wide margins that 
worthy botanist had written additions and notes with a new and 
corrected edition in view. 
It would be impossible to enumerate all the books, papers and 
letters of botanical interest that are preserved there. Among them 
one of the most important is a water color, life size, of the flowers 
and tubers of the potato. It is dated the 26th of January, 1588. 
In the early part of 1588, Philippe de Sivry, Governor of the city of 
Mons in the province of ‘Hainault, sent to Charles de 1’ Ecluse, then 
residing at Vienna, two tubers and some seeds of the potato. The 
following year he sent him a painting of the leaves and the flower, 
writing him that he had received the new plant from the Papal 
Legate the year previous, under the name of ‘' Taratoujli,” that is 
Truffes, from whence the German name Kartoffel. L’Ecluse him- 
self gives these details in his “ Rariorum Historia” (p. Ixxx), that 
was issued from the Plantin press in 1601. The painting exhibited 
is the original sent by Philippe de Sivry to l’Ecluse, and is the 
